O' the baby knitting. . . .

Why hello all my faithful readers! It has been a little bit since I have last posted and, honestly, there is not too much to report. I wish there were some more FOs. Some socks perhaps. Soleil is calling my name again. Did I work on them? Heck, no! I started something new:And, what do we have here? Baby Bib O' Love from Mason Dixon Knitting!

Here are some specs:
The Pattern: Baby Bib O' Love from Mason Dixon Knitting
The Yarn: Sugar N' Creme purchased at Joann Fabrics
The Buttons: All from Joann's.
The result: Perfect baby shower gifts!

These have to be one of my favorite baby things that I have ever knit. They are just so adorable. I think the buttons really make the bibs. I am sure there will be more of these being knit soon. Both of these I made while on the road last weekend in the crazy whirlwind tour o' Minneapolis/St. Paul.



And, speaking of the Twin Cities. . . .sadly there were no yarn purchases. Kay was so kind and sent me an email with links to all the yarn stores in the area, and I didn't make it to one. I did make it to an antique store though. I know nothing about antiques or history or things like that but I do know when I see something that my dad will absolutely love:Oh, that's right, it's a Hamm's goblet. My dad is obsessed with the Hamm's. Loves the stuff. Anyway, that was the purchase made in Minnesota. Next time, there will be yarn. :)

Finally, last night there was much dyeing in the Knitting Like Crazy factory (aka my kitchen):
Only some of this is probably going to make it to my Etsy site. Some of it was special requests from knitters. And that purple-ish one is for me. It was my attempt to recreate the yarn I loved so much, Goodbye My Love. It didn't come out quite the same, but I still really love it, and can't wait to knit some socks with it. The stuff that will be on Etsy will probably be up there next week sometime after it dries and I can get some good pictures. And I am hoping there will be more yarn dyeing next week, if the giant cone o' yarn comes in the mail.

Well, I guess that is all I have for now. Tonight Alex and I start ballroom dancing class again. Oh, there will be fox trotting and waltzing. It will be good. And, I am looking forward to this weekend. The only plans I have is to attend a wedding on Sunday. The rest of the long weekend I am going to try to work on all the UFOs that are laughing at me from all corners of the apartment. Yeah, let's me serious, I am already thinking of new things to knit! :)

Happy knitting and have a very wonderful long weekend!

Can I start another project? Seriously.

Ok, well, I know it's the post you have all been waiting for. The one where I tell you who wins the yarn! Of course, I am mean and cruel so you will have to wait (or just scroll to the bottom, your choice). :)

I talked a post or two ago about what a yarn factory my apartment has become since the starting of the hand-dyeing of yarn. Now you can see what I mean: I know some people don't rewind their yarn after dyeing, but I really think it makes it look so much better. Like you can imagine what your socks will look like or something. And, now that I have the swift from Lorna (the one on the table) plus the semi-broken swift I can get this task done pretty fast!

Next, it has been looking like this outside my apartment for days:

Well, that's not entirely true. Today, I think, is the worst of the storms we have had recently. I am tired of the rain. And, I feel bad for the people who live on the street where I work. So much flooding. There is a tiny stream that flows through the neighborhood, but it is enough to mess things up big time. I do not think it helps that there is a treatment plant at the end of the road. There's a lot of extra water coming through these days. Not pretty.

As I have been mostly couped up in the apartment, there has been some knitting. But, no, probably not what you think. I was needing a sock break, hence the Argosy scarf, but the scarf is misbehaving and is currently in a timeout in the corner. He's about two minutes away from going to the frog pond. I will start over, of course, but in the meantime I made this:It's the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch N Bitch.

Here are some specs:
The pattern: Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch N Bitch
The yarn: Bernat CottonTots (purchased at Joann's awhile ago for a baby sweater that was gifted last year to a friend)
The needles: Size 6 dpns
The result: Um, this might be the cutest baby thing I have ever knit. I mean, an umbilical cord on the top of the hat--c'mon!

My college roommate, Karen, is with child, so this is for her (sorry for the bad picture, but the rain. Oh the rain). I knit this thing in about 1.5 days. Not bad. There will be some booties or something to match a later date. And, some bibs. I think I am going to knit her some bibs (the ones from Mason Dixon Knitting).

That's all I have in knit-land right now. Tomorrow I am off (yet again). This time the destination is St. Paul, MN! I drove through there once, but this weekend Alex and I are going there for a quick trip to visit our friend Adam. Adam has been living there for a year, studying to be an air traffic controller. He told us all year we had to come see him. I think he is moving back here in a couple of weeks, so we are headed up there just in the nick of time. Adam is a good egg. I have known him since circa 1995. (Side note: I was trying to find a good high school picture of me and Adam, but alas there are none on the computer...thank god). Anyway, the whole point of this story is there will be lots of knitting time in the car, as Alex, good man that he is, has agreed to drive.

Ok, enough stalling. Now it is time for the winner of the blog contest/yarn giveaway! And the winner is. . . .

Wait for it. . . .wait for it. . . .

Megann of Crafty Pancakes!! Megann, I have sent you an email about your win.

Thanks to everyone for entering the contest. I love having blog contests/yarn giveaways--you find such good blogs to read and such good patterns to knit. If you are sad about not winning, here is some pretty yarn to distract you from feeling sad. ;)

Happy Knitting!!

P.S. I saw this link on Ravelry about the World's Biggest Yarn stash, and if you have not seen it yet, you should take a look. Show it to your husbands/boyfriends/family members as a reminder that you do not have a problem with stashing yarn. Click here.

Uh oh, look who started another project. . . .

Man, Ravelry is ruining my life. Seriously. I keep searching and looking at people's stuff and it is making me want to quit my job, buy as much yarn as I can and knit a bunch of cool stuff all day long.

Last night, I started this:It's the Argosy Scarf from Knitty. It is one of those patterns I never thought of knitting before and then I stumbled upon it on Ravelry, and all of a sudden, I had to make one. This pattern is a little challenging for me so far (there was from frogging and reknitting last night), but I think a couple more repeats and I will be ok. I just love how it looks! The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill I bought at Fringe last week!

That really has been all the knitting I have done in the last few days (other than knitting a dishcloth in one night for the Dish Rag Tag, which I neglected to take a picture of because I was trying so frantically to finish it/mail the box that I forgot, but hopefully Alaina, the women next to get the box will photograph it, but I digress).

Anyway, part of the reason that I did not knit much this weekend, was due to the scrapbooking party I went to on Friday:I really had kind of forgotten how much I like to scrapbook. I hardly ever do it anymore (evidence by the fact that I am still working on a scrapbook of the great Yellowstone road trip of two years ago) because I am knitting all the time. I think I may have to put down the knitting needles soon for about a week to try to finish this up (yeah, right, who am I kidding, there will always be the knitting).

Finally, I have some new yarn on my Etsy site:
I am calling this one Fruit Punch. Alex actually thought of the name. I couldn't come up with anything good, but I love it. I actually have two skeins of this stuff! If you would like to see more pictures you can do so here.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. If you have not yet done so, please sign up for the blog contest. Click here for details.

Happy Knitting! :)

So...much....yarn....AND A CONTEST!

Ok, I know we have a blog contest/yarn giveaway to get to, but first some bloggy goodness:

Tuesday I took a little road trip to Aurora after work to meet Sarah and Lorna. I have been reading their blogs for awhile and there was yarn to be exchanged/purchased so of course we had to get together and knit! I went to Fringe Knitting, hung out, chatted and knit, and had a fabulous time! And, now some of the goodies:

I won this from Sarah. She has an ongoing Fugly Friday contest, and I was one of the lucky winners. It is going to make some awesome awesome socks one day soon. While I was there, I accidentally bought this:It's Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck yarn. I am thinking of using it to knit the Argosy scarf from Knitty. I saw someone do it on Ravelry, and it looks so pretty!

While all of that yarn is very good, I have to say I was most excited about this purchase:A new yarn swift!!!! This was made by Lorna's dad. It is so beautiful and it works so well. I just love it. I will for sure take some pictures of me winding yarn on it soon. (Plus, I think you guys need to see what a real yarn factory my kitchen has become).

Everyone at Fringe was so nice and everyone was working on such great stuff. I think I will definitely be driving down there again soon for some knitting fun!

Speaking of knitting fun. . .

Oh, it's the Dish Rag Tag box I have been waiting for. For those of you who don't know about the dish rag tag, Emily of Yarn Miracle organized a relay race of knitted dishcloths (that's the short version of the race). Anyway, I received the box today and there were lots of goodies in there:The box came from Alicia, and had the required dishcloth, two balls of dishcloth cotton (Peaches N Creme!) and some treats. Thanks Alicia! I will be frantically knitting my dishcloth tonight, as to try to get it sent off to the next person tomorrow.

Wow. Still reading? Well I have one more thing before we get to the blog contest. . . .

New yarn at Knitting Like Crazy on Etsy:I am calling it Forbidden Forest. I have one skein of this baby. Hope you all like it! If you would like to see more pictures you can view them here.

And, finally, what everyone has been waiting for:

THE BLOG CONTEST!!!

Hooray for free yarn! This time, I am giving away a lovely semi-solid shade of my hand dyed yarn:I am calling it Watermelon Crawl. It doesn't really look like a watermelon, but I really wanted to name some yarn that. :) It is ~400 yards, 100g of superwash fingering weight wool/nylon yarn.

Anyway, all you have to do is fill out the form by clicking here. If you have a problem with that, just send me an email to jenATknittinglikecrazyDOTcom. The contest ends next Thursday (Aug 23) at 6pm. I will be using a random number generator to determine the winner.

Well, that's all for now. Must...watch....So You Think You Can Dance. Must...knit...dishcloth...as...fast...as....possible.

Happy Knitting!

And so the sock knitting continues. . . .

Back from Wisconsin and things are going well in sock knitting land. I managed to finish my sister's Broadripple socks on the way up to Green Lake:The Specs:
The Yarn: Steinbach Activ Effect (purchased on the Smoky Mountains vacation)
The Needles: Size 2 dpns, as always
The Pattern: Broadripple from Knitty. I modified the pattern a little bit. I went toe-up and the yarn overs are not quite in the 'right' spot because I was going off memory.
The verdict: My sister has a very nice new pair of socks!

Of course, I had to cast on a new pair right away. And what do we have here?

It's the Coupling socks! Another fine pattern on knitty, written by Deb. I highly recommend reading Deb's blog. It's a good one. The pattern is written for toe-up, but I didn't feel like knitting another pair of toe-up socks, so I am knitting cuff down. It's looking good so far--I love it!

Also, there has been some yarn winding taking place today:

Well, I wound this one skein to get it onto my Etsy site. I am calling this one Cherry Garcia*. I think it's a good name. Anyway, if you would like to see some more pictures of this yarn, you can see them here.

I think that is all I have for now. There will hopefully lots of time for knitting and organzing of Etsy yarn and what not. Oh and a contest. Stay tuned for details on my next blog contest. I think I should be ready to go on Thursday. Hooray for free yarn.

And, now it's time to cook me some dinner! Happy knitting!

Oh, if you would like to see some pictures of the Green Lake, Wisconsin, adventure, click here.

* Please Note: This yarn sold on 8/14/07. As it seems to be one everyone likes, I will try to dye some more of it soon. Stay tuned! :)

I'm off again!

Well, here at Knitting Like Crazy things have been a little, well, crazy. Alex and I are off again to WI tomorrow. So, sadly this means no Stitches Midwest for me this year. Boo!

Anyway, enough complaining and onto all things knitty:

I managed to find some time to dye some yarn this week:
Sorry for the slightly blurry, not great picture, but it is dark in here. This stuff will be up on my Etsy site next week, so stay tuned. I am also thinking of a blog contest so come back next week to get details on that. The yarn dyeing has been quite fun. I only have a little bit of undyed yarn left around here, so hopefully I can make a couple more sales to justify buying more. *hint, hint* :) The two in the middle were an experiment, which while they are very very pretty, they did not turn out quite as I imagined. I was going for more variation in the color. But, alas, it was not meant to be.

Hmm, what else? Ah, yes. Yesterday evening I spent some time with my friend Claire. She and I went to college together and were lab partners and the like. She is a good egg. She is learning to knit, and I am always looking for someone to knit with. I have been wanting to find a place around here with a good knit night, so I took her to Mosaic Yarn Studio in Des Plaines for their knit night. I was a pretty good time. The only ones there who were not in a class and there just to knit and chat were me and, um, Claire. We did sit with Marie, who works there and was very very nice, so it was a good time. Marie was knitting a sock too, so we chatted about toe up socks. Good times. Everyone that worked there was very nice and oohh-ed and aahh-ed over me and Claire's projects. The bad part? When one of the ladies in one of the classes came over to look at our knitting and made a comment about Claire's baby blanket. She pointed out all the mistakes and made, what I feel, were snotty comments about how she needs to fix them. It is her first real project!!! It looks fine, great, in fact. Some people, I tell ya.

Finally, I think I am going to have to frog one of my projects. It's Wisp. I think I am allergic to the yarn. The first time I knit this project I got kind of sneezy. I didn't really think anything of it, just thought I needed to dust the apartment or something. Then this week I picked it back up and things went poorly. There was a runny nose, there were watery eyes and there was sneezing. So, I am going to try again in a couple days to knit it and to confirm that I am having an allergic reaction to the yarn. I am a scientist, I like things done in triplicate. We will see.

Ok, I feel like this post was kind of weird and random, but I am kind of in a random, weird mood. Hopefully some boating fun in Wisconsin tomorrow and Sunday will lift the funk.

Happy knitting! :)

Do I have to go to work tomorrow?

I am back from vacation. Oh, how I wish I could still be on vacation! But, alas, it is not meant to be. Anywho, I now have a nice long post, complete with mountains and knitting and the like.

The vacation started last Wednesday at 4am, when Alex, Mitch and I departed from Arlington Heights. Several hours later, we arrived at the cabin. Here is the view off of one of the decks:

The toe-up cabin fever sock is clearly enjoying the view of the Smoky Mountains. I clearly enjoyed being able to spend some time knitting in such a lovely place. Especially when that place is equipped with my friend, Dan, playing the harmonica while in a rocking chair:Dan is quite the harmonica player. Well, I mean, he is learning, but he whipped out a slow harmonica jam that was quite awesome. If you ever need a harmonica player, Dan is your man. I should note here that Dan wanted to learn the harmonica for some time, so Alex got him one for his birthday a couple years ago. When we booked our trip, I told him I dreamed of sitting on the deck in a rocking chair with my knitting, looking at the mountains while he jammed out on the harmonica. I did not knit while he was playing (there had been consumption of beers, you see), but I really appreciate Dan making my dream come true. :)

And, now, onto other things. . . .

The first full day in the Smoky Mountains, the 11 of us went white water rafting. It was such a good time. I was lucky enough to get to swim a category three rapid (uh, which means, I fell out while on a category three rapid). It pretty much scared the crap out of me, but in the end it was fun. I have pictures, but they need to be scanned onto the computer, so I will let you, all 12 of my readers, know when I put them on Flickr. :)

The next day (Friday) all of us went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for some mountain-y goodness. We went up to Clingman's Dome--which was very fun, but kind of a lot of work for a girl who likes to sit on the couch and knit. There was much rejoicing when it was time to sit and eat lunch:On Saturday the boys went on "man hike" and the girls went shopping. I dragged the non-knitting friends to the Smoky Mountain Spinnery in Gaitlinburg, so I could buy yarn. The first thing I got was this:

It's some hand spun yarn made right there at the Smoky Mountain Spinnery. It is alpaca and by far the softest yarn I own. Hooray for such good souvenir yarn. I was ready to pay and to only walk out with that one thing, but then I also got this:The sock knitter cannot turn down sock yarn, right? After the yarn shop there was much shopping had by all. It was a good time.

On Sunday there was the long drive back home. Alex was nice enough to drive the whole way, so I was able to finish the cabin fever socks:I finished them somewhere in Kentucky.

Cabin Fever Socks: The Specs

The Yarn: CTH in Cabin Fever colorway (of course, purchased at The Loopy Ewe)
The Needles: Size 2
The Pattern: As with the other toe-up socks I made, I used a combination of various toe-up instructions to get these babies done.
The Verdict: Perfect vacation socks! They were very simple, which was nice because I could set them down anytime and not be too confused when I picked them back up again. The Cherry Tree Hill yarn is wonderful, and so pretty. And the socks fit me, so it's all good.

After finishing those socks, I was ready to start another pair. My other WIPs were in the trunk so I did what any crazy sock knitter would do:

I cast on the sock yarn I bought while on vacation and started knitting more socks! Again, I did this one toe-up because I am trying to get good at it. I am not completely convinced that I make a nice heel when knitting socks in this way, but that is why I am practicing. This time, I decided to throw a little stitch pattern in there to mix things up. Since I have the Broadripple pattern in my head, it made for some easy car knitting. Well, it's sort of a modified version of that pattern, but you get the idea. My sister claimed these socks today, so she will be getting them once the other one is done.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. Hopefully there will be knitting time this week. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

If you would like to see some more pictures of my vacation, you can view them here. Happy knitting!!