New Banner and Crafty Bastards haul!!

So - do you like my new banner? The awesome Nicole Seitler designed this amazing new banner for me. She was just amazing to work with - she took my ideas - and came back with a great design for a banner and a button. Thanks Nicole!


Now - on those Crafty Bastards!

Jolene and I headed down to Adams Morgan today to see the Crafty Bastards craft show. I never imagined how awesome it would be! There were over a hundred indie crafters there selling their handmade creations. I am still kicking myself for forgetting my camera. There were so many awesome things to see!!

So - I searched around flickr and found some awesome pics of my the festival...click on the links to see!

There was quite a crowd! In between the millions of people, we saw break-dancers sword dancers, balloons, a virtual shrine to Bob Ross (happy little trees!) some cool jewelry made of bolts, screws and nails and even Mr. Crafty Bastard himself!

There was tons of cool stuff that I wanted to buy - but I did restrain myself... a bit.

Here's the full haul:



Most of it is free stuff that I picked up.

As soon as we walked in - they were handing out these great tote bags...



Perfect for carrying around all the awesome stuff!

I was excited to see Woolarina's booth and I was even more excited to see all the awesome fiber she had for sale! I got some beautiful rovings by both Woolarina and Crafty Snargle!

Here's the Woolarina roving:



And the Snargle Roving



Some of you may know how much I love Hurley from Lost... he's just so lovable! (I even named my dog Hurley after him) Well - when I saw this... I had to have it!

It's a Hurley bag!

That's a real painting on there! And yes... it's fuzzy too! It's by "I love Seamonsters". Too cute!

I have been obsessing over pincushions lately for some reason and when I saw this one from The Cupcake Girls - I knew it had to come home with me...







As an added treat - it had these cute little pins already in it.







Another cute find were these great necklaces by pileofcrafty


Who could resist these knitting notecards...


And this sheepy coin purse from Sewing stars...


with an equally cute back...



Do you remember "happy little trees?" I used to love watching Bob Ross as a kid. When we came across this stand of Bob Ross stuff - I just HAD to get this notecard...


I love Bob!

And finally - there was a ton of free stuff that I picked up.

pins...



Etsy booty...


and some other free stuff



It was a great day!

A bit of weekend fun!

I found this awesome site on Sunshine Creation's blog and had to play along.






What does your name look like? Click here to find out.

Spining Update

My latest obsession?

Spinning everything in sight! I've been busy at my wheel lately spinning up some luscious fiber.

Check out my latest finished yarns:

Mama-E's Merino Tencel blend in a gorgeous pinky brown color (I think it's called Toffee)



I spun up about 200 yards of fingering weight from the 4 ounce roving.



Crown Mountain Fiber roving in the Wild Thing colorway. Aren't the colors amazing!! Thanks for sending it to me Sarah!



I got about 180 yards of fingering weight yarn from 4 ounces.






And finally, another gift - this time from Jolene - some Gypsy Girl roving.



I ended up with about 280 yards of bulky worsted weight yarn from 8 ounces.



I can't wait to knit something with these! Does anyone have any ideas on what I can make with these? I really want to highlight the yarn. I have something in mind for the Gypsy Girl yarn already - but I could use help finding a cool pattern for the Mama-E yarn and the Crown Mountain Fiber.

I need a pattern that uses less than 200 yards of yarn - so I think socks are out. Maybe fingerless mitts?

I could use some ideas!!

I partied like a....Harlot!

Thursday night... Borders at Bailey's Crossroad's ... 3:00pm ... Coleen, Erin and I arrive on the scene...

We find the end of the line and join the others for some knitting and talking while we wait for our ticket...



Ticket for what? To see the Stephanie Pearl McPhee ... aka the Yarn Harlot... of course! We knew we'd have to get there early to get good seats - so we arrived about oh.... 4 hours early! The time sped by though as we sat, knit, talked and met new friends.

Here are my girls Coleen and Erin.




Rosana - came to hang out too. She is so sweet and doesn't she have the greatest smile ever!



I was very impressed with how Borders handled everything. Around 5:30 they handed out tickets for the book signing. I got number 19. We were then able to go and get seats for the talk.

We arrived in time to get the second row - right behind Amber!
Amber was there with her mom - aren't they just the cutest?



She was also there with her friend Judy.



Soon - the cafe was filled with knitters - all knitting, drop spindling and even crocheting while they waited.





Soon - the crowd grew quiet and we knew it was time. The regional manager came up to introduce Stephanie and had with him a knit hat. He told a sweet story about how he's had that hat for years. A friend had knit him the hat when he was in high school and he still kept it after all this time. I think he was rather overwhelmed by the sheer number of knitters in the audience!




Finally - he introduced Stephanie and the crowd went wild. Here she is peeking around the corner about to go on stage.



When she got up to speak - the microphone was WAY too tall.



The manager was trying to adjust it for her without much luck.... but leave it to Stephanie - she finally fixed it herself!



After some general housekeeping (the requisite sock photo)...



She spoke about everything knitting and it was just hilarious!



It was a perfect night. She took questions afterwards and one woman asked about Irish cottage knitting. It's basically a variation of the production knitting that was going on in Scotland and Ireland when woolen goods were being knit as quickly as possible by the locals to try to make a living. It turns out this is the way Stephanie herself knits. She gave us a quick example...



It's so cool - knitting and purling look almost identical. It's so quick - you can't believe it. I actually found a video showing how it's done.


After her talk - we headed up to get our books signed. Then we waited and waited and waited until about midnight when the last book was finally signed. Then Erin, Coleen, Rosana, Eunny and I took Stephanie out for a drink. She was so much fun to hang out with. We talked about everything from knitting to politics. It was a great night!

Thanks for an awesome night ladies!

Harlot

Just a quickie today to let you know....

I'm going to see the Harlot today - woot!!

Maybe I'll see you there? Drop me a note if you're going too!

All I can do is laugh

So I walked into my dining room the other day....

and saw this lovely mess on the floor:





I'll give you one guess who did this handy work...





...Yup!



Doesn't this face just scream guilty!!



Oh well.


I just can't stay mad at this guy!

I've been busy!

Hi all - it's been a while!! I've been busy. Very very busy!

I haven't posted any knitting content in a while - so.... I owe you guys a TON of pictures.

I finally got a chance to use some of my hand dyed yarn from my trip to Cape Cod. I created this crazy skein of yarn using all the leftover dyes. I just kind of dumped different colors in stripes along the skein - not really thinking about it at all. It turned out to be one of my favorite skeins. It's got orange and purple and brown and blue and all the shades in between. (It's actually perfect for Project Spectrum!)

The colors kind of remind me of space or a Nebula - so I had to find just the right socks to make with them. Along came Turtlegirl's Red Dwarf Socks. What could be better for my Nebula yarn - than Red Dwarf socks?! So - I made them! I really love how the stripes came out.





I had enough yarn left over for something else and the darling pattern for Saartje's Bootees was just too cute to ignore.



I spent forever trying to find the perfect buttons for these little beauties. (Sorry ladies - I'm sure I was quite annoying!) - but I think I finally found them.




I used another skein of my hand dyed sock yarn to try my hand at designing. I just picked a simple stitch pattern and ended up with these:



I think the Double Eyelet pattern looks good with the subtle variation of my yarn.



I am having trouble coming up with a name for this pattern. Maybe you can help... what should I name this pattern? Leave me a comment with your suggestion and maybe I'll give away some of my hand dyed sock yarn to the person with the best idea!



I have been test knitting for my friend Jolene. I haven't been able to post about any of them until now. These are her Penelope socks.



I was knitting them while relaxing on the beach in Cape cod. I have finished them - but have yet to take an updated pic - oops! This pattern is a Sweet Sheep exclusive pattern. Go and buy it! - you'll love it.


Finally - I have been a bad friend! I have gotten some really cool gifties from friends and I haven't properly thanked them yet!

First up we have an amazing collection of things from the Rockin' Mama E. I took some pictures for her and she gave me these goodies!



Some awesome roving, a Mama E 'We Rock the Dye Pot' tote, a Mama E canvas bag, and missing from the picture - some cool hand dyed yarn (it's being wound) and a Tshirt (it's in the wash!) Thanks E!!

Next up is the talented Jolene of jmknits. Jolene's designs rock - you should check them out!! She gave me this awesome roving a while ago - before I got my wheel and I knew it had to be the first thing I spun on my new baby. It's finally all spun up, washed and ready for socks.



I have about 400 yards of this stuff!! I can't wait to knit some socks with this.



She also gave me these amazing rovings for taking photos of her designs for her.



I can't wait to spin them up!

Next is the wonderful Amie. She has been absolutely amazingly supportive and loving to John and me. She gave us both notebooks to have a place to record our questions and thoughts about John's treatment. The one she gave me has an awesome hand sewn cover. I love it!

I love me some toile!

And finally - last but not least my Cape Cod livin' friend Sarah sent me some gorgeous Crown Mountain Fiber roving in the Wild Thing colorway.




I loved it so much I spun it up in less than a week! Thanks Sarah! You will always be my knitting (and spinning) twin!!

Did I ever tell you that I have the best friends ever!!!??? Thanks ladies!