Ishbel Completed

I finished knitting Ishbel the other day, and although I had to pay attention to it, it was a lot of fun to knit.  It makes me want to knit up a ton of shawls and shawlettes – and I’ve never been a shawl type person before!

I did have to frog it one time because I wasn’t paying attention to the lace pattern – and fudging it wasn’t working out – but all in all the pattern is easy to follow with both a lace chart and written directions.
One other thing I might do is to re-block it because I didn’t stretch it out enough, but for now it’s fine!

Anyway, here are the details and photos.

Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda Teague (ravel it!)
Yarn: Spinning Colors Fingering “Hot Springs”

Summer Time!

Life
It’s definitely summer time in Austin right now.  Which means the heat and humidity can almost suffocate you by walking in the sun – don’t even try to get in your car without rolling down windows before the a/c kicks in!  Ugh.
However, summer time is great for sprinklers, hot dogs and all kinds of kiddo adventures!  So today we played a bit with our designated kiddo sprinkler; but we didn’t even get out of the house until it was cool enough.  AT 7:30 PM!

As always, more photos on flickr.

Knitting & Crocheting
- My Ishbel shawl is coming right along now!  I had to rip it out once because I had too many mistakes, and the lace looked quite wonky, but all is fine now and I’m about halfway done with it.
- Next month is Harry Potter month at The Knitting Nest, so I’ll be offering a Golden Snitch class sometime!  (Pattern making is currently in progress)
- The other things I’ll be starting and working on are toys, toys and more toys!  I just bought the book Tasty Crochet by Rose Langlitz, and it’s sooooo awesome!  I’ve never been so excited to make fake food before now.

School
I’ve got about one week left!!  I’m so thrilled with my sculpture class and teacher right now; I’ve learned 10x more than I thought I would from a summer class – and I’m liking the art I’m making.  Photos to come.

That’s all the updating I’ve got for now! Hope all is well with everyone.

Mixing Work & Pleasure

Spinning Colors:
I have had trouble for the past couple months obtaining Malabrigo in colors and weights that I’ve wanted (though, they still hold a small place in my heart).  So I began a search for the perfect lace yarn that gives me the softness and loftiness of Malabrigo – I found it a week ago.  And I dyed it.

I am absolutely thrilled to announce the newest line of Spinning Colors yarns:

Merino Lace.

It’s got the same soft, single spun loveliness of Malabrigo, and the only thing that makes me love it more is because I can call it mine.  My colors, my vision, my art – and I get to share it!
I will be dyeing more within the next week, but for now there’s a small batch up in the store.

Also in SC news, the wonderfully delightful owner of the The Knitting Nest, Stacy, has given me my own space in her store to display my yarns and fibers.  How cool is that?!

Knitting:
Since I’ve had a bit of a problem of leaving my knitting projects at The Knitting Nest lately, there has been no further work on my Featherweight Cardigan, nor on my handspun neckwarmer.  So, I started a new project in the name of all the beautiful shawls I have seen on flickr lately.
I chose to knit Ishbel by Ysolda Teague, and I’m pretty sure this is my first lace project ever, and definitely my first shawl.  I haven’t ever felt like much of a shawl person, but I’ve recently realized how pretty they can be when worn like a scarf.

Details
Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Spinning Colors Fingering in “Gecko”
Needles: US size 6

Not much going on in the photo yet, but I wanted to show you the color I’m knitting it with.

Alright, folks!  That’s the end of my novel until next time!

Weekend Update

First up – I updated the store with some sock yarn!  Go forth and buy.

My weekend started out by traveling with Jessica to Colorado Bend State Park; she’s currently working on her masters degree in Geology, and the park is where she is conducting research.  It was tons of fun, and I can’t wait to go again; we didn’t get to all the spots we wanted to go to because Jessica started to really get sick (and being chest deep in cold water is NOT a good idea), so we cut our trip a little short.  S’okay though because she has to go back in about 3 months.
What we did get to see and do was great, although I could do without battling the amount of brush that has grown over the spring and summer months!  Another thing I will do is make sure to get more photos on the next trip.
In the meantime, there are a few photos of the trip on flickr.

In other news, Franklin made another visit to The Knitting Nest to teach a lace class and sign copies of his book.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of the whole event, but I was too busy relaxing and enjoying the company.

Since I didn’t take any photos, you can see a few from these people!
Staci; Amanda; Steven; Christina

Seaside Tote

I know it’s summer for sure because I got the itch to make a new market bag.  It was the first time I’d used Queensland Haze yarn, and I am so impressed with it.  The yarn is a DK cotton/corn viscose blend, and I was really surprised by how durable it feels in my fingers as well as in the project.  Also – it’s not splitty!

So if you’ve got the summertime market bag itch, like me, grab your hook and get going!
PDF available here, through the patterns section of the blog, or see the details on Ravelry.

Yarn: Queensland Haze (DK; cotton/corn viscose blend)
Hook: 5.o0mm (US H)

Yarn Harlot in Austin

Last night I was able to see the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, for the first time.  She came down to Austin’s Book People for her book tour, and she spoke about experiences that we knitters have with non-knitters as well as educated us that our knitting makes us (well, most of us, at least) smart.  I’m so glad to have been a part of the event, and I can’t wait until she visits us again.  And since I’m not great with words, here are some photos:

And I got to hang out with some knitting buddies, too!

L to R: Stacy, Steven and Julia

Abbe

and Christina.

I have a few more photos on flickr if you’d like to see more!

Snook, Texas.

Life:
Today my family and I took a 2 hour drive to try out some chicken fried bacon at the Sodolak’s Steakhouse in Snook, Texas (about 12 miles from College Station).  How did I hear of this??  Food Network, of course! It was Diners, Drive-ins and Dives “fried” show.

I would love to have given you a photo – but as soon as the waitress brought them out, they were as good as gone.  They have a lot of corn-fed boys out there, so they’re portions are pretty huge, too.  The smallest steak they have is 1 lb!

Spinning:
I finished spinning up some fiber that I was hoping to get some sock yarn out of – but alas, it’s DK weight again. I’ll get sock yarn one of these days!  It’s still purty, though.
AND it’s available in the shop.

I hope everyone enjoys their Memorial Day weekend.

High Hopes

Knitting:
I’ve gotten past all of the waist shaping on my Skinny Empire raglan, and tried it on . . . . and it fits!  So now I’ve just got to make it a little longer and work on the sleeves and it’ll be done.  The only thing that I’m a little upset about with it is the fact that when I started knitting with a new skein it is NOT the same dyelot.  I don’t care what the tag says.  It’s much darker.  I don’t plan on ripping it out because the darker block at the bottom will match the sleeves, but still.  Can I not have something turn out perfectly?! Ah well.

Spinning:
What’s that? Oh yeah! I spin, remember?!  It’s been a while, but that’s the way I work.  I tend to go back and forth between wanting to knit and wanting to spin… creates balance, ya know?
I’m currently spinning up what I hope to be sock yarn after I get finished plying. So far, so good.

School:
I got all A’s for the spring semester!  It helps that I can only take 3 classes at a time, but still.  I got A’s. Woot woot! lol
I am trying to decide whether to go to summer school or not.  I wouldn’t drive to San Marcos, because my advisor told me that I am still able to take a few classes at ACC, but I was already kind of set on having my summer off!  I’m thinking I’ll take this summer off and just concentrate on a new fiber project.

Art:
I’ve come up with a new fiber art project that involves crochet and scrap yarn.  More to come. . .

Store:
For those of you who are wondering where all the sock yarn has gone in the store, I promise I’ll have some up as soon as I can get a shipment in!  In the meantime, I’ve got a new skein of handspun and new worsted weight up right now.  The newest worsted even has enough for a cardigan or february lady sweater!

Progress

Knitting
The Skinny Empire pullover is coming along great, and I think I’ll be pretty much done by the end of next week! I decided not to do the design feature that actually makes it an empire waist shirt (the line under the bust), so it will pretty much be a simple stockinette raglan shirt.  But that’s what I want right now anyway; simple.

When that’s finished, next on my needles will be the Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig. Mine will be made out of Malabrigo Lace that I picked up from The Knitting Nest; it’s in the pollen colorway, which I think is a decent color on me – but we’ll see!
Which reminds me. . . I really need to update my ravelry stash. . .

Also added to the queue tonight was Ysolda Teague’s Ishbel.  That’s kind of pushing it for me because lately I haven’t been able to work on anything but stockinette, but I think it will be fine.  Right?!

Life:
Today was a big day for Bobo;  we finally took the top bunk down so he now has a big boy bed to sleep in! Yay!  That means no more cribs, and pretty soon I’ll be a bit more demanding about him using the potty.  Although he does well at knowing how to use it already.   And I can’t wait to be done with diapers.
Here’s a photo of the “new” space:

Meet Zippy

Hello world!

The spring semester is officially over for me and I got good grades – I’m a happy camper now.
I hope to blog a little bit more since I’ll have the summer off (as of right now), but we’ll see if I can actually make myself sit down and type!

So – what’s been going on?  TONS.  But I’ll cover just two things right now.

1. I got a new car!  Introducing Zippy the Vibe GT:

Named: Zippy the Vibe GT  (previous Vibe was “Peppy”)
Brand: Pontiac
Model: Vibe GT (2.4L engine)
Favorite Perk (so far): Monsoon sound system.

Now, I know that GM is doing away with Pontiacs, but I had to make sure I got the last of my favorite hatchbacks!  I guess pretty soon it’ll be considered a classic?? lol.

2. I’ve been knitting!  It’s been a while since I’ve been excited about knitting, but what I’m working on right now is bringing the love back.
In my last post, I said that I was going to start knitting the Decimal cardigan – but I’ve ripped that out for now because I had some bad mojo going on with that for some reason.  (I hope to go back to it later though, because it’s a beautiful pattern).  So I’ve re-purposed  the yarn for Skinny Empire (rav link) by Wendy Bernard.  Simple and stockinette – just what I need right now.

Only mod so far: I added 3 rows more before separating for the sleeves because I was worried the armholes weren’t big enough – and I’m glad I did, because they’re pretty perfect right now.

Next on my knitting to-do is the Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig; I’ve already bought the pattern and the yarn so I HAVE to make it!