Progress Keepers/Stitch Markers

New Yarn, Gifts and a Cool Picture :)

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

Ok, the first picture is a beautiful tonal blue yarn, colorway is I’m the Resistance. I had her do a special request to dye the tonal blue, as a full skein, that was in the American Woman color way I bought from her a couple of months ago. I wanted to use both in (I think I’ve settled on this but it might change so many things to knit :P) a cowl and fingerless mitts or hat to match for my grand daughter. The business is Awenydd Yarn & Fiber (click on catalog under the label at the top of the page to see all her beautiful pre-dyed color ways, you can also do a special order request like I did.) You can find her on YouTube where she does a Monday podcast reworking some of her older color ways while you watch her dye, a Wednesday podcast while you watch her dye from a random selection of colors of dyes from a random generator, it’s fun, and on Fridays she talks about her finished projects and works in progress etc. This request came out perfect! This is her Triple Goddess base, 100% super wash merino and a whopping 490 yards! It’s a light fingering weight. Would be perfect for a shawl, and to be honest I still haven’t ruled that out, lol. I have time to make my final choice :P. She also threw in a sample of her color way Reverie and 2 beautiful stitch markers and a progress keeper!

My son and his husband own an alpaca farm (I help out on Saturdays because they are open to the public on Saturdays.) I’m exhausted just thinking about how much work a farm takes as a business.) They took a well deserved week’s vacation a couple of weeks ago and went to FL to Disney World and Universal Studios to get away and rest, while Ev’s parents took care of the farm for them. They brought me back a Mandalorian Hoodie, a Harry Potter Gryffindor tee and 2 new pins (a Gryffindor and a Mandalorian) for my knitting project bag. You can probably tell I’m obsessed with Harry Potter and the Mandalorian :). So cool that they brought me something, it made me smile. The pin on the bottom is a zipper needle felted sheep I bought at a fiber festival a couple of years ago. In the next two pictures they are enjoying some of their Disney World adventures, they like Star Wars too.

The bottom right is just a cool picture, it’s called “a one in a million shot”.

Yarn Acquired!

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

Well I might have accidentally ordered a skein of yarn from an Indy (spelling?) dyer on YouTube that I follow, Awenydd Yarn and Fiber, I linked her shop, you can look for her on YouTube under that name. She does a Monday podcast reworking some of her older color ways while you watch her dye, a Wednesday podcast while you watch her dye from a random selection of colors of dyes from a random generator, it’s fun, and on Fridays she talks about her works in progress etc. This was one of her reworks of an older color way, she did last week, to jazz it up a bit. I fell in love with it, I had enough extra money and ordered it. She got it right out to me and she sent me that beautiful crystal in a heart cage progress keeper as a thank you, so pretty. I’m thinking about asking her to dye up a skein of just the blue color as a tonal next month. I thought it would make a nice shawl knitting 6 rows of the blue and 3 or of the American Woman rows throughout the shawl. What do you think? I think the blue would give it some balance and depth as a shawl, beginning and ending with the blue, and the brighter colors would make it pop a bit adding excitement and the blue in the brighter colors would pull the two together :). If I was a sock knitter I would just knit socks for July, but I’m not, so there’s that :P. She has knit samples with the skeins so you can see what the yarn works up as.

Hoping everyone is fine and not suffering with the heat. We are having thunderstorms today and tomorrow, and will be in the mid 90’s on Saturday, Sunday and next Monday, with sweltering humidity, which they said would make it feel like the low 100’s, :(. This is our late July and August weather, way too soon!!! Thank goodness for air conditioning!!!

Fall Surprise Knitting Box & Hats

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

I got my 3rd and final Fall Surprise Knitting Box from Twice Sheared Sheep. I don’t think anyone who gets this box follows me so I wouldn’t be giving anything away in case some haven’t gotten theirs yet. Lots of goodies! I forgot to put the bear tin back in the box for a picture of the full box, so I added it to the other things I took out to get a better picture of. I love the wolves mug, will serve many hot chocolate drinks! The mini skeins are a dk weight. Not sure what I will make with those, will have to think on it, they are soft :). There is a huge hat pom in there too! Will give the bag to my grand daughter M for her crochet, she is trying to learn. Love the counting stitch marker with the tree of life on it, it matches the progress keeper I made with a charm I received with one of my other fiber purchases. I’ll try to get a picture of that eventually, I keep forgetting (what else is new). The mushroom stitch markers I will use for progresss keepers :). I do love the bear tin for stitch markers and the very cute hedgehog tape measure. The card in there (took a picture of front and back) shows what is in the box and tells a little about them. She will be taking orders for the boxes again in Jan I think.

The first picture is of hats that I knit every year. I use I love this Yarn Print (it comes in various colors) by Hobby Lobby. I like the striping effect it gives on hats. This year they are going to a family of children who lost their mom (3 boys and a girl). I thought they might appreciate new hats for winter. Hope they will like them. For this pattern I use worsted weight yarn, and cast on 89 stitches (for small and medium adults), knitting in the round, doing a 2X2 rib (the extra stitch at the last is knitted with the first stitch to make a good join in the round. I use a 16″ circular needle, my favorite is the Karbonz, it’s carbon with a metal like tip so It’s light weight. I use size 5 needle because I knit a little looser with my knitting style (continental combined) but the pattern calls for a size 6. The 2X2 rib makes it pretty stretchy. You can use less stitches for children, or a lighter weight yarn adjusting your needle size, for a smaller hat, just make sure it’s an odd number of stitches.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weather before winter gets here. We are still going between fall and summer weather and I wish the first frost would come early, my allergies are so NOT FUN, even my antihistamine is not doing the trick this year, and I’ve tried several, sigh.

Happy Flag Day, 2 New Stitch Markers and Cria at the Farm :).

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

Happy Flag Day!!

I like to buy stitch markers and progress keepers from Adore Knit because they are really cute and makes me happy to see them on my knitting project, and they are well made. I really love her Snoopy stitch markers and progress keepers, so cute!

These are the two new cria (baby alpaca) on the farm. Libby is a young llama (about 9 months old) but this is after having her first shearing, you can see her real color now. The next two are Liza with her cria Himalaya (cream color, nick name is Laya) and Liz with her cria, Rocky. Rocky is the same color as his dad Everest. Everest was the father of both cira. Laya may look a little dirty but my son has a splash pad for the alpaca so they can stay cool and if they sit in the dirt, after they get wet in the sprinkler on the splash pad, they get muddy :P. Liza is Liz’s daughter, so Rocky is Liza’s 1/2 brother and Laya is Liz’s grand daughter ;), Everest wasn’t related to Liza or Liz. Did I confuse you enough? My son keeps up with all the relationships so he doesn’t breed back to family lines.

This week coming week starting on Sunday is going to be very warm, in the 90’s. Ugh! Everyone, stay cool!!

New Knitting Jewelry :)

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

I treated myself to, what I have come to call my stitch markers and progress keeper, knitting jewelry :P. I order these from Adore Knit , she makes really cute stitch markers and progress keepers. I found some Snoopy things I didn’t have (big Peanuts fan) and she had some really nice tape measurers, I always misplace mine (even tho I should have one in all of my project bags). I really like these. I also splurged and bought a really cute knit/purl bracelet, you can see it on the back of and behind the dark tape measure, my photo skills lack some serious ability, but you can see them on her site, she shows them much better than I did. It is really pretty so now when I say knitting jewelry, it really is! She included a gift pin for my project bag and I had to show off the super cute netting bag with the hearts she put some of the stitch markers in. Thanks Steph!!

I was hoping for a little bit longer spring before summer temps came. We’ve been in the lower 80’s during the days and 60’s at night this week, tho the weather man says it should be back in the 50’s and 60’s during the days and 30’s and 40’s at night next week. The poor birds must be really mixed up!

New Stitch Markers and Progress Keepers

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

I was bad and ordered more stitch markers and progress keepers.  Pretty soon I will have to join Stitch Marker/Progress Keeper’s anonymous, apparently it’s an addiction :P.  AdoreKnit put more Mandalorian markers and keepers in her shop and they are really cute!  Another baby Yoda and if you have seen the series you know he eats a frog, so my collection wouldn’t be complete without the frog :).  She sent me an extra progress keeper, a Mythosaur, which is an extinct animal (it was apparently fierce) that the Mandalorians used to ride.  It is a great progress keeper!

My second purchase was a piece of chocolate cake progress keeper and oh my it is so realistic! CharmingMinis progress keepers/charms are handcrafted from polymer clay and she does an amazing job.  I told her I would probably regret getting the chocolate cake because every time I use it I would want to eat some :P.   She also gave me an extra gift, the brownie, which is also well crafted, how can you not like chocolate?  I enjoy the stitch marker she ties on the box, the crown, because as you can see it’s part of her company name (it dots the first i in her company name.) 🙂  You should see her art work on YouTube, be sure and check them all out, her art work is also amazing!

Guess I should step up my knitting since one project has a deadline, the wedding shawl, and I need more projects to use these new markers and keepers on :).  Think I’ll go have some chocolate cake 😛

Summer Solstice, New Progress Keepers and Lace Bookmarks

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Sorry Word Press has changed some things and I don’t know how to get around in it yet, sigh.

Ok it’s the Summer Solstice, which for me means our daylight hrs will start to get shorter.  I only pay attention to the solstices because they signal days getting shorter or longer.  I always look more forward to the Winter Solstice, because it means the daylight hrs are increasing and Spring is coming. 🙂  I guess I shouldn’t look at Summer Solstice as a negative and just enjoy the summer and fall without worrying about winter yet.  Can you tell I am not a winter person, and yet I live in the Mid West?

I have been working on the lace book marks and they are now all sent out to their intended recipients.  I knit them on size 1 (US size) needles using left over sock yarn, used about 4 to 5 grams including the tassle, depending on how thick your sock yarn is.  They are quick and easy.

This past week I got a surprise package in the mail.  I opened it up and it was from one of my favorite stitch marker/progress keeper makers, Adoreknit .  She knows I am an huge Mandalorian fan.  I was so excited when I opened it and found these two Mandalorian progress keepers!  Put a big smile on my face, baby Yoda is adorning one of my WIPs, is he not so cute!  Makers are the best people!

I got the new yarn I ordered for the wedding shawl that I need to have done before October.   The yarn I ordered before was too coarse for bare shoulders and I returned it.  I ordered both yarns from LoveCrafts and they were very good about taking the previous order back.   I’m using my Daisy Rectangular Shawl pattern.  I hope I have corrected the error (miscalculation) on two rows being too close.  I haven’t updated my pattern yet because I want to knit up my correction to make sure I didn’t make it worse :P.  If this corrects it, I will update the pattern.  I will post more on this shawl (yarn, needles etc) as I get further in the pattern as I have only finished the border on the bottom at the moment.

I’m on the last sleeve of the Flax baby sweater.  I will post a picture when it’s done :).

New Child’s Flax Sweater and Some New Progress Keepers!

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Before I start, just wanted to say, I didn’t forget Easter.  I celebrated Easter on the phone (conference call) with some members of my church, it was nice.  I just didn’t get on the computer afterwards.  Hope everyone had a good Easter, even tho we were all physically distancing ourselves.

I did finally get a picture of my Spring Robin :).  He kept his back to me so I didn’t get that beautiful red breast, but there he is :).

I didn’t get around to posting 1/2 way through this new Flax knit but here it is all finished.  Still using Hobby Lobby’s Yarn Bee Soft & Sleek, colorway Violet Stripe.  I think I neglected to say in my previous Flax sweaters my needle sizes etc.  It calls for a worsted/aran yarn and the one I am using is worsted.  I generally have to go down a size needle to get correct gauge because I am a looser knitter, but I went down two sizes on the body and sleeves and one size on the neck and cuffs.  So I used a size #5 on the ribbing and cuffs and a size #6 on the body and sleeves.  I’m sorry I don’t know what the mm sizes are :(, I like the fabric it created much better.  I used a 16 inch circular on the neck and body and 9 inch circular on the sleeves and cuffs.  I do like the way the color blocks on this yarn and pattern :).

I think my next project will be some more of those cute lace bookmarksI made 2 years ago.  They are a free pattern and the link for those is on my linked page.

I did some spinning on my balcony today, since it was about 60F.  It was nice to sit outside and enjoy a peaceful spin :).  I’m working on the second bobbin for the white wool/alpaca I am spinning.  I am having to have someone to make new bobbins for my Rick Reeves wheel, the other ones I had made didn’t fit and they didn’t have the metal piece in the middle to protect them while I spun.  I found someone who specifically makes them for this wheel.  Hopefully I can order them next month.

And as you can see, I bought some more progress keepers from CharmingMinis , they are sooooo cute, her artistry with polymer clay is amazing!! She always sneaks in a extra gift.

Hope everyone is staying safe and that we get back to normal soon, at least it’s getting warm!