Heartbroken

I'm not even sure where to begin tonight, so I'll let the pictures do my talking.

This is a picture taken 2 weeks ago of the Daughters Yarnworks.


This is my oldest daughter after some personal time with a pair of Mommy's scissors.

Can't see it very well? Here ya go....

Yep. And the back gets right up to the scalp in areas, but thankfully they're under longer lengths of hair. Tomorrow I think we're headed out for a (hopefully) salvaging haircut.

And yes, she did cut ALL of her hair herself. Daddy (who was home with her at the time) tried to even it out, but otherwise it's all her. She's very proud of herself.

*Sigh*

We have a winner!

And the winner is.......

kat0926

The correct number of stitch markers in the dish is 206. She guessed the closest *without going over* at 187. Congratulations Kim! I will be contacting you shortly.

As a consolation prize to all those that participated (or those that got here too late to try!), please take 25% off your first purchase from my Etsy store. Mention code "KRCONS" in the message to buyer box during checkout and wait for a revised invoice. (This offer expires April 30, 2007.)

And please help me celebrate my new place at http://www.theurbanknit.com ! This entire batch of stitch markers (plus a few that were in surgery during the photo shoot) will be mailed out tomorrow to be sold on The Urban Knit. :) Hopefully they will be available for sale in a week or so!

Thanks again for playing!

Knitter Down!

Friday afternoon, I dropped the girls off at the sitter like I do every day. They typically play there for an hour or so until Mr. Yarnworks gets off work and can retrieve them. And, up until I dropped them off, it was just an average, ordinary day. My one mistake? I put a cuuuute bow in the baby's hair before taking her to the babysitter. The babysitter has a cat. The cat is an overgrown kitten. Kittens like to bat at cuuuute things. Cuuuuute things (and the babies they are attached to) must be protected. Protecting your young often comes with a sacrifice.

Behold my sacrifice!


*Pout* A tiny little cat scratch. What's the big deal you ask? This tiny little cat scratch falls precisely where my yarn wraps around my finger when I knit. This is my "throwing" finger. At Stitch 'N Bitch Friday night I tried holding the yarn just below and just above the injury, but my knitting suffered. The yarn would creep closer and closer to the injury and I would have to stop and adjust. And stop and adjust. And stop and adjust. A mere FIVE rows were knit on the Paris sock in THREE hours. So I spent this weekend recouperating.

And working on this:

That's a pile of stitch markers. All created in one day with the help of Stitch 'N Bitcher *J*. Thanks so much J! I couldn't have done it without you! This whole lot (and the 6 remaining stitch markers still in surgery) are all headed to The Urban Knit where some of my products will soon be sold.

So now for something fun since I'm bored and can't knit.

Guess the number of stitch markers on the plate! I will give you a couple clues. The majority of the stitch markers are tiny stitch markers that are designed to use with lace or socks. The rest are in various sizes. Leave your guess in the comments box and the person who guesses closest without going over will receive a set of 5 tiny glass sock/lace stitch markers (fit up to US 3 needles) in the color of their choice (purple, blue, or green). If you are the winner, I will contact you for your mailing address so I can send out your prize. I will be choosing the winner Tuesday night at midnight Central Time. Good luck!

No More Procrastinating

After finally finishing my lace sample and catching up a bit on Etsy work, I finally cast on the second "Springtime in Paris" sock. I'm quite pleased with how quickly this one is progressing. Below shows 3 days work on the second sock. The first sock took me about 3 weeks. The second sock needs to be done by the end of the month to play along with the other kids in the knitalong, so I'm glad it's progressing this well.


Meanwhile, I can't keep my hands off my lace/scarf project. Mr. Yarnworks named it the Phoenix scarf. I will explain the name, the story behind it, and post a pattern when it's done. The yarn is some of my superwash/nylon fingering weight sock yarn. I dyed it just for this project. I dyed 2 skeins just in case, but I'm pretty sure the Phoenix scarf will only take one skein. The second skein will be available on Etsy if I don't need it.

I'm loving the edge of this scarf. It's a new technique for me. The border is made up of 6 rows of seed stitch. However, the first stitch of every row is slipped as if to purl and the last stitch of ever row is knit, regardless of the pattern. That creates this pretty pretty edge of little knit Vs.

In other news, J.L. Yarnworks got a favorable little review in the Lime & Violet podcast last week! We're famous! They also talked about several other Etsy.com stores, so check it out. The segment is a little over an hour into the podcast if you only want to listen to their Etsy recommendations. It's good stuff. They definitely found some of my favorite Etsians!

A big thanks to Kaitie Tee for letting me know about the podcast!

An Early Hint of Spring

Ten days after our blizzard, we have 65 degree temps and most of our snow has turned to puddles, mud, and flooded basements. We now know why our house that we rent has no carpet in one of the rooms in the basement. Grrrr! It's not a true flood, but there's enough water that all our boxes that we had stored down there needed to be rescued. I nearly lost my scrapbooks! Thankfully, that box had something waterproof at its base. The scrapbooks are now in a more fitting place - on a bookshelf in our living room.

About a week ago, I finally finished the first of the Paris socks. I only have until the end of March to finish the second sock and I haven't even cast-on yet. I'm starting to feel the pressure. I see some late nights in my future!

Voila! Rightside out and inside out Paris sock:

So why the delay in casting on? This has had me preoccupied:

It's my own design. This is just my pattern swatch. In the end, the pattern will adorn a Seamen's Scarf. I will post hte pattern when I have a finished product to show for it. I came up with the idea last week. Dyed some yarn for it on Thursday morning. Pored over lace patterns and books Thursday evening. Then I knit, frogged, knit, frogged, knit, frogged, knit, frogged, and then knit again through the weekend! I still need to make a couple of minor adjustments to the final pattern, but ultimately this is what it will look like. I've begun to knit the actual scarf and so far I'm pretty darn pleased with myself!

There's a whole story behind this pattern which I will divulge later, but for now I'll just say that it is supposed to represent flames rising from the embers. Though, in a nice pastel color I think it could easily look like calla lilies and pebbles.

Updates All Around

I've been meaning to post for a few days, but have been quite busy with a blizzard, illness, the kids, and tons of yarn.

So in no particular order, here's my week in review:

Thursday night I listed this pile of yumminess. I'm really proud of this batch. I know I have a good one when I'm tempted to keep it all for myself.


See the orange yarn on the botom right? Not sure what it would look like knit up? Well my knitting friend torquewingnut (aka Lace Lunatic on the Knitter's Review forums) designed these socks and used my yarn. I'm just in awe of her design ability.

And earlier this week, the perfect knitting weather hit. We spent all day Thursday and most of Friday under a Blizzard warning. I think we only ended up with about a foot, but they issued a blizzard warning because of the supposed 40+ mph winds. For the record, I never saw any gale force winds. But I enjoyed the two days off just the same.

This is before the blizzard really hit. At the time we had probably 2-3 inches on the ground. This picture was taken out my front door. Notice how close my neighbor's house is. It's so close that we share a driveway. And that clearing in the distance? It's a park! There's an ice skating rink there for the winter where they practice hockey and such. Admittedly, I'm not a cold-weather kind of gal so I admire only from the comfort of my office which has a window with a view very close to the one below.

And finally, knitting weather requires knitting, right?

Voila! I finally turned the heel of my Springtime in Paris socks! I used this tutorial and converted the pattern from a heel flap to short rows. It's not the prettiest heel I've ever seen, but it's mine and I'm proud of it.

Until next time...

New Yarns Tonight!

I will be listing several new colorways tonight at 9pm CST. Among those will be the 4 I posted earlier. Don't miss it!

J.L. Yarnworks Etsy Shop