Thursday, June 26, 2008

1,000 Apologies

I'm not funny today. Not sure why. I spent a good chunk of the day packing the first knitting machine that I sold. Sweaty, busy, tired.

No kids here till tomorrow afternoon. I plan to spend the evening eating Indian food in bed with the chief. Lamb Dahl here I come.

Finally FINALLY finished the plain Shetland spinning for a sweater I was doing. I will set the twist tonight.

(don't send me a message telling me about blah blah home spinners really don't SET the twist. It's just an expression, man)

I got 16 skeins between 170 and 190 yds of DK weight yarn. Now I can start looking for a pattern.

Wicked's first sleeve is coming along.
CIMG0771

The Panda Wool Slipperies are almost done. yay new socks to start.

CIMG0772

Next week I mimght even start dyeing for the shop. It's kinda busy around here, but I'm working my way there!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

sometimes you just gotta laugh

I took the kids for a short hike on some nearby nature trails yesterday and while we were on the way, we came to a four way stop at an intersection. I needed to turn right, but the problem was, two older ladies were coming up on my right on bikes, so I waited. See if you turn right and some bikes on your right are going straight, you smush old ladies ok? Well one of them starts yelling, " Go Go!!" I'm not sure if she realized that I was waiting to turn or what. But dude, there's a bikepath there, so wtf are they doing on the road!??

Anywho, quite a convo ensues where numbers 3 and 4 tell me to yell out the window at them regarding the disuse of the bikepath, because that's hey, that's what their mom does. Now believe it or not, I am actually sort of reasonable in real life most of the time and I told them I preferred not to stoop.

After all the commotion sort of died down, number five said, "Did you hear her yelling through the car window? If you're going to be stupid, at least be stupid and quiet"

I told him that was some really WISE shit! And then I just had to laugh.

Wicked is growing fast, and I'll have some knitting time tonight. Maybe pics tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

TV

Oh you guys, holy shit. We have this rule where the kids have to turn off the tvs at noon and they can't use any electronics in the house until six pm. That means they can take portable gaming systems like DS or DS Lite outside or Ipod for number 3.




Yesterday number five went off to swim and ride bikes and stuff, but numbers three and four are having some difficulty.

What do I do? I always considered myself fairly creative but I can't think of enough stuff to keep a 14 yr old and 11 yr old busy for five whole weeks!

Number 4 doesn't even want to throw pots again this year like she did last year. Such a bummer because it was really fun watching her.

Yesterday she goofed around with one of my knitting machines, sewed a pair of pajama pants for herself (I've been teaching her to sew for awhile now) tested cookies, bedazzled a pair of jeans and dude! That was just one day!

I may not be here much. I'll be praying she takes up macrame or somethin

Bye ya'll!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

could this day bet any better?

There's a Doris Day movie on and my first yarn order is drying and otherwise ready to go out the door. I love Doris Day.

Now I know Darlene is going to peek, so believe me I seriously debated on whether or not I was going to post the surprise pics. I guess if she wants to see, then she can see!

She's getting two skeins of the yarn below: Garbage can party. That yarn is handspun from the same colorway, but the yarn she is getting will look much like the photo. She's also getting a sneak peek at the new Socktails line by Carpe Dye-Em

Cherry Fizz:

4 Pts Kirschwasser
1 pt fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp bar sugar
sparkling water
maraschino cherry

Combine all ingredients, except water and cherry in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake well. Strain over ice cubes into a chilled collins glass. Fill with sparkling water and stir gently. Garnish with cherry.

CIMG0757

AND

Emerald Isle Cocktail

5 Parts Gin (2.5 oz)
Green Creme de Menthe (2 tsp)
3 dashes Angostura bitters
Green Maraschino Cherry

Stir liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with cracked ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with cherry.

CIMG0760

I haven't photographed the Garbage Can Party Skeins yet as they are still drying, but I will grab a few photos before they go.

Its weird. I think they turned out so beautiful I kinda wanna keep them and I've never sent away anything I've made before (well except Pluggo's alpaca sock) so it feels kind of funny. Like if she hates them I will feel kind of awful!

I will be making more of these colorways because I love em! In fact I have another yarn order in for more bare stuff.

If you read this and want to buy, contact me via email or Ravelry. My ravelry ID is Bammerkt, and my email is clark.trish@gmail.com

Monday, June 9, 2008

Big news!

I've been half-assed working on a line of sock yarns, and I was contacted through Ravelry by a woman who wanted to buy some. I sold my first four skeins! Woooo Hooooooooooooo

She asked for two surprise skeins so I won't be posting the surprises before she gets them, but I will take some pics before they go. Now I just need my bare naked yarn to get here soon so I can dye those puppies up. I'm allllllll ready otherwise.

CIMG0571

Here's the one she originally inquired about. This colorway is named "garbage can party". Look for the release soon. I'm working as fast as I can here dang!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

The Eagle HAS LANDED

Summer vacation HAS BEGUN!! I started working on Wicked yesterday from the yarn i dyed (below). I just took it off the needles to try it on. It seems to fit ok at this point. If anything it looks a little big, but dude I CHECKED GAUGE. That's right, I checked my gauge more than once and it is right on baby.

It's weird because the color variation shows up more in the photo than in person, but whatever. You get the idea.
CIMG0741

Here's the current progress on the new Slipperies
CIMG0740

Oh you think it looks just like the last photo? Yeah i haven't picked it up since then, but I will soon (prolly).

I'm on the last repeat of The Secret of Bad Nauheim. When I finish that, I will take a quick photo before I pick up all the stitches for the border. It's pretty.

Still spinning on the sweater yarn, but I have just broken into the last POUND and I'm quite a bit over 1,000 yds now so yay! Hopefully it woh't be much longer before I can spin something pretty instead of this stuff!

Time to jump on the stepper for 45 minutes. I know it shard to believe since I'm fluffy, but I do this pretty often. I need to go get my sports bra.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

I bet you're wondering

What the heck I've been doing besides bitching huh! Well walk this way and lemme show you.

I finished a pair of handspun socks for number 4. You may remember this yarn from a pair of glittens I made her. She picked the dyes and I spun up four ounces for the glittens and had enough for socks leftover. There is actually still a ton left. It's crazy.

CIMG0729

I've got a sock going too. It's another Slippery. The yarn is panda wool handdyed by the lovely Rita from YarnHollow.

CIMG0740

You can't see the slipped pattern very well in the photo, but in person it is turning out SO GORGEOUS.

On the spinning front, I'm spinning for my first sweater. I decided to spin the three lbs of natural Shetland I have from stash. Here's the thing: I don't know how much I have to spin to get enough for a sweater, so I figured I'd spin it all, then measure off whatever I need for the sweater I pick, dye that much and if there is any leftover, I can dye it a different color for another project later. I estimate it's about DK weight, but I'll get around to counting the WPIs one of these days. It's like swatching I dunno why. I never wanna do it!

Here is a photo of it's boringness.
CIMG0739

I am also working on getting the old Brother machines and the Singers on ebay this weekend, but I was sort of thinking of offering them for sale in the area first. Shipping them I'm sure will be fine as I have a good guideline printed out for packing knitting machines, but still it would be nicer to just sell them without shipping. Even though I'm not worried about damage, it'll be a pain to do it really well.

We tested out the electronics in the 930 I bought in GR last week, number 3 helped.

CIMG0730

It's so fun to see her taking to machine knitting and dyeing etc. Now she'll just plunk herself down and goof with the machines when she feels like it. It's pretty cool.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Tagged!

I got tagged for some blog questions. I have to think about who I'll tag myself. anyway, here we go!

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? I was a 24 year old brand new mom. I was still on maternity leave from a payroll job that I returned to and then left to work three days a week instead. More mommy time.


2. What were five things on my to-do list today (not in any particular order)?
mail books that were ordered in the last few days (already wrapped)
Pull one expedited order
Get some stuff ready to put on ebay
Write a couple checks
Groceries would be good

3. What snacks do I enjoy? Cheese and crackers,

4. Where are some places I’ve lived? I've never lived anywhere but Holland and Zeeland. I can't imagine what it's like to NOT live near the water and even though I'm sure there are lots of nice places to live, I don't want to live somewhere else.

5. What things would I do if I were a billionaire?
Send my husband and his brother to Alaska for a guided moose hunt
Buy a large piece of land for us to build a dream house, guest house, and have a few fiber animals (and a grass fed cow)
Pay off the homes of our parents and oldest kid.
Set up trusts for the rest of the kids
Pay for the rest of number 2's education and wipe out his student debt
Start a foundation to help single parents get whatever educations they need to get ahead in their careers while still taking good care of their families
Take our kids on some trips around the world, Europe and India would be first.

I'm probably missing stuff.