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The women in my SnB group are very generous. A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out my stash and decided to make a yarn donation to Hartford ARC, for use in their programs. I let the SnBers know that I would take anything they wanted to add and drop it all off. Well, the donation is headed to ARC this afternoon. It fills the trunk of my minivan:
Like I said, very generous knitters. I’m sure HARC will be thrilled!
Now to the startitis. Got that urge to start something new again last night. I decided to cast on a pair of toe up socks (my first) using Knitty’s Universal Toe Up pattern, in Lorna’s Shepard Sock in Watercolor. Brilliant pattern. Not so brilliant knitter. It starts with a short row toe. Not difficult, except for me last night. And this morning. First mistake – trying to knit something that involves keeping track of where I am in a pattern and making sure the sides are equal while watching a movie (Stranger Than Fiction) that has someone counting, a lot. Next mistake was to rip out and start over during the movie – clearly it didn’t work the first time. By the time the movie was over, I was determined. Next mistake – too damn tired to focus. This time I got through the short row decreases and started to increase again and screwed up. Each time, I counted something wrong and couldn’t find the mistake – ripped back to the cast on. Started again this morning, pre-coffee, messed it up again. Fifth time was the charm – I have a perfect little sock toe. And the startitis – cured.
This weekend has been wonderful, but absolutely lacking in time in the dye studio. Good thing my fiber can’t feel abandoned – its been at least a couple of weeks. No time for any real knitting or spinning either – maybe later today I’ll knit while we watch a movie.
Fiber stuff aside, its been a wonderful weekend. Yesterday we had some old friends over. Some of my friends from high school, actually – Carley, Chris and Jen (all blogless and fiberless, btw). They came with their hubbies and kids for a cookout. It was great. The best part? We called a couple of other friends, Michelle (who’s local but couldn’t make it) and Bridget (who’s in Maryland). Turns out Bridget was up visiting her family, so she came over. I hadn’t seen her in 7 or 8 years. The old gang, minus one, spent the afternoon catching up. We have been friends for almost 20 years – hard to believe. We all met in junior high and have remained friends since. We see each other less and less (we used to see our old friends more when we lived in Syracuse than I do now – guess we made it a point to get together when we came down). Now, one of us has a daughter who is the age that we were when we met – scary. Where did time go? It was great to have everyone together and get caught up. The hubbys had a great time too – its nice how they’ve all gotten to be friends.
Now the kids, they had fun. We finally figured out how to exhaust 7 cats. Take a little house, with limited hiding places and lots of cat toys, add in 4 kids between the ages of 6 & 12 and a little sugar. Chaos. Wonderful, happy chaos. The kids loved it. Gizmo was in heaven. Eight little hands to pet him – does it get any better? Thumper loved it in spurts – took the occasional break. Merlin figured out which child had the cat treats and happily allowed the kids to pet him – so long as there were treats involved. Everybody else hid – though they were remarkably patient when having toys pushed at them, kids trying to find them under the bed, etc. The kids were so, so well behaved and gentle. After several hours of this, all 7 kitties were knocked out for the night – no one even woke us up to be fed in the morning. I actually slept in…
Today we got to relax and get some things done around the house. We both took tomorrow off – wanted to extend the weekend a little. A little doubtful about getting into the dye studio. Hoping to get some spinning or knitting in.
Enjoy what’s left of this wonderful weekend!
… are for gardening, apparently. Very little fiber stuff happening this week. Work kept me busy earlier in the week. Now the start of the Memorial Day weekend and gorgeous, summery weather have me outside playing in the gardens. Spent the whole day out there yesterday – cleaned up the last of the tulips and daffodils, weeded a ton (if anyone knows of a solution to get rid of grass in an expanded flower bed without hurting the other plants – let me know!) and planted the veggie garden. We did six tomato plants this year – 3 different kinds, bell peppers, zucchini and yellow squash, cucumbers and green beans. I planted herbs in pots this year, rather than in the garden. Our last house lacked a good spot for a veggie garden, so I did a few things in pots on the porch, mainly herbs. Last year was the first time I put them in the garden – found they do much better in pots. Besides, what’s better than stepping right out onto the deck to snip fresh herbs? Still need to find a couple of things that our local garden place didn’t have on Friday – mint and a jalepeno plant. We’ll go poking around on Monday – maybe add to the flower gardens too.
I took this picture of Gizmo when I was in the middle of gardening. My boy loves shoes.
He has a thing about throwing himself on your shoes when he doesn’t want you to leave. When I took this, I’d been in the garden all day and come in for a quick break – my Crocs were fair game. Gizmo is my people kitty – he’ll be in his glory when some friends come for a picnic today – especially Carley, who is second only to my mom for favorite visitors. Little people coming too – Gizmo likes little people. Now if only Gizmo could clean up his own cat hair before all of his people come to visit…
Still hoping to get into the dye studio this weekend – tomorrow maybe? I took Tuesday off too so there’s hope for new Etsy listings and some things to put on the website.
Hope everyone has a glorious weekend!
It’s here!!!!!!!!!! Up and running, actually working – in my technologically clueless life, a freakin’ miracle! How excited am I?
Lots and lots of kudos to Everett for building it – he did almost all of the leg work, including figuring out the software, teaching me how to use it and putting the meat of the website together. Thank you!!!!
We still have some fine tuning of the format and many things to add – like dedicated email addresses (kris@thepaintedsheep.com – love it!), lots more fibery stuff and of course, the online store. It’ll all get there in the next few weeks. Just thrilled to finally be able to say the website is up!
Off to celebrate – wine and spinning, perhaps?
Had to share this one… Everett just finished hanging up some pictures around the house – remnants of things taken down to paint, renovate, etc during the last year. He pointed out that he had hung up my framed degrees in the office — the BA in Psych from Eastern, MS in Rehab Counseling from Syracuse and my Rehabilitation Counselor Certification.
My response to that was “Oh look, there’s $50,000 pieces of paper on the wall!”
His response: “And all you really want to do is knit.”
Hmmm… 
This week has been very, very busy. I know I said there’d be new Etsy listings – not quite there yet. Still need to wind off skeins of The Painted Sock in Tiger Lily, photograph, label and inventory it and then I can post it. Almost there. There’ll be 3 skeins each of The Painted Sock in Tiger Lily and Lilacs and some more Superwash Merino Lambswool roving in Bright Stripes. Yummy!
I do have other great news on the business front – the website is almost up – so close I can feel it. www.thepaintedsheep.com So exciting!!! I finally got the look I wanted, added lots of pics and info. Online shopping directly on the site is coming soon – won’t be up initially. One thing at a time – keep in mind that a few months ago, my internet abilities consisted of checking email and online shopping! I’m figuring this out a little at a time. Once I do get it up, it will have all of the typical online shopping features – shopping cart, ability to pay on Paypal or via money order, etc. I’m hoping to have the website up and running by tomorrow night.
So busy with everything else this week that I’ve done very little knitting. I did finish another Ribs and Ruffles scarf, half of a Christmas gift. Managed to get in the first pattern repeat on the Reptilian Lace Socks. Just enough to confirm that I this is knitting nirvana – seriously – a pair of socks in handpainted yarn with beads, lace and cables. I sorta can’t keep my hands off them. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that they are a focus project – no TV, SnB or meeting knitting for this one.
Lastly, I find myself with a serious urge to do some spring cleaning. My house has reached that point where I feel like I have to re-organize and de-clutter. In addition to cleaning out the cupboards, closets, etc – I’m going through the stash again. I’ve held off dropping off the SnB yarn donation to Greater Hartford ARC for one more week so that I can add to that donation pile. I’ll be again listing de-stashed yarns on eBay – check my listings early next week.
I’ll be back in the dye studio over the long weekend – just 2 more pounds of sock yarn to dye up and that 30 pounds of roving…
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