Tease Me

I managed to get everything photographed and ready early, so you get two days to drool instead of just one! I love these yarns so much, it's really hard to let go.
All our initial offerings (below) are fingering weight sock yarns. The goal length for the skeins was 440yds, your mileage may vary as this was done by humans on a niddy noddy.

This is the softcore set, you'll have to wait for the full frontals when the store opens on Friday. :D

On to the yarn p0rn.

Sea and Sky

I wound this one into a tiny skein, trying to break up the colors and give you an idea of how it might look knit up. As I used a wooden cutting board, this was quickly abandoned as a BAD idea. :P The yarn is perfectly fine, just a little smaller in skein than the others.

Sunburst - SOLD

This yarn comes with a mini-skein of bright pink. Use it for toes or heels. This is a free gift to you, using up my leftovers after the big skeins were wound up.

Shades of Kermit

One of my personal faves, I want this one to pet and look at all day. This is a bit brighter, more vivid in person. The sun was not my friend today.

Sea Monkey - SOLD

Bright blue with a splash of brown. I've seen these colors combined all over the Internet, and decided to capture it here, in this sock yarn.

Passion - SOLD

This is a unique yarn that has deep, rich colors. From bright red to a purpled black, this one captures all those "loving feelings."

Sea Turtle - SOLD

"Aye, sea turtles." 'Nuf said.

Orangello

This one is named for a guy who went to my high school. His brother was Lemonjello (okay, so this maaay be an urban legend, who knows?). This one also comes with the free heel or toe accent color.

1969 - SOLD

Think, or remember, tie-dye T-shirts. Comes with a free mini heel/toe skein. Groovy, baby.

Lisa Frank

This skein is difficult to photograph well. It reminded me of those stickers I was obsessed with when I was twelve. I LOVED this woman's stickers, and these colors play heavily in those creations. I probably put the CEO's kids through school, off of my allowance. :)

Berry Sophisticated

For those of us with exceptional taste and high style. :D This skein is my favorite of the lot. This skein has extra yardage (113 g), human error to your favor!


Remember to stop by the shop on Friday to buy your favorite skeins! Also, get your two free stitch markers with each skein of yarn, this is exclusive to the shop opening. Thanks for looking, tell your friends, blog us, podcast us, sky write us, graffiti us, advertise us, and most importantly, BUY: you know everyone NEEDS more sock yarn.

And, Sock Yarn DOESN'T count as stash!

Announcement

You can now (by now I mean on Friday) find hand-painted sock yarn dyed in the Deep South by yours truly. I've been working up to this since Feb, and have just now put all my ducks in a row.

Well, they've been in the water awhile, but they've been helter skelter for a few weeks. I've got a few mini-skeins to twist up (beef up the original skeins), and then Friday, all hades will break loose when I let the shop go live. :D

Follow the link to see the empty store. For a preview of yarns, check out this blog on Thursday.

Exclusive to the first shop update, get two free stitch markers to match or coordinate with your yarn! First come, first served! I've been saving up these hand-made stitch markers for months for this very occasion. :D

Wish me Luck!

Tag, I'm it

LaurieC tagged me on her blog so here goes. . .

Here's how it goes. . .each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag 7 others & list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you tag a note in their comments letting them know they have been tagged & to read your blog. So here it goes!

I'm only gonna tag two, the Knitorious Mrs. B and TeAntae. Those are the only two bloggers I know well enough to pass this blight on to. :P

1. I don't like onions, tomatoes, olives, and many other things that are fresh and good for you. I've only recently gotten to where I can stand squash, if cooked on way with some Zuchinni (sp?). This has always been a rough row to hoe 'cause I live in the South, and there's nothing a real Southerner loves more than a good pan of squash and onions, tomatoes and okra, and many other things that have that mess in them. My Aunt Jean makes a killer pea salad or something, it has onions, tomatoes, and all manner of other crunchy stuff that makes my tounge run and hide!

2. I don't like my hands to be dirty. I wash them in the dishwater over and over again while I cook or bake. If I get egg on me, into the water. Anything sticky, I'm going to wash then too.

3. I can hear all sorts of sounds others block out or can't hear. My boyfriend says I can hear things before they start, like things that I know get on my nerves. I hate small, repetitive, or "just within hearing range" sounds. I also hate the train whistle that the train yard behind our house uses. It's not one of those full blast horns. It's a halfassed thing that kinda whooshes. Since it's different from what you expect, it wakes me up.

4. I have moved probably 20 times in my lifetime, often back and forth from the same two cities. I went to 2 elem. schools, 2 middle schools, but only one high school.

5. I always mispronounce paradigm. I almost always say para-di-gum. Not even gonna play like I know why I do that.

6. I cannot stand to eat on real plates, you know...anything other than paper. The sound that a knife or fork makes when it screeches across the plate makes my brain squiggle and my teeth ache. It's the sound I cannot stand the most. It's totally my nails on a chalkboard. Although that sound freaks me out too.

7. I don't like to write in pencil. I've been taking notes in pen since high school. I almost always had to borrow a pencil for Biology, Chem, or math classes. I just don't like them. And if I do write with a pencil, I want the point sharp enough to etch glass. And I prefer mechanical pencils because I break the points on the real ones because I write so hard.

So those are seven random facts about me. If you would like to do this on your blog, feel free. I'm not one to tag others because I don't want you to feel like you have to do something. :D

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there, esp. mine. She reads this blog sometimes. Love you Mama, thanks for all you do! :D See you next Friday when you sign your life away to that man you say you love. :P

Crock o' crap

Wow. I have hated those rubber clog things that have been sewn to the bottoms of people since they first came out. I find them ugly and cannot imagine wearing them myself. And now, I have extra reason to stay the hell away from them. I know I'm not a kid and I don't have kids, but I wouldn't support a company that hasn't looked into the root cause of this problem. Visit this blog and see the pictures of the damage done while kids were wearing these shoes.
http://crocsaccidents.blogspot.com/

Keep your kids and their toes out of crocs and away from escalators. EEP!

The Fuzzy Peach

I spent last Saturday dyeing sock yarn. :D I'm going to open an Etsy store, The Fuzzy Peach, and begin peddling my wares. I love almost every colorway so much that I'm loathe to give them up for sale! They are almost dry now and need to be reskeined before I can photograph them and put them up in the shop. A preview of the color names (no pictures as of yet) 1969, sea monkey, berry sophisticated, Lisa Frank, sea turtle, sunburst, and there are a few more that I can't remember off of the top of my head.

The boy and I hope that they sell well, we plan to offer free shipping and be up within a week or so. If these sale well, I'll buy more blank yarn and get the dye pots back out.

Stay tuned for the shop openning and for your chance to purchase some of our fine, Southern yarnage. :P

*is muy excited!*

ETA: The shop will be The Fuzzy Peach. Lost my mind there. 'doh!

Avoiding Knitting

This is going to be a big ole' post about NOT knitting. I've not done anything exciting as of late, so this is not going to be about any FOs, etc. Like I'm a knitting blogger! Pashaw!

I've been meaning to post this stuff, since Easter and my birthday, but yeah. teh Lazy.

So here are the birthday cupcakes I made fo' mysef. They are just plain yellow (dyed a pinky purple on the inside, yay Wilton's!) with caramel icing. They were yummy but didn't last long. That kinda sucked. :(

And here's what the boy got me this year. I still have to go and get the ring sized though. I keep forgetting. He's a sneak, he bought it while we were at my mom's for Easter, right under my nose! We split up in the mall and he managed to get it, hide it in the car, and keep it hidden until my birthday! What a sneaker!

And I got me some yarn for my birthday.
That's lorna's laces on the left, Mountain creek, currently being knit up into Pomatomus socks. Then yarn pirate in Paris (destash blog) and Rosie (the loopy ewe). I love me some YP now. :D I can't wait to knit them up. I also got some FrancisPatrickSales sock yarn from Ebay in Mountain Bluebells *no pics* and some Sweet Georgia in Slayer. :D Those were all over the last month, not all just for my birthday. :D

And the Easter egg pic! I had a madd photo shoot with our eggs, but decided since it was almost a month ago, I'd just post my fave.

And on the way to Valdosta to see my mom for Easter, we found out what John Arbuckle (Garfield's owner) does for a living, his real job. He sells furniture! :P


As you can see, I'm avoiding discussing what's on my needles. I'm not too happy with anything (shawl) and my socks are still tiny (nothin' to show). I have an FO, but it's dark and I've got no pics to show there either. :D

Partial Sight

I love this guy's photoblog. He has the funniest captions. I found him through Claudia's blog one day, and have loved the pictures ever since.

Enjoy Gowarth.

http://partialsight.com/index.php?showimage=161&category=

Clutter

Wow. I live with tons o' crap in my house. My mom has tons o' stuff too. It's genetic. Dave can't throw anything away, so I clean out stuff when he's not home. But my GOD man, we are NOWHERE near as bad as these guys were.

Check this link.
http://unclutterer.com/archives/2007/04/the_collyer_brothers_a_study_i.php#more

Read that story and then think about the crap you keep just cause.

Oh, and the 100 oranges to bring back eyesight, what a loon! :P

Oogie Weather etc.

We're under yet another tornado warning dobob. I'm very tired of bad weather, we need rain. Not wind, just rain. Mmmmkaythanks.

In other news, I've begun the Cookie A. socks, Pomotamus socks, two at a time, magic loop, cuff down. And I am lovin' it. bahh dah dap dah dahh I'm lovin' it

And I'm still slowly working on that horrid shawl. It's beautiful, just boring. Knit all until you YO at the end and beginning of every other row.

Snooze. Wake me when it's time to bind off.

I think I've found that socks make me happy and make my needles happy too. They just have a way of knitting up like whoa fast. I think it's like speed for knitters. Socks = love. I was trying to be all into this shawl thing and knit it up before I started any socks, I was not doing well mentally. The brain health wasn't much above avacado. I realized that I was not in love with the shawl when we drove for 45 mins to the next habitable town over (it has a mall and a Hobby Lobby) and only in the last 15 mins of the ride did I bother to pull out my knitting. The rest of that time I was just sitting there, watching the burnt up pines flick by. Not really doing anything but sitting there.

I know, what's up with that? I never just sit still anymore, I'm always knitting or futzing with something. Not this time, just sat there talking to Dave about how dumb the person who has burned the pines off was a fool. And about how he scared the pure hell out of me while driving. I hate letting him drive my car, but if I don't let him drive, I can't knit. You see the problem there. :P

Whoa!

Check out the photo in the link. It is a real photo of a hillside in California. Can you imagine walking into that much beauty? I bet it would feel like walking into a Monet painting. :D Spread the joy with this one guys.

Pictureless Update

I've been knitting a lot, but not much to show as far as pictures go.

I finished the bubble wrap socks, and they don't fit. I knit the foot too long (trying to get the repeat to the right point, paranoid they weren't long enough yet)and they feel foolish on my feet. I'm going to have to give them to someone with larger feet than myself. I know only smaller footed folks, so they may have to marinate.

I'm knitting a shawl from some fine merino dyed by the marvo people at Mystical Creations Yarns. The yarn is to DIE for beautiful and I'm using a simple pattern from One Skein Wonders where you started with 2 stitches and do a 2 yo increase each round (one on either end) every other knit row. I was wanting to do a real lace shawl, but all of the patterns I found called for at least 400 more yards than I have (600ish I think) and all of the lace scarves called for less that 300, mostly 250. SO, I said screw it, I'm going to make this one and I will just knit until I run out of yarn.

And then I realized how BORING garter stitch is.

So I'm thinking that I might do a panel or a strip rather of a lace design. No real idea what I'd like to stick in there, something simple I think, nothing too fancy. Just a little something to give it some visual and creative interest. Seriously, if I just keep knitting until it's done, I may kill someone or something. Rawr. :P Again, I'm in it for the process and the process of knitting every single stitch isn't of much interest at this point. I got over that when I went on my scarf kick with froofy yarns and plastic needles.

Look out for ranting posts about how hard it is to wing lace. I'm sure they will occur and I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Craptastic

I think I'm 'lergic to wool.


Yeah.


Isn't that fun? I've been working on a very simple shawl with some BEAUTIFUL hand painted fingering weight wool from Mystical Creations Yarns (mecca baby, color wonderful!) and my face has gotten crazy on me. It keeps itching on one side and has broken out and my nose goes nuttso when I knit with it. I'm very afraid that I'm allergic to this wool, maybe all wool. Damn.

But I'm going to soldier on because this is too pretty to stop working on. Maybe if I hold it farther away from my face and nose things will get better.


And, how much does it suck about the shootings at VT? I have a livejournal friend who goes there, thank God she doesn't live on campus or have class on Mondays. If it had been tomorrow, Tuesday, her bf would have been in the classroom that the freak shot up. Talk about close calls! My heart goes out to all of them, students, teachers, parents and friends of those lost. And what a punk, killed himself instead of facing the music. Bastard.

Sightings

I was in the Waycross mall this past week while going to pick up the boy and saw this display in a dept. store.


Notice that it is a nice display of housewares, bath towels, yadda yadda yadda. What do you think I saw?

Can you spot what I spotted from about 20 feet off and had to go touch?






That's right, knitting takes over your life.

This is what I saw.

Sorry for the crummy pic, but the lighting in dept. stores is always bad. That's right, I looked over, saw this prop basket of yarn and then reached in to pick them up. They seemed to be real enough, but I didn't look too closely as an assoc. was walking up about that time. The flashes had drawn them. :) Then I wondered if they sold yarn and got excited before I stopped long enough to think. NO, it's a PROP! Duh. I felt very foolish.

Car Wash and More

I mentioned in the last post that I was recently in a car wash. And I love them. !!! LOVE.

We stopped for gas on our way out of Albany coming home and I decided that a car wash would be just the thing. Our friend Chels was with us so we were three in the car and we got the expensive wash, with the tri-color bubbles and the whole works.

So we went through the wash and I couldn't drive into it so Chels took the wheel. We went through and noticed that it didn't seem like it was the deluxe wash like I'd paid for. We didn't think that the suds looked very colorful. But we saw this: It was much fun to watch it go over the car. And we had a casualty. My little sunshine do-bob that lived on my radio antenna was lost.

When we went to drive out we realized that the dryers didn't come on and I knew then that something was afoot. We drove around to the front of the store and I went in to complain and the lady gave us a free wash. I thanked her and got back in the car to explain the problem.

The stupid pay at the pump thing gives you a base wash code, not a deluxe. There was a car in the wash when we went back through so we had to wait.

So back through we went. But before we went in again, Chels slithered out of the driver's door (parked too close so to enter the code) and rescued my little sunshine from deep inside the dripping car wash. Very Private Ryan and very dangerous. :P

And this time we had colored, scented suds. You can't smell it from the picture, but it was very pineappley. :D

Then I had a very sparkly car. Which didn't even last as long as the ride home because of all the blasted pollen. I hates pollen.

Now for the more portion of this post.
Some flowers my love gave me just 'cause. :D We found them on a trip to Albany.


A very ugly hat we almost bought from Ross, a discount clothing store.

And the newest socks to be finished. A pair of leftover socks with the Mema yarn from the feather and fan socks below. I used some lorna's laces to fill in the foot so that I could use only the nice yarn on the leg. I still have leftovers. Wouldn't have had enough for the whole sock, but still could have used less of the other yarn on the foot. This is what being paranoid gets you. First pair finished in April.

I'm now working on a pair of socks out of the plain lorna's laces with a bubble wrap pattern, very cute. No pics now because it's very boring as it's no more than a few foot inches.

Finally some new yarns. I was without the boy this past week and was very sad. I needed love so I bought yarn, yarn always = love. :P I managed to snag the red, blue, white yarn pirate (rosie maybe) from the Loopy Ewe during their last update. The other yp (paris) I got from Destash and the Lorna's Laces (Mountain Creek) came as an early birthday present from my cousin. He loves me and knows to just stand back and let me put things in his eBay account and then pick from that. :D


That's all for now. I may post later about a sighting I had this past week.

Knitting Update

Up to my third pair of finished socks this month.

The first is a pair of magic stripes in plain of st. st. short row heel and toe up following WendyKnits! with a figure 8 cast-on. I gave these to my boyfriend's mom. She hasn't worn them yet, but she says they fit snugly.


These were knit for a birthday present for my boyfriend's Mema. I love this yarn, it's francispatricksales yarn off of eBay that Lime and Violet mentioned on their podcast recently.


I'm making another pair for me with some Lorna's Laces Amethyst Strip to stretch the bit left over. I managed to stretch the pretty yarn out because I knit the majority of the foot from the Lorna's Laces.

And I went to a car wash the other day. We had more fun than should be allowed for grown ups. Post and pics to follow! :D

Best Thing I've Heard Today

Thanks to a HobbyLobby newsletter:
"No pessimest ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit." Helen Keller

Have a good day!

FOs and SP9 packages

I'm so lazy and I've just gotten around to posting pictures of my last two packages. I'm a little slow and a lot lazy, so Teante I'm sorry I'm such a bum. :D


This is the package before the last.


This was the last package o' goodness. I've been loving the books and thinking about making fun things from One Skein Wonders. :D

Feather and Fan socks
I used WendyKnits! toe up pattern for these socks.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Watercolors

Zoomie O' the lace


My antenna hat that I made my friend model.


Silk Garden Hat - Gift from Secret Pal on Livejournal


Paton's SWS Hat, my own pattern, you know cast on and ride it out.


Whitman Socks - my own pattern using the Leaves of Grass lace pattern from Lion Brand .com


Zoomie of Lace Pattern


And these are the socks I'm working now, plain vanilla st. st. no clue if I'm going to pattern the leg or not. What do you guys think? I think the weird stripey thing would just do best as st. st. leg.


That's all folks. :D

I'm alive, but for the Grace of God

In case you've been under a rock or haven't seen the coverage of the mega scary storm that swept through Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia...there was a tornado that touched down in my town. Yeah, it touched about two blocks from my house. There are places that you still can't get into and there are people still without power, water, or houses. Our downtown took a major hit, our hospital is ruined right now, and my fave place to grocery shop is gone, Winn-Dixie. There were people still in Winn-Dixie when it hit. They hid out in the freezer and couldn't be rescued until later that night.
We are really lucky, it killed 8 high school kids in Ala. and we've only heard of 2 confirmed deaths here.
But here en mi casa things are fine. We were without power since about 9 pm Thursday night. I've been hanging out at our house, but we did walk through the damage. I'm going to post pics and explain them, or what you should be seeing instead of the twisted trees and mangled powerlines. I'm just thankful, so very thankful for all that I still have. I have seen so many people who have lost so much, and I just feel terrible for them. So far, they don't want anyone to volunteer, just stay in our homes.
This is the view walking down the street we live on. That big wooden piece on the other side was from a gas company on the left side of the street. They also had a mechanic type shop there and it's now flat. Only the steel frame owning that stood over the woodbuilt building remains.
This is the old school, they just restored this. It used tax money and now it's totally ripped up. Also, notice the thing in the foreground, it looks like a foundation...it was..to a gazeebo that is now flat and in two places.
In the middle of Elm Ave. the street we live on, this is on the yellow line.
We aren't sure if someone stole this car and tried to drive around a downed tree or if this is just REALLY bad luck.
Walking around the back of the school, we saw this:
We walked further, deeper into the destruction, avoiding the cops and the major traffic jams.
This is one of my friend's house. His family still lives there, but I'm not sure if he did. I want me one of these houses, the tree broke when it hit the roof, not the other way around. :D At least all that's messed up is the porch.
Down the street from this house we found this:On the right you can see what used to be a lake that was then turned into a park after someone put mercury in the water and comprimised the dam a long time ago. There were trees all over the place, well...there still are, but you know. There is a picnic shelter out there and there are some red swingsets right out of frame. It was really sad.
From there we looked across the street, to the left and saw:This is the back of what used to be Salvation Army, a few shopping centers, an insurance agency, and Aaron's rent a center. There is a deep valley there that seems to have sucked up all the stuff that used to be up on the hills on either side. There also used to be trees, but yeah. Not any more.
Then I looked at these people and thought about what used to be there.A house. There are now only a few cinder blocks that served as a foundation left to mark the house. The man in the blue uniform, hard to see, has stuck with me. He just kept looking around, like the longer he stood there, the more of a chance he stood of bringing back the house he lost. When he put his hand over his mouth, I turned away, it was almost too much to see.
After that we walked into the cemetary to get off of the roads and away from the powerlines. We heard one groan and then zing, still hot. So we decided that the cemetary was safter to see from.
All of the memorial cedars were splintered. A number of other trees were down and a number of monuments were destroyed.
We managed to get to the main drag, Lamar street, one of the two one ways that is Americus.These are all emergency vehicles coming in to help. They were running lights and sirens. Quite a moving scene.
Walking down Lamar back towards Tripp street we saw these on the sidewalk. It was really sad for some reason.
This store is also missing a large part of its side. Like something very large was hurled through the wall.
All of our fast food is damaged, windows gone, signs blown away, rooves missing. We turned up Tripp street, back towards home.
This woman lost her business.
It was really sad to see her wander around the wreckage. It looks like everything was ruined. If not by the inital storm, then from the heavy rains that followed.
But we're a strong community. We'll rebuild and make it through this. As this WWII (I think??) monument seems to say, "We will survive!"
Please keep Americus and the other cities hit by this storm in your prayers, I know a number of people could use them.