Seven Deadly Spins -- Pride

I received my fourth package in the Seven Deadly Spins club. The highlighted sin is Pride. What a great package! I am really happy with this one. I am really excited to try making this beautiful Estonian-style shawl called Syncopated Lace. It looks challenging, but I am ready for the challenge. I love the colors of the yarns.

All of the little extras make this club so much fun. This time I got a small yellow project bag, three stitch markers in the colors of the Estonian flag (on top of the bag in the photo), a pink mirror/hairbrush, and a bag of candy.

Visit to Needle Rock Fiberarts in Telluride, CO

Last weekend I was in Telluride, Colorado, and I visited Needle Rock Fiberarts.  What a pretty little store!  The owner was very friendly too.

Here it is from the outside.  Can you see my colorful Clapotis on the "man-bench"?  Probably not, but it's there.  Boyfriend waited on the bench while I was shopping.  He'd gone to get the car by the time I took this picture.
So what did I buy?  I am such a sucker for the projects that are made up and displayed in a yarn store.  There were some very pretty triangle shawls made of mohair and a coordinating yarn on display.  So I bought yarn to make one of these.  In the upper left that's Mountain Colors mohair in the Ruby River colorway and on the right is Karabella Aurora 8 in red.  

Below is a yarn unique to the area, alpaca by Pinon Woods Fibers of Norwood, Colorado.  It's Colorado-grown, hand-spun, and in the natural color of the alpaca it came from, Ellana.  Beads from Sedona are in the yarn too.  There's even a picture of Ellana attached to the skein.  She's got such a pretty face.
I thought it was cool to see the alpaca that the yarn came from!  I showed the boyfriend and he thought Ellana "gave her life" to become this skein of yarn.  I tried to explain that it wasn't so, but I don't think he was convinced.  City men!

Telluride Knitting

Nope, I didn't actually knit in Telluride, but I spotted some knitting.  Can you see my Clapotis in the above picture?  It really helped to keep me warm as the sun went down.
I was at the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival.  On Saturday they have the "grand tasting".  Everyone going in to the festival gets a tasting glass of about 4 oz. and gets to sample as many of the microbrews there as possible during the hours of noon to 2.  The Gunnison Brewery sold these tasting glass cozies that you could wear around your neck.  The above photo is blurry, but you get the idea.
Here's another view of the cozies for sale.
If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend Blues & Brews in Telluride!

Belated Secret Pal 12 Thanks

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  I got ready for a vacation and a hurricane, went on my vacation, came back to a yard that looked like a disaster and had to be cleaned up, hosted some people with no electricity in their house, and got a cold.  Worst of all is driving through a city with very few working traffic lights.  One night it took me 1.5 hours to get home from work, another it took two.  It's usually a 40-minute drive.  All of those things have kept me away from the computer.

But now I am back and I want to thank my Secret Pal 12 spoiler, Jaana, for being a great pal.  (She is Muoriska on Ravelry.)  She lives in far north Finland (Lapland) with all the reindeer and Santa Claus.  She has been sending me very nice packages for the past three months.  A few weeks ago I received this one and she revealed herself to me.

She sent so much nice stuff!  There's an issue of Simply Knitting, a pattern for the Revontuli (Northern Lights) Shawl, beautiful hand-dyed yarn, coffee, fruit-flavored gum, hand creme, clips to keep socks together in the wash or in your drawer, a pretty blue project bag, two skeins of cotton yarn, some fun napkins, a crochet hook, some Finnish black licorice which is described as sweet and salty (it's both and it's delicious), and some literature about her part of Finland.  I was really lucky to have such a nice secret pal.  She kept in contact with emails and ecards and sent packages that she put a lot of thought into.  
Here's a closeup of the yarn and knitting gifts.
And this is a better view of the beautiful yarn.  I think it will make a lovely Revontuli shawl.  You know, I had seen this shawl on Ravelry and really liked it.  Now I have everything I need to make it for myself.

Thank you so much, Jaana!

DOT -- Sticks in Yard

Lucy thinks the aftermath of Hurricane Ike is kind of cool. The yard was filled with her favorite play thing, sticks!



Unlike Lucy, I don't think it's so cool. A giant tree limb landed on my house. Luckily it landed on the roof, but did not pierce the roof. Obviously it's got to be removed by a professional. But if this is all that happened to me, I'm ok with it. I was on vacation in Telluride and missed the whole event and the couple of days without electricity afterwards.

DOT -- Lucy is not just a pretty face

She is also functional!

Most evenings end with Lucy laying next to the couch. Sometimes she lays on our feet and sometimes we put our feet on her. One benefit of such a big dog is that she makes a great ottoman!
The stuff all over the floor is toys she's shredded during the evening. (She's such a chewer.) Also note my Namaste Malibu bag full of knitting on the couch.

Football Knitting

I knitted most of these washcloths during Sunday's football games.  They are a gift for a friend.  I am also sending her some lavender soap.  Lavender & lavender!

I finished the last of the knitting during my lunch hour one day.  That evening after work I went to a meeting.  I was stuck in traffic.  So I put my yarn ball in my cup holder.  Every so often I'd fondle it.  It made the drive nicer!

The cloth on the left is the lacy mock cable washcloth.

The cloth on the right is the baby fern stitch washcloth.

The yarn is Unique Sheep Pima Petite.

Clapotis #2

Finished!  Knitting this Clapotis shawl went really quickly for me.  It's a combination of the fact that I am much quicker the second time I try something, that I am still on my more relaxed summer schedule with more time to knit, and that I could not wait to see what came next.  I cast on August 13 and finished today, September 7.  This was very quick for me!

There is a huge amount of repetition in this pattern.  It can be boring or it can be really exciting if you are using the right yarn.  For me it was exciting.  The yarn kept me interested because I never knew what was coming.

I loved the Noro Silk Garden!  Though each skein is the same colorway and dye lot, each is totally different from the next.  While each contains the same basic colors as the others, they are in different orders and knit up in bands of different thicknesses.

I chose this colorway because it lacked blue (or so I thought).  I love blue, but I've used it a lot lately (not all documented here or in Ravelry).  I was anxious to try a different color.  So I chose yarn that highlighted pinks and coordinating colors.  The first skein (0f 8) that I used had absolutely no blue.  But blue crept in subsequent skeins.  I found myself looking forward to those turquoise-y lengths of yarn.  I'd knit fast to reach them, fast because I loved the effect of them, fast to reach the next length of them.  Next thing I knew, I had a finished Clapotis shawl!  My favorite parts are the blue parts.  I think I like blue.

There's one small negative to knitting the Clapotis out of Silk Garden.  The yarn isn't smooth and the little bits of fiber that stick out attach themselves to the stitches above and below.  So unraveling the dropped stitches is a little bit of work.  But I think the end result is worth it!

I was so happy with my finished object that I posed it on various things around the house, including the motorcycle...
...me...
...and the dog.  (As my boyfriend pointed out, if Lucy wasn't so tired from her morning at the dog park, she would have tried to chew the shawl.)

Close-up

DOT -- Summer Swap

I participated in the Dogs on Thursday summer swap. I was lucky to have Beth and her pets Elvis, Pearl, and Louie send a fabulous package of goodies to me and Lucy. A box arrived at my front door and I opened it to find it absolutely stuffed.
Clearly Lucy knew some of this was meant for her.
But first I'll show some of what Beth sent for me. She was very generous and sent the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Sock Book. This beautiful book has a nice how-to section (which I need) and lots of great patterns. Beth sent a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn (which truly is smooshy) in the colorway Deep Seaflower. And here's a KnitPicks needle to get me going.
Lucy got some Splash Bombs! You soak them in water, then when they are water-logged we can play catch with them. What a fun way to cool off on a hot day. She also got a package of sweet potato treats for dogs.
In addition to the knitting stuff, Beth sent me a whole bunch of treats to eat, everything from Pop Rocks to M&Ms. She sent me a decoration that twirls in the wind. I will hang this up outside my front door. I received a candle that smells like vanilla wafers and a glass coaster to set it on. Another good-smelling item is a bar of lemon blossom soap.
Beth, you clearly went above and beyond the requirements for this swap. Thank you very much!

Lucy likes sweet potatoes

Since Blogger will allow me to include only 5 photos per post, I had to break this up. Here's Lucy sitting for a sweet potato treat. She thinks they are delicious. They look a bit like sweet potato fries, which I really like. Lucy sends her thanks to Beth!

Clap #2 is Coming Along...

...very nicely, I think. I have one more repeat of the straight section, then I start on the decrease section. The decrease section goes quickly because you are, well, decreasing the number of stitches on the needle with each repeat. Maybe I will have this thing done in time for the Telluride trip after all!