4 Score and...

...A couply years ago (3), if you've been around that long, you might remember this wall hanging. A woman I know, had a small herd of - alpaca's and this was the very first yarn she had made from her first alpacas. I ran into Alpaca Barb yesterday at my friends shop and she just told me she had to sell her herd, (very sad) and she realized she had not given me yarn from her very first alpaca Savannah (also very sad).

Alpaca Barb's herd had grown to 15 before she had to give it up. After a nice long chat yesterday, we decided another wall hanging for Barb will be in order. Not sure when I will be starting it yet, but I will have to see the yarn before I plan the blocks, like I did last time. Might be that I could even just add on to this one since the numbers are right.

I started this shawl a little while ago. I got pretty cocky having successfully made those other two shawls, so I thought I would try my hand at something a little more challenging- The Traveling Woman's Shawl. While not really a difficult piece, it has been challenging for me. I am learning the value of not only counting stitches, but counting rows...even more importantly - using a row counter!
Ya'll know I am not really a fan of lace knitting, yet because of the very nature of conceding defeat...I keep right on trying! I've had to frog back a couple of times, to figure out mistakes but so far so good...I am on my second lace chart (this pattern is charted and spelled out for us chart dummies), and nary a one design feature!!

Now that I have said that crap will surely hit the fan ;)

I'll have to slide the knitting back into the basket for now. Looking forward to a weekend with that hillbilly cousin of mine, I just got a call that he was comin' up.

Moving right along...

Moving forward, a couple more projects I completed while I was MIA.

Katy Scarf was a kit I purchased last year at Stitches, started and put away because it is beaded and beads get heavy to work with and I got lazy. On this one the beads had to be strung onto ribbon yarn. Of course I was constantly pushing the beads back because obviously, you use more beads than yarn.. low and behold...then damn yarn broke. So it sat for quite a while NOT being worked on. I finally started the whole thing over because I also discovered a dropped stitch somewhere along the line...grrrr , then realized somewhere in the move...(yup that is how long this one has been in the works,) I lost half the directions.

This scarf should be called Calamity, not Katy! It all turned out in the end, after I figured out how to make the end of the scarf look like the beginning part, one would never know I lost part deux of the directions. Which I naturally found about two weeks after I finished the scarf! Go Figure!

But...in any case, she is finally finished...and I will probably never do another ribbon yarn project again.

I enjoyed making the blue shawl so much that I tried my had at another one. This one is one skein of Knit Picks Shimmer. Loved this yarn! I used the basic shawl start from Clara's pattern and threw in some repeats of yo's and basically knit until I ran out of yarn. I did add a crochet border after the fact.

You can almost see the border in this picture.

Until next time...

No Idle Hands

Even though I have not been blogging, my hands have not been idle. I have not been as productive as I might have been, but non the less, I do have something to show for my current absenteeism.

This is from Clara Parkes' One- Skein Shawl pattern. I followed her basic shawl pattern and added more repeats at the border. You know me...always gotta change up something.

The picture never seems to do the colors justice! This "mystery yarn" is from Stitches Midwest a couple of years ago. I want to say it was about a 1000 yards or some craziness like that. I still have tons of it left. Pre-wound photo here. Naturally I have lost the label so I only have a vague idea of the weight. I'm gonna go with that cobwebby lace weight!

I also finally finished the Van Ness Scarf. This was supposed to be a quick use of a couple of stray balls of alpaca...emphasis on quick... Riiiiight!

A couple more pictures of Niagara, for your viewing pleasure. This is the Horseshoe Falls up close and personal! This I believe was the last picture I was able to take before I had to ditch my camera under my poncho to save it from being wet! Hindsight of course makes me realize that I could have taken pictures through the transparent blue poncho. Duh, would have made for some interesting pictures. I believe at this point in the boat ride we were actually in Canada.

Raine on the phone with her mother of course...blah,blah blah ,blah blah...blah blah!

Scariest rapids in the world...'most deadly' I believe is what the guide told us!

I did a couple more pattern uploads to Ravelry this past week. Easy Peasy Charity Hat (PDF download), which is also free here on my blog, and Petunia Socks.

I am proud to say, Easy Peasy seems to have generated a good amount of interest!

Next time- I'll sneak ya a peak at some other stuff completed while I was away.

I'm Baaaack!

Ok... Yah I know.. been gone for a while. And frankly I kinda figured my bloggin' days were done. Those of you that know me know that I was stuck in perpetual limbo...in otherwords, I worked the overnite shit shift. I merely existed. I certainly didn't know what day of the week it was much less have a clear thought in my head. It has to be the most bogus type of existance anyone can have. I am now actually on the hunt for employment...normal employment. Well...enough of that silliness.

I was going to try to do this whole blog thing on my Mac in IWeb but I am not really getting the hang of that whole ordeal yet...I'll let you know if when I get it all figured out. It will mean a web addy change when I do figure it out.

Anyway...this summer Raine and I went to New York! Wooot!!! Niagara here we come...or went...were there! Went on a boat ride on the Maid of the Mist (best 14 bucks I ever spent! ) Got some great pictures and got to see my BFF, Tammy who lives in New York...or BBF as she calls it ;)

Being that I've had a little time on my hands...and well some quality sleep, I started going through some old notes I had in a couple of journals. Chicken scratch mostly of projects I have knit/ thrown together. I have busy translating my chicken scratch into some ledgible form of instruction and have just uploaded my very first - and second patterns to Ravelry. So I officially have a design store!!

The Twisted Drop Stitch Scarf is my first pattern upload...offered free of course! Clearly from my pre blogging days, however I did make one last year also.

And my favorite 80's Slouch Sox which was just uploaded yesterday! I am pretty excited about all of the hits I have been getting on them, not to mention the downloads. And THANK YOU EVER-SO- MUCH to my good friend Dawn for doing all that proof reading for me!!!

Expect to see some changes here - I can see that a good deal of house-keeping is in order. Bear with me while I sweep under the rug.