Dead fish, sockyarn and a cashmere cowl

In anyone else's vehicle, that'd be a strange combination. In mine, it's just another day.

My husband, the outdoorsman, got a Happy Crappie Christmas this year! This is the shot after I returned home from the Craigslist exchange. I found a taxidermist online, that happened to have two mounted crappie's (pronounced "croppies" for the non-fisherpeople out there), fish we often pull out of the Lake of the Ozarks. I had to drive about 45 minutes to meet the wife of the fish mounter, hence the sockyarn for the sitting & waiting in the parking lot. The cashmere cowl? Well, these fish are actually just fish SKINS (and eyeballs) and are unbelievably delicate. The slightest bump means broken fins, etc. The cowl was the only thing I could find to cushion the fish from bumping into each other on the ride home.

I know it. I shuddered too when I thought about it. Then I realized that I spend most of my life with goat & sheep hair rubbing up against my face and loving every minute of it. The cowl is handspun from Spunky Eclectic fiber, a 80/20 blend of merino and cashmere, knit into the ZOMG Cowl pattern. Still my favorite handspun yarn and favorite knitting pattern ever. It's funny how you can say things like mmmmmm cashmere mmmmmmm merino mmmmmmmm alpaca mmmmmmm mohair..... and not think of them as the outside layer of smelly critters. Oh. Now I can. Sorry about that.

Merry Christmas from our Kin to Your'n

Merry, Merry, Happy, Happy and all that! Hope you've got plenty of good vittles in the pot and a little homebrew to wash it down with. We'll be celebrating our first Christmas in the new house!

My holiday weekend may not be filled with much knitting. I woke up the other morning with SO MUCH PAIN in my right shoulder. I've either got a knitting related injury or I was abducted by aliens in the night to do manual labor. I'm thinking it must be aliens as my husband woke up the SAME MORNING with his RIGHT collarbone area hurting. Each night I go to bed and it's just a light ache, I wake up with it on FIRE with PAIN. Aliens. Gotta be.

May any travels you do be in a time warp where it feels like no time has passed while massive knitting is done, may you have good weather, safe roads, good food, good company and may the aliens leave you alone.

New Ennea Collective is out! Late Fall -- Deep Sea

The Late Fall issue of the Ennea Collective is out! Click the logo above to go check it out! Very cool fingerless mitts and a sweater have been added to my queue! They've got some great FREE articles on spinning as well as awesome knitting patterns for a small fee. I'm a big fan.

Dialog in my office building's elevator today...

--strange looks being given to me I noticed because the walls of the elevator are like a fuzzy mirror--
ME: Um, it's a legwarmer.
Office Elevator Rider #1: Of course it is.
Me: 'Cause it's Christmas, you know?
Office Elevator Rider #2: Of course it is.

I snapped a shot of myself as I walked out of the building towards the nice patch of snow behind a truck at the end of the parking lot to see why I got the strange looks. I try to get maximum blockage between me & the 6 floor office building built out of SOLID WINDOWS for any yarn related photo shoot. Damn. CYG strikes again. LOOK AWAY from the bad hair. It was a photoshoot for the other end of me. My family's christmas party is TONIGHT. I've not got the luxury of doing my hair or having someone model the legwarmers and THEN take photos. These could have HYPOTHETICALLY been just completed minutes ago during a conference call. hypothetically.

Introducing......Aunt Angie's Legwarmers!

See? They're Legwarmers. OF COURSE THEY ARE! It's just hard to tell when they're fitted over a paper towels roll instead of on actual LEGS. More action shots from the coffee break photo shoot...






Project was knitted out of less than one skein of sockyarn. I used Mountain Colors Crazyfoot which I LOOOOVVVVEEEEE! I'll be writing up the pattern for sale on ravelry and etsy, but think I'll be offering it free to anyone that would sign up for a newsletter here from the blog, what do you think? I'd be nice and not spam or send stuff very often (heck, I barely even post on a regular basis). I'd include patterns, cyg stories or recipes once in a while from the world of TreasureGoddess. I'll also offer the pattern free to any blog readers because you guys rock. REALLY REALLY rock. Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and may all your holiday knitting be done and you STILL get to sleep at some point! (we can dream, right?)

** I just realized someone may wonder WHY on EARTH I'd put my legwarmer onto a paper towel roll. Well, after I FELL OVER after trying to balance on one foot with my butt up in the air, that crazy bad hair day hair getting in my face and holding my arm at a strange angle to get a close up of the legwarmer ON the leg to show the stitch pattern, I went back upstairs to the office to find something to model the legwarmer. Why don't offices have bottles of wine in them? That would've worked awesome! It was pretty much business as usual for my photoshoots.

Could you imagine being Anne of KnitSpot? Having a creative photographic husband doing lovely photo shoots in your beautiful garden or in your rustic home while the sun shines "just so" on your lovely lace wrist cuffs, shawls, hats, etc? A photoshoot where you neither fall on your HEAD or your ARSE and actually have hundreds of photos to choose from? Where you don't have to cram these shoots in on a coffee break in the parking lot of your office building because that's the only time the light is right when you're slaving away like a corporate drone? *sigh* Yeah, I'm sure I'd get bored with all that. Ah well! Until then, it's CYG Photo shoots or nothing!

PS--Aunt Angie's legwarmers are designed with just enough shaping to allow you to wear them 80's style all scrunched down on top of your jeans or sneaky-style under pants or skirts and stay up well to keep you warm!

What can you do with holey socks?

The very first thing you can do is DARN them! There's lots of tutorials on how to do this, so I'll just leave a few links below. I'm not fancy schmancy about it, I just thread a darning needle with some sock yarn that may or may not match the socks in question and weave back and forth until I've created a little fabric to cover the hole.

What do you do when you've darned and darned and DARN IT the whole foot of the sock is too weak to darn any more? Do you throw them out? NO! DON'T DO IT! There's lots you can still do! I've got at least 4 ideas to share here. If you've got more ideas, please leave a comment to share too!

DARN-IT! TreasureGoddess Tutorial--How to knit a new foot for your sock!
Did you knit the Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern for replacable sock feet? Good for you. You don't need this tutorial at all. Go off and feel smug in your preparedness and leave the rest of us alone.

This tutorial is actually designed for socks knit top-down, but would also work for toe-uppers. You may have a little ridge at the join if your sock was knit toe-up.

Step 1: Pick the yarn for your new footed socks. I picked a yarn that would stand out for ease of the tutorial (and because these socks are so old that I've not got the original yarn anymore anyway). You can pick something that coordinates or go for a contrast for shock value. Whatever floats your boat. or rocks your socks.


Step 2: Make the snip. Snip ONE STITCH just above where your holes or weak spots are. If it's just the toes, snip right before that area. These socks have entire week bottoms, heels, toes, etc, so I'm gonna snip just where the heel flap begins after the cuff. Because I never really close that little eyelet left from my turned heel, I started there.


Step 3: Use a knitting needle to work that snipped yarn through all the way around the foot, separating the good part from the holey part.


Step 4: Put loose stitches from cuff onto double pointed needles.


Step 5: Knit yourself a new foot for your socks (or new toes if you only had to reknit that part).


Step 6: Parade about in your NEW non-holey socks! Impress your friends, bore your family, tell everyone you know about your resourcefulness and sock knitting prowess.

I've not finished my new/old pair of socks yet so I'll post that photo with next week's super cool thing to do with holey socks tip!

Darning Links:
Darning Tutorial from Knitty
ehow to darn socks
Youtube Darning Socks video

Why you need to knit 3 sleeves too!

The Serenity mohair sweater is COMPLETED!

Details: Pattern by Sarah Famer (purchased for $5 on ravelry)
Yarn: Kidsilk Haze in a lovely lavender bought for almost nothing at the guild's swap & shop from my dear friend Chelle!
Sleeves: 3, because I'm an idiot. But a GENIUS idiot. Because I ended up with....drumroll please.......

A matching Serenity slouchy hat!

See? Doesn't it look like it was planned? Like I totally MEANT to knit myself a matching hat? And not at all like I was a total idiot and knitted one sleeve on dpns and one sleeve on a circular needle to make one 3-4 inches larger than the other, so I had to knit a 3rd sleeve on dpns. RIGHT? TOTALLY PLANNED.



You know, for a woman that hates knitting sleeves, I'm thinking this was a pretty damn cool idea. I may just have to knit myself a 3rd sleeve with a few extra stitches for all my sweaters! I have to say, it rocks. It really, really does.