I Must Be Psychic or Just Psyched

I must have felt the vibes of this book, on it's way to me in the mail yesterday when I was talking about color. Today I got my copy of "Kristin Knits" from Kristin herself, before any of the bookstores have it! The only person that could possibly have it before me would be L. Some how she has the earliest inside scoop to all books and patterns.

I am so excited about the book. It is Nothing but Wonderful Color!!

Over the top, lot's of work involved,
many colors all in one piece kind of color.
It just makes me happy looking at it.

I know this is over the top for some of you out there and will not be your cup of tea. But I have to own up to the fact that I love color and I have to have more of it in my life right now. Even the walls of my house may not be safe!

This book has so many great pictrues, ideas and inspirations it will be awhile before I can make a decision of what to do first. Thank goodness I have the fingerless gloves I talked about yesterday to give me some focus.

Oh no, wait........there are thoughts about designing my own fair isle patterns...................Just playing with swatches and swatches of color!!

No Bunny Killa is gunna stop me now!

I Feel the Need....

I Feel the Need For Color. Not just the easy kind where the yarn does all the work for you. I have had enough of that lately (see the BSJ below).
Not the kind where you just switch between two yarns every two rows, ie: chevron scarf,


mistake ribs scarves,

self fridging shawls .

No I am in the need of real color done by switching the yarn stitch by stitch......yes that is right, I am going to the "Fair Island" of Fairisle knitting and I am going to tackel the "Composed Mitts" in the current Fall 2007 IK magazine. I have been itching to do fairisle for a while now and so there is no time like the present.



I am going to be using Berroco Ultra Alpaca light in 5 colors. Not sure I will stick with these colors but I will start with them.



On the finishing front, Here is BSJ #4. I think this is the wild and crazy one.


No, but wait, I still have a BSJ on my needles all in white.
Someone save me from myself. Or I know who can help.......
just send Bunny Killa after me?

Color on my terms, here I come!!

Star Sighting

I got to be a Beverly Hills tourist today. S and I went to do some mundain dermotology stuff, Booooring, right?
But, since she used to work in the heart of Beverly Hills that is where she still goes, some 10 years later.
So after making ourselves not so beautiful so we can be beauriful, we went shopping in some of the posh stores and for the first time in **&&^%&^% years I actually walked down Rodeo Dr.
Pretty boring actually, just a whole lot of very over priced things that I would never wear if you gave it to me. All boring except for the jewlery stores, I could so some seriouse damage in a few of them.

On the way back home from 90210, going out S's secret back way through the "hood" I see this woman, walking down the street, looking throug mail, black hat and long black coat and I think, " wow, that is a weird mailperson" . We get right up to her and realize that is was Diane Keaton!! I am not one to really get into these things. But, she is one of my Favs and so seeing her was actually exciting!



(this is a stock pic)



On the knitting side I am working on a cheveron scarf sample for the store out of wikiki from Crystal Palace (sort of a thin slubby yarn) and Karabella Lace Merino.



Two very different yarns, different weights and it is turning out really nice.



So don't be afraid to experiament with this pattern and different yarns.

Baby Surprise

I have been working hard knitting samples for the store and for classes. I am going to be teaching Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket at Unraveled this month and next.
So of course it is a good idea to actually knit the thing a few times so that I can make most of the mistakes first, I mean, isn't that why we take a class? So we don't have to figure out the mistakes ourselves?

Here are two of them. The largest size would fit about a 1-2 yrs was done in Berroco Comfort which I loved. It is so soft and squishy.




and the small one, new born size, in Lang Jawoll Jacard sock yarn. The colors and the stripping are so wonderful.







Then I had to make these little botties. You can find the free pattern here.





I have a few more things to knit for the store and then I need to find something that I want to knit for me.

I wonder what it will be?? Not that I don't have a cue full of things to knit over at ravelry. But now I will have to choose something.

Friends Make Anything Beareable

Today at the store I spent part of the day taking out the "green jacket". It was a frustratingly slow process and if I had been at home by myself alcohol would have been involved! But since there were others there to keep me company in my misery it all went rather well. Thank you L, L, & H.

I came home, knitted a few rows with the yarn I had frogged and then decided to put it into the frog pond where it belonged.


Now I will hang it out to dry in the shower for the entire night.


Tomorrow will be a new day and The "Green Jacket" and I will have a fresh start.

New Blogs and Other Things

There are two new blogs in blog-land. I know that there are probably several blogs that start and end every day. But these are two "knit-sibs" that I know and love. Already they are much better bloggers then I am.
They post often!
Imagine that!

They are really great, passionate, obsessed knitters. Lisa, aka mom, knows everything there is to know about yarn, including color names, and could probably open her own shop. She is very talented and has a great color sense (a lot like mine so of course it is great).

Hannah is not only a great innovative knitter, that brings her young, fun, indivual style to everything she does. Did I metion that she is also a great writer.
Put all this together and their blogs promise to be worth reading and subscribing to.

I have started Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. It is pretty simple but for some reason my stitch count kept getting off and I had to basically restart it 3 times. That seems to be my way with new patterns, begin, rip out, begin, rip out and finally begin and then I have it. I look at it as getting the most enjoyment for my yarn dollars!

I finished the Toddler Coat that I am knitting for someone and had it almost sewn up when I realized that I had miss-shaped the two front pieces. I had done arm-hole shaping on both sides!! Why oh why could I have not noticed that while they where still on the needles? Or before I had sewn everything up.

I have timed it out for a day or two and then I have to take out seams and rip-out the two fronts and pretty much start all over again. Alcohol may be needed to get through this one.

I am noticing that I am knitting a lot of baby stuff these days. I wonder if that is one way of mourning that my two grown babies are not coming home for the summer? Hmmmmm

Classes

I have spent a lot of time over the last week getting a new class up and running, "Hairpin Lace Connecting Up".
It is the next class after you learn to make hairpin strips. I did a lot of research on different ways to put together the strips. After making all the samples I spent Friday night writing all the instructions up. This is my favorite join so far.





I had a lot of people in this class and they were all very excited about doing hairpin lace and moving on to bigger projects. We are talking about doing the Stitch Diva Hairpin skirt as a KAL, we'll see.

One of the students found these encredible antique hairpin laces using the thinest thread and real hairpins to make the strips on.







Can you imagine actually doing this? I sure cann't.
But what a treasure, and she gave them to me so I can show them when I teach this class. Thanks Camille!!

Almost done with the cheveron scarf.

I love this thing. I think it is one of my most favorite items that I have made in a while. It just makes me happy to knit with this yarn (koigu) and these colors.

The simple joys are the best, don't you think?