Girls and Color and Fluff, Oh My!!

Since there are no rules, I guess I can brag about my own projects. This sweater was SO much fun to make. The constant change of colors and texture made it one of those projects that you can't put down. It was purchased as a kit from Fancy Image Yarn, which includes some of Myra's hand dyed yarn, the pattern by
Knitting Pure & Simple, AND the buttons. It is knit from the neck down, so there is no sewing involved. You gotta love that! There are a lot of ends due to the changes of the yarn and the pattern says you can leave them, but I just couldn't so I wove in every last one. Does that also count as breaking a rule? Now, all I need is a little girl to "strut her stuff" wearing this sweater. Knit on!

Warm Feet

Well here I am. A winter evening with one cat on my lap my 85 pound dog on the couch next to me with his head also on my lap and two balls of yarn. Kitty is trying desperately to be good and not chew on the dangling strand of yarn. I'm working on another pair of socks. Wearing socks that I've made give me great satisfaction. It makes me feel if the world ran out of socks tomorrow and I had a few sheep, I probably would still have warm feet.

If You Must Know...

Whose bag is in Lilly's milkbox, guess no more. It's mine. If it wasn't for this magic milkbox I wouldn't have socks on my feet, scarves wrapped around my neck, or a one of a kind beaded ipod bag. I've made more trips to this box than I care to admit. I'm worried what the neighbors think when they see me drive up in my black vehicle, scurry to the front porch with a non-descript white grocery sack or my new cool sock bag (gift from Lilly), make my "drop", jump in my car only to return the next day for the "pickup". I've been known to repeat this process twice in one weekend. Those were in the early day's when I was considered a junior knitter. Now that I have this fancy schmancy sock bag I feel my ranking should be somewhere around "Advanced", since I do have one sock completed and another one in the bag. Uhh, I mean box.

A Milkbox Surprise

My milkbox amazes me! I thought it was the greatest that it actually fixes knitting problems, but the other night, I opened it and there was a GIFT inside! Maybe the "fix it fairy" thought she should pay rent? Anyway, it was a beautiful ball of sock yarn! It's called Tofutsies and made by the South West Trading Company

The amazing thing about this yarn is that one of the fibers is "Chitin". This is a fiber derived from Crab and Shrimp shells! It is very soft and knits 8sts/1". Of course I immediately had to get out my needles and start using it. My color is lime green, turquoise, and hot pink (#718). I absolutely love it! Thank you "O" magic milkbox!

The Amazing Magic Milkbox

I hesitate to bring this up for the whole world to see. I fear I will have lines of knitters flocking to my neighborhood wanting a glimpse of the Magic Milkbox. I can imagine traffic jams, angry neighbors and the whole nine yards! It's just too good to keep a complete secret though. Up to this point, only a select few know about the magic of my milkbox. Flo discovered the secret a year or so ago, she called and said "Lilly, help! I have a screw up with my knitting, can I bring it over?" I wasn't going to be home, so I told her to just leave it in my milkbox. When she picked it up the next day, it was back to normal and ready to work on! Amazing! This magic just doesn't happen for Flo either. I have told a select few about it and they too have had the same experience. The "fix it fairy" just shows up during the night and corrects any problems!

The milkman also understands what is going on. He knows that should he ever try to deliver milk and he sees yarn and needles, that I am not trying to tell him to take up knitting! He knows to push it aside and deliver the milk! So, if you have a project that needs fixing, you might just try putting it in your milkbox and see what happens!

OK, I admit it!

Yes, I like rules. I also like to BREAK some of them! So, I will step outside my box, just for Flo and try to not have any rules. That is one of the many great things about Flo, her ability to "Flo" through life meeting each day with a surprise! She's one of those friends that makes you step outside the box and I try to get her to step in that box for even a few moments!
I should state that I have several projects started, so I could write about knitting forever. I am currently working on the Cutest Girls Sweater shown on The Fancy Image Yarn webpage. I only have to sew the buttons on and then I can post a picture! Yee Haw! One more completed project! Fifty uncompleted ones to go! Keep Knitting girls!

Sockless in Seattle

Sockless is not the correct term but it sounded good with Seattle so that is what I put. No rules, remember? The lovely handknit blue sock on my right foot was finished when the "3 bags" and 1 guest knitter, we'll call her Virginia, gathered for our annual SnB getaway weekend. We try to do it once a year and it typically involves a stop at a destination yarn shop. Once again we visited Fancy Image Yarns in Shelton, WA. The owner Myra Hansen dyes several of the yarns herself and the shop is well worth the visit. (There will be upcoming posts about this shop). Back to the lone blue sock... I purchased enough of the Plymouth Odyssey yarn (for a pair of socks but the first sock wouldn't fit a normal foot, that is a foot with toes. If I didn't have toes it wouldn't be a problem. I couldn't walk but my sock would fit.

A Peek Inside my Knitting Bag...and My Psyche

Note the beautiful hand dyed yarn from Fancy Image Yarns. I'm going to combine the blue and the coral and make a pair of socks on size 6 dpn, if/when I finish my current project. I must confess. I have a tendancy to start projects and not finish them. I'm completely comfortable with this though, since I know I'm a "multi-tasker" at heart, at least that's how I prefer to view myself. Well, if you must know the truth, this isn't a knitting specific disorder it is just how I am. If nothing else, knitting will bring out your authentic self and you might be surprised at just how much you'll learn about your inner workings, especially if you knit with friends who are "Rhonda Rulebooks", like I do. Jo gets anxious if she has more than one project going at a time and it stresses her out so she doesn't enjoying the process because, after all, that's the rule. If you start something you finish it before moving on to something else. But I musn't diss my friend because she has been known to knit some beautiful projects and since we often knit the same project, (because we go shopping at the yarn shops together and both just have to make the same thing), well, it kinda forces me to look at my tangled mess of a project that is still in my bag, long forgotten, jockying for position to be the next in line. Now if this doesn't provoke guilt I don't know what will. So one must look at how we handle guilt. That's easy for me. I don't need to be a Junior Psychologist to figure this one out. I look for a diversion; I start a new project.