New shoes-Purple

Sheila, who owns Foot Solutions next door to Charlotte Yarn, met me in the parking lot holding these shoes.  It took me four seconds to pull out my plastic.

They are Wolky shoes and they are amazing.  I have black ones I bought last winter.

They show off my socks well, but mostly, they make sure I never take myself too seriously.  I just love purple shoes.

Henry would love them too if he could stay awake long enough to sniff them.  Doesn’t this make you fear for his neck?  He seems content with it.

OTN-Tweed Hoodie

This is the Tweed Hoodie from Continuous Cables by Melissa Leapman.  Natalie knit one for Charlotte Yarn.  I made the mistake of trying it on and fell in love.

I am so nervous about the fit because I am knitting it bottom up as written–at least so far.  I’ve measured it about fifty times.  It is fun to knit.  The basic st pattern is quite easy and has such nice texture.  The cable medalion was lots of fun.  I love patterns where you just knit the knits and purl the purls on the wrong side rows.

The wool is Paton’s Classic Wool Merino from my stash.  It’s a favorite because it is so sproingy.  Pronounce that and you will know exactly what I mean.  Some wools just lie there and look pretty. This average little wool always makes me want to dance.

Now to make decisions about the fronts.  Will I do it as written?  Will I use some modular work instead of the cables? Will I chicken out and knit it top- down?  I’ll have some coffee and think about it.

Besides, I have other projects on the needles.  No need to hurry.

More about Socks

What I really like about socks is how personal they can be.  This is a heel done in linen stitch.  It’s my new pattern, but the pattern doesn’t call for linen st.  I was just in the mood.  Probably had been reading akabini’s blog.  That girl is obsessed with linen st.  Anyway, the mood struck and I knit the heel.  You can do that with socks.

I just finished a sock class and I took pictures at the last class.  Not great photography, but the socks are great–even somewhat inventive.  Here they are:

This is Gina’s and if you look carefully you can see a few welts.

Christy used Tofutsie yarn and this is her very analytical sock.

This doesn’t show the color correctly.  Isvara’s sock is really purple and grey.  Much more elegant, as is she.

Judith finished and kitchenered her toe.  It’s a great fit.

Cristi is teaching a class at the shop now using toe up technique ( her fav) with her own re-engineering of Cat Bordhi’s Riverbend architecture.  I need to go sit in and give up some of my cuff down bias.  Cat’s second book is out and I hear nothing but raves from friends who have taken a recent class based on it.

I lay awake last night thinking of ways to dispose of gusset stitches other than my normal standard sock.  And I called akabini obsessed!!!

The Great American Aran Knit a long

I just love it when knitting students enjoy themselves.  I have two sessions of this knitalong going and they are totally different.  Everybody likes different things and I am having a blast.  These are what the group brought in Tuesday night.

We work on cables and chart reading and tricks to make knitting easier.

Using different yarns and different colors teaches us all something which is the best part of my teaching—learning from the class.

Jean is knitting all of her swatches in one long piece.  All she needs is a border and she will have a scarf with a story.  Actually I wish I had thought of teaching the class this way.  Make a scarf and have the ability to make entire afghan.  Maybe next time.

Off topic—This is Jake doing a Winston Churchill with cigar imitation.

Kninja Knitting

Visited Athens this past weekend and left some gifts to bring some smiles.

I sewed this to my daughter’s fence at the front of her house while everyone was out doing something other than keeping track of me.

It is her favorite colors.  This is a small scalloped crochet thing I found in the book YarnBombing.

I can’t wait to find out how long it will take them to notice.  I’m guessing a neighbor will ask about it.

There is a long stretch of woods in the middle of their community so I had prepared this little piece for everyone.  They are all Georgia fans–or they keep very quiet if they are not.  My daughter drove by us where we had stopped to sew this on and photograph it.  I’m not sure if she even noticed.   She probably thought I was getting something out of the back of the car.  She doesn’t read the blog, so this will be fun to see if I hear anything about it.

If you’d like to see some serious work, check out this site.

http://thetikkuntree.wordpress.com

Power Women-1

A few of us met at Rachel’s to Shrinky Dink.  This began as a project at Charlotte Knitting Guild and now everyone saves plastic.  I am the challenged one of the group who doesn’t handle Sharpie’s well–hence the smudges even with the stamps.  However, when you shrink them down, they look so much better.  We, of course, made stitch markers.

Rachel had saved lots of plastics and clearly had a plan.

Amy was our resident beader who put all the rings on for us.  she al

Cristi had planned just to knit, but she made a killer turtle.  I didn’t get a photo of that or of the other people or their stuff.  I knit much better than I photo.

Anyway, it was so much fun to have a playdate with friends who can also access their inner child.

40 pounds

Just that.  As of today I have lost 40 lbs.    Long, high pitched yell.

New knitting needle bag

Check out my new interchangeable needle case I bought on etsy from

Luna.Actually I can get both my Options and my Harmony sets in the same bag.  I haven’t figured out how to securely hold the little pin that helps tighten the needle to the cable.  I’m thinking just a little plastic bag in one of the cable bins.

I hate to spoil this beautiful fabric by writing numbers on it.  But I probably will.  I hate counting them off.

Now I just need to ORGANIZE a general knitting bag for me and a teaching knitting bag.

I didn’t dislike the plastic bags that are used by KnitPicks for the interchangeable needles, but this bag is not only prettier, it’s smaller.

My usual knitting bag is clear plastic that says Charlotte Yarn on it.  Yes, their standard bag for purchases.  Well, they are free and you always know what’s in it.  However, I have now officially joined the ranks of cutsey bag owners.

Final Reflections

Fiorella Sabato of Pea Organization, Inc. in Charlotte is my organizer.  She is South African.  She and her husband came to the US because they felt it offered a safer life for their children.  She has that lovely South African accent and is a gentle soul who can keep you wanting to work.  I’m very pleased with where we finished after 4 hours and with the ideas she has given me to do on my on.  I also love that she took everything with her, so I couldn’t go through it again or leave in in the living room floor for a week.

She has an awesome label maker and we really used it.  She suggested design bulletin boards for things that inspire as well as to do lists.  She even suggested labeling the power cords to all my electronic equipment so I could find what I needed faster.  Look out, I may start labeling the people in my life.  And maybe I’ll make some artistic labels.

I found these on etsy:

Chalk vinyland these from GiltgoodsI even found yarn labels from adripratt

I want to live with what we’ve done for a while and then I will have her back to solve the problems I can’t do myself.  The downstairs badly needs help, but hopefully I will stop cluttering there as I have my own space.

I still haven’t figured out how to not make Henry feel dissed if I work upstairs all day.  Poor baby just can’t climb  those stairs anymore.   He’s 16 which is 112 in human years.

All in all–money well spent.  And it’s just the beginning.

Where it all went

This is the closet we used for our clothes when the “Studio” was our master bedroom.

This old clothes closet is now a craft closet.  Her idea is to have things convenient, but not necessarily in view.  Every bin is labeled and we tried to find a bin the correct size to hold everything in the category in a single bin.  The only misc. bin is one labeled “notions”–which holds random sewing notions.

This is the new closet.All of the fabric and some of the yarn is in here.  There is a bin for UFOs and a basket of new yarns that still need to be fondled.

I still need to rethink some of the things I stored and decide if I can give them away.  My choice.

I have a list of things to do that only I can do concerning files and things like that.  When I taught school, we had to pack it all up at the end of the year just in case they moved us; then at the beginning of the year, we unpacked.  It was always a purging time.  So August is a familiar time to do that for my craft things.

I have to move all the home office materials upstairs.  Steve is building me a table to go over the two file cabinets that you saw in the pictures which can be used as a flat work surface when sitting.  He has also put legs on my narrow door that I use for blocking,  machine knitting and cutting out patterns.  It will be on wheels and move where I need it when I need it.

We’ve defined the two other attics which are a wreck at the moment, but I see how they can change.  They should be easy to organize because I now know what they should hold.