Art Yarn for the Mild at Heart

Photo shoot of some of my sample art yarn hat kits.... What do you think?

Hoping to have patterns up on ravelry soon and kits for sale on the etsy shop and to get ready for KITH. Have you signed up yet? Knitting in the Heartland is our big Sunflower Knitters Guild event in KC! Classes and VENDOR MARKET can I get a WOO HOO? WOO HOO!
Click HERE for info. Melissa Leapman is the featured designer, it should be a BLAST! Also, we're looking for vendors, so if you sell something fibery related, holler and we'll get you set up. I'll have a table there HOPEFULLY full of handspun and hand dyed goodness and kits galore (as long as I can get this broke up back to spin again!)

Oh, is anyone else out there freaking out about the whole haloscan comment thing? Haloscan is shutting down Feb 11th and you have to sign up for Echo and pay $12/year? So far comments have not been positive about the transitions. AND people have to sign in to comment? urgh. What are you guys doing? I'm still on the fence. I think it's a racket. They tell you the only way to save your comments (and I've been writing this blog since 2004, baby) is to sign up with the new company. How CONVENIENT... (spoken in church lady tones of course)

OH, and apologies to the winners of the drawing.....anyone reading this blog should know by now that I'm a total slacker and last minute person.....things haven't made it to the post office yet, but they're packaged finally! Should be out tomorrow! WOO HOO!

Another wrist warmer set...

I knit these up and figgered a pattern out for these beauties. They're going to be in a kit to match funky art yarn hats made with some of the same colorway but with coils & bumps & all things arsty as well. Can't find the pics of that yarn now to save my life. I'll have my daughter do a photo shoot with me soon and will see what you guys think of the sets! I'm going to be selling kits of my art yarns & patterns on the etsy shop and at KITH (Knitting in the Heartland), our big event in KC in March! Click HERE to get details. Here's the handspun yarn used for the wrist warmers.


SO, drove my kid & another little boy to school this morning. After turning out of the school parking lot, I saw what looked like a dead hedgehog on the snow at the side of the road. You KNOW I had to do something, right? I parked the car, went over and kicked the poor dead critter back behind the snowbank so no one (MY HUSBAND) would see it and get any ideas. :) Smart, huh?

OH, and I have to tell you one more thing...my daughter was talking about the raccoon skin to a friend on the phone when Jeff stopped and said, "You know, back in the old days the Indian women would chew the skins to soften them up." *dead silence* Then I heard from the other room, "I KNOW!!!! I think I just threw up a little in my mouth TOO *teen aged screams*" I told her later to just think of our house like the Ingalls family from the Little House books. You know, Pa chopped the wood, the girls did the chores, Ma knitted the socks....

Back to my usual crazy life!

WOO HOO! I've had a sign from above that the planets are all realigned and my normal crazy life is back. No, it wasn't a shooting star, or a rainbow, or word that the insurance companies are taking our $7700.01 into account on the payout on the truck, no no no. It was a dead raccoon. Yes. Dead. Raccoon.

We were driving out to one of the boys' basketball games. Jeff noticed a rather large dead raccoon on the side of the road. Joey commented on how he could make himself a hat from that, right? I said "theoretically you could" and Jeff said "YES!" We were running late so he drove on by. I figured that was the end of things.

Later that night, as we were driving along, Jeff saw the raccoon again. He decided we NEEDED that dead raccoon. We're in my mother's borrowed car, so I said NO WAY ON THIS FROZEN EARTH are you putting that dead animal in my mom's car. He'd already screwed with the radio buttons AND the rear view mirror and my mom's a bit picky about those things. I figured the woman wouldn't appreciate having parts of dead animal left in there and since she's being kind enough to let us use her car through our truck mishaps, NO WAY HOSAY. I suggested he drive home, get a trash bag, etc. OH NO. Not Mr. TreasureGoddess...

SO, he drug the critter to the car, rolled down his window, and proceeded to drive through our neighborhood with his arm out the window holding up this MONSTER sized raccoon. (It must've weighed at least 40 lbs). Oh momma, if I could have had my camera with me......it's face was frozen on this fierce expression with its teeth barred RIGHT THERE IN THE WINDOW while Jeff's face looked pretty much the same trying to hold up this critter by a leg out the window while driving. I tell you, I almost wet myself I was laughing so hard. Joey tried to capture the moment on his phone's camera once we got it home. (above)



He tossed the dead critter into the kids' dug out igloo for a while, then got himself set up to skin the thing. UGH! Joey decided he really didn't want to work on the hat until the skin resembled more of a fur without the innerds attached, so he bailed. He also decided he was pretty much done hanging out in the igloo. I came down to check on the man once in a while and got nails & hammer & extra blades, etc then got out of the way.

My daughter (13 yrs old and highly dramatic) was out with some girlfriends at a movie. I hear this load of screams coming from the garage...turns out she'd walked up just as Jeff sliced something inside the raccoon that caused a lot of blood and gore (turns out if you're skinning something it's not supposed to have hardly any blood--strange fact) and all the girls were freaking out. The dad that was driving came up and the men discussed various manly things like knives and critters and the like. It was quite the social event in our garage/driveway.

Now I will say I had to verify that the body made it to the trash (you never know about Mr. TG, he was talking about how there was a lot of good meat there.....). I have nothing against eating game that's been hunted. I have not yet crossed the line to roadkill. Let's just all be glad that I had the reserve NOT to photograph what's now drying in our garage. I assumed you pinned out the furs/skins with the pretty side out. Nope. Apparently there's more scraping/rubbing/working it to be done first.

Our garage smells like a meat processing plant. A small price to pay for a sign that for me, at least, life is back to normal.

Now I can get back to knitting in peace.

YAY! Winners! :)

OK, I'll be digging through the comments to find emails, etc and notifying you in the next day or so to get mailing addresses. Thanks all, I'm glad my extra stuff is soon to be on its way to new homes!

Set of 4 notecards: Sarah H

Magnet set 1: Vicki

Magnet Set 2: Jennifer

Magnet Set 3: ikkinlala

Berry Knitted Wrist Warmers: Teresa

Spunky Eclectic Yarn (destash): Colleen

TreasureGoddess Pinky Tuscadero sockyarn: Nancy

1X1 Ribbed Knitted Noro Scarf: Annette

Thanks again! PS, I haven't blown anything up, gotten crashed into or spilled liquid anywhere near electronics. I'm sure the world is out of alignment, but YAY! Had a good day! Eyeballs seem to be behaving themselves...not as much flashing, but sight is still a bit blurry. Am able to move without cursing quite as much. Now I look like a 70 yr old woman instead of moving like a 85 yr old woman (my coworker pointed that out). Sweet!

Feeling better, but napping quite a bit

SO, since I'm truly a slacker at heart, the big drawing will be tomorrow (Monday). I've still got to print out a list of the comments & stuff it into a hat. I'll post the goods & who's won what after the kids do the drawing.

Thanks again! My eye is mostly behaving itself, less flashing but more fuzziness. Neck is a bit stronger, but now it's working its way down my back. cripes almighty.

Ah well, at least I can still knit! I'll have a few fo's posted for some new kits I'm thinking of working up with art yarn. I'd love some opinions.

Take care and DRIVE SAFE everyone!
Knitting on,
Christine

Is there a Yarn Whisperer in the House?

I've decided I'm never, ever, EVER AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME, ever dying self striping yarn again. wow. I had seven FOURTEEN FOOT skeins that made for some rockin' self striping yarn. But, it was a gigantic pain in my arse. Yes, I've seen the clever tinker toy and pvc pipe contraptions you can set up to wind this way and that way and over your shoulder, etc. No, that was too much work for my experiment. I just made hugiferous skeins, dyed them and then had to ball them up by hand, then reskein. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, huh? The first 5 weren't too tough. I could do about 2 in an evening. I was getting a bit irritated with the system by then, so the last two (of the twurple colorways) didn't go quite as smooth. The next to last one, I got almost all the way done, then just couldn't take it any longer and SNIPPED the mess with a scissors and put the whole damn thing away. I figure I'll just knit it for myself. I make short socks just above my ankles anyway.

This last one? I had to break out the beers to deal with it. It's been stuffed into a ziplock bag waiting for the next time I see the Yarn Whisperer Teri. It's a good thing Mr. TreasureGoddess ran us out of firewood. I was THISCLOSE to trying to find out if the 20% bamboo in this stuff would be enough to burn. Yes, I know merino will smolder, but I figure our firebox insert is usually running hot enough to melt some forms of metal and I bet that baby'd burn. It'd probably smell like a burning sheep dipped in kool aid, but MAN it would've felt good. (Having no truck means no trips to the farm to bring back loads of firewood...*sigh*)

Heading to the doctor's office this afternoon. I never knew how freakishly heavy my head was before now. I mean, I knew I had a big head, but holy crapamoly, I can hardly keep this melon head up on top of my weak little neck muscles. If I have to wear the neck brace cone of shame, I'm totally knitting a cozy. A KNITTED CONE OF SHAME COZY! That would rock.

A gift from me to you!

Hopefully it'll be better than a cat sweater....How about a free drawing? WOOLFEST was a WOOLBLAST! Thanks to the brave souls that went out in the cold weather. There were fun free classes (thrumming, knitting with wire, spindle spinning, continental purling, cables, etc) and lots of yummy yarns & fibers. I sold a ton and came home with some new goodies for my stash as well!

SO, let's do a couple of drawings. How about posting a comment here (the ones on the last post work too) and I'll have a random weasley-powered drawing on Sunday the 17th. I'll have a few things to give away...better pictures will come throughout the week (I'm still unpacking from Wamego). For sure, there'll be some form of yarn, a set of magnets and a couple of notecards with yarn/fiber on them, AND another pair of already knitted wrist warmers too.

I appreciate all the kind words & thoughts and also the $$ for helping me destash & etsy sale to get to pay for the laptop. I also picked up my truck from the shop today too! Shiny new engine and new belts & hoses to boot. YAY!

Phat Fiber Giveaway & WOOLFEST 2010!

WOW! Just saw that the Phat Fiber blog is doing a giveaway of one of my hand dyed sockyarns! :) It's a luscious blend of 80% extra fine superwash merino and 20% bamboo, blooms into the softest, strongest sock yarn ever! Go leave a comment and get into the drawing, but hurry. I was a slacker and JUST SAW IT!> Click TreasureGoddess giveaway on Phat Fiber Blog! or the picture above to get into the drawing!

Also, hit the road for Wamego, KS (just 20 mins from Manhattan) and join us at WOOLFEST 2010. Doesn't the name just make you want to go? I'll have a vendor table there along with some other very yummy fiber people (with tons of alpaca too I hear...) Click WOOLFEST 2010 to get details. Wamego rocks. Cool yarn/fiber shop called the Wicked Stitch, great restaurants and just off I-70. Come see us. Tell me you're a blog reader and I'll give you a cool freebie too. :)

STAY WARM PEOPLE! It's a good thing we've all got houses full of wool, now isn't it?

EDITED: Aw crap, I was too late. The giveaway yarn's already been given out. How about another giveaway from right here? I'll pick out a cool sockyarn after my show in Wamego and do a giveaway next week with comments starting on Monday. Come back & see what it'll be!