Rhinebeck Flag

While my parents were here I made my mom and I Rhinebeck Flags for our cars. I had been thinking about this project for a couple of weeks, and kept meaning to get to the craft store to figure it out, but just got too busy with the housewarming party. I finally decided that I would need to use a car window flag, like the kind you often see with sports teams on them. And lucky for me, our local card store happened to have 2 Red Sox World Champions flags in a clearance bin. I was able to purchase the flags for a mere $2 each.

 

I managed to dig out some fabric left over from a project I did for Christmas 2006.

I checked around online and found some knitting-related clip and fonts to make some graphics. I printed them out on iron-on transfer paper and put them on the fabric. Then, I sewed the fabric directly to the flags and voila! I have two flags ready to go to Rhinebeck!

All Rhinebeck, All the Time

I had written a post on Friday, but didn't get around to adding pictures yet, so I'll hold off on posting it. I will say that my parents were here for Columbus Day weekend and it was great to visit with them. My mom added a zipper to my Viking Hoodie and did some crocheting at the bottom of the button band so the sweater doesn't pull up. I LOVE IT! I've been wearing it pretty regularly as the weather has gotten chilly. Yesterday we had our housewarming party. It was great to have our family and friends at our new place, the food turned out really well (brie and onion puff pastry is my new-found favorite appetizer), and we just had a great day! The highlight of my day was probably watching my Brother-in-law charm the pants off of a 2 month old. He could make a fortune as a baby-whisperer. But now it's time to be in full Rhinebeck mode. I've gone through the vendor list to identify my must-sees, I have a shopping list both specific and general, and I need to spend the beginning of this week gathering all of the things I need to bring with me. I have a number of things I hope to post this week, all of them about Rhinebeck. I can't promise it won't get monotonous, but I'm super excited and it's all I can seem to talk about, and since this is my blog, I'm going to feel free to talk about it as much as I want!

Greater Boston Yarn Crawl

I'm blogging on my Nook. My computer seems to have lost its IP address for the moment. My dad is coming for a visit this weekend, so hopefully he'll be able to fix it. But, in the meantime, I'm on the Nook. Unfortunately, that means I can't show you pictures of the yarn I bought over the weekend during the Greater Boston Yarn Crawl. I know, you're probably wondering why I was yarn crawling just weeks before the highly anticipated and saved for Rhinebeck. My husband was wondering the same thing. I decided to use this opportunity to check our the shops closest to me and each shop had door prizes and it seemed to make sense to enter! I have to say that I wasn't thrilled with the shop closest to me (11 minutes away) but I'll give it another chance before I avoid it. I loved the next closest shop (20ish mimutes) and then visited two shops near our old place since I had errands to do in that end of the world anyway. I bought more yarn than I planned to, but I'm super excited about my purchases! Non-fiber purchases were a small clip on light so I can knit in the car at night (while my husband is driving of course!), a pattern for lined mittens, and a copy of The Knitter's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements. Fibery goodies were some Encore DK to make a baby sweater for a friend who is expecting, some Encore Chunky to make myself a quick pullover sweater, one skein of Chunky Alpaca (I think it's Cascade) in black to make another El Capitan ( my red one clashes with my purple coat), and a skein of Fyberspates Aran Scrumptious, a wool/silk blend, to make fingerless gloves. My very last purchase was a sweaters' worth of Willa yarn by Juniper Moon Farms in a bright, cheery purple. I was looking for yarn for a specific patter and I think they're a perfect match! I'll show them together when my computer is cooperating. I also got a free tote bag for spending more than $25 at one store and a doorprize at another store - a skein of Cascade Pacific Chunky and a pattern for a lacy slouch hat! I'm excited to start on my new projects, but first I have to finish the cotton kisses cardigan! Happy knitting!

Little Purchases

I had to run to Jo-Ann Fabrics today to get a zipper for my Celtic Hoodie. (BTW, my new Jo-Ann's is pretty darn skimp! I have to find a bigger one somewhere.) While there, I happend upon some clearance yarn. I picked up 4 skeins of Red Heart Sock Yarn for $0.97 a skein. The yarn is 75% wool and 25% nylon, so I think it will be just fine for a couple of pairs of socks. One of the colorways is "Christmas", and finding some Christmas sock yarn has been on my list. I'm kind of excited to find something suitable for so cheap!

I also placed an order through etsy for this:

 Inside this cute little bag is this:

a PVC pipe niddy-noddy. (That's baby girl's foot in the upper right). I'm super excited to have such an easy to store, inexpensive, can be put in water niddy noddy. You can pick up one for yourself here.

Not much else going on here, just more emptying of boxes and organizing stuff. I hope your life is more exciting than mine!

Happy knitting!

Finished Stuff!

Last night, I finished my featured breed item to submit to Rhinebeck. I just have a skein of handspun to finish up and I can send my submissions into the judges!

I'm going to hold off showing you pictures of those things until closer to Rhinebeck (25 days and 20 hours to go!), but I do have a couple of FOs to show off today.

First, I finally finished the ruffly scarf I started with the kid mohair/silk yarn I bought at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival in May. This was a great project for taking on the go because it didn't need all the much attention. Unfortunately, the whole moving thing got in the way of most knitting so it was VERY slow going. Last week though, I buckled down and finished it up. What do you think?

I love that the colorway is called "Roses". This scarf just makes me happy!

(Do you think the neighbors thought I was crazy hanging a scarf on this bush and taking a ton of pictures?)






I also knit up this little thing last night:

Cabled Bracelet is a free pattern on Ravelry. There's nothing but yarn there - no bangle, no wire. So, a super, SUPER easy and fast knit. It totally reminds me of the white rope bracelets we used to wear in the summer when I was in Junior High. There's a few variations and I plan to try them all!

I knit this one up while watching the podcast Knits in Public. I happened upon Theresa's blog while tooling around Ravelry, and I've loved seeing all of her FO's. I've been watching her podcast on my Nook during the evenings while I'm waiting for Baby Girl to fall asleep. She won't stay in her bed unless I'm on the second floor. So, I sit in the hallway and knit. The last two nights, I've also been watching podcasts.

Good times.

This morning I started work on yet another Cotton Kisses Cardigan as a commissioned knit. I hope to finish that this week and next week finish up the third Tummy Warmer. After that, I'll have to decide what to start next. I have a feeling it's going to be the shawlette pattern I bought in New Hampshire, but we'll see.

Happy knitting!

Viking Hoodie

I finally finished weaving in the ends of my Viking hoodie. I have to say, that despite issues with the fit, I think this sweater looks great! I'm really proud of the work that I did and I hope that with the right tweaking (drapery weights and a zipper) and a little bit of weight loss that it will look as good on me as it does on a hanger!

Nook Blog

Look at that, I can blog from my Nook! Won't that make Rhinebeck that much more fun! I finished my Rhinebeck sweater last night. Although it's not the perfect fit I had hoped for, I think it will be okay. I'll take a little time each day to weave in the ends, and hopefully there will be some pictures of it in action soon. I'm about halfway done with my first knitted thing for the Skein and Garment competition, but unpacking/organizing is stii interfering with my knitting! I hope yoy' re not having the same problem! Happy knitting! PS It seems that I cannot add pictures from my Nook. Anyone know anything about that? PSS It also appears that formatting doesn't do much on the Nook.