I Have New Socks!

I am SOOO excited! My first sock pattern, April Showers Bring May Flowers, is now available on Ravelry as a free pattern download!

The Spring Weather here in the Atlanta area was definitely the inspiration for these socks. Lots of rain brings out all of the beautiful flowers...the cherrytrees, followed by the dogwoods, magnolias, wisteria and azaelas! People start planting their annual summer flower gardens right about the first of May here. Lots of impatiens and begonias! Such a pretty time of year!

I used Knit Picks Palette Yarn which is a fingering weight yarn and 100% Peruvian Highland Wool. I used less than 2 skeins of Celestial as the main color, and way less than 1 skein each of fushcia and sky for the flowers and raindrops.

Since I've tried some colorwork techniques this past winter with Selbu Mittens and Fair Isle Mittens , I thought I would like to knit some socks with colorwork. As you all already know, I have been quite busy knitting socks these past few weeks. Definitely portable as I drive the kiddos here and there (there's baseball season for my son and lots of rehearsals and dance classes for my daughter's Spring Performance and Recitals). But being in an It's Spring frame of mind, I wanted to knit socks that reminded my of Springtime.

 A little bit about this pattern...it's more or less just a basic stockinette stitch sock with some colorwork added to the leg. There are only 31 rows of colorwork, of which 14 rows are solid colors. And you never work with more than 2 colors at once.  Not too difficult, right? It was a lot of fun to design and playing with the Knit Visualizer software was really a lot of fun!  You can find the the pattern on Raverly. It's free!

Happy Spring!

So...I told you mine....Yarn-Give-Away

Yep, you know all about mine, told you all about it in my last blogpost...Time to Knit.  So, share with me... when do you knit or crochet? Tell me all about your favorite crafting time, where you are etc.   And...I'm having another Yarn-Give-A-Way. Two Skeins of  Shibui Sock Yarn in this oh-so-spring-y pink.. Each skein is approximately 190 yards. And, it's machine washable! Can't beat that when you want to get back to knitting or crocheting!  Here's a pic!

How do you enter? Just a leave a comment below under this blogpost and tell me when you spend time knitting or crocheting. Leave as many different comments as you like. I will use a random number generator to decide the winner. All entries must be submitted by April 11th at 11:59 pm.  (Atlanta, GA timezone).  I'll announce the winner on April 12th!

Time to Knit

Topic for Day seven: 3rd April. Your knitting and crochet time...Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to knit – alone or in more social environments?


When do I like to knit?  Whenever I can at the moment.  After I get done with work, in the carpool line, waiting at my daughter's dance studio.  Sometimes, first thing in the morning, if I get up early enough.  (But that has to be pretty mindless knitting since there is generally only a few minutes available).  In the evening, after everyone is home, watching TV, staying up much later than I should.  And, the, I'll start all over again the next day!

Knitting is a very relaxing pasttime for me.  It's also is a very good creative outlet whether I'm knitting someone else's pattern or improvising something on my own.

Well, all this blogging was a lot of fun.  Nice to journalize my knitting habits and adventures.  And nice to learn about all of  yours.

Stay tuned as I am planning a yarn give-away sometime next week.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Something to Aspire To

Today's Topic:  Day six: 2nd April. Something to aspire to.  Is there a pattern or skill that you don’t yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant? Is there a skill or project that makes your mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft? Maybe the skill or pattern is one that you don’t even personally want to make but can stand back and admire those that do. Maybe it is something you think you will never be bothered to actually make bu can admire the result of those that have.

I would love to knit all of these:

Brooklyn Tweed's Hemlock Ring Blanket



Brooklyn Tweed's Girasole Blanket



Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi Shawl

I have yarn right now for both the Hemlock Ring Blanket and Girasole.  If you look at  my Ravelry queue, you will notice that (a) all of these lovely patterns are behind a lot of sock and hat patterns and (b) I queued them a while ago.

So what's holding me back?  Anticipation of how long they will take.  They look so big.  And that is very intimidating.  Socks and hats can take two weeks or less to make.  More or less instantly gratifying.  Easy to take in the car when I'm driving the kids around.  And they look so complicated.  Not good when you are knitting in 20-30 minute intervals here and there throughout the day.

But they are so beautiful.  And I will knit them.  Someday.  



I loves a good song with an accordian

Topic Day Five: 1st April. And now for something completely different. This is an experimental blogging day.  There are no rules of a topic to blog about but this post should look at a different way to present content on your blog.


I love a good song with an accordian. And it is about a holiday!  And it's one of my favorite songs eveh!







RIP Danny Federici ( January 23, 1950 - April 17, 2008)

Letting Go

Day Four: 31st March. Where are they now?

Today's Topic:  Whatever happened to your __________?  Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

I will admit, I'm a bit of a control freak.  For example, I used to not be able to have my mom or my mother-in-law help me out in the kitchen. (i.e. when they stayed with me after my children were born).  I hated to walk in and find something where it didn't belong. I  never said anything; they were so nice to come down and help, but ohhhh those types of things bugged me.  I guess having children helped me in that department.  Kids definitely have a mind of their own.  And, now, I welcome the help when the moms visit and wait until they've gone home to return things to their proper place.

How does this relate to knitting, you wonder.  Well, it's taken me a while to get to the point where I'd not worry about what would happen to a gift that I knitted for someone....would they lose the socks?  Well, let me tell you...they lose the socks...both of my kiddos have lost socks that I knitted for them. It's just the way it goes.  They don't love me any less.  They don't love those socks any less (maybe they didn't completely love them to begin with...some were too small or too large or really, I'll admit, not very attractive).  Kids lose stuff.  Husbands lose stuff too,  Especially husbands who travel for business.  I can't even tell you how many  of my husbands (store-bought) socks have made it to the Land of Lost Socks.

They lose hats too...my husband left one somewhere.  hmmmm...not quite sure where.  My niece left a hat here at Christmas.  (At least I know where it is).

And, they try to take care of hand-made knits but don't always know how.  For example this sweater hung on a hanger for a while.  The straps have stretched out so much that the sweater is un-wearable.  I intend to fix it.  But I haven't quite figured out what to do...take the original straps off and start again....wash and re-block and hope the straps shrink back to their original size?  Any suggestion about what to do would be greatly appreciated.

So I don't worry about the gifts anymore.  They get lost, they get stretched out, they shrink.  Oh well.  I can always knit more.

Ahhh...The Fine Art of Yarn and Other Knitty Storage

Today's Topic: How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?

A few months ago, someone on Twitter commented about these storage bags fron Woodland Woolworks.  At $2.50 a bag, I considered them a steal and immediately ordered 6 small and 6 large to store my stash....Love them! They fit under my bed (crazy yarn storage but what can I say?) or at least the part of the bed that isn't taken up with all of my scrapbooking and photos.  And they fit under a chair.  And I can see what I have....no opening or unzipping bags to peek inside!  It's all visible! And, did I mention, inexpensive? 

Storage Bag from WoodlandWoolworks.com

Since receiving them, I have more or less organized my stash....Malabrigo, Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Pagewood Farms, Lorna's Laces, Madeline Tosh, Quince and Company... all go in separate bags.  Some yarn is just stored by weight since I don't really have enought of a collection of a lot of brands....sock yarn in particular because there are soooooo many pretty sock yarns out there.  Note to self:  Look for Quince and Co yarn...I didn't notice it when  I was going through my yarn and planning some projects last week.

I haven't been that interested in listing my stash on Ravelry but recently I did go through my knitting books (another collection of sorts, I might add) and I updated my Ravelry Library. I also put all of the knitting books in one place so I would know where to look for them!

As far as knitting needles are concerned, I do confess that until a few weeks ago, most were piled up in a tote bag.  And, by piled up, I mean piled up!  For a while, it seemed like I would buy knitting needles every time I bought yarn at the Local Yarn Stores.  But I ordered a very nice Needle Organizer from Namaste (it no longer seems to be available or I would give a link).  I also bought a 2 inch notebook binder (the kind my kids use for school) and an assortment of pen and pencil holders that fit  inside the binder.  I used the Namaste bag for my smaller needles 0 -5, mostly DPN's, some circular needles, stitch holders, stitch markers etc.  The notebook is filled with mostly circular needles size 6 - 15.  Of course, at any time, you may see some stray sets of needles around my house.

Don't get me wrong though....there is plenty of yarn lying around my house for me to ooogle and pet.  When I get new yarn, it is immediately placed on the counter in the hallway so that I can look at it and plan what I am going to knit with it.  Sometimes, only the yarn/project that I am currently working on sits on that coveted spot in the hallway.  Sometimes, it's yarn that I've had a while that I am interested in knitting.  And, sometimes, I just pull out all of my storage bags so that I can look at all of my yarn and plan, oh, I don't know, the next 3 or 4 or 12 projects.  And, by the way, I still have 2 or 3 bags left to fill!  Hmmmm, where can I go shopping?  Half the fun of having a collection is enjoying it, right?  How do you store your yarn....share here!