Sneak peek

Lake Knitting FO's

We took a vacation for about 10 days at our lake place at the end of July. While admiring the views above, I spun yarn, dyed fiber, knit, knit, knit and sewed down little petals and TONS of ends...COTTON ends on this hat.




The hat kit was bought at a now closed LYS (in Louisburg, KS) on one of the Sunflower Knitters Guild yarn crawls. It is the most adorable hat. It was COTTON. Worsted weight cotton. I am not a fan of cotton. Now, the knitting of this was enjoyable and I finished in about two days almost a YEAR ago. The ends. Oh, the ends. You can't just weave cotton ends in willy nilly, they're cotton. Wool ends can be woven in and snipped easy peasy wooly squeasy. Cotton ends will come out in the wash when given to a non-knitter. (Hell, they'll probably come out if given to a knitter too, who'm I to be all prejudiced?) SO they must be woven in and sewn THROUGH strands in different directions. Did I mention it was WORSTED WEIGHT? Weaving something that heavy back & forth would make these strange bumpy lumpies all over the hat. (Tried it, unwove and rewove.) SO you get to split the strands and THEN weave them and sew them into each other and such. SO, for each color, there were FOUR ends, split each in half and you get EIGHT. The construction, while very cool, meant extra ends. Then because the petals were curling so bad it looked less like a flowery hat and more like a colorful case of leprosy, it meant EVEN MORE COTTON WORSTED WEIGHT ENDS as I had to tack down the ends of the petals. Good thing she's cute, huh?

Well, I knew I'd never finish the thing without serious time and effort, so I set myself the task of finishing each and every bit of the hat before any knitting, spinning, dying or drinking of beers on the lake vacation. I think it'd be a lovely hat to make again, but next time in superwash WOOL!

I was so proud to have this hat completed that I just handed it over to my little niece at our lake family reunion at the end of our vacation time. NO PICTURES WERE TAKEN. What was I thinking? SO, when I got the opportunity to babysit for the little one last night, I kinneared her. OK, first I had to peek into her closet and all her drawers to find it and had a baby photo shoot. (Sure hope my brother doesn't have one of those teddy bears with the hidden camera or I'll have some splaining to do!)

It went like this.....
Put hat on baby's head. Crawl backwards quickly to take photo. Crawl forward to put hat BACK on baby's head. Again try the lean out for angle, while baby is FLYING on her hands & knees, giggling and diving out of camera range while pulling hat off to chew on. Rinse and repeat. I finally figured the best strategy would be to strap her down (in her high chair) and distract her with food. She is able to chew on two big teething crackers, one in each hand and STILL rip the hat from the head, so these shots were all there were before I would have had to take the hat back home to launder. She is adorable. And the attitude in that little one? Reminds me of my own girl many years ago. This cutie is totally cotton-end-sewing-angst worthy.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I know, I know. I've harped on it before. This is my all time favorite sockyarn-not-for-socks pattern. Old Shale Scarf by Tiennie. Well, a while back when I was at the lake for FOUR DAYS with no children, I knitted my arse off. Completed two more scarves. I couldn't decide which color I thought my cousin Kelly would like better as her birthday present from *cough* LAST FEBRUARY *cough* so I knit them both. I love them both and figure I'll be happy to wear whichever one she doesn't choose! Guess I should actually SHOW HER, instead of just keeping them here where I can see them, huh?

I made a red, red, RED scarf (same pattern) for my sister in law last winter and another one for moi last year as well. Here's a reminder. My only change to the pattern was to use one size larger of needles and to only do 36 stitches, with one full pattern in the middle and two halves on each side. Gorgeous. Can't wait for cooler weather to start wearing them again!





I sometimes find myself forgetting that everyone doesn't knit. Do you ever do that? I was sitting at our two youngest boys' baseball practice on Sunday. A dad sitting near me turned his head my way and said, "now that's a lost art!" I turned my head to where I thought he was talking about. I said, "What, rock climbing?" totally without a clue. (There were some little brothers/sisters climbing the walls nearby. He said, "No, knitting socks." DUH. "Oh, yeah. that. socks. I knit them." cripes. I'm never with the witty comments unless I'm a) drunk; or b) writing things down four hours later.

Yes, I realize that the shirt I'm wearing somehow clashes with BOTH scarves I was modeling that day. I don't have a bad sense of style. I'm just lazy. :)

Back to our regularly scheduled program...

No worries people. This won't become one of those BUY MY YARNS PLEASE promotional blogs. Ok, I'm still gonna beg, but MOSTLY it'll be a log of how fiber seems to be the thin yarn of sanity knitting its way through the big bag of crazy that is my life.

So, the last time I rode a shopping cart it ended in disaster. Not normal-embarrassing-my-child stuff here, but eating pavement in front of the grocery store, laying ON MY FACE on the pavement with cans of beans rolling past my head kind of disaster. You'd think I'd have learned, wouldn't you? My last cart wreck occurred due to a combination of my clumsiness, cart weighing less than me (physics), and a big arse divot in the parking lot.

Well, I was leaving the Office Depot the other day on one of the few errands I can run for the office and get into the fresh air. I had a cart full of boxes of paper. Many, many, heavy boxes of paper. Physics...check! I had a slight downhill slant to my truck and the parking lot was full, so I was at the very end of it. Angle of descent....check! I had no children to embarrass. Bad Mother Avoidance....check! What woud you do? Really? I got a running start and WHOOOOOOOOOSH! I made it ALL THE WAY to the truck. I even was doing the leaning out to one side and then the other to STEER the cart. The wind was blowing in my hair...noises were rushing by my ears....including some kid panting and yelling, "Ma'am!...gasp....Ma'am!....gasp....Ma'am....gasp.....MA'AM PLEASE!" As I pulled up next to the passenger side door (still not touching the ground and steering with a serious lean off the side like they do in motorcycle races), quite proud of my cart riding prowess, I see this poor kid. Stumbling up next to me, out of breath and looking at me like a crazy woman. After catching his breath, he said, "My manager said I had to help you out with this paper, Ma'am!" I look back at the door and there's at least FIVE employees watching this scene. Ah cripes. Looks like I need to find a new office depot.

It's a good thing our family's not one of those reality tv shows, isn't it? My kids would just die.

My kids are a big help with the whole yarn business thing. OK, my DAUGHTER is a big help and the three boys are mostly in the way and being threatened that they STAY AWAY FROM THAT YARN WITH YOUR GATORADE/POPSICLE/GUM/STINKY SELVES! They do give good insight on color combo's, often based on pokemon characters. The discussion of just WHAT pokemon critter a certain yarn is or is not is enough to drive a woman to drink. The discussion never ends. For example, Elizabeth thought the following yarns should be "Halloweenie" and "Santa Fe Square" for the Native American jewelry sold there. Beautiful. The boys are still discussing the first one, but have decided the second is Seadra, a water pokemon of many, many skills, each of which was detailed for me. Repeatedly. I think I'll just stick with Lizzie.

mmmm mmmm good!

No, not the smell of Campbell's soup on a cold day, the smell of WET SOCKYARN on a plain old regular weather day.

If the weather cooperates, there will be a CYG Photo Shoot in my office park tomorrow over lunch and/or "sunshine breaks." (why should smokers get all the breaks?) I have THREE of those recycled shopping bags full of yarn just waiting their moment in the lightly-filtered natural sunlight! How sad is it that those bags never get used for groceries, just for toting yarn about? Ah well. At least I recycle now. I'm getting there.

GRAND OPENING!!!!

TreasureGoddess GRAND OPENING SPECIAL
Buy 2 items before 8/31 and get free shipping!
Mention you're a blog reader and get a special treat added in too!

Click any picture above to see the larger version.

OK, it's all official now. I've got a real, live ETSY SHOP! Can I get a WOO HOO? Ok, I can't wait, I'm gonna WOO HOO myself! WOO HOO! TreasureGoddess Hand Dyed Fiber, Hand Dyed Yarn and Handspun Yarn for the creative goddess (or god) in you! I've got half my dining room full of yarn and fiber just waiting on its photo shoot, so more will be added soon. Please check the shop and let me know what you think. I'd love some constructive criticism.


In order to link my yarns in ravelry, I've had to change my user name to TreasureGoddess. I'm a bit sad to no longer be the KnittingVirgin, but I guess at this point in my yarn-obsessed life, the Knitting VIRGIN no longer actually applies. Can someone with more photos of yarn than her own children still be considered a knitting VIRGIN? Someone that knows almost all of Elizabeth Zimmermann's stories by heart? Someone that knits EVERY SINGLE DAY? Yes. Every. Single. Day. I know you and I don't see anything strange about taking knitting along on a honeymoon, but apparently there are some that do. amazing.

Thanks for all the encouragement and happy thoughts about my dying process! My back porch dye lab is cooking! Here's hoping my life as the TreasureGoddess has as many adventures and good times as I did as the Knitting Virgin! (Just less the whole nature-trying-to-eat-and/or-kill-me adventures, please!)

Coming soon...to an etsy shop near you!

Ok, maybe not an etsy shop NEAR you, I don't know where you actually ARE you know. BUT I'm getting close. Real close. House-full-of-fiber close. DYING to DYE more close. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ok, as you can see, I just can't hold a secret for anything. I don't have ANYTHING listed in said shop yet, but there WILL be a contest soon with some hand dyed fiber and some hand dyed yarn from the TreasureGoddess (me) once it's up and running and all official-like.

If you're a Sunflower Knitters Guild member, don't forget about our Opinionated Knitters' Tea this Sunday!
Sunday @ the Victorian Trading Co 2-4 pm 9/9/09 (Elizabeth Zimmermann's birthday).
$7 fee, only a few spots left. If you're interested and haven't signed up yet, EMAIL ME! treasuregoddessATkcDOTsurewestDOTnet.

That is all. I'm off to finish computer stuff and list some goodies on the shop! I'll have an official GRAND OPENING soon. There will be discounts for blog readers too. Can't wait to get things going so I can start dying again! I have a house full of fiber and yarn that's calling my name. Merino, silk, tencel, sockyarn, laceweight, BFL, oh my!

Happy weekend everyone! PS, I survived a WEEK at the lake and Mother Nature never tried to kill or maim me. Not once. :) See, the recycling is paying off! I also knit my ass off and spun a ton and had a lovely time. It was VERY hard to go back to work. Stall knitting is just not nearly as enjoyable as sitting on a boat knitting while your kids are swimming around you in the water. *sigh* Many finished objects pictures to come next week....after the etsy shop is done!

BUT nothing will get done until later this weekend. WHY? Because I have an AMAZING husband! He thought it was about time for a little "us time". We're dumping the boys with his folks (all THREE of them), a bottle of scotch and one of gin (for the grandparents, not the boys) and going to have a kid-free evening! My daughter's with a friend so we're set! Dinner & a movie, walking around the plaza window-shopping and then staying in a nice hotel to boot! He may drive me crazy sometimes, but the man wrangles snakes, stained & painted & assembled my spinning wheel, listens to my rants & raves and will truly be the Armageddon Man should things ever go to heck. He wears my socks and sweaters with pride. He rocks.