WatchME: Epi2- What a Weird Week

CraftyME: Prepping for Stitches East....

CraftyME decided to prep for Stitches by actually using some of the fiber-y goodness I acquired on my visit to Maryland Sheep & Wool Fest back in May. I mean I did kinda splurge a bit, so I should at least know if those were good purchases or not, right? They all pass the pretty test, but how are they to work with and will they make a pretty FO as well.

 Let's start with the biggest splurge, shall we?

Tess Designer Yarns MicroFiber Ribbon

Had I not purchased this yarn, I would have probably stayed pretty close to my MDS&W budget. It was a bit pricey. But I had I not purchased this yarn, I would not have been able to make the awesome-ness known as my RockStar Coachella. I loved working with this yarn. If $ were no object, I would def add this to the SE list.

Tess Designer Yarns Superwash Merino Lace

Um yeah, no. I can't say that I care for this yarn. But it has nothing to do with the quality of the yarn. I just came to a realization after trying to make the famed Citron. Me and lace weight yarn do not equal a match. It is entirely to light for my tastes. I felt like I was gonna break it the whole time. I considered adding beads to try to weigh it down a bit. But yeah, I tossed this project in the "Sure I'll finish this....one day..." basket with the quickness.

Miss Babs Yummy Superwash Sock & Baby Yarn

I like this yarn. I like the way it feels to work with it. I like the color. I don't love the color. That's the only thing. I'm not a fan of variegated yarn. I wasn't sure how this was gonna knit up, but it was so pretty in the skein. Luckily, it's not uber-pool-y like some variegates. So it gets a like. Maybe in another color-way it could get a love. Now as for this project, it's in time out. You know how I posted about life lines? Yeah, well some how one of my life lines didn't stay put like it was supposed. And it just happened to be discovered as I was finishing up the last row in a chart.  The row that as soon as I finished it, I would have been adding a lifeline into the next one. Yeah that one.  So instead of a FO we've got a TO until I feel like frogging back to the previous lifeline.

Miss Babs Windsor Handpainted Sock Yarn

I LOVE this yarn!! The color is beautiful and working with it is a dream. It's slightly heavier than the other sock yarns that I have used to knit sox. And that makes the sox just fly off my needles. Had I not taken the time to work on some other projects, I would have been finished with my Iris Ivys. I'm definitely buying some more of this stuff.

Tess Designer Yarns Super Socks & Baby

The color of this yarn is so pretty. And I have 2 skeins. I just don't know what to make with it. But in the efforts to sample, I did go ahead and wind it up. I'm torn between making the Revontuli wrap or just casting on some sox. I don't really know if this yarn is gonna be stripey, variegated, or some where in between. Hmm what to do, what to do? We'll come back to this one.

Creatively Dyed Yarn Beaches

Ugh this yarn is the bain of my existence right now!! I love the colorway. Such a pretty green. So much yardage. And I even have the project picked out for it. Well 2 projects that I can't decide between, Fizzi or Multnomah . But IDK what happened. After I wound up the Tess SuperSocks, I put this one on my swift. Very quickly it became apparent that something was amiss within the skein.

 And now I'm left with this. I spent a whole night trying to detangle and wind by hand. Dude if I didn't spend damn near $30 on this yarn, I would so be throwing it in the trash right about now. So it too is on TO until I feel like diving back into the detangling process.

As it stands right now, I will be adding Miss Babs Windsor to my must purchase list. And Tess MicroFiber ribbon will go on the splurge list. Next up we'll see what vendor list stalking will turn up. Stay tuned.

WannaME: Gearing up for Stitches East.....

Good Morning YOUs,
 What a beautiful, crisp, sunny October Saturday. I say this as I lounge in bed, with absolutely no plans to venture out there. Today will be filled with laundry, knitting, blogging, and prepping for Stitiches East 2010. I think WannaME and TouristyME may be just a tad bit over-excited about Stitches. This will be my first time attending and I can't wait. It will also be the first time in years that I will be traveling all by myself. No MOH. No MiniME. Just ME. Calgon has finally responded to my pleas and will be here in 2 weeks to take me away on a mini-vacation to be filled with yarny, fibery, goodness. Ahhhhhhhh.

 Luckily, Stitches is taking place in Hartford,CT. Have I mentioned that I am FROM CT?!?  And that all of my family is in various parts of CT?!? So yeah I get to go visit my Mommy and Sis, and cousins etc. This also means that I don't have to worry about lodging. Although Mom  & Sis live about 45 mins to an hr away, I have tons of cousins who still live right in HTFD. So if I don't feel like driving I can crash somewhere.
 
So how exactly does one prep for an event like this? Well if you are crazy like ME, that means making lists and lists and lists. Lists of where to go. Lists of what to bring. Lists of what to make. Lists of lists to make. lol. See, crazy right? No,I'm just trying to keep WannaME in check. Cause I know as soon as I get there one of two things is gonna happen. I'm either gonna want to buy like everything I see. Or I am going to get soooo overwhelmed at the amount and variety of stuff and then not know what to buy or not want to buy anything. So I am researching and researching some more.

I've been all over OCS trying to find patterns that I'm really interested in making. Reading forums, looking at O.P.P. (Other People's Projects) seeing what yarns are getting good reviews. I've stalked the Stitches website for months waiting for the vendor list to be posted. Then I'm on the vendor sites, checking out pricing and yardage. Seeing if I can just order from them online.

 Dude, I'm so hyped about this trip. By the time it gets here I am gonna be missioned out. I'm going into that convention center with a plan, man. Armed with a budget and a shopping list. And I will stick to it! WannaME will not lose her frickin mind like she did at MDS&W, where I may or may not have spent double what I brought with me to spend. No sirree Bob. Not this time!  I'm gonna put my plan out there for you all to see. And when I get back I'll compare what I got to what I said I would get. I'm issuing the challenge to WannaME...control yourself. Will she be able to?.......Stay tuned.

CraftyME: sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

Can I just say I F'LUV Sundays. More than just Sundays, I luv Football Sundays. In Casa de ME, Sundays in the fall are certified "Be a lazy bum all day long, lay on the couch, snack, watch football. ALL DAY" Well for ME, I try to get most of the chores done on Saturday and then finish up what's left bright and early Sunday morning. No sleeping in for me.  But it's so ok. Cause come 1pm I'm chillaxin til bedtime.

Do you know what this means to a Crafty person such as myself??? 8-9 hrs of basically free knitting time. yessirre bob. Of course that includes bathroom breaks, and snack breaks, and checking on MiniME, oh and a nap. But yeah I just sit and knit and watch the games. Ah that's living man, that's living.

This Sunday was devoted to knitting slouchy, cabled hats. This past week I cast on the SYTYCD hat in hopes having a cute little "I'm a lazy bum who doesn't feel like re-twisting my locs this week" hat.You know just a little something to toss on in case I went out Sat nite. Unfortunately, just because size 8 and size 6 dpns are the same color, they aren't the same size. And if you knit a hat on size 6s instead of size 8s, you end up with a cute little hat. Emphasis on the word LITTLE. Luckily, it's just small enough to fit MiniME, so she will be rocking it to school this fall.

So Sat morning I ran out to AC Moore (after doing a little bit of damage at Old Navy's $16 jacket sale) to pick up some size 10 dpns and a size 11 24" circular needle to try my hand at the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret. Just to change it up a bit. Got the ribbing done on the 10s no prob. But once I switched to the circs, things got a little dicey. The pattern says you have to magic loop for a little bit. Um hello, either I was doing something really wrong or you can't really magic loop on 24". It wasn't happening. Yeah, Sunday morning, I kindly drove all the way back to AC Moore and exchanged those circs for some dpns.

Now cableing is tricky in and of itself with that pesky little cable needle. Then toss in a set of 5 double pointed needles and it becomes a whole new ball game. 

However, I'm very happy to say it was so worth it. Cause now I have a jaunty little cap to sport on my so in-need of being re twisted locs.

 Oh by the by. Let me introduce my new hat models Violet and Blue.

 I picked up Violet for MiniME on Saturday's outing. Of course MOH took one look at it her and was like "It's like a real life Chuzzle!!!! Do they have it in Blue?!?!?" He loves that game. So Sunday I had to get one for him too. Soon they will be joined by Scarlett because now that I look at them, they are kinda really cute. WannaME wants one too. lol.

InterestME: Books

One of my first loves has basically been abandoned since I've become so obsessed with knitting, crafts, blogs, etc. Way back in the day I used to crochet and read. And way way back in the day, I used to just read. All the time. I would pick up a book and not put it down until it was done. Even if I had to stay up till all hours of the night to finish it.

Yeah, then came knitting. Anytime I have a free moment or two, I pick up the ol pointy sticks & string. Or I hop onto a computer and look at patterns to make in the future. Or I look at what other people have knit. Or I listen to people talk about what they have been knitting. Obsessed I tell you obsessed.
Several months ago WannaME decided that I was gonna become a well-read individual again. Yep. I was gonna read like there was no tomorrow. Um yeah, I'm sure we all know how that turned out. Put it this way, I couldn't even begin to tell you how long ago I started this book. It has to be about at least 6 months ago. Oh wait I when I started it, the movie hadn't come out in the movies yet. I wanted to read it before I saw it.

So I have good news and bad news. The good news: I finally finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. The bad new: it's no longer in the movies. It's not even showing on HBO anymore. Yes folks it took me THAT long to read 1 book. At least it's on Netflix. I know this because I had to keep moving it down in my queue because I was still wasn't done.

I'm gonna try this again. This time I'm starting the book while they are just now beginning to shoot the movie. I WILL finish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo before they start showing it on network t.v. I'm 15 pages in. But I did want to make a hat to match my blue jacket. And of course then I'd have to make matching fingerlings. And a matching scarf. And.... Oh hell, wish me luck. Lol

WannaME: Uh oh I've finally done it.....

Just a quick little update. WannaME has finally gone and done it. Yes folks. I've finally given into the temptation. After months and months of fighting it. WannaME just bought a drop spindle kit from ETSY.

As if CraftyME needs another craft. Now I am really gonna give spinning my own yarn a try. Hopefully all will go well and by the time Stitches East comes around in October, I can invest in some awesome fibers and a better spindle. I'll keep you posted on how this works out.

CraftyME: LIFELINES SAVE LIVES!

On to the next project guys. Next up learning to knit from a chart and to knit lace. WannaME has like 52billion wraps/shawls in the queue. But I have been hesitant to start any because those charts look SCARY. So this week I decided to bite the bullet. What better way to beat WoeISMe blues, than to tackle a challenge? So I cast on The Traveling Woman shawl.  Here goes something.

One thing that I learned, the easy way thank you Little Baby Jesus, is LIFELINES SAVE LIVES! Something told me to put one in before I started the chart. Yeah ME am so smart because I actually listened.
 

Two rows later, I missed a YO or something because I was short 2 stitches. I tried to fudge it, but by row 5 yeah it wasnt happening. I had to frog 5 rows. And had I not listened to that little voice, I would have had to pull out 5 days worth of knitting instead of just 5 rows.

 If you dont have those fancy needles w/ the little hole to thread your lifeline thread through, just take a piece of tape and wrap it around the tip of your needle. I used painter's tape because it doesnt leave the sticky residue on your needle. OK that may be a little bit of a fib, I used it cause I couldn't find the scotch tape and it was right there lol. But it didnt' leave the residue so score for being a lazy bum.

  Place one when you finish a section and know that it's right before you move on to another one. Place one after x# of rows just so that if you do make a mistake it's so much easier to fix it.

Trust me that extra 2-3mins will save you a bunch of cursing later. All you have to do is follow the little red thread to put your stitches back on the needle.

So remember friends LIFELINES SAVE LIVES! And this is coming from someone who doesnt even gauge swatch ever.

RememberME: Memory Mondays....Birthday wishes from Heaven.....

Hello My Friends.  I am happy. Really happy today. Why? Because it's my birthday and I just got the best gift EVAH!!!!! No it wasn't the new Iphone or new shoes or cake.  Nope WannaME didn't get that. lol. It was even better. Yes, a rainy dreary Monday evening made my whole day wonderful.

I was sitting here randomly clicking around the net when something told me to look outside. And when I did, I saw the most beautiful, colorful, brightest rainbow I've ever seen. And not just 1 but 2.

And in that moment, all I could feel was that my Daddy and big brother Jamie were smiling down from HEAVEN and wishing me a Happy Birthday!



And it made me smile.

And it made me want to dance barefoot in the rain.

And I felt so much love.

And it was good.

I hope you all get a chance to feel the happiness of dancing in the rain on a hot summer day, watching rainbows.

SlackerME: check-in

Ok. SlackerME checking in. It's been ages, I know. I'm sorry. I've had the best of intentions, they just got overshadowed by my extreme slackerness. I have started a couple of posts but just never got around to finishing them. And I've had ideas and themes for several others and just haven't sat down to write em up.
So now I have decided that I need to utilize my technology. Otherwise I'll never get back on track with my WannaME dreams of being a blogging podcastor extraordinaire. I am setting the new goal of sending posts from my beloved Iphone. Whenever an idea pops in my head I'm gonna just pick up my phone and type it on in. Please forgive in advance if these posts have limited pics or a few grammatical errors. I F'LUV my Iphone but it is a bit fickle from time to time. Like autocorrecting "me" to "mr". Seriously? Like I tell others, I am way more selfcentered than I am formal. :)
If I have any readers left, hell if I have any readers at all. I hope to be back up and blogging regularly really soon. If not blame it on SlackerME!!!!

TouristyME: Maryland Sheep & Wool Fesitival 2010

Once again OnlineCrackSpot has ME into something I would have never known about it. Now I'm sure my non crafty friends are thinking the same thing I was...Seriously a sheep and wool festival?!? You're gonna walk around a farm looking at sheep all day? Yeah there will be a couple of vendors selling food and handspun/ handdyed yarns. But, Really?!?

 I waffled back and forth all week on whether I should go, especially with the chance of a rainy week. Then 2 things happened to make me change my mind. First the forecast changed from showers all week to a super sunny 87 degrees. Second, a couple of my fav podcasters (see InterestME: Podcasts for links) were organizing a meet & greet. Now I don't know if you read my last posts (which you should by the way;) ) but I have been listening to podcasts pretty much nonstop lately. So there was really no good reason to miss a chance to let my inner FanGirl miss an opportunity to meet KIPing it Real's Jackie and The Knitmore Girls themselves, Jasmin & Gigi.
 So I lurked the boards on Rav and found that a LYS Rosie's Yarn Cellar was running a bus down to Maryland. TouristyME was gonna venture out on her own on another touristy adventure. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

 This little farm turned out to be a hugemongus amount of acreage. And that couple of vendors...try over 250! Oh the food! Oh the yarn!  Oh the heat! Did I mention the 87 degrees & super sunniness? Poor TouristyME was so busy trying to shuffle water bottles, maps, note-taking, and sweat wiping, that I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. But I did get to meet Jackie, Jasmin and Gigi.

I even managed to control my Fangirl-ness long enough to give Jasmin my hastily thrown together card, asking her to pleasepleaseplease check out this here little blog. I told her about my entry on them inspiring me to blog and maybe one day trying to podcast. Get this Jasmin said if I do it, to send her a promo and she'd play it on their show. How cool is that?

 Both WannaME and CraftyME were in heaven. There were so many different types and colors of yarn that I didn't really know where to begin. But trust, WannaME found a way to lose her mind and tried to put us in the poor house. I went with vendors whose names I've heard mentioned before, such as Tess' Designer Yarns, Miss Babs and Creatively Dyed Yarn.  Look at all the pretty:

I'm happy to report that I was able to calm WannaME down a bit. I just knew early in the day that I was gonna leave MDSW with a drop spindle & some roving and call myself a new spinner.

Yeah after sitting in on a mass spinning demo.... 

...eh not so much. Maybe next year.
   All in all, it was a wonderful Touristy experience. I met some awesome people, learned some new stuff, and ate some great food. It was just the perfect starter course for the fiber festival world.  Next stop Stitches East 2010, in my hometown of Hartford CT! I'm saving up now.....