These boots were made for walking

I’m making the Booties from Brooklyn Tweeds post..Saartje;s booties. So far I have gotten to row 19 of 30. Past the half way mark. This bootie will be experimental as I have never made booties like this before. I already know it will be too big but re sizing the pattern is not a problem. I just figured out what all the increases were for in the middle. They round out the toe! You can see a little pouch forming for the toes. I’m knitting it up in some purple and blue ribbon yarn I bought at SOP out of their sale bin. Once I’m done knitting the whole thing I will rip it out and re make it for real. Lucky they are such small things.

The JOB is done. I took a picture of it with that who shall not be named (the camera that isn’t working!) So the photo may never show up, but then again it might work.

I have also finished the Harry Potter Book. I shall not write about it, except that to say it was good.

Did I mention I have a plethora of expecting mothers in my office? Yeah, I will be knitting for a while. Thankfully baby things are pretty small. I have excuses to make the February sweater, the Debbie Bliss baby cardigan and the Baby Surplice Jacket, along with 2 pairs of these booties and maybe a blanket or two. Did I say Plethora?! I need to get it done between now and September. October starts the making of the kids sweaters.

My own sweater is working well. I managed to make 1 inch worth of waist decreases I think I will spread another inch out among the trunk before beginning the increases for the bust. (stop that laughing! I do too have a bust!) Ahem.

The children will be back starting next month, Quisha on the first, Heather on the 5th and Christine on the 12th. At least I get to get used to them gradually not thrown on me all at once. I can tell that my empty nest syndrome will only last 3 months, then I will be used to them being gone.

Back to spinning and knitting(cause I have no life) I Navajo plied some alpaca wool singles I had spun up but they were still too skinny to be called a worsted. Back tot the drawing board. I spun some silk to go with some red wool I spun up. Not quite sure how much I’ll need but I’m thinking ¼ to ½ the weight of the wool.( so about .5-1 oz)
Any way, this post is a few days old(July 24th) so I’ll update you kiddies in another few days
Toodles!

Need I Say Anything?

Post post

Ok so now it’s been a month in my new job and it’s still cool. Lot to learn lots of frustration but still very cool.
I’m gonna have to blog about what really separates the happy from the eternally miserable.
On to the fiber stuff. I have to get the photos up, I have them in the camera and need to upload them to the blog. One is a photo of the Job being blocked to check finished measurements verses knitted measurements. I don’t have any photo’s on the sweater but it is coming along nicely. I started a sleeve, and decided it will be a EZ Raglan. I may need to rip back since I haven’t looked at the instructions yet.

I’ve been blending my alpaca and the wool I bought last year, and spinning it. I’m supposed to be spinning yarn for my mom but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

On the fiber festival front, I need to get moving. I need to send letters to prospective sponsors and start advertising for vendors.

On the stash front, I am changing the nature of my stash. I no longer want two balls of this yarn or that, Now I want enough to make a project! I bought several balls of yarn (acrylic) from Michael's for 1.99 each to make the girls their sweaters this year. Blue cream and tan. The tan one will be supplemented with what ever is leftover from the first two. I have to remember to make them bigger this year. The yarn came in 167 yd lots and in a chuncky size 10 -13 needle weight. I found some cones of ?? in the basement that I had forgotten about. Good yardage for large lace projects. I also have several balls of left overs I will be looking at making something with.( I say that every year) As for spun yarn… It’s on a touch and go basis.

On the gardening from I transplanted at least 20 iris this week and finally got to use that coco hull mulch. YUM! It smells even better when it’s wet!

Continued 2 days later...

Ok so this weekend we went to My inlaws to visit the kids. I got to ride bikes with Heather, and go roller skating with both the kids. That was fun! I hadn't done that in Years and I only fell once. We're going to look into Skateland to see if we can keep doing it. We also took the Scooter this time and he seemed to travel quite well. The kids will be home mid August and I can't wait!
I also got so much knitting done, that I ran out of yarn on the sweater project while having finished the sleeve and started the next, and started into my 3rd ball of yarn and the second set of lace patterns on the JOB. I am over the 1/2 way point but still under the 3/4 mark.

I had photo's but my camera is acting stupid again!
Well I have to go...

Book Book

All right, I have had enough of the book drivel! No I’m not talking about the issue going on with the bloggers who are becoming authors. I’m talking about the authors who write knitting side focus books. You know the ones like The Shop on Blossom Street, and my latest disappointment, The Killer Stitch. This one was a mystery with a strong knitting side bar.

I’ve never been one for mysteries in the first place. They all strike me as way to close to the romance novels but are off by a step. Yes there was knitting in there but they made it sound so hokey, and the way the characters were sucking down coffee and sweets, they must be more the size of cows. Lastly everyone was an alpaca rancher. There was one or two mention of cows and sheep, but that was all.(mind you this was Colorado.) Now this writer has written several books in the same vein and I won’t read any of them. I paid over 20.00 for the book in hardback and when I got though with it, I gave it away to anyone who wanted it. The mystery was not the subtle “lead you along dropping a few clues” kind. This was a” lead you in the wrong direction and then drop a character in out of nowhere and blame it on her” kind.
The next book I want to try is called 3 Bags Full. It is also a mystery, but it’s done from the point of view of the sheep.

One last book that I read that wasn’t worth it was Empress Orchid. It’s a large soft back and I was hoping it would be as interesting as Memoirs of a Geisha but I was sadly disappointed. Westerners Idea of what an Empress is, is different from an Easterners.
I was hoping for a Mulan but no such luck.

Now that I have a Nano at my disposal, I may sign up with Audible.com and branch out.
We’ll see. There’s always Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, the Harry Potter books, the Dune books, the Eragon series….