She Knits Shizknits

the "new" Yarn Lady

Anyone who's read my blog for a while knows that I knit and spin. I learned to knit when Little Man was about a year old; I needed to so something that didn't involve kids or LM, and I'd always wanted to learn to knit. The Dearest was encouraging me to start spending some 'me' time and that's how I ended up taking a beginning knitting class from Yarn Lady. Once I learned how to knit, I still went to YL regularly on Thursday nights to hang out and knit with a group.  Several of the ladies I met at Yarn Lady have become great friends- we still knit/spin together today, six years later.

YL is where my fibery obession first started, so when I heard that they were selling the store, I was bummed. Most of the yarn shops in this area have closed in the past few years, and I was afraid YL would go that route.  Even though I rarely went there anymore, it was nice to have a brick and mortar store avaible if I wanted to play with yarn.

A few months ago, I heard that YL had a new owner and the store was closing in its current location, but would be reopening nearby. There was a lot of anticipation on Ravelry as to what kind of yarns the 'new' Yarn Lady would be carrying.  The old YL was chock full of novelty yarns....which was one reason I rarely went there anymore.  I heard the new owners were going to have a very different inventory so I was hoping to see more useful yarn and less eyelash!

Well I saw on Ravelry that the new store was opening on Monday the 13th, and since both the small men were at VBS, I made it a point to check out the new YL! Here's a copy of the review I put up on Ravelry:

The new store is (IMO) 10x better than the old YL. It’s a smaller space, but the they’ve done some great work with soothing colors for the walls and shelving. The new displays are very nice- simple but showcasing the yarns nicely.

Waaaay less novelty yarn (I saw maybe one shelf’s-worth, spread out over the store) and not a fiber of eyelash yarn to be seen LOL! Lots of solid ‘workhorse’ yarns in every price range…they kept the Encore, added more Cascade 220, and had a great selection of yarns like Zara, Manos, etc.. I saw a very large collection of the Noro yarns (sock yarn to Silk Garden to some cotton/silk/wool Noro I hadn’t seen before) in a great array of colors. It seemed like they had a little bit of from different manufacturers’ lines. There was Nashua, Berroco, Rowan, Noro…. Oh, and they have a small selection of sock yarns (tho I heard someone say they will be getting more in shortly).

Lots of space for classes, and they will soon be having an ‘open knitting’ table where knitters can come in any time and sit & knit for free. Ginger is the new owner- she was very helpful and friendly. The store was quite busy when I walked in, which is great! It’s strange to see the same YL employees from the old store working in the “new” YL, but they seemed to be quite happy, and everyone was having a good time.

I will definitely be back soon!

And of course, I couldn't leave the store without purchasing a little something....

Silk Garden Sock yarn...aren't these lovely colors?

And this pretty green Cotton Twist jumped in my cart, too:

I'm thinking this will make a nice light summer scarflet...something long and skinny with minimal pattern.  The new YL is definitely someplace I can see going back to....tho next time I will bring my camera so I can take some photos!

FO: Hawkmoth Shawl

FO Report: Hawkmoth Shawl, from the free Revontuli/Northern Lights pattern.
Yarn: 780yds of my handspun, Black Apples (superwash merino)

Needles: US 8

Pattern Talk: Revontuli is a free pattern. There are charts and some written instructions in the PDF. The shawl is knit from the top center out, by casting on a few stitches and then increasing every row. Every 10 rows, there is a row of YOs/SSK/K2TOG, which creates a nice eyelet affect.




My Mods:  After completing all the charted repeats, I realized I (probably) had enough yarn to do one more repeat. I was close: I had enough to do 8 more rows, then I started casting off. The pattern calls for a few rows of garter stitch near the edging, which I couldn't do since I was running out of yarn. I actually did run out about 25 stitches from the finishing the castoff edge. Luckily I had some other similar-looking handspun that worked just fine for the final castoff stitches.

After blocking, the shawl turned out to be nearly 6ft from tip to tip, and about 4ft wide. It's the biggest shawl I've knit yet- perfect for wrapping up in after yoga!

The original pattern also calls for a self-striping yarn, but obviously this handspun is not self-striping. I love how the colors flow into each other...

I can see knitting this shawl again in another handspun...the pattern shows off color changes really well and is fun/easy to knit.

Oh, and I named this shawl the Hawkmoth shawl because that's what Little Man said I looked like in the above photo- do you see the resemblance? LOL

random thursday

Oh how I love orange!

Little Man made me breakfast this morning...

...it's a bowl of ice cream with 'special syrup' (maple syrup) and a chocolate kiss. He was quite proud of his creation! I think ice cream for breakfast is pretty tasty, too! LOL

And a sneak peek at my latest knitting FO:

It's a shawl I just finished knitting from my handspun. More photos to come- when I figure out how to photograph it since it's so big!

Lastly....Does a bear scat in the woods???

painting...and painting

Well, I've finally gone and done it: I've opened an etsy shop!  In an effort to move out some of the MOUNTAIN of fiber that I've dyed in the past few months, I put some handpainted rovings and yarn up for sale on etsy.

Here are a couple of rovings I'm in the process of listing:
"Mango Me"- 4.2 oz of corriedale

"Petunias" - 3.2 oz superwash merino

"Finn McCool" - 3.6 oz corriedale

I will slowly be adding more rovings and yarn over the next few days. I'm not out to make huge amounts of money selling fiber...dyeing is a fun, relaxing hobby for me. I like the whole process of visualizing colors, painting them on the fiber, and seeing how it all turns out. Unfortunately it takes A LOT longer to spin up the fiber than to dye it. So the only thing I could think to do with all this extra fiber is to put it up on etsy and hopefully sell it!

While I was busy photographing and sorting fiber to list, the small men were doing some painting of their own:

Little Man found the face painting set and started with a tiger face for Monkey Boy. I think LM did great!

MB was quite pleased with the finished product. He insisted that I take a photo of him and his big brother.

Then it was MB's turn to do some painting on LM. First off was a 'flag':

Then MB made a pirate's hat and a patch for LM. Can you see it?

The face painting kept them busy for a long time! I was able to do a lot of work on the computer before MB finally asked me for some help 'washing his face'...he had tried to do it on his own already:

Let's just say it took more than one baby wipe to get all that paint off his face! LOL   Little Man and MB said that they were practicing their face painting for tomorrow. We are having a neighborhood block party for Memorial Day, and they have decided that they want to paint their friends' faces. I have a feeling that there will be a lot of pirates, princesses, and tigers running around tomorrow!

the handspun stash: it grows

Tomorrow is Little Man's teacher's birthday; luckily Mrs. M. is a knitter so LM came up with the perfect gift for her: some of my handspun. LM and I went stash diving for the perfect skein of handspun, and I discovered something troubling....

I have A LOT of handspun yarn. 

Obviously some of my handspun has been knitted into sweaters, hats, scarves, etc., but there are a lot of single skeins in my stash. Many of the skeins are in the  200-400yd range...just enough for a small project, so I'm thinking of thinning my handspun stash by selling some.

Obviously I'll have to figure out how much to sell the yarn for...and maybe set up an etsy shop or something. I'm not going to try to make money off the handspun- just free up some stash space and pass the yarn off to someone who will actually use it!  What do you think? Will people buy my handspun?

Oh, in the vein of ever-growing handspun stash:

"annaliese" 352yds of sportweight merino/mohair- spun from rovings purchased at Capistrano Fiber Arts.

This is some seriously yummy yarn. I think it would make a beautiful pair of socks, or maybe a scarf. 


Then there's this fun spring-y yarn:

"marigolds"- 428yds, light worsted weight 100% merino, spun from this roving.

The color is more true in the top photo. I really like how this yarn plied up. The colors are just FUN and scream Spring to me.

Now I'm off to spin some more before taking Monkey Boy to preschool...

fiber math

Someone stumbling into my blog might think that I don't do much more than spin and knit...oh and feed the kids once in a while. They may be right! Here is some recent fiber math to show off:

this

plus this:



equals this:






314yds of merino and cashmere....yummmmm....


Four ounces of this lovely corriedale fiber



Became 370yds of orange-y goodness:



And finally, I pulled out some superfine merino rovings that I had dyed several weeks ago. I never took photos of the original roving because it was pretty ugly. I had taken some leftover orange, blue, and brown dyes and just thrown them on the fiber. I wasn't sure what the resulting yarn was going to look like, but I didn't have high hopes for it. The roving got split equally and spun onto two different bobbins, then plied together.



The result was 284yds of DK weight yarn that I have fallen in love with. That's the amazing thing about plying- it turns ugly singles into beautiful yarn 99% of the time.


Now I'm off to spin some more....though what I'm going to do with all this handspun is beyond me. LOL My handspun stash is starting to get nearly as big as my factory-made yarn stash. Scary!

fiber fabulosity and the week in review....

A few weeks ago I destashed a bunch of yarn on Ravelry, earning me a nice fat Paypal balance. So since I've been on a spinning kick lately, I hit up etsy and did some shopping at Lori's place...

From beemiceelf-

"Gala"...4oz of soft, sqooooshy merino

and "Marigold", 4oz of merino:

Can you tell I"m into spring-y colors right now? These two just spoke to me- "Buy me!" LOL They came beautifully packaged, and this cute little fiber sampler was also included:

I will definitely be buying from this etsy shop again. The fiber is just sooooo nice, and I really do like her colorways. The day after these rovings arrived in the mail, I visited Lori and did a bit of shopping in her fiber stash. Look at what followed me home:

"Dark Knight"- 2oz of BFL



"Avalon"- 2 oz of BFL


"Vaquero"- a total of 4.4oz of BFL


Lori also had this Limited Edition colorway that she claimed not to like. She said, "I have no idea why I dyed this fiber like this?!  I don't even like orange!"  I told her it was because she must have been thinking of me; I picked this out of her stash immediately and wouldn't put it down. LOL This is 2.1oz of superfine merino-


Then guess what came in the mail the next morning?  My March Spunky Club roving!  This is "Myrtle", 4oz of natural/dark BFL. The original roving is the brownish color.  The dyes are applied over the brown, creating a heathery effect. It will be fun to spin this up and see what the final yarn looks like.  In fact I have been spinning like crazy and have a bunch of finished yarns drying right now. So I'm sure there will be more fiber-y photos coming soon!

On another note, I wanted to show off these photos my the small men from last weekend. It was really windy last Sunday so the Dearest took them to the local school for some kite flying.
They had a ball running all over the field and launching the kite.

What else happened this week? Little Man came home with his handmade St. Patrick's Day hat. I love this shirt, too- it just fits him!

And Monkey Boy had Purple Day at school. Since MB didn't have any purple shirts, we painted his face so he'd look like a 'purple tiger':

I think he looks pretty good considering it was my first try with real face paints. He insisted on the fangs, too. Since a tiger "isn't scary unless it's gots big teef"!

Little Man participated in the Jogathon fundraiser at school...

I was surprised that he ran almost the entire 8 laps!!!  That's a long way for a six year to run!  Monkey Boy had to get in on the fun, too:

But I think MB was more interested in the popsicles they were handing out after the Jogathon:

Well, that's enough photos for one day, I think.  We are going to the Outlaw's house today to celebrate all of the Dearest's siblings' birthdays for March- I think that includes three birthdays. It should be fun for the small men to run around with their cousins, and I'm sure there will be lots of photos of the party to post later.

Have a great Sunday!

Spring springs

Blossoms from our Saturn peach tree...this is the first year it has bloomed (we planted the small tree last Spring).

And in the spirit of pink + Spring:
FO Report:  Primrose River Rapids Socks

Yarn: my handspun...spun from rovings Lori gifted me with over Christmas. Here's a shot of the yarn before I wound it into centerpull balls and started knitting. It's Merino/mohair/nylon- perfect for socks.

Needles: US 2 DPNs

Pattern Talk: River Rapids socks (opens a PDF) by Sockbug (free pattern). 

The sock is knitted from the cuff down, and the lace pattern continues over the instep.  I followed the pattern almost exactly, just modding the toes a bit with a three needle bindoff instead of using Kitchner stitch to close the toe.

I'm very happy with how these turned out; the subtle striping didn't pop out at me till I took these photos. Which, BTW, it's *very* hard to take decent photos of socks when they are on your own feet.  I was doing some funky PIlates-ish moves on the sofa with the above photo and the Dearest gave me a strange look as he walked by.

It was more fun to take these photos...

This little guy decided he wanted to be in the photoshoot as well:


He was so busy getting into the flowers he didn't even bother to buzz me as I was hanging socks in the tree and taking photos.



Anyways, the socks are super comfortable- the mohair/nylon makes them both soft and strong.



I spun this yarn very tightly because I knew I was going to use it for socks so I wanted a lot of strength. Hopefully the extra twist will make the socks last a long time.

you see the most interesting things at a laundromat at 10pm on a sunday night

One of the things we did while my computer was on the fritz (so I couldn't post about it) was a quick trip to Big Bear to play in the snow. Last year we went around this time and almost got snowed it due to a late winter storm. So we brought our chains and were all prepared for a long, slow trip up the mountain...only to get there and find that it was 60F!  In fact it was warmer in BB than it was here at our house.

We left late Sunday, Feb 22nd, and got into BB around 7:30pm so we decided to stop and have dinner before going to the cabin. Monkey Boy had fallen asleep on the ride up the hill, which was unusual for him. We found out why he was so tired when I got him out of the car at the restaurant: he was HOT! His cheeks were flushed and he was definitely running a fever.

Nice.

He ended up sleeping on my lap all through dinner, poor thing. When we got back out to the car, I grabbed a spare towel to cover him up because he was complaining that he was cold. Thank goodness I had the towel because all of the sudden he looked up at me, said "Oh no momma!" and threw up all over the place.  The towel caught most of the mess, but a lot of it ended up on his shirt, the carseat and the carseat straps.

So needless to say I spent a couple of hours at the laundromat that night.  Not the way I want to be spending my first night on a 'relaxing' vacay! LOL Evidently MB threw up a couple more times while I was gone, and then he puked one more time while I was sleeping with him. Luckily we had plenty of extra towels and blankets so there wasn't much of a mess. I just gathered everything yucky and threw it into a garbage bag to take home.

The next day was Monday and MB woke up feeling much better. His fever had broken overnight and he was quite perky and ready to go outside for some snow play.

The boys and I did some sledding while the Dearest stayed at the cabin and finished working with a client. As you can see, MB was feeling pretty good:

Eventually the Dearest joined us for sledding:

The snow was a bit icy from the warm weather so the sled was going pretty fast.



The Dearest made a little ramp for the small men to sled down...Little Man got a some air!

MB got going so fast that he almost ran me over....

MB was also trying to 'sled' down a snowdrift on his tummy, which led to a lot of snow down his shirt.

LM really wanted to take home an icicle or some snow, but I talked him into taking souvenir photos of snow instead:

Aside from sledding, we just hung out in front of the fire and played games. Oh, and there was some knitting for me...check out my Rainbow Mountain Socks:

These are made from my handspun and I love the way they turned out. The colors are so bright and cheery! I used the "little shell rib" from Sensational Knitted Socks, but modded the pattern by discontinuing the shell rib on the instep. I was afraid it would be too bumpy in my shoes so I just did a plain k4 p4 ribbing on the foot.  (More details on my Rav page for those interested)

Sledding, knitting, cozying up....it was a great, relaxing overnight trip even with MB's 24hr stomach flu!  Oh, and that nasty bag of puke-y towels/blankets? I turned it inside out straight into the washer when I got home LOL Thank goodness for hot water and soap!

the spinning bug...

When I got my first Spunky Club roving, I knew I'd have to dig through my fiber stash to find something lovely to ply it with. It only took a few days to spin the entire 4oz of organic merino, but I couldn't manage to find the right colors/fiber to combine with the merino, so I hit up Etsy and found this:

4.1oz of squooshy merino goodness from spinningsisters.  I got to work on this right away, which meant a very full bobbin in a very short time.  Two days ago I sat down and plied the two singles into a gorgeous, fluffy, sproing-y yarn:

That's "Aurora Borealis", 584 yds of heavy worsted weight yarn. Isn't it purrrty?

I wasn't so sure that the colors would go together, but it turned out so lovely- I might have to snuggle with it in bed tonight LOL 

And here's another recently completed spinning project:

780yds of superwash merino plied with some mystery singles I found in my fiber stash. I think the mystery singles was BFL. The finished yarn is a little heavier than DK weight.

It was great to get all this plying done...now I"m onto my next spinning project!