Strings and Yarn

We have had quite the momentous holiday season here. Well, first of all, Anthony’s birthday was December 24th, and this year was 30. We had a great time staying in the house, and lazing around.

He got a great Life is Good shirt from my parents. Ella was posing with him to duplicate the picture and show off her cuteness.

Here is a picture of our tree.

We had such a great time decorating our house for the first time. As you can see the wheel fits right in with the decorations. Again, Ella is posing to ramp up the cute factor. It is absolutely necessary to put animals in pictures to keep readership up.

I designed, knit, finished, and stuffed Anthony’s new stocking. With an extra large foot to hold extra goodies. Obviously I couldn’t blog about this one because it was one of those secret projects. I’m sure I’ll be revealing secret projects over the next several days.

The biggest news though is that Anthony and I got ENGAGED!

He got me a beautiful ring. We decided not to get a diamond, but instead got a color changing garnet. In artificial light, it’s purple.

And in natural light (or full spectrum CFL’s like we have a lot of in our house) it shows blue.

It is such a beautiful ring. I think all that threatening I’ve been doing about not finishing his sweater until I saw some sign of commitment has been working. I guess I need to get working on the sweater now. Of course we haven’t done anything like setting a date yet, but we’ll probably start planning before we know it.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful man in my life. Plus this blog is partially responsible for us meeting. It only seemed right to share the news here.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. I’m hoping to catch up on blogs while I have a little time off!

No I’m not talking about the TV show, although Anthony and I are looking forward to finally being able to watch the third season. It took forever for it to come out on DVD! That should not be allowed. Really, why would they want to take so long to make money. (Granted we won’t be buying it, but renting it through Netflix. That is always how we watch TV and movies.)

No, I’m talking about a certain handspun hat that was blogged about mere weeks ago. I have already lost my hat! Well, truthfully I left my hat at the Dollar theater and then someone snagged it up. We were back to the theater less than an hour later and it was already long gone.

I was so sad and I officially decided I cannot be trusted with hats. Since I’m not used to wearing them, they often get left in weird places. I haven’t lost any mittens or scarves, but the hats can’t seem to stay with me. Last year I made a hat (also out of handspun) that only lasted a few weeks also. It didn’t even last long enough to get photographed.

So what to do? Do I make myself another hat and risk another loss. Or just tromp around town with a cold head? Plus if you see my hat, will you send it along my way. Thanks a bunch.

I have bad winter photos to show you. Not being home very much when it’s light out makes it hard to share photos of knitting.

I have successfully finished another pair of Anthony socks. These were for the November Sock Knitters Anonymous challenge. The pattern is Rudy got Sole (pdf) and the yarn is Ditto. I got the yarn at Naked Sheep Shop in Portland Oregon.

I did have some tangle issues with the first ball of yarn, but I have a feeling that was because I pulled out the end from the center badly. This pattern was a quick, easy and manly. I modified it by doing fewer pattern repeats and decreasing the number of stitches to 60 around the sock. Luckily Anthony’s feet are the same size as mine, so it’s always easy to figure out what will fit him.

I’ve already started the December sock challenge, and have another bad photo to share.

This was the Project Spectrum colorway I dyed in August for my Shop. The yarn is Strings and Yarn String Quartet Op. 130 - Beethoven. The colorway expired, so I get to keep it! I’m so excited because I haven’t really been able to knit with my own yarn yet. The pattern is Conwy by Nancy Bush from Knitting on the Road.

I had a great review of my sock yarn!  Pam writes a great blog with reviews of many indie dyers.  Check it out here.

I’m almost done with Christmas knitting and after the holidays I’ll be sure to post pictures of all the goodies. I also still need a few sign ups for the Pay it Forward. Please let me know in the comments!

If you have not seen this around, here it is.

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days. That is my promise. The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Now somehow I managed to get myself signed up for two of these!  One at Ren’s blog and one at No-Blog-Rachel.  I wasn’t sure if I made it into one, so I signed up at another blog.  It’s fine, I just need 6 people to sign up in the comments below.  I don’t mind making 6 things, and am looking forward to sharing some yarn love.  So those of you still looking to get involved in this, add a comment below!

We have had a crazy few days here. First, we had a huge wind storm come through. We didn’t get it too bad in Eugene, but the coast had hurricane speed winds. Yesterday I didn’t want to do anything but stay in bed. However, I did drag my butt out of the house, and went to work. Unfortunately the winds and rain were nothing compared to all of the little annoyances. One of those days where you wake up and stub your toe.

I also had to send away part of my leg to get fixed. So Monday meant hobbling on crutches and decreased mobility. Its the feeling of being in slow motion while the whole world is Fast Forwarding around you. I survived though and at the end of the day I ended up bringing a little sunshine into the dreary grey.

Pattern: Sunflower Tam from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan

Needles: US size 7 and 9

Yarn: My Handspun

This was really quick and lots of fun to make. I had been thinking about it for awhile. On my spinning retreat (oh yeah, I should probably blog about that sometime) I spun up a batt from Miss Babs Fiber. I got two carded batts and they are soft and luxurious.

I spun a 2-ply yarn that was a little thicker than DK weight. The colors are so much fun and they make me want to get a drum carder (or buy everything she has). Have I convinced you to go check out her stuff yet?

I wore the hat to the dog park and felt like a styling dog owner. Yeah, thats right, I have the coolest hat in the dog park… maybe I need to get out more.

Either way, it was nice to knit something for me! Everything on my needles lately seems to be for other people. Whether its for Christmas or the many projects for Anthony, everyone has taken over my knitting. Now I feel satisfied enough to finish up a few of those big secret projects.

Wow, I can’t believe how long its been.  Believe it or not, I have touched the computer, I just haven’t made it to my own blog.  However, if you are on Ravelry, I am often checking up on things over there.

Speaking of Ravelry, I just started a new group over there.  It’s called Stitch & Stay and is meant to function sort of like couch surfing.  Anthony and I will be hopefully taking a pretty big trip this summer and our destinations don’t necessarily include places where we have friends of family.  So what would be better than staying with a knitter and getting the local insight to the area.  Plus I would love to show someone around Eugene.

I don’t want it to be limited to offering up your house.  It could just be going out to have lunch or meeting someone to take a yarn crawl.

If you are on Ravelry and are interested in joining check it out here.