The agony of defeat...

Okay, it may not be that drastic -- but I am feeling very sorry for myself right now and overly dramatic. My lace scarf has to wait at least another week to be finished!! AND IT IS MAKING ME CRAZY! I was told that it was 52 yards for a 72 row repeat, so I doubled up the yarn because I wanted it to be a little warmer - the math would say that would equal 104 yards per repeat - I should be able to do 9 repeats (936 yards) and still have enough for the end borders - but noooooo! After repeat number 7, I don't even have enough to finish the border. The scarf is a little short for how I wear my scarves, so now I will go up to 9 repeats then finish, since the yarn that I used comes ONLY in 1000 yard cones-I did call, they have one left, I can only hope it is the correct dye lot! I went to my LYS and the new woman who was working there said that she had had the same experience with a different pattern by the same woman - so I felt less bad, but I usually knit right on gauge and never run out of yarn. And I checked my gauge and I was right on with this scarf. But I really wanted to be done before the new year -- very sad. On the good side, the scarf is turning out beautifully! When I have a chance I will add a photo. Now I have to find a new project to work on through the Nebraska bowl game tomorrow... I supposed I could wind my possom and start with the scarf that I have slated for the single skein....which I am not sure that I know the yardage of....and they did not reply from my web inquiry to the company....very sad and dramatic.....enough rants.....

6 weird things meme

I got tagged by Jana from Exile in Knitville so here it goes....

1. I am more comfortable wearing 12 pieces of clothing then two. If I can wear two sweaters a t-shirt, leggings, a skirt, scarf, and outerwear, it is a good day. Even when it is warm, I am trying to figure out how to get my layers on. The more clothing, the happier I am. Clothing is like art. So yes, I love it when its cold!!

2. My name is spelled Sunne and pronounced SUN. I will correct you twice, then you can call me whatever you please and I will no longer correct you. My biggest pet peve is when someone calls me by the right name for quite a while, then sees it spelled and changes the way they say it. I know where I know people from by the way they (mis) pronounce my name.

3. I used to be a professional bike racer and I get really tired of people asking me if I still ride my bike. My husband laughs that out of the plethora of bikes that I own, the only one that gets any love is my pink fat tire cruiser (which he decorated the basket of for our anniversary last year).

4. I consider the art on my walls to be my friends (in addition to my real human friends). When my husband suggests that we put some in storage and rotate the art, it makes me want to hyperventalate. We have art in every room, every where. On that same note, all the art in our house is original - no posters. It may not be great or expensive, but it was all made by a person who felt something while they were creating it.

5. I own a clothing store and I hate fashion shows. I would rather go to the dentist then sit through a fashion show -- I mean really, who looks like that? who wears clothes like that? The ones I would want to see in NY would be more for the art then the clothes. I would rather walk through New York and LA for my fashion cues.

6. I live in a city that has 300 days of sunshine a year and I miss Seattle and the rain. (OK, that could reference back to #1)

I am tagging jules, jennifer, knitxcore, jess, metal and knit and pins and needles to continue the meme........write a posting on 6 weird things about you and tag 6 more people....actually it was pretty fun, and mr sunneshine got to tease me that I would have to pair down the list -- we went to dinner last night and I called someone a character, to which my hostess said (all in good nature) that says alot coming from you -- so apparently I am one too . . . .hehehe

more snow, more snow angels

sooooooo, its snowing here again!! we had a surprise 40th birthday party last night and this is what it looked like - 6+ inches of snow, when we got home. It has been snowing for most of the day and we are supposed to get another 10+ inches tonight. I could be a weather forcaster now!! Pretty, yes! Old, yes! I am ready to have the streets dry out and the ice melt!! Denver usually doesn't get this much snow!!
Off to walk home in the snow and try to get through the 6th lace repeat on my scarf! If it is going to keep snowing, I want to be able to wear my pretty scarf!!

I got possum!

My husband used to work in Antarctica - which sounds way more glamourous then it really is - but the best part of the job is that you deploy through Christchurch, New Zealand and on the back side of your season, you get travel time. So I met my husband in NZ one year (and we got engaged there). One of the native things to buy there is sweaters made of possum and merino - They are super soft, warm and the possum is supposed to make the merino more dense. So this year, I asked for some possum yarn. I have not been able to find it in the states. My very sweet hubby, called a friend in NZ and had him purchase and send the yarn. I am so excited to
try knitting with it! I got three 100g hanks in one colorway and one in a different colorway. Now I am just trying to figure out how much yarn I have. For an 8 ply - it is sport weight at the thickest and there is no yardage at all. I am going to wind the lone skein tonight and see if I can get a feel for it - if you have any good conversions, please let me know! It is so pretty!! and soft!!

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all health, peace, prosperity and a joy filled 2007!!
And a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!

digging out - the last installment

So today the sun is shinning and the snow is beginning to melt. There are mounds of snow everywhere - this is the view out the front door of my work - the mounds are almost as tall as the cars - I am sure the front end loaders will be here soon to scoop it away! It really is pretty, though . . .

So while I did not get the second lace repeat finished, I did get a bunch of work done on my hush, hush dress and I
finished these hats. The little one is for our neighbor who just had a little girl and the big one is for me out of some bulky handspun that is made here locally. I only had 88 yards, plus it was a little scratchy, so I combined it with some beautiful alpaca with a twist bulky and whipped this sucker up on a set of 15s in just over an hour. It is heavy and warm and the alpaca definately took a lot of the scratch out - plus it is kinda big for me, so that helps too! So my hat is now called the blizzard of '06 hat!

We are off to pick my dad up tonight - I am hearing airport horror stories - so wish us luck!
Have a great couple days!! Hopefully, I will be too busy to post till Sunday evening . . .

digging out - p3

And here we have little Jim, modeling his blue alpaca hat while shoveling out the neighbors house. It was supposed to
be a christmas hat - but I just couldn't wait to give it to him!! And here is mr. sunneshine again digging out a path to the back gate and the carriage house - although our tenant back there is (hopefully) in Guatemala for the holidays with his family.
Then we had the cone-head plant pot - which for some reason after lots of shoveling gave us both the giggles!
And how pretty is this drift off the carriage house roof!

digging out - p2

So here we have my favorite matching snow men waving at
each other across the street - so cute! And how much fun did those snow people have!!
Then back on my car tirade - do you really think that this Geo Metro is making it far when the other side of the street looks like this (see next photo) shortly before I took this picture, I got the honor of helping to push this car back into its space
because it couldn't even make it thirty feet without highsiding - once again - not every car is meant for snow driving - no matter how pretty the car looks driving in the snow in a tv commercial!! Breath...breath...
So after all that car pushing and lecturing - I needed a little fun time!! So here I am making snow angels - we have this one on our front lawn - several of our neighbors have them, courtsey of me, too! It was great to fall back in the snow and know it wouldn't hurt!! The finished snow angel is a little hard to see - white on white is not my little point and click's specialty!!

digging out!

We walked the almost three miles to the store yesterday - mostly because mr. sunneshine had ants in his pants and
could not longer be indoors! So much for finishing that second lace repeat - our little walk turned into almost five hours outside, walking , shoveling, playing and pushing dumbsh@ts in their little cars (just because it has front wheel/all wheel/four wheel drive does not mean that in almost 30" of snow you should be driving - nothing is open - grow a brain!!) Here is what the store looked like - snowy and sad.
Then we have mr. sunneshine with a rarely captured smile (its not that he doesn't smile, he just doesn't for the camera) and below we have a more characteristic pose ;-)
Then there is mr. sunneshine's christmas wreath looking very snowy and holiday happy! Finally, we have one of the neighbors
who was digging out and his dog was loving it! While we
were digging out the photographer from the Denver Post came by and shot photos for about a half hour - reminds me that I need to get one of those and see if we made it in the paper!

still going . . .

26 inches on the ground and still snowing!! it looks like the store will be closed again - Cherry Creek Mall is closed, so I am feeling a little less bad about that - I am getting the second lace repeat done, then its outside to make now angels and shovel the walks again!

still snowing.......

So, I still don't have my camera which is a bummer since the blowing snow is sticking to the windows just right and it looks beautiful!! It looks like something out of the movies -- all the corners are white, the windows a little foggy and it is still coming down hard and sideways in the wind. We have the lights on, on the tree - so Christmas-y!! Will take pix tomorrow... I worked for several hours on ShannonAnn's pattern, then frogged it all - worked on a hat for a bit and frogged that too - finally settled on the hush hush dress I have been working on forever - 20 more rows into the body - and I am excited about it again! Back to a quiet house with a sleeping husband and lots of snow falling . . .

BLIZZARD!!

I left my camera at work - and can't get there - or you would be seeing seeing photos of the 6+ inches of snow that we have in Denver already!! It has been snowing for maybe 6 hours and is still falling like crazy. I drove to Boulder with my hubby this morning - it took almost 3 hours round trip (on a normal day its more like an hour and 20 minutes) and we saw tons of accidents and stranded cars. So I called all the girls, closed the stores (which hurts the week before Christmas), went to the grocery to stock up and now we are home for the rest of the day. I have two cleaning/organizing projects to do - then it is knitting for the rest of the day! More later on the snowfall . . .

the christmas knitting is finished!

This is it! These are my last three knitted christmas gifts - yippee!! We have the hat for little Jim, the knucks in lornas shepard sport creme and suss gold lame (not nearly as hideous as I thought they would be, but not soft either) and the knucks in the charcoal black shepard's worsted for my grandma. The two knucks are all wrapped and going in the mail today so I can do the DONE with christmas dance - no more shopping for me!! And I can get back to the hush hush dress and lace scarf and the skull pattern test knit for ShannonAnn. . .

Have a good week!

upgraded finally!!

No pictures on this post, but Thank You blogger beta!! My old DenverKnits account was updated to beta this morning, so I no longer have to log into two bloggers to post!! Yippee!! While some of my stuff, PRGE, for example, now shows up on my beta dashboard!! I could not be more thrilled -- I guess it really is the little things . . .

Marty Stewart and a lace update . . .

Who knew I married Marty Stewart - Martha's long lost twin brother (who is also 20+ years younger then Martha in a weird scientific twist) who was then left in Omaha with another mother to love and raise him... Look at the evidence - our whole huge dining room table is filled with christmas cookies that he made and decorated (I tried to help, but like Martha, he had a very specific method to the making, so I just watched), the oh-so-cute boxes that he got to pack the cookies in and send to him mom and daughter, and the front door wreath that he made from the extra branches from our christmas tree (and he made one of those for all 4 front doors on our house!) He is a little cranky about this post, as he thinks I am making fun. However, I am not -- I am proud to have a husband who helps with the holiday cheer and has more Christmas (or Christmahannakuanzica) spirit then I do. Here's to more then one crafty person in our house! I love you PSP!!

Oh, I almost forgot -- the lace! Here is the first repeat of the lace pattern. Sorry the picture isn't the best, but when I set it on the talble, it just looked like a holey brown blob. I am really excited about it - it is going pretty fast for lace. I am just starting to get into the rhythm of the pattern, which is great and means it should start to go even faster! Okay, enough in progress . . .

Have a great weekend!

the elf

My dad sent this little guy back to me in a package last week. I used to make these - I am not sure what for - they were just little dolls that I made when I was somewhere between 8 and 12. I would give them away, put them on packages, they were just always floating around the house. It is fun to have this little one back. He is living in my office now, keeping me company, reminding me that I work so I can create!

Have a great day!

lace in progress

So this first photo has my class swatch at the top in the tanish brown alpaca, doesn't look so great all bunched up and small, but really it was pretty good - there just isn't much I want to do with it - the bottom, is 2 and a half hours of knitting into my lace scarf with double strands of lace weight cashmere. I figure I can do 7 or 8 repeats of the 72 row pattern (shown on the side) before I need to bind off in lace pattern , which should make it a nice long 6' scarf. I am allowing myself one hour every morning to work on the scarf, since there is still christmas knitting to do. I figure that by the end of December it will be done - it is going pretty fast!

Down here is a close up of the pattern, the first 24 rows plus border and first two corners - next time I will have to get Bill to stretch it for me, so the pattern shows up a bit better . . .

That's all for now!
Have a good week!

spoiled with coffee

Well, the coffee swap is over and here are the spoils - thanks to Jess!! There is the minnesota cup (she is from St. Paul) that will be going into the coffee cup rotation at home! A pound of wonderfully fragrant french roast coffee - my favorite! I am very excited about the coffee, especially since it is supposed to turn cold tonight and snow. Nothing is better then yummy warm coffee, knitting and snow. Two skeins of beautiful Atacama alpaca yarn - in blue/black - I love this yarn, but have never seen this color before, its beautiful!! Matching blue stitch markers, I can never have too many, and I am trying to banish all the plastic ones for cool ones, so this should help! Some wonderful chocolate in three different varieties - and I wonder why I run - there is chocolate with caramel, dark chocolate truffles and chocolate covered cashews, which my husband will be trying to steal (and they are great, I snuck one, but promise it won't ruin my dinner) and the card was so cute it is sitting between the truffles and the cashews. Thanks Jess!! The coffee swap was really fun - I look forward to doing it again in the spring!

lace knitting

So this morning, I jumped out of bed and landed at my LYS for a lace knitting workshop with Galena Skaska. I was really nervous because I missed the first day of the two day workshop, she is Russian so a little difficult to understand and a little gruff, and everyone has a head start on me. This workshop was for knitting russian lace warm shawls - which to the rest of us is a scarf knit out of lace weight cashmere. These shawls are knit in one piece - start with the bottom border, turn the corners, add the body and continue the border as you are knitting the shawl - no grafting borders and pieces. Everything was also done on double pointed needles - no circulars for this class, kinda scary - who wants to drop a stitch or two while knitting 55-63 stitchs on a size three dpn. While we practiced for a warm shawl, everything was related to gossimer shawls - which are also knit in one piece. Then I learned that Orenberg shawls are the ones knit in 5 seperate pieces and assembled. It was a wonderful and inspiring class. As it turned out, my previous lace experience worked to my advantage and I was able to pick up the technique and even demonstrate the knitting of the third and fourth corners of my square. While I came away with a not very exciting looking square with lace teeth, I was really glad that I took the class. It was so interesting to hear about russian lace knitting, look at some of the beautiful examples that she had brought with her, learn about the techniques -- especially lace blocking (who knew that nylon twine was the key!) -- of course get some good lace shawl patterns; warm, gossimer and orenberg and inspiration. As soon as the holiday knitting is done, more lace, more lace, more lace. Maybe tomorrow I will post my swatch . . .

the punk tree is up . ..

I am so very excited - after a long day yesterday, of spray painting clear christmas balls, then spraying them with
spray adhesive and dipping them in glitter and then sealing them with polyurathane (not sure on the spelling of that one!) The punk trees are up in both sunneshine stores! The black on the silver trees looks great! You do have to look closely to see the skulls on the christmas balls and the necklaces hanging from the trees (and there are some black hearts on there for balance as well) So only those with a keen sense of observation will get it, but they are probably the only ones who deserve it, too!
And yes, the balls right below are the ones that I made - who says black isn't a christmas color!
Maybe there will be a knitting post next time!
Have a great weekend!

christmas is coming . . .

Yesterday, it finally felt like the beginning of the christmas season! The tree is up and our little house is beginning to smell like pine from the tree - we hunted the tree last weekend just outside Pine, Colorado. It was so fun - but there are no photos as the camera broke and wouldn't focus. Somehow, it just needed a good cleaning and is back on track now. I had to post a christmas tree photo - it is so cute and all the ornaments and presents.

Yesterday was also the first day that I began to wrap all the presents that I have purchased/made. I think my little felt flowers made the packages look cute and special (and probably a little dorky).

No knitting posts yet - working on a surprise for Rachel - it isn't perfect but its fun and her box has to go out tomorrow! Did finish my mom's knucks, but haven't woven in the ends yet - that leaves me with three (and one pair to fix) pairs of mittens/knucks to make before christmas - I am feeling pretty good about that!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

the indulgent hat, charity knitting, and a rant!

So these little guys are my charity hats for the season - I did them with two handed fair-isle knitting, I would not have put them up but the colors worked out so well, I am enjoying looking at them. I really wanted to practice my two handed knitting and this time the tension really worked out for me :) Plus, it gives me just one second to jump on a soap box and say that I am very proud to be a knitter because of all the charity knitting that goes on. Everyone has their cause, does their thing, but it is nice to see that people with talent give to those who are in need. And there is nothing in this to make anyone feel badly - it seems that when we can, we do - not every cause, not every time, just when it is heartfelt. These hats are going to knit for the homeless tomorrow morning. It has been really cold here - so there will be four people with a warmer heads!

So to balance out the charity hat, there is the hat of ultimate indulgence! I bought this cashmere on sale at PurlSoHo last year and it has been sitting in my stash calling out to me since then, It has gotten so cold here - unusually cold and I was wishing for a black hat, when I found this pattern on line and fell in love. I figured there was no better time then now. This was thursday and we were leaving for our tree hunting expedition on sunday, plenty of time. I finished it on saturday morning, just in time to wear to work! I love it - it fits perfectly - it is basic black - so it goes with everything - its cute and its warm, what could be better!! (More on tree hunting later . . .)

Finally, the promised rant! So, we get our first christmas card of the season on saturday - and it was address to Bill Meyer!! Not Sunne and Bill, not the Meyers, the Meyer Family - AHHHH! And this is one of Bill's good friends - we have to go to her little brother's wedding in January and I am petty, but still pissed that I wasn't referenced on the card! This is our fifth christmas together (although for two Bill was in Antarctica) so its not like I am a new addition!! Ahhh! Cranky!!
Phew, much better now -- thanks for listening!

coffee swap!

Sooo, for the coffee swap there was a contest about your favorite place to get coffee. Mine is at home, generally in bed with my husband. As much as I begged, he was not game for the photo of that. Kinda funny, since I am sure I have much worse morning bed head then he does -- but I do respect our privacy.

So here is a photo of our morning coffee this morning, in our favorite mugs, and the tote from the little indie shop where I buy our coffee. The blue and black mug I made in ceramic in college - that is Bill's cup. I get the "wake up sunshine" -- its not spelled quite right, but then it never is!

The tote says "Boulder invented the organic half skim (skinny) soy milk half calf (schizo) double dry ristretto fair-trade shade-grown green chai mate cappuccino." Which pretty much sums up Boulder, but damn if they don't have good coffee there -- and I am all about the little indie places. The back of the bag list all the indie coffee shops in Boulder. I think this is a great idea and maybe some of the other indie owners in other places could band together and support each other, plus the tote is a great grocery bag -- when not used to tote yarn around.

Well, I am not sure if this will count as my entry - but there you go!
Have a nice and well caffinated weekend!

Thanks Piper!!

My sp9 pal, Piper, just totally spoiled me! Thank you, Piper!! Let me describe it all to you - there is the beautiful purple box that it arrived in - I am a sucker for good packaging! Lotsa yummy chocolate (must start running again when all the snow melts), an organic lavender bath set - yummy - with lavender bath fizz and lavender foot soak ( working retail during the holidays, that will come in handy), a vanilla candle, a pedicure set (everything is better when your toes are done), a cute journal and Yarn Porn -- this beautiful brown yarn from Fearless Fibers, now I am going to have to knit socks!! There was also a postcard from Portland, which is either where she live (postmark too smudged to read) or where she would like me to think that she does . . .
Piper, thanks again!!

a whole lotta kniting going on!

So welcome to my new beta blog -- take some time, look around, get comfortable. It is sad to leave DenverKnits behind, but this will be better -- or so they tell me :)

So there has been a bunch of knitting, a bunch of which is not even here, oops! The top is my ultimate indulgence, a black cashmere hat, whahoo!! It is cold here, I don't have a black hand knit hat - got this yarn on sale a while ago -- so what am I waiting for. Hopefully it will be done so I can wear it tree hunting on Sunday. Its a new pattern, so we'll see . . .

Then there is my snow bunny hat - actually I took my favorite ribbed hat and moved the marker every round instead of every third. I actually like this hat, and its a great weight, but its the holidays and its spoken for . . .


Finally there is my mom's knuck - soon there will be two and it will be knucks. It is lorna's laces sportweight creme with suss gold lame mixed. It really isn't as hideous as I thought it would be, but that lame yarn is not soft. That's my mom for you -- everything has to be sparkly. I will admit they are growing on me -- oh dear, I may need a vacation!

Hey, if you can spare a little good energy, please send it to Rachel!

Hope you enjoyed the first solo post from the now single solo blogger -- Sunneshine. Have a great week!!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

Happy Birthday Bill!
Sending you lots of love, happy birthday wishes and many more fun filled Bill Meyer Days!

the flowers of thanksgiving

These are my wonderful flowers for Thanksgiving!! They were so beautiful that I had to share them! My friend David at More Flowers put them together. Thank you, David -- send him a little good energy. These were the only photos that I took on Thanksgiving, but suffice it to say, it was a nice day filled with friends, food and so many reasons to give thanks!

holiday help, please . . .

Okay, I am looking for a little help! I was going to knit the twisted rib hat for all my employees this year, in addition to their bonus. It is the pink/orange and blue hats in the photo. Now I am starting to second guess myself. I have enough Blue Sky Alpaca to knit each one a hat - twisted rib or otherwise. So here are the two options
1. each one gets a twisted rib hat in a different color
2. there are two or three hat pattern all hats knit in different colors

Thanks for your opinions!

These are what I have been doing . . .

It is getting to that holiday prezzie time of the year and I have now finished my one big holiday gift! It is the Ombre Blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts -- all though this is not one that I would recommend leaving for the last minute!
I do love it, I hope that Lou really loves it! It certainly will keep her warm on those cold nebraska nights!

Here are Bill's gloves that now have cool embroidery on them - I really like them, so I am posting them everywhere :)

Finally we have the first pair of completely finished holiday knucks. There are a few more to come - the next pair that I have to start are creme with sparkly gold yarn - kinda dreading that . . . But as long as they are worn and appreciated, I suppose its not up to me . . .