Day Off!!!!

It has been since mid-January that I had a day off... One of my employees just called and offered to work for me on Saturday - I am so excited!! I have traveled a bunch for the last two months, and to most of the girls that work for me - travel for work = relaxing vacation.... Not true!! This is my martyr post, my woe is me post and my how come everyone thinks that I have the best job ever 'cuz all I do is shop post... I promise there are not many of these... but to continue the vent, when buying clothing for the store it has to work into a budget, which equals LOTS of math for all the cute jeans that I purchase, sell through reports to figure out who to go back to and who to politely decline to order from in the future, and really I do love my job but everyday for 10 weeks is a lot of work!! And I realize that one of my girls had surgery for a serious condition and I covered, but a simple "Thank You for pulling my shifts while I was out" would have been nice.... Enough b@tching... I am really not as funny with things like this as Roxtarchic... but it made me feel better to write this... But really a day off, I am so excited!! I am going to make the bunny hat from O'Kitten's blog, hang up my clothes and relax - maybe even watch a bad "saturday afternoon at the movies" movie, catch up on my blogging, and smile... Have a great weekend!!

Thanks Una!!

I got my prge package right before I left on Wednesday!! Thanks Una!! It rocks!! I got two POUNDS of pectin Jelly Beans - such a treat!! (They are seasonal for Easter) And these ones are really good with flavors like lemon, pink grapefruit, orange and keylime - yummy! There was also two beautiful skeins of organic patagonia cotton - this is one of my favorite yarns - but I had never seen this colorway before. It is perfect with the browns, greens and blues!! Now to figure out what to make with it.... And there was a great card with a little "sugar buzz" badge, to warn everyone when I have been indulging on the jelly beans - won't need that for much longer!! Thanks Una!!

there has been knitting and crafting....

So, its been a bit busy around here... but I am finally getting to posting my dashing... that should ensure that there is no cold weather for a bit. These were made out of some undyed handspun llama and alpaca with a little merino (in the ply, I think) by a local woman in Denver. It took substantially less then the pattern said with this yarn. I used about 125 yards of the 250ish that I had... I love the black, dark grey and chocolate mottled color - that doesn't really come through on the picture!

As I am traveling again, as of tonight - there won't be any more posts till next week! I did get my prge package in the mail today - yippee! I couldn't only have one project to work on while traveling, so I cast on the branching out scarf using a ball of handmaiden seasilk in a blue denim variation. This should keep me while I gone, along with the hush dress.

The hush dress is taking forever since there has been more re-stock and special orders in the etsy store then I had counted on in the last couple of days. There are a couple photos of the new markers that I have made...

Happy Knitting!!

the first flowers

Here are the first little violets poking through for spring!! They are the first flowers that I have seen on my block - very exciting!! All the pretty flowers are on their way!! Of course, that means that there is a lot of gardening to do too!!

Finished dashing... photos later... and another 10 rounds on the hush dress...

Happy Knitting!!

Go Cougs!!

Washington State 70 - Oral Roberts University 54
GO COUGS!!

Thank You!!

Thank you!! Thank you!! I have yet to name him... so right now he is "love monkey" - gearing up for St. Patty's day on the green tissue!
T0morrow is Kegs and Eggs at 8am - I will be breaking out the earrings for that!!
Thanks again!!

And then there were two....

Sorry the photo is so dark, but the camera batteries are on their last ounce of juice and there's no time to charge them....

The Hush,Hush dress is really coming to be again!! As you may be able to make out in the photo, there are two with finished decreases -- and only one with a stripe! Yipee!! I still have a ways to go - I think 6 more inches till I am kitting the lace at the top, but I am very pleased!! I will have a dress to wear this summer.... Now I just have to decide what length to make it, the pattern length or shorter, I'll have my measuring tape out tonight!

And because I can't buy yarn, and my copy of Victorian Lace Today was lonely and two people on my lace kal just finished gorgeous shawls from this book.... I bought myself a treat yesterday! I am really excited to look through and find a shawl to do after my dress is done. I would really like to do a round shawl, I haven't done one of those yet - so I am sure that it would be a good learning experience. Also, in my continuing efforts to reduce my stash - there is a bunch of lace yarn that could be used up. (Although, black lace yarn is on the list of to-buys on my day of yarn purchasing - April 16th)

Have a good week!

Knitters Treat Exchange Questionaire

I have always known that I have a swap problem. This one looked so fun, I had to do it. Plus a one month committment is easy!! And I love the questionaire -- I think for the next round of prge, I would like to make a shorter more creative questionaire -- that 41 questions this time was too long, even for me.... More creative questions may make it easier for pals to chat, hmmmm

Knitters Treat Exchange Questionnaire

1. What's your favourite type of yarn?
I will knit with any type of natural fiber - as long as its not too itchy. I prefer yarns that are worsted or thinner. I love alpaca, merino, cotton, cashmere, camel, or blends..... I knit a lot of lace, so these fibers are more suited to that.

2. What's your least favourite type of yarn?
I do not like acrylic, novelty, eyelash type of yarns.

3. What's the first thing you do when you visit a new yarn shop?
Look to see if they carry anything local, small production, or hand made -- then I look to see what they carry in organic, natural fibers....

4. What other crafts do you do / would like to do?
Make invitations, stitch markers and a little jewelry making

5. What magazines do you currently subscribe to?
Interweave Knits, Creative Knitting (it was a heartfelt gift), Sunset, Smithsonian, Newsweek

6. Put this type of magazine in order of preference:
Knitting / Crochet / Other Craft / Food / Home / Fashion / Celebrity Gossip / Garden
Knitting - Food - Garden - Home - Fashion - Other Craft - Celebrity Gossip - crochet

7. What items do you like to knit / crochet?
I don't crochet, but I love to knit hats, gloves, lace scarves and shawls, sweaters, an occasional blanket and right now I am actually working on a dress

8. Are you allergic to anything?
nothing

9. What do you like to smell of?
natural smells but nothing too sweet - jasmine, pine, lavender, grass, green tea

10. What's your favourite way to relax?
Curl up in my chair and knit while listening to music or take a walk outside on a beautiful day in the mountains

11. You're stood in front of a Victorian style sweetshop, an Italian cafe, an old fashioned bakery and a dainty tea room. Where do you go first?
Such a tough call, since I love food - but cake is really my favorite - so I think the bakery would win in the end for a piece of chocolate cake with white frosting (or a cupcake) - yummmm

12. What do you come out with?
oops, answered that one above

13. Where do you go next?
I would go to the Italien cafe for an antipasta plate and frutti de mar....

14. Any other words of wisdom for your pal?
Knitting and gift giving are two of my favorite things!! So I am really excited about this fun swap! I love thoughtful gifts, so I am sure that I will love what you put together!

Thanks to Leslie!!

Thanks to Leslie, I have found Bloglines. I know that I am a bit behind, since I have seen their icon on many blogs - but what a fun little thing. As soon as it is all set, there will be less flipping time and more knitting time, yipee!!

Ever since I saw knitty yesterday, all I can think of is the dashing wrist warmers. While I know I need to make them, I have to root through my stash tonight and see what will work. This yarn diet is rough - okay, really its not - but its so much easier to just go to my LYS and purchase with out thinking.

And there is knitting here - the second round of my hush, hush dress is 20 rows into the 100 decreasing rows - if I would quit knitting other things, it would probably go faster. Although, I am really happy with the progress. Then there's happy green knucks. And a couple of baby hats to work on while I run errands...

Oh, and I saw this bookworm thing on roxtarchic's blog - it looked fun and wasted the last few minutes of my work day ;-). So here it goes....

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. +To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. +Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. +A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. +The Stand (Stephen King)
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. +The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. +The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. +East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. +Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. +The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. +The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. +The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. +The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible (what Catholic school forced me to read, anyway)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. +The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. +The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. +The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. +A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. +Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. +Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. +The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. +Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. +Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. +The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. +A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. +The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. +Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen) --
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. +Ulysses (James Joyce)

roller

So, I always swore that I would never be one of those people jamming their roller bag in the overhead at the airport. But then on my last trip to LA, I saw this bag, and it would have cost me money not to buy it, it was so inexpensive. (Yes, I am a master at justification, which is why I am knitting from my 1200 skein stash right now). And its black with white polka dots!! The bow will be leaving though. Not sure why I became so obsessed with it, but I am now one of those people who will be running over your feet with my rolly bag and blocking airplane aisle traffic, while I hoist it into the overhead bin. You've been warned....

This is installation #2 of my running series on my consumerism - which is usually not much but this week is running rampant....

cool things....

It was a rough weekend. So to keep me out of the world of the overwhelming, I am focusing on some cool things - things I like to look at - things that make me laugh.... There will be new knitting to post soon.....

New shoes always make me feel better - and these are wicked cool!! I even had a little girl in the store yesterday, tell me they were scary like witches shoes - if that isn't a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is. I found the necklace here on etsy - you never know what cool stuff you'll find on etys!! I am not the biggest gin drinker, but It is such a cool piece!

Then we have my own personal porta-potty that mr.sunneshine brought back from his convention last week. It is made of foam about 5" tall and 3" square. I have no idea what one would do with it, other then it makes me laugh....

Finally, we have a finished knuck - okay, almost finished knuck - and I am really loving the color. They don't take much time, but it is making me really happy working with this pretty Lornas Laces Shepards Worsted in Cedar!

Big thanks to mr.sunneshine who I don't think reads this blog - but he is a good husband, and we could all use some good energy floating about us!

Happy Knitting!!