A lovely weekend

While the menfolk were all outdoors working and playing the day away, I took care of getting that yarn off the curtain rod, reskeined, photographed and such. The older boys were hauling loads of muddy water out of the 4 foot deep hole in our front yard and then mixing concrete to set up for the basketball goal that Santa brought. The younger boys were snowman building, snow fort building and generally causing mayhem with much glee. (About half an hour later, the snowman's head with hat, nose, buttons, etc was found across the yard after it'd been used to launch in a snow war.

My contributions from the weekend....




I tell you, that Jaycee from Insubordiknit is awesome. She set a spark in me two years ago the first time I took a class from her and her latest class just made it worse. I love me some art yarn. I love spinning it, I love knitting with it, I love looking at it. I just love it.

I do love my own little regular bulky two ply handspun yarn too... This one's called "Be my Valentine".


I need to get another project ready for those boys so that I can have another day of spinning!

PS, the girl child apparently was having her own special day. Just found out via FACEBOOK that she's now got a boyfriend, hanging at the mall with her friends. cripes almighty. I know people have survived having daughters. I've seen it. I'm just not sure I'm strong enough. Good thing there's plenty of fiber and plenty of beer. I'm gonna need them both.

Amazing, indeed!

Have you heard about it? Seen it? SQUOOSHED it? Amazing Yarn by Lion Brand. 53% wool, 47% acrylic. Looks an awful lot like Noro Kureyon, but is SOFT and so far, no little knots with strange non-related colorways stuck in the middle. 147 yards/skein, beautiful colors, soft & fluffy and would be amazing next to the skin. I'm not a big fan of craft store yarns for knitted projects. I know it. BUT I happen to now have 6 skeins of this stuff in the cedar chest with my favorite yarns. Crazy.

I see so much potential in this yarn. And I think I'd better start printing off those 40% off coupons I get by email too!

WOO HOO for SMOKERS!

Seriously. Smokers saved my ass this weekend. I spent the weekend in Harveyville, KS, the home of Yarn School! for an art yarn spinning workshop put on by the amazing Insubordiknit Jaycee! I took her first workshop, Sit and Spin a couple years back and loved it. LOVE LOVE LOVED it. The workshop for 2011 is Softcore & Hardcore. I'm a fan of both. It always amazes me that I not only learned techniques for creating art yarns, but little tips that improve my "regular spinning" skills as well. It was a blast. AND it was at Harveyville. With Nikol's cooking, atmosphere and amazing creative people. I love that place.

Through the whole weekend I took ONE photo. That's it. I was too busy spinning, petting fibers, laughing, EATING, sleeping, relaxing, and....um....getting locked out in the snow in the morning when I was half nekkid. Yup. It was before 8am Sat morning. I had to run out to the van to find a charger & extension cord. No biggie. I put a robe on over my nightgown, slipped on some slippers, grabbed the keys and stuck my phone in the pocket of the robe and ran outside. Got the cords, went back to the door. damn. Locked. 8am. In a robe. NO SOCKS. SLIPPERS. In the snow. cripes almighty.

I wasn't concerned. I banged on the door. A lot. Loudly. Of course this is the FAR door. Everyone's either downstairs eating breakfast or already spinning. More door banging. Still not worried. I was smart enough to have my phone with me. I called Teri & I called Chelle (the fiber girls I drove out with). Nope. No answer. No phone coverage in the basement. Getting a bit cold now. Slightly concerned. Went slipping through the snow to the van. Foot slipped out of the slipper INTO the snow. cripes. Sat in the van, cursing the fact that I don't have internet access on my stupid phone and can't look up the phone number for Yarn School. Slippered my way back to the door and more banging. Starting to FREAK OUT by now. Figured Nikol would have to feed the sheep at some point in the day, so went through the snow in my cold, wet slippers around the school towards the sheep pen. Made it to the front door and saw a little steam rising from the ash can outside the front door. WOO HOO for the smokers! They had the front door unlocked from someone getting that nicotine hit to start the day. YAY!

20 minutes later I was wearing warm socks, CLOTHING and back down amongst the spinners. I have to say I was freaking out a bit, thinking how insane it would be to be stuck OUTSIDE while my spinning class was going on INSIDE without me! I *heart* the smokers. :)

What is it about Yarn School that turns me into a total idiot? Is it just an overload of fiber to the brain? I do have to say, I packed PLENTY of underwear. We don't want a repeat of the Yarn School, Commando Style. I was prepared. I was just an idiot. It's like being around that much creativity just short circuits my brain. I may have been drooling occasionally as well, but I'm calling that the effects of the recent dental surgery.



A photo from my dining room this morning. Lots of goodies from the weekend drying. Curtains are for people with more money than me the unimaginative.

Thank God for 4 wheel drive, GPS's and mohair!

KC had another snowstorm hit yesterday afternoon. No biggie, right? It was a beautiful snow, falling straight down with the sun still slightly shining. I headed out for my drive home, which usually takes me 5 minutes with traffic. I sat in a long line of cars waiting to get out of the business park. I sat there. Patiently. Sat. Sat for about 20 minutes, then decided that since the highways were at a full stop and 90% of those ahead of me were surely trying to get onto those very highways I'd do the smart thing. I'd turn around and try the other way out of the compound. I edged forward, went over a small curb and headed the other way. A few trucks followed. No biggie.

Made it out of the office park and turned onto a main road that had a titch of a hill on it. Let's just say it took me another 40 minutes to make it half-way up that hill and ALMOST to the first turn-off into this strange little neighborhood full of hills & windy roads and almost no outlest. ALMOST. As in 3 lanes were blocked with various wrecks, stalled cars and cars spun out and stuck. There was ONE LANE left. The far right lane. That I was in. I just needed ONE MORE CAR to move forward a bit so I could turn off and wind my way past the crazies and make forward motion. Did I say that 30 of those 40 minutes were sitting at a dead SIT while the car ahead of me had 3 carlengths open ahead of her? BLOCKING my way off that road and out of the craziness? And that I was a bit low on gas? And that there was NO EMERGENCY KNITTING in the vehicle with me?

I very nicely got out of my truck, walked up to the car and tapped on her window. I asked her, nicely, if she'd mind moving up just a bit so I could get around her, PLEASE? She said no and rolled up her window. I stood there a minute. I knocked again and she sat there holding her steering wheel and not looking at me. I knocked louder. I began knocking and not stopping. Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knocking. and smiling. I'm a nice person, damnit. Finally she cracked the window and stated that she NEEDED that room to be able to get a running start at the rest of the hill. Of course by this time the REST OF THE WORLD was getting around us and blocking her running area from getting around the other wrecked & spun out cars, but I was blocked from that line by a van sitting sideways spinning its wheels.

I looked down to pull off my shoe (to beat it on her window in pure frustration and a titch of road rage) but alas. I was wearing my comfy wooly slipper shoes and a fluffy mohair sweater. The sweater's pattern name is SERENITY for cripes sake. Sweet mother mohair! I patted the mohair. It actually calmed me instantly. I realized I am a Knitter. I am a Spinner. I CREATE things. I wrangle mere fiber into string and that string into garments. I am all powerful. I am WEARING MOHAIR. I may or may not have roared.

I calmly walked back to my truck. I pushed the button to pull in my side mirrors. I revved up the engine. I went up over the curb, between the fire hydrant and the rather large wooden fence. I drove along the snow buried sidewalk and waved with ALL FIVE FINGERS (see how nice I am?) at the woman who was making me insane. I smiled. I drove up that hill on the sidewalk with maybe 4 inches of clearance between the truck and the fence. That sidewalk area was mounded with snow cleared from the last snowstorm we had, so my truck had some serious 4WD work getting up and around without flattening the fence. I turned onto the road, used my GPS and made it through the strange little neighborhood with ONE OUTLET and was on my happy way home. At least 4 other trucks followed suit. Although I'm pretty sure the one behind me only used one finger when waving at our friend.

The world is a safer place because I knit. I truly believe there would be less road rage if more people wore mohair. Happy goats, happy drivers.

PS, the destash is still going on. A bunch of yarn is on its way to new homes, but there's still a bit left. Click TreasureGoddess Destash to see if there's anything left that wants to come live in your stash!

Do you a Stash Will Document?

I ended the year by spending Dec 30, 2010 on an oral surgeon's chair for 9 hours. NINE HOURS. I was getting my hillbilly mouth all fixed up. Did EVERYTHING. All at once, rather than spread the pain throughout a series of appointments. I'd cracked quite a few teeth in the big wreck (in Jan 2010) and since we were doing so much structural work anyway, decided to go on and pretty up the rest of the smile while we were at it. It wasn't pleasant and I'm still living on soup, applesauce and hershey's chocolate syrup. (not at the same time). I did "conscious sedation" which I highly recommend for any dental phobic people like me!

Just like for any medical procedure where you are sedated, you have to sign off on paperwork saying you won't sue them if you die. (or I guess your family wouldn't sue them, since you'd be dead, huh?). Being the mildly dramatic person that I am, of course I centered in on that and decided that I had a 50% chance of dropping dead in the dental chair. I can't help it. It's who I am. It's what I do. I'm so freaking pollyanna happy sunshine 99% of my life and the other 1% is all death, darkness and decay.

I have a good setup for my financial will, plans established for my children, my soul's in pretty good shape, but then I realized. The stash. THE STASH! I had a little hand written note buried in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed with a note to Jeff to call my knitter friends for them to decide what to do with the stash (probably from the last time I was 50% sure I was going to die back when I had a non-cancerous breast lump removed a few years back.) A note's a fine start, but that's not gonna do it.

You've heard the horror stories, a Knitter dies, her family doesn't understand and somehow THOUSANDS of dollars worth of yarn are unceremonially shoved into trash bags and sold in a garage sale or estate sale for $5. Of course I never happen to FIND these deals, but I've HEARD of them. We have a local knitter in our guild that's in poor health. When she took a turn for the worse a few years ago, her husband BURNED her yarn. BURNED it. Then she GOT BETTER! Could you imagine? Literally gone up in smoke. (As we know, wool doesn't burn, it smolders. BUT if you have a big enough bonfire you can pretty much get rid of anything. I imagine he had some resentment issues against the yarn. Boggles the mind!)

I've invested WAY too much money on WAY too much yarn over the years to let it end up in a trash bag for $5. I'm working on a detailed list of contacts and instructions. Things like distributing the sockyarn to my local knitters to knit enough socks for my kids that they could wear them as they grow up, ending with pairs in adult sizes for each of them. Having a yarn sale with proceeds going to a fund for the kids' college fund. Which yarn gets donated to local retirement homes. Which yarn needs to be knit up into Picc Line Covers for CF kids. Which treasured yarn needs to be given to knitting friends locally and in blogland as rememberences of our friendship and yarny adventures we've had. What goodies to send to my cousin that now KNITS! The list goes on and on.

In creating this list, I also realized that there was no humanly way possible to distribute and organize this monster stash even if I DID drop dead on the dental chair and I DID have a nice organized Stash Will Document (SWD) saved in our fireproof safe. How would anyone know to look in the 42 different places for my yarn? How would any non-knitter know what was sockyarn and what was the treasured yarn and what was the crap yarn?

We moved into our new house in October and I've now got ROOM for STORAGE! My goal is to get the stash under control. Not only for when I drop dead, but for my own personal knitting pleasure! I'm not much of a resolution maker. Not only do I almost never follow through to complete them, I usually don't even get them MADE to later not complete. Ah well. Maybe this year will be different. In 2011 I'm going to GET THE STASH UNDER CONTROL.

* FIND the ENTIRE stash
* ORGANIZE the stash by type of yarn
* CULL the stash -- destash coming soon!
* Create & keep the SWD current and saved with the rest of our important documents
* Knit to my heart's content

What does this mean for you? A SUPER DESTASH IS COMING!!! WOO HOO!!! As I organize I need to realize that my tastes in knitting have truly changed from the beginning of my knitting days. I need to decide what I will actually knit and what won't and let that yarn go to someone else's stash to be knit instead of crammed into a ziplock bag.

A note to all of you that made not buying yarn a resolution. Were you aware that helping another knitter DESTASH DOESN'T COUNT? It's true. I promise. You ARE Knitting from the Stash. You're just knitting down another knitter's stash. See? Makes perfect sense. DESTASH DOESN'T COUNT!

Think of adding a SWD to your list of things to do in 2011.

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.

My Molly Weasley Scarf

It rocked. There's nothing better than going to a midnight Harry Potter movie with good friends, knitting the night away. What? There were two women "of that age" snorting inappropriately in laughter while waiting for the movie to start? What? FORGETICUS! BIG TIME FORGETICUS! Michief Managed. --I do know the actual spell is Obliviate, no worries!--

I do love Molly Weasley. Dearly Dearly love her. You know, redheads named Molly rock! I'm priviledged to resemble either Molly Ringwald or Molly Weasley, and actually have more in common with the mother of the clan of redheads where small explosions and off-kilter inventions are a daily way of life.



My most favorite yarn deserves to be knit into my most favorite pattern. "I love this cotton!" given to me by my youngest Weasley boy for mother's day. I thought this yarn that was picked out, purchased and hand wrapped by my son deserved to be knit into something to be worn and loved. I was making the mistake of having it sit by my bedside table, being admired. Looked at. Then, on our Weasley Weekend (my two redheaded kiddo's and I watched Harry Potter movies #3-5 all day long on Sunday) I pulled out that yarn and a size 10.5 circular needle and cast on. Joey was so proud of his yarn being knit. I now realize I have the perfect pattern for this perfect yarn!

The way these crazy colors are working into this fluttery lacy scarf, it looks like something that would be right at home around Molly Weasley's neck for sure. It suits her style, and apparently that of my own as well as I am absolutely loving it. I'm using the same stitch count and pattern as I used to make all FIVE of my sockyarn feather & fan scarves (I knit two of the red ones shown below), but with a larger needle. Want to make one with me?


Pick up a skein of sockyarn and size 8 needles or a couple skeins of worsted weight yarn (I'm guessing about 300 yards) and a size 10.5 needles.

Cast on 36 stitches LOOSLEY (use a larger needle if necessary)

Knit 6 rows or 3 ridges in garter stitch (knit every row for 6 rows)

Row 1: K2tog 3 times, [YO, K1] 6 times, K2tog 6 times, [YO, K1] 6 times, K2 tog 3 times.
Row2-4: Knit across

Repeat rows 1-4 until you're close to the end of your yarn. End with 6 rows of knitting (3 garter stitch ridges) after the last Row 1 of the pattern.

Bind off LOOSELY.
Block lightly and WEAR in a true Molly Weasley style, with many colors mixing together, and ends fluttering about. Hug your children and their friends, cook a lot of food, whoop up on death eaters that threaten your family.



The original pattern I used to make my first feather & fan scarf is the Old Shale Scarf from Tiennie, who I just adore. She said a while back to go ahead and print my version of the pattern. I just changed stitch count and not much else, but I've had lots of requests for the numbers I use, so knock yourself out. I'm just trying to make it through the day without falling asleep and then plan to finish my Molly Weasley Scarf over the weekend!

Molly Ringwald

I'm casting on for a new sweater. I'm going to knit this.
Molly Ringwald

Then I will dance about like this.

And then I'm sure my teenaged dream will come true. Hollywood will realize that they really and truly DO need a double for Molly and they'll call me. Because I rock like that and because I still occasionally dance like that too. The fact that it mortifies my children is just a bonus.

I'm pretty clumsy, so a stunt double is out of the question, but if they need a Molly Look-a-Like that KNITS because you KNOW that the next big uber movie for the brat pack will feature a perky, quirky slightly pouty redhead with fabulous taste in hand knitted accessories. Hollywood NEEDS me. They just haven't figured that part out yet, but I'm patient. I'm a knitter. I have things to do while I wait.

I may have enough of this handspun silk to make the sweater, otherwise I'll have to go shopping!





See? We were freaking TWINS. No, we didn't just have red hair, freckles and big toothy grins, we were TWINS.

***GASP*** I just lost the uber cool link for the dance medly on youtube and now have to find it again and it doesn't show up in my history. *sigh* There will be a uber cool link soon.

The link is fixed. Click HERE and dance about like you're an 80's girl again. You know you wanna.

Third Verse...same as the First!

I had no idea when I was a Violent Femmes fan in the 1980's that they were such a wise band. Now, looking back, I realize that not only were they wise before their time, but they also MUST have been singing about KNITTING!

You know those times when you're sitting amdist a CRAP TON of yarn and have no idea of what you could possibly knit? You feel pure angst and the need to knit but just have no knitting mojo what-so-ever? How could one person have SO much yarn and not want to knit ANY of it? This happened a few days back and I swear when the song "Prove My Love" came on my ipod, it all just clicked.

Just last night
I was reminded of
just how bad
it had gotten and
just how sick
I had become.

Then a glimpse of an old project formerly gone bad sparks a little glimmer of knitterly hope. For me, it was the Serenity Sweater. Does anyone remember the two sleeves I knit for it? I thought to myself, THIS time it could be different. I could knit this lovely sweater out of my true love mohair.

but it could change
with this relationship
de-de range
we've all been thru some shit
and if it were a thing
I think this thing's begun

Yup, I decided I WAS going to knit that sweater. I was going to do it and it WOULD work. But first, an appeal to the Knitting Gods that the shxt that made me crazy last time around on this project doesn't come back to bit me in the arse again.

Tell me now
what do I have to do
to prove my love to you

Seriously Knitting Gods, do I need to sacrifice something else? I've already knit an entirely extra sleeve for this thing. Because yes, I was an idiot and no, never thought to compare the thing to the original sleeve BEFORE I completed the entire thing. Yes, it's also knit out of mohair, lovely, floaty, hairy, almost impossible to frog mohair. Surely the gods would be happy with just one extra sleeve, right? That's a pretty damn big sacrifice I'd say.

I'd do anything
I'd do it all
I'd climb a mountain
I'd cross the ocean
I'd knit an entire extra sleeve just to satisfy your sick needs of sacrificial fiber... (wait, that's not in the original song, is it?)
I'd do it all
to prove my love for you

So I did it. I got out the mohair. I cast on with the SAME double pointed needles I'd used on the first non-freakishly large sleeve and knit. and knit. and knit. And THIS TIME I compared the sleeve to it's partner after about a 1/3 of the way.....

And my very favorite part of the song? When they say
Third verse, same as the first


See? Oh baby. I'm back to love love loving my knitting again! And I'm totally bouncing around in pure 80's style singing that song in my head. I did draw the line at going back to my blue eyeshadow days of yore, but just barely. Man, bright blue eyeshadow would totally rock that purple mohair sweater look, wouldn't it?

Creative Hand sale in KC!

Friday, Nov 19th from 4-9 and Sat, Nov 20th 10-5
Click either the photo or the map to get to the Creative Hand website.

OH this is a fabulous sale! There are some seriously talented artists out in the KC area! Come for the fasion show Friday night at 7pm! Shawls, hats, mittens, dish towels, capes, felted soaps, note cards, patterns, HANDSPUN YARN!, fiber, HAND DYED YARN!, more patterns, toys, stockings, holiday gifts, silk hand dyed scarves, you name it, it's THERE! I'll have some patterns, handspun yarn, art yarn, hats and cowls for sale amidst the rest of the glorious stuff. I was blown away last year at the sale and instantly signed up for the fiber guild.

Cool article in a local paper about the upcoming sale! Creative Hand Sale article with neat descriptions

What the hell is a Hackle? And WHY don't I have one yet???

As I was reading the Yarn Harlot's latest blog post, I saw she took a cool class on combining fiber using combs and hackles. I have been busting my arse trying to combine fiber with some lovely borrowed hand carders, which is a HELL of a workout, let me tell you. AND it makes these itty bitty rolags (cigar shaped tubes of fiber) which are cute, but I think a royal pain in the butt to spin. Ok, the spinning isn't hard, it's the creating ENOUGH of the little buggars to have anything worth while spinning. If I were a laceweight spinner, that'd probably not be an issue, but I like dk weight, sport weight, worsted, chunky and UBER chunky weight yarn.

I remember distintcly learning to blend fiber with combs at yarn school. I also remember almost impaling myself and how no one would get too close when I was working the fiber through these Freddy Kruger implements of destruction. Though I loved the results, I knew that I'd kill myself of someone near me (or both) and I'm quite fond of having all four children, my husband and myself with all our fingers and various body parts intact. I must have forced myself to totally forget about the existence of these things, which are basically small pieces of wood with very long, very sharp metal implements sticking out of them that blend fiber for spinning.

After googling, I realized that a hackle is basically a giant long comb, but you attach it to a table or counter and blend enough fiber that you can then pull through a diz (thing with a hole in the middle like a button) and create actual spinnable fiber!! Click the photo below to go to a gorgeous etsy shop full of hand crafted fiber tools that I would LOVE to own....


Now, after coming to the realization that yes, I have a crap ton of fiber that's just begging me to blend it into new creations and spin into amazing artyarn but we all know that at some point I'd be impaled upon these tools I almost gave up.

God Bless YOUTUBE! After watching tons of very creative and not-at-all-clumsy people create amazing spinning fiber with these sharp metal and wood creations I hit upon the ultimate Hackle for me!
Yarn Zombie's DIY Hackle V 3.0 using plastic picks. Here's the videos that have inspired me. I know what I want the husband to make me for my birthday!!!!





More DIY Hackle Tutorials:
DIY Hackle from All things Shea

Aran Brew's homemade Hackle