My Wish list at KnitPicks

Just love this rainbow of yarn.

 I love KnitPicks. I just love reading their catalogs.

Their pictures make you want to pet the page. I have been drooling over the catalog and on the website again today.

Here is my wish list. Currently they are having a contest  and I am a sucker for yarn giveaway! If I share my wishlist, I am entered win.  KnitPicks wish List

Even if i don't win, It has been fun going through the catalog and selecting great gift ideas. Some of the things on my list are for me personally and others are for some of the other fiber addicts in my life.

Idol Knitting complete

I could claim I am super busy but well sometimes it's just plain procrastination.
The second day of Idol  Knitting began in the dark. Everyone was told to be in line by 5 am. So we pulled ourselves out of bed and headed down to the Rose Garden Arena. Although we were there plenty early, I have a feeling folks lined up much earlier to in front of the line.
Front of the line has it's perks: more time on camera, you get in the area sooner and you have a view

Idol Knitting Day 1

"Idle hands are the devils work." That's what my gram would say. Last weekend I had Idol hands. As in American Idol hands. Our son Bryce's lovely, talented girlfriend Courtney auditioned for American Idol in Portland, Oregon on Saturday. (The result show is later in the blog, wait for it.)

'Road Trip' for a knitter has a whole other meaning than most people. For a knitter, it means deciding on what you are going to knit. So I selected a the Lace Ribbon pattern from Knitty.com. I was hoping for an easy to remember pattern so I wouldn't have to concentrate too hard during all the action. It turned out to be a pretty good choice.

Courtney gets her wristband!

We left the house at O'Dark 30. Which translates to 3:30am to begin our drive to Portland, Oregon about 3 1/2 hours away. We arrived at the Rose Garden in Portland to find...no line! So we get to walk right in and get our wristbands and tickets for Saturday's audition. And yippee! I get a wristband and ticket too. On the American Idol rules it state one person can accompany the singer. Sweet!

So with no waiting to register we are left to wait till we can check in to our hotel. Love the folks at the Doubletree at Loyd's Center. They let us check in where we promptly all took naps.

After trying to sleep for awhile Courtney and I hit the mall for sushi (not bad) and a little accessory shopping. We found the cutest necklace and earrings to go with her audition outfit.
When we got back to the hotel we decided we needed to go do something fun or we would worry ourselves to death. After cruising the web for something to do, Brad found out that The Waterfront Blues Festival was going starting that afternoon.

So we jumped onto the The Max (with free train rides within the city) and we were off to check out one of the largest blues festivals in the region. It was a beautiful hot day in Portland and boy are there a lot of pale people!
Admittedly I was one.

It was a great time and got us all in the mood for more music tomorrow. The place had four bands playing on stages located throughout the park. We started out with a glass of Washington Wine from St. Michelle which was awesome since you can roam the festival and are not confined to a "drinker's coral". It s great they projected the music onto large screens. There were boats lined up along the shore and the screen would rotate so they could see the performers too.

Courtney and myself enjoying a little brew.

We all had a great time checking out the vendors, very eclectic cuz we are in Portland. Didn't buy anything but some ice cold beer because it was in the 80's. We then sent photos of our beers to Bryce just so he knew what he was missing. (We drank one of his favorite beers.)

We had a great couple hours listening to some amazing musicians and watching people. As you can see, it was packed. It was a really good time. We ate some great food at Paddy's a few blocks away and went back to the hotel to crash. We had to be in line the next day at 5:00am.

Check out this performer who was amazing. It is just a real short video but it gives you a taste of what he could do. He stood perfectly still until someone put a tip in his jar. Then he went into a great routine.

PS. I didn't knit on Day One.

Spinning in place

My life is spinning. Some big changes are coming and now my head is spinning. Change is good but I hate feeling the lose of control. When my world starts spinning, I have found myself spending more time at the spinning wheel. I retreated to the front porch to card some lovely grey alpaca. The fleece hadn't been washed and was really dusty...too dusty for the inside. 


And there it was. All by itself waiting for me to take a breath and notice it.The lone surviving tree peonies. 


We have had some major thunderstorms and the heavy rains had knocked all the petals off the tree peonies except one.


These flowers are usually hard to miss, big brassy dinner plate sized blooms.

The last tree peonie of the season.

I'm thankful I didn't miss it. Thanks for waiting!


This past week has been so busy and chaotic that I haven't gotten very much downtime. But when I have had some time I found myself drawn to the spinning wheel and some fluffy fleece. I'm in no way a pro, totally a novice. An enthusiastic novice.


Last weekend during a burst of energy, my husband made me two new tools for my spinning obsession: a lazy kate and spool holder. On the lazy kate are two different types of alpaca; suri and huacaya. I struggled with the suri. The fleece I used was drum carded and very tangly. I ended up predrafting it or in plain English tugging it apart before I spun it. The suri was lovely but still tangly and I should have recarded the rolags. Learning.

My new lazy kate with yummy alapaca waiting to be plied.

I plied the two spools last night into a pretty skein waiting to be washed and blocked. It is soft now and i can't wait until it has been finished. Thinking a cowl or hat. Definitely something decadent worn next to the skin.

Creative Moment

I was stricken by a creative moment yesterday. It happens quite a bit actually but rarely do I act upon them. Yesterday was one of those ocassions where I headed my need to create something tangible. I create many intangibles, websites, logos and all that stuff that comes with working for a small marketing and design company.

My super cute suit bag.

Since we are a small company, we tend to work all the time. Yesterday I played hookie.
I have a commission project that a project for but the yarn I ordered for it still has not arrived. Th project is a felted knit purse. I went scouring thrift shops to find a sweater I could either take apart for yarn or another wool item that I could felt and sew. I found a couple possibilities but they were in the washer felting....slowly. My washer is much too gentle to shrink a lambs wool sweater in one try. Ugh!

So while I was waiting I decided to test out the sewing pattern on another felted piece. The jacket was originally a womens size 2x blazer. Now, it would likely fit a grade schooler.

The jacket minus the sleeves I just cut off.

Because of the small size of the felted jacket, I needed to adjust the size of the purse. The width was fine but it would need to be a shallower style. And I wanted to incorporate the pocket of the jacket.

I laid the pattern over the pocket and adjusted the height of the pattern to fit .

After cutting the front out I cut the back of the purse from the back of the jacket. I couldn't use the front because of the button holes. They had stayed full size despite the felting. Odd but felting is a crap shoot, you never know what you are going to get when you take it out of the dryer.

Really love the idea of the pocket. Nice and deep.

Then came the straps and lining. The fabric was a remnant from a pair pj's many years back.
The straps are fun and inspired by those paper chains I loved to make as a kid.

Buttonhole stitch to finish the top edge for fun.

Chain strap is really comfy.

Phone fits in pocket - it is deeper than shown.

Finished the front with cute felted rose and a few leaves. The closure is a button and a 'leaf' shaped tab.  The color is a bit off. It is a pretty brown/gray tweed.

Fun creative day and I definitely want to make more. So if you have any wool suits or suit sets, send them my way. I'm thinking I will give in to my creative juices more often this spring.

I love hats

I love knitting hats. I start them from the brim and work up to the top. I start at the top and work my way down. And one of the best reasons is they are portable and quick. I make them for friends, family and myself.

I finished a couple more hats this week. One has been in my knitting bag for weeks as I contemplated how to finish the brim. It is a great knitted hat with ear flaps and the brim.I have tried different types of plastic for the brim with varying degrees of success. Some have lasted for awhile and other broke in the washing. Today I used a baseball cap brim to make the brim. Everybody gets those free hats that no one will ever wear. Since we had a few sitting around, I tried trimming one to use for the plastic insert in a knitted brim. It worked wonderfully. The hat is in shades of gray and the hat brim was black. I hate when the plastic shows through the holes in the yarn.

Now the hat is off to a ski trip in Colorado. Hope it has fun! I hope to see it in action. Hint, hint.

Inspired...

I got inspired this evening to update my blog. For someone who teaches others how to use social media with Twitter, Facebook and yes, even blogs; I am sad blogger. I think about it, lecture about but rarely do it. So tonight I got a little creative and designed a new template for my personal blog.

I plan to play with the header graphic and create some really sweet icons etc but right now I am just happy to be blogging. I have to admit that the last template I designed was pretty sad. I really wasn't inspired to design one...just knew I had to replace the one I had.

Thanks to my friend Rene' aka Dusty Ruffles. Check out her wonderfully active and totally brilliant blog at http://www.adventureswithdusty.blogspot.com/.