Piece of Beauty yarn in Dark Matter and October Day colorways

Sushi kit from Pick up Sticks

Felting patterns from Pick up Sticks

I got more yarn from Piece of Beauty. Yeah, I know. I’m terrible! The yarn is on the expensive end but it is oh so soft! I also got some new felting patterns to try from Pick up Sticks. I also bought some sock yarn on ebay and wasn’t too thrilled about it. The colors were blah and the yarn itself wasn’t all that great.

I am still working on Bob’s socks, it’s coming along. I’m done with one side and almost done with the other (just the cuff left!). I should be done with it in a couple of days. My next project will be the Gothic Spire socks from CookieA. I broke down and bought the pattern. I’m going to knit it for my Secret Pal. I had problems printing it out so I emailed cookie and actually got a response from her! I thought I would get a generic email or from an assistant or something. She was really nice and it turned out that something is wrong with my Adobe Reader on that machine because I tried it on another machine and it worked fine. I told her that she needs to come to Europe to do a sock design workshop. That would be a dream come true!

I also decided to knit things for charity this year. So my goal this year will be to knit 5 caps for chemo patients in honor of my cousin Lynn, 5 preemie hats/booties/socks in honor of my boys being preemies themselves, and 5 helmet liners or socks for the military. I think this will be very rewarding for me and make me feel like there are people out there who really NEED it. The only bad thing is that I can’t just knit whatever, there are very specific details – like baby stuff should be made out of cotton or acrylic (oi!), the military things need to be in black/camo type colors and also very superwashable, none of this fancy schmancy yarn that I like, and the chemo patients need things to be really soft (again cotton or acrylic) using patterns with no holes.

So that’s all the news fit to print for now.

Yarn for felting projects

OK, this yarn acquisition is bordering on crazy. I am obsessed with felting now and want to make lots of cute bags. So of course I had to get some Lamb’s Pride to try my hand as well as some patterns. I always wanted to make the Fiber Trends’ clogs and I love these little cute gelato bags. We’ll see how it goes in the front loader.

A couple of days ago, I decided to make my SP10 a booga bag using Wollmeise’s worsted weight yarn in Amazonas colorway. It knitted up really nicely, let’s hope it still looks good felted. I only did 60 rows for the height, instead of the 64. Pre-felting, the bag measured 8x4x11in. I didn’t want to bother doing a felting swatch since it’s for a bag, the final dimensions don’t have to be super exact. I don’t want to post any pictures of my SP’s gifts, just in case she might accidentally look at my blog! Kind of a bummer though because I want to show you what the before/after pictures are!

Kureyon for a booga bag

I also bought some Noro Kureyon to make a 2nd booga bag. I love the graduated colors! So it’ll be a good comparison between that and the Wollmeise’s worsted weight yarn. I completed knitting both of them (1 per day) and today I’m working on felting them. Keep your fingers crossed.

I broke my rule of one project at a time, but I really didn’t feel like knitting icord at Sunday’s stitch ‘n bitch. So I just started another bag using the Noro. I also made the Noro bag shorter, this time I think maybe 52 rows? I used up 2 skeins for the bag body and will use a wee bit more for the handles. So exciting. I am getting prepared to be severely disappointed, since it seems like that’s what happens to most people on their first felting try.

Cookie just announced that her new design site is up! While I’m glad I can finally get these patterns, they are not for free. Oh well, I can understand. She really is an amazing designer and deserves a little $$$ for her work. I hope she continues to do free patterns too!!!

OK, so this might be old news to some, but for me I’m excited – Wee Knits 3 is out! I love Mission Falls yarns and Maggs’ designs. I think she has a great style. And her baby knits are oh so cute. Too bad my boys are too old for these things now. Not that they really wore anything that I knitted for them. Maybe gifts??? I will need to put in an order so my parents can bring over the yarn!