My baby is growing up!

Hi everyone!  How has your week been?  Mine has been crazy.  My baby youngest child is Paige....so at the age of 19, she is my baby!  But she is growing up....she went out of town this past weekend...she came home late last night....she has never been on a plane....and she was going to CO to visit a friend and traveling all alone......so she is growing up alright!

Her flight left Austin at 6:20 am.....so we had to get up at 2:45 to leave the house by 3:45 to get here there early......She made it to her gate....and got a window seat.....and made it all the way to CO to see her friend, Tara (on the left)....when she came home, her flight was delayed 4 1/2 hours so I had to pick her up at the airport at 3:35 am.....

This made for a very busy week for me.....Early last week, Antonio was sick....he was better by Wednesday....on Thursday, Paige needed to bring me my car back so they stayed for dinner, then her and Antonio spent the night Friday (so we could get up so early on Saturday)....and I have had Antonio all weekend.  His uncle did come pick him up Saturday night to Sunday afternoon.....why do I mention all of this?  Because Me + Antonio = Very Little Knitting!  OK, on to the knitting!

First, I worked like a knitting ninja to finish Paige's hat for her to take to CO:

Other than that....all I really worked on is socks......  The Hiya Hiya Sail Lace II socks:

My Loopy Academy Socks:

And some new socks for a Hiya Hiya KAL.   The pattern is called Team Spirit and it is colorwork....I am using some funky colors, so the colorwork does not really 'stand out' but I think once I get a little farther, it will.

This is the yarn:

This is the first sock:

I did have some stash enhancements.....I love the bright colored yarn above so much, I got some more...there was a sale and I could not help but buy more of them....it is Regia:

While I was buying Regia, I saw they have a new yarn with Outlast....which is supposed to be temperature controlling....so I got some green and blue solid to make some socks with (some time in the distant future):

This past weekend was the Dallas/Ft. Worth Fiber Festival....and I have a few friends that went. They are so awesome they texted me pictures and bought some yarn for me (and I paid them back of course).....it is nice to have friends willing to spend your money.....Miss Babs has two new yarn bases.  One of them is called Killington.  It is a sportweight and it has 700 yards...85% merino and 15% silk!  It is heavenly!  I got two skeins of Bat Sh*t Crazy to make Toujours by Joji Locatelli and one skein of Mayhem because it looks like biker chick with purple...I just loved the colors!

I also had them snag me a couple of skeins of Kama Sutra from MustStash Yarn.  I love all of Stacie's self striping yarn!  I got two because one is for Darlene :)

My pink yarn that I ordered for the Miss Babs Tour came in too!

More turtle purl yarn to make burberry socks for my sister and niece.

And a friend of mine snagged some Lollipop yarn, so she let me trade yarn for this skein of Home Grown....reminds me of the Zac Brown Band song....Homegrown!

I participated in the DCS Podcast Pigskin Party and I won a skein of yarn from Lilliput....the blues and greens are not really my color....but it is beautiful!

This past weekend was the Dallas/Ft. Worth Fiber Festival....and I have a few friends that went.  They are so awesome they texted me pictures and bought some yarn for me (and I paid them back of course).....it is nice to have friends willing to spend your money.....I do not have the greatest pictures....so you will have to stay tuned for next week (or I may blog mid week) to see the goodies I got.

Oh, and I found some "Knitting Girl" socks that I just had to buy:

Lastly.....I have been in the mood for a new purse....I got my tax return and have been eyeing a few bags....a friend of mind suggested I go to the San Marcos Outlet Mall stores to see if I see anything I like....it is about an hour one way...but it was worth it.  I got this "Weekender Bag" that is meant to be used as a 'bag' but I will use it as a purse...the color is a beautiful periwinkle....but a little more towards the blue side than the purple side.....it is hard to describe....I also got a matching wallet!

Well, that is about all I have......I did finally get some pictures of Celeste modeling the sweater for me....and I am including the pictures of the puzzles that Antonio and I made about a hundred times this past weekend :)

Happy Happy Happy Knitting!

I am 0 for 2!

I had a great weekend...and I felt like I got a lot of knitting done (even though I should have been packing). However, by the end of Saturday and the end of Sunday, I felt partially defeated.

Saturday, I was knitting on my daughters cardigan/sweater when all of a sudden I see the end of my circular cord and look and my cord has broken from the needle...no warning, no "SNAP", nothing....just my stitches slowly starting to drop more and more......and this was my Signature needle.  I am not sure if you remember, but back on March 25th of this year, I blogged that this happened to a Signature needle and I lost all my work and had to start over.  Now, if these were cheaper needles, maybe I could accept and/or expect it...but these needles are not cheap!  I have spent a pretty penny on all the Signature needles I have and now I am kind of scared to use another circular one.  I lost about 4 rows, tinked a couple more to make sure my lace pattern was on track, and then had to re knit.....I was frustrated.  I contacted the company with a pretty lengthy email and since this has happened to me before, I knew they would ask for a picture, the needle size, and cord length along with the address to mail a replacement to.  I put all of that in an email.  I got a generic email back saying that breaking cords is not the normal and to please send them a picture of the broken needle, the needle size, length of the cord and the address I want the replacement mailed to....I feel like they did not even take the time to read my email and just gave some crappy standard response....even more frustrating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I put my work on my Chiaogoo's (which have NEVER broken) and moved on .....

What did I move on to you ask?  I moved onto socks.....I wanted to do LOLLIPOLOOZA!  This is the first year I have been able to get any Lollipop yarn.  I have 3 skeins.....Doo Wah Diddy, Witchy Woman, and H"owl"'-o-ween.....I decided to use Doo Wah Diddy (DWD).  The pattern for Lollipolooza was posted and I got to work....

12 rows of ribbing....Check

Start pattern.....Check

See pattern starting to show.......No Check!  I was looking at my sock and thinking, "There is no way a diamond is going to appear out of this!".  The pattern is called Fruit Stripe Gum.....I LOVE the pattern...it is SUPER AWESOME, and the designer is super awesome for sharing it for free.  But it was not working for me.

I posted in the KAL forum, and she got back to me....the size I had cast on for was not test knitted and I needed two more stitches for the pattern to show.....I also realized I had cast on for the wrong size....so what did I do?  Yup, I had to frog the whole thing.

Then I recast on at lunch today and used a 3.25 mm needle instead of 2.5...I'm telling you, I cannot win!

Paige also asked me to make her some leg warmers......I'm pretty excited about it, but need to try a few things before I try to design a pattern (of course I also have to finish her cardigan first!).

Well, now that I did not wait weeks to post again, I do not have a mile long blog....that is really all that is going on with knitting.....I have lots of packing I still need to do to get ready for "The Move"!

I leave you with two super cute buttons I got at Kid N Ewe:

Happy Happy Knitting!

WOW What a week!

I have been pretty crazy busy.  It feels like 3 weeks have gone by, but I think it has only been one week and one day since my last post.  Can you believe it is already October?!?  I have been plugging away at my Nuvem trying to get my 7 grams a day done so it will be done by November 9th.  I am almost as far as my first nuvem that I still need to frog.....These are not the greatest pictures, but I love this increase 100% better than the first nuvem I started (and still need to frog).

I have a few stash enhancements...Lollipop yarn (in 2 colorways with one more on the way), One of the lollipop yarns was bought with an awesome project bag with cute owls....puts me in the mood for Halloween!  The first colorway is called H"owl"oween and the second one is called Witchy Woman. I also got some Miss Babbs.  She has a new Katahdin which is 1750 yards per skein.....I got it in biker chick colorway (My favorite colorway of all time) and 2 small skeins of roasted pumpkin.  It was also time for me to get my Barking Dogs Yarn Club Yarn for the month of October.  The color is Denim....it is a perfect blue!

I also ordered myself some of what I think is super cute stationary.  I got it from Vista Print....they gave me a couple of savings websites I can share.  www.vistaprint.com/notepad25 and www.vistaprint.com/sticky on each of these sites, you can save 25% off everything on their site.  Here is what I picked...it is not exactly knitted stitches, but it looked kind of like knitted stitches...oh, and it is orange!!!! I got 2 kinds of notecards, and two different notepads, and a set of sticky notes.  I love them!  I will be using one of my new note cards to send to my scarf swap recipient.....

Now, there is a lady here in my city that read a blog about an owner of a yarn store doing projects from book called "Knitting Masterclass: With Over 20 Technical Workshops and 15 Beautiful Pattern".  She posted out on a forum that she was interested in becoming a better knitter and wanted to know if anyone wanted to join her.  I told her I did and she started a group in Ravelry and I am an administrator and moderator there.....I am really enjoying all the chit chatting over the book.  The first project in the book is a cardigan (Sedgemoor Cardigan) and I did a swatch for that cardigan.  I am not sure if I am going to use this yarn or not...but I was proud of myself for doing a swatch.

I did a few rows on the Cowl I want to finish for the Must Stash Podcast KAL

Lastly, do you remember a KAL I did with a HiyaHiya Pattern?  I did some green socks and the pattern was called the Harmonious Cable (or something like that)?  Well, at that time, I volunteered to be a host/hostess for one of their future KAL's.....and I was chosen to do so.  I am hostessing the Great Wall Socks IV KAL in this forum.  Here is a link to the pattern....anyone who wants to join, can join the group and the KAL!!!  I am not sure what yarn I am going to use for mine....I hope to cast on tonight!!!!

On lady in the KAL said that as soon as she finished her chores, she would cast on.....well, I want to remind some of you out there of two very important things:

AND

Happy Happy Happy knitting....Have a great week!!!!!