Nerd Wars Planning

The next round of Nerd Wars starts tomorrow. I have a mind full of ideas of what I would like to accomplish. Too many of my ideas are rather grand so I predict failure or over-worked frustration. Yay?

1. Dissertation: Last round's spinning dissertation was freaking awesome (I totally ought to write it about in fact). I don't think I can top it this round. But I do have far too much fiber that is piling up in the craft room. One of the things I really want to do is to turn one of the fleeces purchased at th MD Sheep and Wool Fest into a sweaters worth of yarn. I'm leaning in that direction. This however being me things aren't quite that easy.

2. While in Peru I purchased 3 skeins of this incredibly soft amazing baby alpaca. Shortly thereafter I found that I could have purchased the same thing back at home and actually the price is fairly similar. But it was from a particular shop that happens to be doing good so I'm still ok with it. Plus the yarn is still awesome and wants to become something awesome. Particularly it wants to be a Marin. Except my yardage is more or less right on the edge of what I need. I'm still going to try it. My neck needs this softness ASAP!

3.  I have had a beautiful skein of reddish/orangeish yarn for around a year now having recieved it in a swap. I always thought it would be perfect for something beautiful for fall. Well it's fall now and I may have impulse skeined it up. I'm thinking Brandywine but know that with my other plans it is totally impractical.

4. Created by Carlin is still happening. Trying to be at least somewhat smarter this year I've been attempting to stockpile things to sell all year. But even with that intent I never get through as much as planned so now that we're getting down to the wire more things must happen! This year I want to mostly just sell what I've already created. Then possibly I'll also offer a higher (significantly?) price for things made-to-order.

5. My "shop" actually already has 2 (well 1 for certain, the other possible) orders currently in the queue. The first I need to finish right away so it may or may not wait for NW to begin. It depends upon how speedy I am. But the second, provided it still is on the table (I'm guessing yes), is perfect challenge fodder.

6. Christmas gifts need to be thought about and planned. In fact as holiday gifting goes if I still have any intent of making gifts I am way far behind. Best get in gear with this.

7. UFO's (un-finished objects): I've made good progress but the pink-coopworth spinning project has been typing up some of my trindles for approximately 2 years now (some skeins have already been finished and come off the spindles, but ineveitably new ones replace them). Perhaps I should finish that someday. Also I started another felted alpaca before the last round of NW with the intent being that I could finish it in the Flexi-challenge. This never happened. This needs to happen.


Well that's epic...

I'm back (for now)

Well hello there blog-land. Long time no type.

Since last we met I feel like I have done approximately a million and a half things but when I try to put things down here only a few are coming to mind.

• Work was freaking insane. Many additional hours where spent both in office and at home. Including at least one night of staying up working until at least 2 am. New things did not work property. Tears shed and I slowly started cursing in public more and more. It really wasn't so great.
• But then I got a new job! It was a bit crazy. I prepared my materials, talked to people, interviewed. They liked me. They wanted to hire me but couldn't now but maybe later. Then things changed. (All while the biggest teary-est part of the old job was happening of course.) I asked for more money. I got more money. I've officially worked 2 weeks. Win.
• I went with my parents to Peru. While i freely confess that there where moments when I was ready to come home before the trip was over, it was totally freaking awesome and I would do it again in a heart beat.

New goal: short sweet posts about whatever happens to be up at the moment. I can totally do this!

Something new (ish)

My spinning is all self taught largely using a combination of You Tube and just doing whatever works. Every so often I might try something slightly new or different or think about getting creative but most all of the time I go back to my standard short draw worsted spinning. Hey if it ain't broke....right?

But recently I decided to be daring and try something different and try my hand at spinning woolen.

In my stash I found a bag of fiber from Zeke the alpaca that had been washed (although while spinning I was getting dirt/dust so it wasn't washed that well I guess) and looked even to have the locks flicked open. I used my old beat up purchased on ebay hand carders to work the fiber into rollags. And then I spun it up.

Random interesting observation: The rollags, logically but still amusingly, take up so much more volume than the raw or the spun fiber. In this picture the pile of fiber on the top left represents about half of the total the rollags on the carders is a quarter and on the bobbin is a quarter.

Spinning woolen/from the rollag was rather different, but enjoyable. It always fascinates me to see just how the fiber really does stick to itself and enable me to pull out foot long strands without breaking the yarn. As I was trying to do this however I did find myself often lacking in consistency. I'm not sure if this is because it is a new technique and I'm not yet skilled enough with it or if its the nature of the long draw back or whatever exactly my hands where doing.

Once spun up the singles did indeed seem to be rather fuzzier although not so much fluffier. Although its worth noting that my regularly spun worsted alpaca yarn also often seems rather fuzzy. While plying the single definately struck me as been more fluffy. It was exciting.

And I was in a bit of a rush so I've not compared it side by side to anything yet but I'd say the final skein now washed and dried does indeed appear to be different than my normal. I'll definitely need to try this again.

Dream Big

Of the things I care about in life fashion/style is pretty far down on the list. My strategy is mostly just to not look too horrible ever. And unless somewhat necessary comfort tends to trump all. However I've been starting to call my jeans and old sweatshirt strategy into question as Bran is stepping up his game and making me look comparatively like quite the slob.

Now I don't want to do anything too crazy and I am still cheap so there's no way I'll be spending much $$ to improve my casual wardrobe. So the logical thing to do I decided was to make myself some comfy sweaters.

Thanks to the magic of Ravelry I fond two super awesome patterns:

Ease by Alicia Plummer

Sweatshirt Sweater by Purl Soho

This sweater used to have 2 arms.

Next up was the yarn. Owing to the aforementioned fact that I am cheap I didn't want to buy yarn for this project. When one is talking sweater quantities and especially if you want good yarn it ain't cheap. So it was off to check the thrift stores for sweaters that I could unravel. Trying to do this in the spring when things are finally starting to warm up and sweaters are not so popular was likely a poor decision. But I did find one sweater deemed appropriate.

Now I was doing all of this shopping just before the next round of Nerd Wars was about to start. Now I am getting to be a rather productive crafter (largely thanks to NW) but a sweater in a month is still pretty crazy. Especially when you consider that this round/month I was already planning to finish another lace weight sweater that has been on the needles plus do a bunch of spinning from raw fiber and at least one other NW project. Oh and finish making a whole blanket for my NW Dissertation.

But I decided to be crazy and go for it anyways (I opted for the Purl Soho pattern, it was free and requires less yarn):

A perfect moment.

Every so often there are moments when it seems the planets have aligned such that everything just feels wonderful and I am content with my place on this earth. It doesn’t happen all that often but always seems magical when it does.

I had one of those moments a few weeks ago back in February...

It was fairly late at night and I was watching a documentary from netflix about Bella Fleck. Fleck is probably the worlds foremost living Banjo player. I first experienced his brand of awesomeness when a DVD of a Bella Fleck and the Flecktones concert was one of my HS band teacher's go to time fillers. His music is incredibly virtuosic entirely eclectic and very weird, I also refer to it as being awesome. The documentary is about a trip he took to Africa to record music with traditional folk musicians. I also happen to love folk music (its actually a bit difficult to find music I don't like). If you have a netflix subscription and don't mind thinking outside of the musical box I would highly recommend it (linkage).

While watching I was doing some spinning. The fiber I was working with had been carefully prepared by myself over the few weeks prior. It was from the batch of alpaca I received a few years ago from a friend who has pet alpacas. She gave me five bags full and have been slowly working through it all since. The alpaca whose fiber I was working with that day is Lance. His fleece is a beautiful and varied fawn color made extra special since Lance has since passed away. I had lined up and washed the batch of locks, then flicked each of them open and hackled them into a wonderful ball of fluffy soft roving. It practically spun itself down into a single small enough to become a 2-ply fingering weight yarn.

Being February it was quite cold but I had the awesome space heater that Bran got me and a blanket. And the cherry on top is my crazy cat who takes no mind to my peddling and is perfectly happy to sleep draped across my legs.

Animals for your head

It all started when I was thinking about things that I could make to sell, give as gifts, and/or donate. I wanted fun and cute and good looking without being too time intensive.

Meeting all of these criteria I found anthropomorphic crochet hats with ear flaps. I'm kinda loving them right now. I've been working almost but not really off of patterns as I take the inspiration but then just crochet away (this is the awesome part of crochet, for some reason I'm not comfortable doing this with knitting).

It all started with this Birdy hat that was donated and destined to be for a kid with cancer:

Naturally it only seemed appropriate to move on to a Penguinal hat:

Emboldened by my success I upped the anti with the more involved Sock Monkey Hat. The project was completely addicting and largely completed in one day:

The next weekend I churned out another hat, this time a puppy in just 2 days. Although the speed on that occasion was more because I was with Bran and he mocks the fact that I never seem to complete anything as I am constantly switching between projects (truth, but also largely because I tend to only work on simpler things when I'm with him so more juggling and less FO [finished object(s)] makes sense):

Up next I am totally making an Owl hat, which is actually the idea/pattern that started it all before I wandered off in my own directions. I am rather lacking the the crafting time/focus lately however so progress is slow (and sad). The new goal is to knock it out this weekend.

Also coming soon....an Etsy shop! I decided to branch out this year and along with having stuff at the gift shop have an actual shop online. The challenge is going to be what/how much to keep to ship if needed and what should stay with me to ship if needed.

Nerd Wars Tournament 5

What have I been up to? Well, lots of things. One of those rather time consuming and just as awesome things is Nerd Wars.

The basic premise of Nerd Wars is that you are on a team that centers around some kind of specific Nerdy-subject (sci-fi, science, books, all kinds of things). And over a period of 3 months you craft things to meet challenges which earn your team points.

I joined up with Club 33 which is the Disney team because Disney is awesome, it worked perfectly to build excitement for my trip, and it has so many great ways to connect projects back to the team (bonus points).

Here's what I made:

And one scarf particularly awesome lace scarf that I can't show here because its a gift for someone who may read this.

Today the next tournament started!

Shawl x3

I've been on a bit of a random Shawl kick lately.

I cast on my first ever Shawl on June 20 2011(thank you Ravelry project page). I liked the project but I am far from a monogamous crafter so the Shawl was lost in the bustle of many other projects. It probably didn't help that I was using basically the thinnest yarn ever. By the end each row was incredibly long. However I decided to bring it to the fore and finish the sucker sometime in February or March.

It may be the magic of blocking lace that makes me fall in love with it every time. Overnight my project went from this:

To this:

After a bit of concern about looking too matronly wearing it I've gotten over that as well and have quite enjoyed it on some of these cool spring days.

So fueled by that success I couldn't help but jump on the bandwagon for the Reddit Knit-Along of the Age of Brass and Steele. The pattern was super simple but delightful so I knew it should be a fast project. I found yarn that I was quite happy with at Michaels. It's a cashmere blend so super soft, but from Michaels so still affordable (particularly because I always use at least a 40% off coupon and have gift certificates). The color was was crocuses so I figured that was perfect as well and called the project April Showers.

Unfortunately it came out very much more stripey that I was hoping for which was disappointing. But lo and behold when I wear it everything blends together and gives me the look I was hoping for. Yay.

Now before starting the KAL I was unsure of what yarn to use and considered spinning up Kiwi's fleece as I thought it would be perfect for the pattern. However common sense prevailed when I figured given the month timeline maybe starting from raw wool was not the smartest.

But when I found that it was only a week into April and I had finished half of the knitting already. Plus it was a long Easter weekend made awesome by the fact that I opted not to drive home to my parents but instead enjoy some free time in my own home. So I figured I'd give the spinning a try.

After prepping it into roving on my hackle Kiwi's fleece spun so easily and perfectly into a wonderful DKish single it felt nearly like a miracle. Being a single it was of course twisty but I washed it "thwacked it" as I'd seen suggested. And hung it to dry under the tension of a spray bottle. The resulting yarn did have a bit of twist to it but for the most part seemed to be pretty stable.

So I quickly knit up a little sample and lo and behold there were some places where I could see the stitches starting to lean but for the most part it was smooth sailing. And the color and texture were just wonderful.

I proceed with much sorting, washing, flicking, hackling, spinning, winding, washing, drying, winding, and knitting. And in the end had this wonderful shawl.

Its impossible to really capture the colors of it as they seem to change even every time I look at it. But I'd say they speak mostly as gray to me with hints of brown at times. The single adds so much character to the knitting that I am now certain I'll be doing a good bit more of this type of spinning.

Hooray for new things!

I think I have too many things to do.

As is too often the case I have one again neglected to post anything here for quite some time. Fail. The past few months have felt just insanely busy. Tis the season!

First and foremost work really really gets in the way of all of the things I really want to do. And to make matters worse my work doesn't stop at 40 hours a week. Every time we have a concert or special event there goes any "free time". The spring is definitely the worst. And just looking at the calendar May is the most ridiculous month. Between April 30 and May 25 the only non-work day is the 12th. Ouch. Although I do plan on taking a few other days off. Now if I could just get someone to do my job when I'm not in the office things would be rather more dandy.

So it whatever time is left to me I have all of the following things to do:

• House work: The cat is not pulling his weight around the house and I have to do it all. The little jerk.
• Yard work:  I think I had to start mowing a full month earlier with the weather so warm. And I've expanded my veggie garden. Here's hoping I keep more than just cucumbers alive this time.
• Friends: After years of being largely, but not entirely, anti-social it seems that I've recently managed to re-connect much more with some old friends. And I've even found new ones - whoa.
• Band: The music is kinda bad all too often, but I could never give up playing so i'm glad for the outlet.
• Video games: Bran got me hooked on World of Warcraft and now he's dragging me into Diablo as well. I try not to admit it but they can be fun. I just wish they took less time and or I could knit and play!
• Biking: Exercise is healthy and can even be fun, I should do more of it.
• Photography: My photos really are getting better I think. But as with all learning/improvement more time is always a sure way to better results.
• Reading: I really don't know how I did it but as a youth I would fly through books sometimes to the tune of multiple books in a week. I've been doing a bit more lately but sometimes it feels like I'm just slogging through them. And the library deadlines come up so quickly!
• Knitting/Crochet: Aside from the perpetual desire to be working on dozens of projects of my own I even have the opportunity right now to work on growing a bit of my own crafty business. Maybe I should learn lever knitting or whatever the supposed current fastest knitting method may be.
• Spinning: I am totally getting better at spinning. Latest discover is an awesome DKish single. Knit up so wonderfully.
• Other Crafts: My awesome sewing machine is practically begging me to use it more often. And wouldn't it be wonderful to work at sketching/doodling/zentangling. Oh and what about the sweatshirt that I've wanted to paint for myself for over a year.
• Relax: Eh, overrated!

Valentines

I have this idea for a super cute Valentines postcard with a fiber twist. And I thought it would be a perfect project to share with you all as a little diy project. But then I got distracted by life (happens quite a bit I'm afraid) and I've not yet actually made any myself yet. So today I'll figure I can still share with you my ideas and what I intend to create, and well maybe it will spur some ideas of your own!

My fascination with fiber post cards started two years ago when I participated in a post card swap. My fun knitted post cards are still one of my favorite crazy bits of crafting. And as a bonus they were wonderful valentines as well. When I participated in the same swap last year I wanted to be sure and once again include fiber. And I came up with my little crochet flower postcards. Another successful bit of mail-art.

So putting these past experiences together when I thought about making valentines this year I quickly came up with the idea of putting crochet hearts onto a postcard.

To start I needed a crochet heart. Alas I have yet to try any kind of patterning on my own so it was off to the interwebs. Happy I came across this perfect tutorial for a simple little heart on pinterest (which by the way is highly addicting and highly recommended). I made probably 20 of these little guys quite quickly one evening. The only modification that I made to the tutorial was to use the magic ring as my center instead of the first chain. This kept the heart neat and tidy with a solid center. My first attempt following the directions exactly was a bit wonky as that first chain stretched way too much.

This is as far as I've gotten thus far so bear with me and make a picture in your head.

My plan is to sew them onto a piece of card stock. Now sewing into the heavyish stock really isn't so easy, in fact I found it to be pretty darn painful/ineffective when last I tried. The solution is to poke holes wherever you'll be brining the thread up. I plan to hold the heart on the cardstock on a piece of corkboard and then poke holes just inside of the shape. This way I can invisibly stitch the heart securely down onto the postcard. I will also tie off the thread in a number of different places so that if the thread breaks in any one location the damage will be localized and the heart will stay securely on the card.

Now unfortunately all of the card stock that I've managed to find and purchase really isn't a particularly heavyweight. And so in order to give my postcards a better chance of surviving the mail I add a second piece. This also serves to hide the backside of the sewing. Last year when I was doing this with the flowers I was thinking glue but knew that glue would probably not survive the journey still completely glued. I then had the brainchild of sewing the cards together!

It really is amazing how one can take tools that seem so geared towards a specific craft and morph them into the perfect tool for something a bit less obvious. Stitching around the edges of the cards fastens them securely together quickly, simply and cleanly.

Now if you don't have a sewing machine there is also the option to do something more like my first knitted post card. In that instance I placed (well I poked, but a hole punch would be easier) holes around the outside of the cards and then just sewed loops around the outside. This method adds its own decorative element as well.

Once everything is together you really can mail them just like a regular post card. Albeit at a higher rate. The postcard is too thick to fit in the postcard rate so you can use a regular letter stamp $0.45 now and then you need to add a $0.20 non-machinable charge.

I can only hope that the friends and family who will be receiving these Valentines enjoy them as much as I think I would. Snail mail really is so much fun!

366 Project

Since receiving my new camera for Christmas (many thanks and much love to Bran) I challenged myself to take a photo every day.

So far so good!

Weekly Goal Wrapup, 1/29

Ooops never clicked publish....

I must confess that alot of this was powered out on Sunday evening, but I accomplished everything. Go me!

1. Finish 1.5 Special Olympics scarves -This was the perfect project to have along with me while working the concerts this weekend. Even so I barely managed to pick it up given the ridiculousness that is two sold out concerts. Still, I am so fast with these now that it was a breeze.

2. Prep all fiber for Marled Yarn -Much of the work was already done. And when I went to hackle the colored fiber it just didn't hold together as it was actually too light and airy. So the plan is to spin all the colored fiber from the lock. I would really like to get good at lock spinning anyways and this project for myself is perfectly suited I think.

3. Knit 2nd "Quick and Easy" Sock - Thank goodness this project really is super quick and easy because I just wasn't feeling it and put it off until late Sunday. But I finished and lo and behold they actually fit way better than I thought. Now I want to make more!

4. Sew convertible wallet to tote bag -Went from start (well a few pieces were already cut) to finish in one night. I'm getting better at these as well, thank goodness. I actually sewed the zipper without using pins. I was nervous but it totally worked. Yay.

5. Finish flower chart repeats on shawl - Before I could actually 'finish' I had to figure out where 'finish' would be located (how many repeats). I did many maths and I'm still not quite certain of the outcome. Crazy lace and its ability to grow. But I'm calling it good and managed to finish 2 full pattern repeats and now its on to the boarder charts. And even more excitedly I really got into a groove with the knitting. So much so that I'm rather anxious to work on the boarder.

So hooray for sucess. There is a bit of a downside however. Getting this stuff done felt rather overwhelming again, even with my 5 item limit. Next week is my birthday week so I think I may just do whatever :-)

Box of Happiness

Yesterday I posted a very long-winded post about using a $50 Knitpicks gift card. Well that post took me a while to write. Long enough in fact that I placed the order last Friday, the 20th, and well my package was delivered on Wednesday the 25th! Ok, so I suppose its not just that my blog writing and posting is slow but also that Knitpicks is super fast - hooray for that.

Here is my box off happiness:

Thanks to the holiday generosity of my Aunt and Uncle it cost me $1.13. That rocks. The split ring stitch markers there were a $2 addition that got me the free shipping. And really one can never have enough stitch markers, right?

This book and skeins are destined to be Christmas presents for next year. I am all kinds of ahead of schedule...it's pretty doubtful that the trend will continue. I spent a bit of time paging through the book and read most of the intro. I am way more excited than I even realized I would be. The history that Nancy Bush includes has just completely drawn me in and makes me so much more excited for the patterns and techniques. And now I'm even second guessing my original pattern choice. There is a good possibility that I'll choose two different patterns. But then I would have to decide who gets what and well how on earth could I manage to decide? Maybe I'll gift them but say they should share :-)

And well the yarn of course. Oh my is this wonderful yarn. It was hard to capture the colors, but then even in real life colors will change depending on the light. In person they are much darker but still have a beautiful sheen. The alpaca is super amazing soft and lends a very light halo. And holy moly is the stuff thin. I thought that my cone from colourmart was particularly thin, but this Alpaca Cloud is only maybe a hair thicker. It's hard to believe that I'll be able to knit up a whole scarf from skeins that really are quite petite. But that's the magic of lightweight yarn and lace patterns I suppose. I suspect that the hardest part of working with these yarns is going to be not plastering these projects all over the place and spoiling the surprise for my giftees.

Lastly we have my wonderful happy-inducing splurge on self yarn. Yup, it's colorful. But I knew that, what most took me by surprise was how amazing soft this yarn is. I think during the ordering process I was do distracted obsessing about which color(s) to choose that I lost sight of fiber content. Luckily early on in the process I had narrowed in on the 25% alpaca in the Imagination sock yarn. It is soft and squishy and colorful and as such quite wonderful. I immediately (well after the photo-shoot and eating dinner) had to wind one of the skeins into a ball and start working up a little swatch. As I suspected the project is going to be quite super saturated. And the stretches of color are all shorter than might be my ideal, but I am still going to love this project.


And rather off topic, but many many thanks to all who commented and encouraged me last week. On a wave of enthusiasm from your input one of my goals this week is to finish processing the rest of the fiber to prepare for the marled yarn with Max fiber.

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Thanks for visiting! Be sure and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday blogs.

What to get

For Christmas my Aunt and Uncle gave me a $50 Gift Certificate to Knitpicks. It turns out that my Aunt asked my Mother what I wanted. And Mother, having found and read by blog had seen the wishlist I posted about when I was plugging the Knitpicks contest. But anyways it is totally like an amazing awesome gift and I have been thinking about it since the evening I received the code in my inbox.

My first solid plan was to buy the yarn to knit up these amazing Penguin Socks. These suckers are actually what first drew me to knitpicks. It was a few years ago and for some reason my parents had received a knitpicks catalog in the mail. I think it had these super cute guys on the cover, or maybe they just decided to keep it and give it to me when I came home/visited. They had a whole little kit you could buy of the yarns needed for the project if memory serves. I drooled over everything but at the time sock knitting still seemed way out of my league, plus I'm totally cheap. So I just tucked it away in my memory. And at some point along the line when I was on ravelry I found it and added it to my (large) project queue to make sure I would remember it. This winter I actually came *this* close to offering these socks as a gift to my friends, but the weird IOU-ness of having custom socks when I didn't know the recipient (we were doing a Pollyanna) made me decide against the idea in the end. However before it was rejected I had already purchased the book. So now all I needed was the yarn. I spent a good bit of time debating over which yarn/colors to choose. Palette had more colors available but I liked that the Stroll Sock Yarn was super-wash and so I added the yarns to my online shopping cart.

In browsing I had completely fallen in love with pretty much all of the luxury yarns Knitpicks carries: Alpaca, Angora, Cashmere, no matter the flavor if it sounds soft I will drool over it. I wasn't quite sure what to make however. But then I feel in love with a beautiful delicate lace pattern on ravelry that I thought would be perfect for my Mother and or Aunt. Now over the holiday's I learned that they've both read the blog so I don't want to spoil the surprise but I found a perfect lace alpaca blend that seemed just divine. Plus I was being super good and thinking about and planning to start my Christmas knitting super early.

Knitpicks has free shipping at $50 so, of course, I must hit something just above that value. My cart needed more stuff.

After seeing it on someone else's blog I had absolutely fallen in love with the Peerie Flooers Hat. And having somewhat recently become comfortable (and dare I say good) at stranded knitting I thought it would be a super fun project. Plus I had some left over palette finger colors from the tiny Christmas ornament knitting I had been doing. So I set about choosing the other colors I needed for the project. But in doing so I was perusing all of the other projects on Ravelry and completely fell in love with the idea of using a different color palate. So I went about drooling over all of those possibilities and spent lots of time excruciating (did you know that excrutiated is not a word? well at least not one I can manage to spell. weird) over finding the perfect colors. As much as I love online shopping this is where it really let me down. There was really no way to know how perfectly the colors would work together firstly because my monitor could be showing something different and then secondly because it's yarn and the dye lot could be different.

In the midst of all that color planning I realized that since the pattern I needed for the lace alpaca scarves was from a book, Knitted Lace of Estonia, so well maybe I could use a Barnes & Noble gift certificate (also a gift) to purchase that. They had the book but before I ordered I realized that so did Knitpicks! Plus the Knitpicks version included a DVD and was a few dollars cheaper.

Well adding that to my shopping cart just messed up my whole plan entirely. After much deliberation I realized that I just wasn't nearly so enthralled with knitting the Penguin socks as I had once been. Many other projects seemed more appealing. So out of the cart they came.

And then to really shake things up instead of Peerie Flooers I had the brilliant (crazy) idea to make a different hat from the same designer. Originally made from all different shades of sheep I could blend up my own shades of alpaca! And possibly even come up with my own alpaca charts. Crazy, but awesome. And it requires no more purchasing. Out of the cart came all of the yarns for the hat.

Now I was left with another $20 burning a hole in my pocket. So I ended up thinking about more of my linen stitch scarves. On numerous occasions I had contemplated how some of their sock yarns would look knit up in one of those marvelously colored scarves. But I was already planning two spinning project ideas to be knit up in the same pattern so it seemed like over kill.

But the more I thought about it the more I convinced myself that it was ok. This was my Christmas Present after all. Why not go ahead and splurge (ok ignore the fact that all of this is splurging really) and just do whatever I want. After a good bit more excruciating over color options I settled upon the crazy wild and bright Over the Rainbow which was in a luscious sounding 50% Merino Wool 25% Superfine Alpaca, 25% Nylon blend. The colors are super wild and I'm worried that the whole scarf will just be too super saturated and not look that great. But then when its cold and I'm bundling up in a scarf I really will need something bright and festive to warm me inside and out. So it'll be good.


All very very good.