Canoeing

Today, my dad and I went canoeing.

It was a fun trip down the river where we saw birds:We saw birds with turtles:We saw alligators (take my word for it, there was one there :oP )We had a good trip down the river, then a tougher trip back up the river. It was a fun time and it was nice to get out into the real Florida that hasn't been completely commercialized. We met my mom for lunch at a little Japanese restaurant downtown called Bento and now, I am going to kick my feet up and see if I can get a little knitting done before heading home tomorrow.

Knit on...

Meeting With Old Friends

First off, there will be a picture up here once I can figure out how to get that to upload from my kindle.

The picture is of me and my friend Courtney. I have known Courtney for about 16 years now. I don't get to see my Florida friends very often, but when I do, it's as if no time has passed and we pick right back up where we left off. Courtney is now a crocheting woman so that just tickles me to no end. I should have grabbed a shot of her bag while we were together.

Knitting wise, I am happy to say that I am actually doing some again. I started the dragonfly scarf and am a repeat in now. I also started a new sock. Pictures will be coming soon for both.

Knit on...

A new device that leads to more blogging

First off, let me wish you all a merry Christmas, albeit a little late.  The past couple of months have been interesting to say the least.  The biggest issue that came up was my inability to knit due to a cooking accident that left me minus a quarter of a thumb.  Thankfully, month later, the thumb has healed up enough that I can finally knit again.  To make the blogging hopefully easier, I now have a kindle fire that my parents gave me.  I will be playing with the mobile blogging features in the next few days so I am hoping that it will make it easier for me to update my blog more often.

Oh and in case you were wondering, the kindle fire is as awesome as they say it is!

Sent from my Kindle Fire

Another New Thing

So, I have inherited a very old sewing machine that once was my great-great aunt's. It's a Singer 1776 model, fully electric, and thankfully, new enough that it has universal needles and a universal bobbin band (very thankful for that after I broke the band this weekend). I'm thrilled to have it, so I wanted to try out doing a simple block quilt.

I am definitely rusty on my sewing skills. I wanted to just sew straight lines right now before I make the two skirts I have planned. Glad I did. Despite being slightly wonky, here is what my quilt top looks like without being ironed:It's crib-sized and I haven't cut the backing or the binding for it yet. In fact, I'm really just winging this whole quilt since I've never done this before. Anyone have any recommendations for a good, basic machine quilting book? I picked up a magazine at JB's the other day, but it doesn't give much as far as instruction goes, but does give lots of inspiration.

Anyways, that's what I've been up to. More painting will be coming in the near future, which I'm excited about. Also, I still knit :oP My projects are just in the boring stage now. I've got two more balls of cotton to add to the table runner before it's complete, so I'm chugging along there. Almost done with the first sock in the new pair too.

Enough rambling. It's 8 PM and I'm totally ready to crash and go to bed. Goodnight!

Knit on...

Charlie

Charlie is now ready to spin! Today, I finished the last of the flick carding and then took the fleece over to ReBelle to rent their drum carder. I came home with this:A big tupperware bin full of carded fleece. Once I get the llama fiber finished that is currently on my wheel, the spinning of Charlie will commence.

Knit on...

Stitch Markers

This week, I had fun making some stitch markers. I've never felt the desire to make them, but when I saw a few strings of beads at Hobby Lobby, I knew I had to make some. So, I made these:and these:And these:And my personal favorite:
These are all for sale in my etsy shop if you're interested in any of them. I'm hoping to add some more things to the shop in the near future since I'm doing some spinning and I've also got some hand knits that I'm now ready to part with after making them. And, I may have a new obsession, so you will probably see more stitch markers in the near future!

Knit on...

When You Have No Voice...

You stay home and knit and spin. At least that's what I did today. I wound up with a fever and a throat that was on fire, so I figured I may have come down with strep throat. Well, turns out this is just my yearly bout with tonsillitis that then goes into laryngitis. So, I now have no voice, but thankfully no fever, so I am spending the evening in front of the TV, knitting and spinning away.

I figured today I would give a project update. First, I finished the next pattern for Fiber Fiction. I am very pleased with it and can't wait until October to release it with the next section of OtherKin. Unfortunately, you'll just have to wait until October to see that one :oP

My table runner is growing a lot. It's now about 2.5 feet long. Another 2.5 feet to go and I'll have enough to cover the table:Sorry for the crummy picture. I just could not contort myself or the knitting to do anything better than that!

Next, the travel sock got a little work at lunch on Monday, so it's growing some:Last for today, I did some spinning while I sipped hot tea. I started working on the llama from a few years ago and forgot how delightful it is to spin:Back to the hot tea I think for tonight.

Knit on...

Creativity of the Soul

During times of major stress in the world, I am thankful that I have been blessed with a creative soul. I have found that ever since I was a child, when things would get bad, I would create things. As a kid, I drew a ton. When something happened, I would sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and just draw whatever my brain could imagine.

In college, I learned to crochet, and while it frustrated me to no end that I didn't pick it up quickly, I would create when I was sad, stressed, or even on the rare occasion I was bored.

Now, I have many creative outlets. I knit, crochet, spin, paint, write, take pictures, and sometimes I even still draw. I've been contemplating creativity as an outlet of the soul the past few days because I have been watching a friend of mine go deeper and deeper into a funk. It has made me thankful for the blessing I have been given to have such a deep sense of creativity. I use creating as a way to commune with my Creator. Since I was made in the image of the Creator, it only makes sense for me to create.

I suppose I have been in a contemplative mood given that today is the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the situation with my friend. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those who were affected that day directly by the loss of a family member or friend. My thoughts and prayers also go out for the nation I call home.

I think it's time to create again.

Knit on...

Painting, Not Knitting

I've still been knitting away at the table runner and crocheting dishcloths, but tonight, I did something totally random. Renee and I wanted to do something different tonight, so we were looking into activities. We came across a painting website, and then it dawned on us: Bob Ross painting night!

So off we went to Michael's Craft Store and bought some acrylic paints and an economy pack of brushes. We didn't feel like we wanted to spend much on this, so didn't bother to get the good oil paints that Bob Ross recommends. She already had the canvas sitting at her house, so paint in hand, we went there.

We listened to the soothing voice of Bob Ross over the next couple of hours, creating our own little world that was supposed to be an autumn stream, but for me, ended up turning into an autumn lake instead. Then, to make our own truly unique happy trees, we did the next logical step: add glitter to the wet paint.

And so, I give you my first true painting that was not done by a paint by number:The picture does not do this thing justice. I think I managed to create a fairy wonderland :oP

Knit on...

Happy trees...RIP, Bob Ross

A Scaly Table Runner and Dishcloths

I couldn't come up with a more creative title, so I figured I would just state the obvious. The first thing I have been working on this week is the dragon scale table runner and it's a little over 1.5 feet long now:And yes, I am still fascinated by the sparkling yarn. If I have any leftover, I am totally making a sparkly dishcloth of some kind.

Speaking of dishcloths, I made about 10 this week:I should have spread them out for you, but honestly, they all look pretty much the exact same. So, you get them stacked on top of each other. I'm now moving on to another cone of yarn to make more of these. I'm stashing these away for Christmas presents.

Oh, and I'm also painting. You will get pictures of that later on :oP

Knit on...

Knittin' and Spinnin'

I managed to finish two things this weekend. First, I finished the anniversary hat from ReBelle out of their anniversary hand dyed yarn:And next to that hat, you can see a skein of finished yarn freshly off the wheel.

I think it was a productive weekend :o)

Knit on...

Knit n' ROCK

Last night, I went to a roller derby match between the local Rollergirls of Central Kentucky (ROCK) and Knoxville (Hard Knox). I was sitting with a group of lovely knitters:We knit, we watched ROCK get torn to pieces by the jammer from Hard Knox named Goblin, and all in all, had a great time.On my way home, I stopped to get lottery tickets, pulled into the gas station and was greeted by seriously about 50 ducks:They kinda freaked me out too because when I came out of the store, they tried to follow me into my car. These ducks are obviously used to hand outs (as evidenced by the guy feeding them leftover movie popcorn) and expected me to contribute. Starting up the car seemed to make them realize they were getting nothing from me, but I think they all may now be plotting my death based on the looks they gave me. Just sayin'.

Tomorrow, I'll show you what craftiness I have been up to here recently. Right now though, I should probably do laundry so I have clean clothes for the upcoming week.

Knit on...

Happy Birthday to ReBelle

ReBelle, my favorite local yarn store, celebrated 5 years of being in business. Not only were they celebrating being around for five years, but they now officially don't owe anymore on their loan and the business all belongs to these two happy owners:Congratulations, Sarah and Robyn! Oh, and this picture took some time to get because these two kept cracking up trying to find a pose :oP

To celebrate, there were cupcakes:There was a table of yarn, t-shirts, and embroidery bags for 5 bucks a pop:From that table, I scored two skeins of yarn (which I had to give Sarah a hard time about being all in the colors I can't see. For those of you who don't know, I am red/green colorblind, a rare trait for a woman. So yeah, reds and greens :oP I did have Renee pick me out two that matched so I didn't wind up with something truly wonky color-combo-wise) and a t-shirt. I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo sock yarn that just really called to me.

When I went up to the register and wished them a happy birthday, I received 10% off my purchase (I would have said this anyways, but on facebook, they had told everyone about the 10% off deal). Then I got to pick a prize out of the basket and scored a sample of lavender Eucalan wool wash. To just put icing on the cupcake, I then was able to draw a random prize out of the bag and came out with a Lamb's Pride printed nail file. All in all, such a great experience!

I congratulate these two. It's a rough economy, but they have made it work by providing a welcome atmosphere and the products that knitters and the community want. If you're not local, check out their website by clicking here.

And here is my score for the day:Knit on...and support your LYS!

Catch Up

It's time to play "What's Been Up In Leah's Life?!"

First, there has been knitting and crocheting as evidenced by:

A table runner made out of cotton that sparkles. Ooo, shiny!

A never-ending parade of crocheted dishcloths.

A Fair-isle vest is forming, slowly but surely...

A new sock is being born because...

A new pair of socks was finished!

That's it on the knitting/crocheting side of life. Now I'll catch you up on the rest.

I had a couple of big life events happen in the past two months. At the end of June, my great-grandmother passed away. She was the only other fiber artist in my family, so I had a special connection with my Granny Johnson. When we were cleaning out her things at the nursing home, I cam across the Herbivore shawl I had made for her. Turns out she wore it a lot and would wrap it around her shoulders at night to keep warm since she was always cold. I also found her cotton stash, which she was using to make dishcloths. The dishcloths pictured above are made out of some of that cotton. She had a stroke a few years back that left her unable to knit, but she was determined that she would crochet instead with her arm that still worked. She crocheted until the day she died.

My parents flew in for the funeral and we had a big family gathering. It was a nice service and she will be greatly missed. She lived a long life though and I was very fortunate to have known her and to have really had a relationship with my great grandmother.

A few weeks passed, and then a big thing happened: DF came back from Korea for a visit! It was wonderful to get to spend two weeks with him, although they went by quickly. I was very sad to see him go through security at the airport and I stayed in a funk up until now. I'm still sad he's gone, but work has been keeping me busy, so I go on my daily grind.

While he was here, we did all kinds of fun things. We went to King's Island, which was my first trip there. It was a fun time for sure. We also went to Mammoth Cave:DF and I became friends with our tour guide that day!

We also went on a tour of a bourbon distillery:

After the bourbon tour, we drove to Ft. Harrod and I found the gravesite of the woman who brought the first spinning wheel to Kentucky. I paid my respects:
Thank you, Ann McGinty for braving the wilds to bring Kentucky such a wonderful invention!

And that about catches you up. DF and I had a few other side trips in there while he was here, but nothing with pictures. It was a wonderful two weeks and I was sorry to see them end.

But now, I want to get back to the knitting. Catch you all on here again real soon!

Knit on...

Flick, Flick, Flick

So what have I been up to, you might be wondering since I haven't posted in a while. Well, I've been up to my eyeballs in fleece. Remember the fleece I picked up at the Sheep and Fiber Festival? Yeah, I think it grew exponentially after washing, and I still have 1/3 of it left to wash!

So, I've been flick carding the washed locks. I've done about a third and have the other third left to card. So, it's boring by blogging standards.

I have also been knitting some. I have been working on the Corrie Fair Isle Vest from Knit Picks, but I haven't had much time to devote to the colorwork. I do adore the patterning on this vest though and I'll get some pictures of it here soon.

I have also been working on a pair of socks. Just plain vanilla socks, but they travel well, which is what I was wanting. I've been putting in quite a bit of overtime at work again, so by the time I get home, I rarely feel like doing much of anything aside from fixing dinner (tonight was baby zuchinni, garlic, and briesling stir fry, and it was yummy), so I try to knit a little bit at lunch when I get the chance. Today there was no knitting at lunch since I had to take a shorter one because of prepping for a presentation this afternoon.

But tonight, you guessed it, there was flicking.

Flick on..., er, I mean knit on...

Fleece, Fleece, Everywhere

And not an ounce to spin...yet!

That's what I've been up to the past few days. I have been washing the fleece in small batches, and tomorrow, I intend to flick card open the locks and get some of the dried fleece ready to spin. I managed to get most of the lanolin out of the fleece, but I did leave a little in there just to give it a nice feel while spinning. If it wasn't such a nasty fleece, I probably would have just spun the whole thing in the grease, but that would have gunked up my wheel beyond all gunkiness (and yes, today is the day that I feel gunkiness is totally a word worth saying).

I created a drying rig in my front living room where the batches are currently air drying, although it's taking a little while since the weather has been quite humid and I have yet to turn on the AC in my apartment since I run perpetually cold. Here's my set up:I'm amazed at how well that wire rack is working to help dry out the fleece. Hopefully by tomorrow all that will be dry and I can work on flick carding it open to see how the fiber really wants to be prepared.

And because I am adoring my Citron, here's another picture just for fun:

Knit on...

Blue Ribbons and Citron

I told you yesterday that I would post about the skein competition in the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. Well, turns out, I won first place in both categories I entered. The first is a 2 ply 70% alpaca 30% merino blend from S & S Camelid Company located in Morehead, Kentucky. The roving has been lovely to spin, despite a few nepps from the merino content in the fiber. I thought at first that it was going to be in the whole batch of roving, but it turned out the nepps were only in the first part of the roving and did not affect the finished product at all since they were easily picked out. The price point on this roving is quite good, especially given the excellent quality of the alpaca. I'm looking forward to purchasing some of their 100% alpaca roving once I finish spinning the rest of the roving I'm working on.

So without any more blabbering, here's a picture of the finished yarn:

The second category I entered was the spindle category. You all have seen this yarn before since it was spun while I was still in Korea. It's 100% Correidale that was purchased as a dyed fleece, which I then carded and spun into this:

And, to add icing to the cake of this weekend, I finished the Citron shawl:

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I should have taken a picture of the shawl when it was blocked out nice and straight, but sadly, I didn't. You can still see the color repeats wonderfully in this shot though. I adore the Crazy Zauberball yarn, and it took up all but a couple of yards of one ball to make this shawl.

That's it for today. Hm, now what should I make?

Knit on...

Charlie and Fiber Festival

No, there was no chocolate involved in today's fiber festival. Instead, I became aquainted with a fleece from a sheep named Charlie. This fleece made it home with me today:

Charlie's fleece had some incredible crimp to it:

I managed to get the fleece skirted and semi-picked this evening. I washed a small sample of it to see how a batch looked after all the heat on it. Basically, I'm trying to decide if I need to wash this fleece in locks or if I can do a big batch of it at a time. I want to maintain that lovely crimp, so we'll see how the small batch turns out.

I also picked up one 4 oz braid of roving:

Tomorrow, I will show you the results of the skein competition. That should be fun!

Knit on...

Creativity

It has been almost 2 months since I moved into my new place. It took being away from my place for the past couple of days to realize that while I am now finally organized and fully unpacked, the creative juices had been diverted. My knitting slowed down dramatically, my spinning was near non-existent, and there has been absolutely no writing. This weekend, I stepped away to house sit for a friend for a week and within 24 hours of being in the country surrounded by baby horses and 3 baby robins (and a rather perturbed mother robin, but hey, not my fault you decided to nest right by the guest bedroom window where I can watch) I was reading. I read a whole fantasy novel in a day and then this morning, I had a complete and total burning desire to knit, which is what I intend to do this evening. I also have finally started getting super excited about the sheep and fiber festival this weekend. I had almost forgot it was coming up until someone mentioned it in passing.

I realize now that all my creativity had been flowing into my new place. This is not a bad thing, since my place looks awesome and it's now all set up for DF's return, whenever that ends up being. My stash is organized, the spinning wheel is adding a lovely touch to the living room, and my kitchen is fully stocked and I'm loving being able to cook in my own place. I unpacked the last box on Wednesday evening, and I even knit a little bit on Thursday before the Sisters Provocateur show. Friday, I spent the evening with family, and then Saturday, a brief trip to the farmers market, some cooking for the week, and then I wound up on the farm by Saturday afternoon.

Tonight, I will work on Citron. I even have a little desire to write right now, but not enough to postpone the work on the Citron. The past two months have been so chaotic with random family pop-overs, tornadoes, flooding, and the constant need to organize my crap. But now, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The creativity is starting to bubble up again, and the pointy sticks are calling. I'll probably finish Citron by this weekend and hopefully will be able to wear her to the fiber festival. I'll have some pictures in the coming days, but for now, just know, that creativity is once again my friend. For those of you who have also hit the creative doldrums, just know that it too shall pass. Sometimes it just takes seeing baby robins and their pissed off mother, or five baby horses bouncing up and down in the fields to spark it.

Knit on...

Citron Grows

My Citron is growing, albeit a bit slowly. The main reason for that is that Farmer's Market is open again and I have been cooking a bunch of very yummy food. Before I get into that, I give you the Citron:

It's like a rainbow wedge of citrus. I think this pattern is aptly named!

When not knitting, I have been cooking. This weekend, I made this:

I call this 3 P chowder. It's Pea, Potato, and Parrotfish.

If you've never had parrotfish before, it's super yummy and holds up to making chowder extremely well!

Up next, more Citron!

Knit on...

The State of the Knitting

Well, this week has been a slow week for knitting. Let me give you the reasons why:

1. Farmer's Market opened on Saturday. I had been looking forward to this for months and planning out what I would get depending on how good the growing season was. I bought greens, green beans, cheese, jam, and herb seedling this past week. Who knows what this Saturday will bring!

2. We're in training again at work, and two people have been out for the past week on top of that, so once again, I've been pulling 50 hour weeks. Hopefully this week will not be a 50 hour week, but who knows.

3. Because of number 2, I have crashed as soon as I get home, watched Iron Chef and Cupcake Wars, and then died for the night.

4. My family keeps bringing me furniture. So if I'm not already dead when I get home, I am after moving around stuff.

Ok, enough of me making excuses. I did get to work on the shawl some this weekend, just not enough to document in pictures. Hopefully I'll get some done here soon and can get some pictures up here for you by the weekend.

Knit on...

Citron

I mentioned that since knitting was chosen as the next project by the voters, I thought I would finish my Citron up.

I haven't finished it yet, but I have finally taken a very bad picture of the knitted item and can at least show you the color scheme of the knit. So without further ado, here is the Citron in progress. I'm on section 4 right now:
The yarn is Crazy Zauberball in what I'm calling the Tropics colorway. Not sure which colorway it actually is since the label is now long gone, but I like it a lot.

That's it for today. Hopefully more progress here soon.

Knit on...

And The Winner Is...

According to all 7 of you who voted (which, seriously, I'm so thrilled I even have seven people who read this blog anymore that you guys just made my day!), it looks like my next project is going to be a knitting one.

I'll figure out what I'm going to start working on in the next day or so, but in the meantime, the latest issue of Fiber Fiction is now live. Here is the pattern for OtherKin part two:This is a reversible cabled dishcloth that is good and smooshy for scrubbing. You can read the story here and also find the pattern.

Knit on...

A Finished Sweater

Well, I was able to transfer a picture onto my USB drive while I was trying to get everything ready for Fiber Fiction's release tonight. I was foiled on the release since the story is on the computer that is at my grandparents' house, but at least I can show you a blurry picture of my finished Central Park Hoodie:

The yarn is Knit Picks Merino Style for the green and the brown is Patons Classic Wool. I was just a little short on the green, so decided for a contrasting color for the button band. The buttons themselves are a green paisley print and I'm rather fond of them.

That's it for tonight. Tune in tomorrow when there will actually be a Fiber Fiction release!

Knit on...

A Project

I am in desperate need of a good project with a deadline. Perhaps I only have this need because of seeing Julie and Julia for the first time last night, but a good project would do wonders for me. So, faithful readers, all two of you who haven't gone away because I did, what should I work on? Let's do some narrowing down via a poll, shall we?

Why, Hello, World!

Hello! How have you all been? Me? Where did I go you might be asking yourself. Well, the answer is quite simple: I have been in the process of moving. Yes, I am now in my own little apartment, decorating with what little I have, and it's awesome. I now have a craft room, which is also the workout room, but hey, you combine where you have to combine. The essentials are all moved, and now it's just a matter of piecing the place together. Have I been knitting? Why yes, yes I have. What you may ask? Well, I finished the Central Park hoodie that never once has been photographed until tonight, but seeing as I can't find my SD card reader, will still remain hidden for another day or two. I also just finished the latest Fiber Fiction pattern tonight since the website went on hiatus for the past month due to the packing and weeding out what I needed work. But I'm back, and I hope we can pick up where we left off. I missed you guys, and I look forward to returning here like old friends who just had to take a bit of a break because they had too much going on. Knit on...

Back

Hi, everyone. I'm back from my vacation now, so let me share a few pictures to sum it up.

First, Hawaii is as beautiful as everyone says it is:
Second, volcanoes are awe-inspiring:
Lastly, when you haven't seen your fiance in over 5 months, the trip turns out to be wonderful if for no other reason than to be with him again: