Two more off the list....

Here is my oldest UFO, now done! I turned my sample piece of felted fabric into the Kable needle case from Berrocco. While mine used all different wools to see how they would felt, not the alpaca that was called for, I think it turned out quite well. I used some left over philosopher's wool for the inside cables. I am quite pleased and it holds needles nicely! I am waiting to find some more scrap purple yarn in my stash to make straps with, but until then, I sewed some purple ribbon on the outside in two places and it works quite well!
The sweater is my Peace Fleece Cardigan. Done!! It was an easy quick sweater - they were right the size is pretty big and slouchy for a small. I wouldn't wear it to work, but it is great for cruisin' around the house. Super comfy and super warm! Plus, I love that I got to use some of my vintage buttons on it! The details on this sweater are - it was a purchased pattern called the Everyday Cardigan, I bought it from Kpixie it was meant to use Peace Fleece. The sweater was knit out of 4 1/4 balls of worsted Peace Fleece on size 6 and 8 needles. It is all knit flat then seamed. If I were to do it again, I would slim out the arms a bit and knit them in the round, but everything else was perfect on the pattern.

skaska brown warm shawl

The brown cashmere skaska warm shawl is done! Blocked! And ready to wear! I did make a few mistakes on it - so maybe at some point I will knit another, but really I am so happy and proud of it!
It is 8 repeats of 72 rows of lace pattern, knit on size two needles from the pattern that I got in Gallena Skaska's "Russian Lace Knitting" class.
Still haven't figured out the best way to photograph it - oh, well!

errand hat and charity scarf

Here is my oldest UFO's turned into a scarf for charity. Such a learning piece for me at the time. Now I will be glad to have it keep someone warm!

And the first errand hat of the year. It is already sold - so I really needed to get it done. It is on Lorna's Laces camoflague worsted yarn - 75 sts on a size 9 needle!!

made up mitts

Here is my pretty bulky yarn turned into mitts. Since I winged it with the pattern, here is the Made Up Mitts Pattern:
CO 24 st on dpn - join in the round
k 3 rows m1 by knitting the front and back of the same stitch three times
k 4 more rows ( a total of thirteen rows or 2 1/2")
k2tog first and last stitch of the next row
turn work p row
turn work k row (do this two more times for a total of 6 rows, making sure that the RS stays the RS)
Do not turn work again at the beginning of the next row join the round again and start by m1 (knit front and back of same stitch) k row to last stitch m1 - back to 27 sts. Knit 5 more rounds (about an inch). Begin rib k2, p1 for 9 rows (about 2") and bind off loosely.
Easy, fast and fun!

We call them pirates hat

One more down! We Call Them Pirates Hat!! It was a quick knit - the pattern was fun and rhythmic and in two days there is the hat. Mittens are next!!
The hat is made of smart wool from scandinavia - one skein of each color. The inside is lined with elite lavish cashmere (left over from my black cable hat) the lining goes from the bottom of the hat to the beginning of the decreases. (The smart wool was a little itchy and that eliminated that!)

SOCKS!

These are my first socks! They are made from the spring hiking socks pattern from Halcyon Yarn in Wick yarn from Knit One, Crochet Two. The yarn is a soy/polypropeline blend that is supposed to wick moisture away from your skin. It sounds good in theory, but we will have to wait till spring to see how they are in practice!

A tale of two hats...

Working on that FO goal. Here are two of my stragglers. The fair-isle hat is one I started up to about an inch almost a year ago. It is kind of a random pattern on donated yarn. I found it doing my stash clean out this week - however my list was already too full, so it never got listed. It will go to a women's shelter. It was really good fair-isle practice. And quite fun to knit.

The other hat is for me. I made these for all the girls that I worked with for Christmas out of Alpaca and then really wanted one for myself. It has been straggling along and now I will be able to wear it for the cold snap this weekend!

Here's to lots more FO's!!

First finished object of the year!

This is the first finished object of the year for me! I washed and blocked it this weekend, which really did seem to help with the curling. I hope that lasts!! I love this scarf!! It is the possum that mr sunneshine gave me for Christmas knit in the diagonal lace pattern on size five needles. It only took me 5 days of knitting to get it done. Now to wear it for the rest of the winter!! Sorry about the sideways picture, blogger won't let me upload the flipped one - oh, well!

stash-busting - p2

Since blogger is stingy with pictures and will only let me post 5 at a time, this is the second installement of my bust-along post. All the WIP's. So the first photo with the 6 pieces (including the skull scarf) are the 6 WIPs I admitted to the other day. Funny thing, though, as I am going through my various stashes and consolidating yarn there were a bunch of pieces that I found that were to be put together to make a big patchwork scarf and a few other scarves that for various reasons are not finished that I had conviently blocked out. Not sure what I will do with all of them, but best to attack the problem head on and take care of these while I am at it! Then there is the felted fabric that I want to make a needle case out of and a pair of
knucks, that I swear I knit identically, but they are definately two different sizes. Not sure what to do about those, but I admit to them and need to start by weaving their ends in and maybe making two more different sized knucks. They are certainly doing me no good as they are. Finally the last picture is other peoples WIPs that I have been enlisted to fix. One of them is about a month old, and it is not hard, I just haven't motivated to do it, so I put those down, so I would get them out of my house. I will edit my charts on this blog to include all my WIPs - there are 12 or less and hopefully by the time this stash busting thing ends, I will be back to my 6 confortable projects!! And a smaller group of unused yarn!

Bust Along - part 1

Okay, so this is my stash, well part of it. The other part you can see by going here. I just couldn't bear to pull it out of under the bed again!! I pulled all my little stashes out of here and there and the car and my office. So this is it! I am somewhere between embarassed and horrified. However, I am really excited to just knit all those projects that I bought this yarn for, for the next three months or more!! I will admit to a little pre-stash busting stock up. There were 4 skeins of yarn that could have made me cheat, so I bought them. Now I am ready!!

new purpose

I have found a new purpose for this blog!! Yipee!! It is so sad to see it sit idle....So I have decided that this will be the gallery of finished objects. All the details, rants and other stuff will be at http://sunnelite.blogspot.com still - this will just be finished projects with details to what I did, and pattern links - if there is one. This way, I will be able to flip through finished projects without all the other stuff and it will be fun to look back at the end of the year. Plus, for all those projects that I don't actually admit to making will be shown on here too! Shhhhhh! Quite excited about this little showcase....See you soon!

time to go!

Okay, I lied, there will be no more picture posts to this blog -- well maybe, this may become the secret blog, maybe -- anyhow, please direct your attention to my new beta blog http://sunnelite.blogspot.com/ it will have all the newest of the new, all the knitting, all the posting, all the fun. Sorry for the inconvience, but it is very nice there -- you will feel right at home once you switch your links.

Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day!

the count down continues . . .

Everything is in the works to switch to beta on thursday - forever! I have at least one more post for this blog, but with Bill's surprise party and all, I forgot the camera this morning. Then there is LA tomorrow for work, wednesday will be lost to short-trip-recovery and merchandising, and thursday, I will probably have a little posting time between interviews - just to get you all linked, switched, settled and introduce you to the new digs.

There has been a bunch of crafting going on - working on my punk christmas trees, flowers to go on the boxes at the store and knitting. While I swore there wouldn't be, a couple of new hats have turned up. However, it is only a scarf and knucks that are making it on the plane with me. Photos soon . . .

Happy Monday!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!
Sending you lots of love, good birthday wishes and many more fun filled Bill Meyer Days to be spent together!
I Love You!

kinda boring . . .

Well, its kinda boring, but this is what I am doing right now. Its just hats. I have so many small christmas gifts and I have been working on so many big projects that I have been just knitting hats. I am using Lornas Laces shepard worsted - so they are easy and fast. I am getting one or two a day done. It is really fun to start a hat in the morning and finish it by the time I am ready for bed. Although, I am starting to get the itch for bigger projects. I still have knucks, fetching and mittens to do, so we will start with them next.

Have a great week!

done . . .

Here is a less then inspiring photo of the amazing blanket that I finished for my MIL. The photo doesn't really do it any justice. It is the Ombre blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. She asked for the blanket and chose the colors and it really was a fun knit! The blanket turned out slightly larger then intended. It is 54" x 78". The alpaca has a great weight to it, so I will be really sad to see it go -- it was a joy to knit! (this is the project that I posted by husband winding all the yarn for back in Sept.)

And I am officially announcing that I will keep this blog till the 30th of November then I will be moving everything over to my new Beta Blog - Sunnelite. It is too much work to keep up with both, so soon you will have to come visit me there. By then I should have the beta site looking a little better, just like with this one, it is all a learning curve. . .

Tarot Cards . . .

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

a relaxing weekend in virginia

So here are a few of the photos from our very relaxing weekend in Virginia. We have Maeve with her "crazy hair day" braids -- Avalon actually smiling for the camera (rare for any 12 year old!) -- Faerin climbing on the tree -- me and the little girls on the swings -- and Foamhenge!!
It really was a very relaxing weekend! The weather was perfect - I got to knit with Jules (five hats done over the weekend!!) and go to this really wonderful yarn store/berry farm in the middle of nowhere (too cool!!) - go antiquing - run through the backside of W&L's campus - see Robert E Lee's tomb - and just generally decompress. Thanks Jules, James and girls!! I think that Bill really enjoyed himself too!


Now we are back to planning for the holiday - finishing up our Chirstmas shopping and knitting - working - and getting the house ready for our Christmas tree -- we go Christmas tree hunting in three weeks.

knitters coffee swap questions

Here are my coffee swap questions -

1. Whole bean or ground?
It really doesn't matter, the coffee fairy manages to brew both.

2. Fully-loaded or decaf?
Definately fully-loaded!

3. Regular or flavored?
Regular

4. How do you drink your coffee?
I take my coffee black and my espresso as a latte

5. Favorite coffee ever?
My favorite coffee ever was not so much about the coffee as the pot. One of my college roommates had this super old coffee pot that brewed coffee on the stove (I think, a little fuzzy on the details, it was a long time ago). This coffee pot made the best coffee! It was amazing with really good coffee, but it could also take icky cheap coffee and make it taste great! We think is was something about the seasoning on the pot. Never in all my years of thrifting have I seen a pot like that, or had coffee that tasted that good! I supposed its about the quest now . . .

6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do?
Medium not fussy, I won't drink Maxwell House, but don't discriminate between Kona and Ethopian or the like.

7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee?
I like chocolate with my coffee. Sometimes its a little square of the real thing, sometimes a small cookie. I am allergic to wheat, so I have to be careful about my intake of wheat - which is in everything - so I small portions are key -- along with brown rice flour.

8. Anything else about your coffee preferences?
No

9. What treats do you enjoy with your coffee?
please refer to #7 - chocolate!

10. Yarn/fiber you love?
This might be a little long. . . I am kind of a hippy girl at heart so I love the organic, low impact, natural yarns as long as they are not scratchy. Also, the yarns that are creating a sustainable economy in villages across the world. It is comforting for me to think that I am doing something that I love and helping someone else at the same time. On the regular knitter girls side, superwash merino is right up there too! It is not itchy, can be used for just about any project, and there are so many beautiful color options. I really like yarn produced by small manufacturers (local artists, Etsy shops, ect.), I like that people can live their dreams.

11. Yarn/fiber you hate?
Novelty, acrylic, mohair and angora

12. What's on your needles?
Right now I am down to mostly quickie holiday gifts - I have two hats on needles, one pair of knucks (fingerless gloves), a scarf, the ombre blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and on the back burner Hush,Hush dress by knitty for me. I have about 7 more sets of knucks to finish, and 5 more hats after the ones I am on right now, and my holiday knitting will be complete!

13. Favorite colors?
I like all the earthy colors; tans, browns, greens, blues, and deeper reds. Being pale pastels, oranges, pinks, and yellows tend to make me look a little dead.

14. Allergies?
Just wheat.

15. Anything you really love, really don't like, or just need to get off your chest?
This is my first not-secret swap! I think it is going to be so fun to chat with my swapee and not have to be so secretive. Fun!Fun!

Too cute!

I sent this hat to my friend Paul for his new(ish) daughter Lexi. This picture came with the thank you. It was too sweet to not share! Who doesn't love a cute, smiley, chubby baby?

And slowly I am conquoring the world with punk striped baby hats, one friend's baby at a time. This one is a little girlier then usual in pink and white.