Strings & Yarn

Yup you heard me right.  As a matter of fact we aren’t just going to do a meet up, we’re going to copy the Rhinebeck folks and have bingo, but we need people to play.  Here’s the information!

1) You can either be a player, a square or both. If you are a square you’ll display the Blacksheep Bingo logo while at the event. If you are a player, you will get your bingo cards a week before so you can check out who you will be looking for. If someone isn’t wearing their logo, but you know they are on your card, take this as a sign that they may need a bingo breather.

2) Play space will be limited to the fair grounds public space. I think we should avoid tent spaces and camping. Depending on how many people we get together this could be very intrusive to people who are camping. However, the different buildings on the fairgrounds are all game!

3) If you would like to participate e-mail blacksheepbingo (at) gmail (dot) com. Please put “Participation” in the subject line. Here’s the info you need to put together.

-Participation: (Player/Square/Both)

-Name

-Email Address

-Blog Name (if applicable)

-Blog Address (if applicable)

-Ravelry Name (if applicable)

-What day(s) will you be attending the gathering (Fri, Sat, Sun)?

4) All participants will be put in a drawing for the prizes. Overall, this is a chance for us to meet each other and share a great fiber gathering! If you are interested in donating prizes please email blacksheepbingo (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject line “Prizes.” If you would like to e-mail a picture of what you’ll be including, I’ll be making sure to feature donations and prizes on my blog.

I would like to open this up to bloggers as well as ravelers, so it’s time to get the word out! Post on your blogs, message other people who you know will be going to blacksheep. The more people there are, the more fun this will be!

So I got word that Magknits is no more because I’ve received several e-mails and ravelry messages.   I’m sad to see that Magknits isn’t going to be around anymore, but I’m glad there is still so much interest in the bag.

I had always just linked to Magknits, but seeing as that is no longer a way to get to the pattern, you can now download it on raverly or you can just download it here; Saturday Market Bag(pdf).

I’m sure I’ll be converting the Uniscarfity pattern to a pdf also, but since it’s a little less popular, I’ll get to it when I have a little more time.  In the mean time, Farmer’s Market (or Saturday Market for Eugeneites) season is coming up soon, so get knitting!

I finished the Bayerische Socks yesterday and it looks like val of abehap is going to get to keep her $50. I had to rip back and put in contrasting toes.

The second sock also has some visible lines where I changed balls of yarn. Apparently they were just slightly different shades of green. Oh well, you knit and learn. I’m still very happy with how they feel and fit. The smaller stitches and gauge did wonders for this fabric, and I hope they last longer because of it.  I will definitely be using my size 0 needles again for socks.

I was a little worried for awhile that I wasn’t going to finish this months challenge. Since I successfully finished, I have now done one pair of socks for the past seven months. The whole process has been overall very rewarding, and I’m looking forward to having 12 months of socks finished in the end.

So it got me thinking about setting longer goals with my knitting. Maybe once this is finished I set a number of sweaters I want to finish in a year or a number of skeins spun per year. I usually only think from one project to the next.  The challenge has gotten me thinking about my projects in terms of a years length of time. I think that having a future goal has worked wonders for my knitting due to having a group goal.  Something about having some guidelines, knowing that I am knitting along with many other knitters and having a definite due date has kept me knitting.  Or maybe it’s just the possibility of prizes. 

Are any of you out there participating in the Sock Knitter Anonymous Sock Down challenge? Do you give yourself goals to meet? Would anyone else be interested in trying to set some goals as a group?

I also wanted to let you all know that I’ve been working on a big update of my etsy shop.  As always, thank you for your continued support!

I don’t know if it’s spring, but I’ve been feeling the need to clean up, re-prioritize and reorganize. I am ready to shake off those winter doldrums and air out the house, the blog, and me. Here are some of the things I want to work on freshening up.

My violin. Since I stopped school, I’ve taken a long break from playing. I’ve done a few gigs here and there, and I’ve learned one movement of one sonata. It’s been well over a year since I’ve had lessons, but one movement! That’s nothing. So I’m hoping to order a few new concertos to start looking over and working up my chops again. I miss the mental challenge of playing regularly and vigorously.

My garden. This is just a general spring sort of thing. I’m ready to go to work and get some serious revitalization in our back yard. We live on almost 1/4 of an acre and most of it is in the backyard. We have some big plans this year, including converting a large portion of the lawn into raised beds for more veggie space. Plus I’m planning an area that will be dedicated to plants for natural dyes.

My blog. This one isn’t a huge overhaul, but a little sprucing up. I’m hoping to fix some of the old broken links from when my blog had a different url. But most of the refreshing will be in the content. I’m hoping to make my posts more personal, more thought-out, and hopefully more meaningful.

My house. I constantly feel like I’m learning how to keep our house cleaner and more clutter-free. I am a clutter bug and have pack rat tendencies. I have piles of stuff (paper, mail, knitting, books) that seem to spread everywhere. I’m hoping to make simple things like vacuuming and dusting a more regular part of my life.  Plus we have several house projects that have been left to languish.  After we first moved in, we did so much work that both Anthony and I needed a break.  We are now feeling ready to finish up some of the projects we started and start some of the things we have dreamed up.

Time will tell how much I accomplish this year, but just putting it out into the world feels like a good first step.

I’ve recently found my love for sewing again. First, you have to understand that I love fabric. I have a fabric stash that almost rivals my yarn stash. However, I don’t sew nearly as much as I knit. This is for a few reasons; a) sewing isn’t portable unless you are hand sewing, b) I don’t have an area set up where my machine can stay out, c) my machine is slowly dying.

The thing I’m not mentioning is there are also several projects that didn’t turn out so well. They all seem to center around Anthony too! first I tried to make a pair of pajama pants without any butt or crotch space (I couldn’t be cramping my man!) then I made another pair, but accidentally made a children’s medium instead of adult medium. Then I made a robe that ended up way to large.

I ended up fixing the pants, and the robe is waiting patiently for the day I feel confident enough to pick it up again. That day should be soon, because Bend-the-Rules Sewing has changed my sewing mentality. I checked out from the library around Halloween, promptly devoured every word on each page as much as possible and quickly schemed ways to make several of the projects.

In one weekend I made the coasters, a lined zip pouch and the pleated bag. I’ve been using the bag as my purse ever since and the zip pouch now holds all of my knitting accessories. This book quickly went on my holiday gift list. Plus if you want to see some super cute photos of other projects, check out the flickr group.
While I don’t have pictures of any of the projects I just listed, I do have something to show you.

This is the simple tote and is about to become my new lunch bag. (I know, the one in the book has apples too, but I loved the original so much!)

I’m so happy with how all of these projects has turned out, and it’s inspired me to actually start thinking about arranging my studio so my machine can be out and I can teach violin. However, the end process will involve painting and much furniture moving, so it probably won’t be for another few weeks.

The inside of the bag has a little pocket. Now all I need is a matching napkin to take along!

On a totally different note, I forgot to tell you that I did catch up on all the blogs! Bloglines has been officially decreased to zero posts! Now that reading blogs is much more manageable, I will be trying to comment more often on posts. Before, reading 13, 16, or 20 posts on one blog was so overwhelming that I could think of anything worthwhile to say. I feel really good about this, and have a small sense of being on top of the world. (Is that weird?)

Also, I just did a huge update of my shop. I did get some dyeing done over the break, so I’ve now updated with some of my stuff. As I’ve said before, dyeing during the school year is sporadic at best, but I am going to try to continue as regularly as possible.

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!

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.

I’m a yarnie! Check out the yarn page on Ravelry!

The contest has been finished!  I put everyone in (even the Aussies) and here are the winners….

Sock Yarn - Rachel - Red and Blazing - Written/sung by Abigail Washburn

Roving - Ging - Hazy Shade of Winter - the original Simon & Garfunkel version

So first I have to say that this wasn’t rigged.  I put names on a little piece of paper, and decided to include Ging even though she wasn’t a knitter.  I put her in fiber, because then I could make something nice to send her.  Anthony (who is good friends with Ging) must have sensed her name in there (I swear I didn’t tell him anything.  He didn’t even know why he was picking little pieces of paper out of the bowl), so she got picked.  I guess I’ll get to make something to send now.
However, I found I loved doing this contest, so hopefully there will be more to come.  I loved your ideas for pieces may be using some in the future.

Thanks for playing!

Time for something non-knitting. Anthony and I are devoted This American Life listeners. I have a secret (or not so secret) crush on Ira Glass. I also think that Anthony will look somewhat like him in 10 - 15 years. Anyhoo, a few weeks ago they featured a segment off of Radio Lab. We liked it so much that we started downloading Radio Lab too, and if we didn’t sound like NPR junkies before, we certainly do now.Every time we are at a party or a social function, somehow this show comes into the conversation. Radio Lab is a show that explains the science of life. They explore topic such as Sense of Self, Morality, Beyond Time and Mortality. Anthony and I listen to them together so we can have discussion, often times pausing in the middle.

I have to say this is one of the many reasons I love Podcasts so much. I love that we have access to shows we wouldn’t normally know about, can listen to them when it’s convenient for us, and stop in the middle if need be to discuss what we just heard.

I immediately felt that Radio Lab was an audio version of Good Eats. They both explore things by look at them through science and they have great little sound effects to make the point more interesting.

Have any podcasts/radio shows you regularly listen to? I’m always looking for something new to listen to while knitting away.