Return of the blog...

Sometime in early December Sage lost her hat (seen here) between her school and the day care - she thinks one of the other kids ended up with it, but inquiries and a wanted poster at the day care turned up nothing, nor is it at the school. So anyway, it vanished. Poof!

Not wanting her to freeze in this nasty weather we are having, I knew what needed to be done. So we went to the closest yarn shop that carries Malabrigo (in this case, it was Uncommon Threads in York, PA), and she picked out two skeins of Shocking Pink Malabrigo, because, you know, pink is the new blue.

The mittens were done several weeks ago, and the hat a few days ago, but I didn't have time to sew a string to the mittens to keep them together until Tuesday since I have been so busy with work (Oh yeah, I am working now, at Bass Pro Shops in Harrisburg. I love it there. Except fr the all country, all the time, but that isn't even all that bad.).



My first real attempt at crocheting, in the form of the half-double edge on the Thorpe. It came out pretty good considering I'd never done it before.

Sage loves her new hat and mittens, and she was nice and warm on yesterday's walk to school - that's good, considering it was something like 12°F outside when we walked over. Brrrrrr!



Ok, no more photos.

stats:

Mittens are mittens for children and adults
Hat is Thorpe - modified for a different yarn gauge, 96 stitches total on US7's. I didn't write down the changes for the earflaps, though.
Yarn is Malabrigo Worsted, in Shocking Pink.

Riah's Wrist Warmers...

I'd almost file this under an "OMG it's not just another swap related post!", but well, it is, really.

Round 4 of the Malabrigo Swap on Ravelry is nearing an end, and my package to my pal (Wakenda on Ravelry, Wakenda Knits in the blog-o-sphere) was sent out and received and these were part of my gift to her. She's had the Rose's Wrist Warmers pattern in her queue for a while, and with the upcoming (well, already here, in the north-eastern part of the country) cooler weather, I thought they would be the perfect accessory to knit for her.

She mentioned that she loved the London Sky color of the Malabrigo Silky Merino, so I just had to use it for her wrist warmers.

They were a fairly quick knit, which I of course complicated somewhat by reversing some of the cables (the right cable on both is reversed so it mirrors the left cable) and the large cable on the left glove is reversed. The cable columns are done every 6th row as well in mine (instead of every 3rd). I much prefer how it looks this way, and she did as well, which makes me very happy that I did the modifications.



I rather enjoyed working with the Silky Merino too... it was quite soft, though a little splitty (I blame my bamboo DPNs). Not completely happy that the cables flattened some when they were washed and blocked, but I will definitely be working with it again (especially since I have three skeins of it in my personal stash).

Next post... most likely it will be of my swap package, which I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of.

Zombies are the new black.

Or something like that.

After a not-so-great weekend, followed by a trip to the emergency medical clinic to have three stitches put into Sage's butt (she sat on a pair of scissors - OUCH!!!), I returned home to find a box waiting on my porch.



When I opened it I found lots of mysterious items wrapped in tissue paper. It turns out the box was my MYB (Magic Yarn Ball) from the Malabrigo Swap group on Ravelry and my spoilee for this round was the insanely awesome Saucy Minx.

I had mentioned that I would love a Zombie theme for a swap package, and she delivered!



Whee! Glow in the dark Zombies peeking out of the yarn ball!

Partway through the unwrapping I had to stop to photograph some of the wonderful yarns she sent me:



And after all was said and done...



My scores:

• Malabrigo Silky in Bosques (OMG such a pretty colorway!)
• Madil Yarns Iceland (a wonderful aran weight wool in basic black, to be used for Bad Juju)
• Fortissima Socka Mexiko Color which will be perfect for the Zombie Socks pattern she included
• Louet Riverstone in Champagne (I had mentioned needing/wanting a nice flesh toned yarn for a few upcoming projects, I think this will be perfect for what I have in mind)
• a grow your own VooDoo doll (So cute!)
• red and white DMC embroidery floss to decorate my Bad Juju
• a package of pins with which to impale my Bad Juju
• a huge box of Jujyfruits (Mmmmmmm... yummy bit of word-play there!)
• my very own collection of glow in the dark flesh-eating zombies!
• some luscious Jasmine Pearl tea from Trader Joe's (funnily, I bought some last week to take to Harrisburg with me and left them here instead... now I have a spare box, one of which will make it to Harrisburg soon I hope, so I can have yummy tea goodness while there)
• a printed out copy of the Zombie Socks pattern, which I love and think will work well with the Fortissima Socka yarn
• two packets of Eucalan wool wash, which I have wanted to try for a while

After the weekend I had, I am very glad for this package to have arrived when it did... I really needed a bit of cheering up, and this did just that.

Thank you, SaucyMinx! You rock!

Mmmmmmmore Swap Goodness!

I said in my last post that the next one would also be swap related, and since there's been little knitting going on around here, I was right!

(The below is mostly copied directly from my Ravelry post, with minor changes as needed.)

Today's mail brought two packages from my Malabrigo Swap pal on Ravelry, Anne (TheBagLady, AKA half of The Bag Lady and The Pro). The first one I opened was sent from The Loopy Ewe, where I had recently set up a wishlist... this package contained the gorgeous Dream in Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon. Love it! Anyway, on to the photos and all the goodies...



The box, with it's pretty, pretty rose printed paper and everything still hiding inside.



All the goodies together.

Yarny bits - Malabrigo Silky Merino, 2 skeins in Blackberry (OMG so pretty! So soft! So luscious! I LOVE it!) and the Dream in Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon (So, so gorgeous! I will have to find the perfect pair of watery looking socks for this yarn. My first thought is Cookie A's Mingus, even though I tend to shy away from lacy patterns, I think it will be a beautiful one for this yarn).

Not-yarny bits - Dove Beautiful chocolates - milk chocolate with vitamins c and e... never seen these before, but I love Dove milk chocolates, and these are no exception (she types while letting one melt in her mouth), Back to Nature White Cheddar Rice Thin crackers - I love the Back to Nature products, and these are wonderful. Whisker Lickin's kitty treats - Shadow is curled up in a ball behind me right now, so I'll open these for him later. He loves kitty treats though, and we just ran out, so these came at a perfect time! Three lip balms - two of the Whole Foods ones in Vanilla Honey and Tangerine (Anne is an amazing stalker!) and one Lavender & Orange Badger lip balm... yummy! A very cute pen from The Kookys - this is funny because we were just looking at these somewhere last week and I almost bought one! And the last item, a beautiful set of four snag-free stitch markers with frosted white, orange and yellow beads on them. They are gorgeous and I cannot wait to put them to use!

Thank you, Anne, you are seriously awesome!

MmmSushi and other Malabrigo goodness

I love sushi. Alas, it's been a while since we've been able to go out to a Japanese restaurant to enjoy it (buying take-out sushi from Whole Foods, while yummy, doesn't count).

When I was working on my Mr. Greenjeans (it's done, a photo is included at the bottom of this post) I was contemplating things to do with the leftover yarn, should there be any. It happened that there was around 1/2 of a skein left, so first, I made a hat for Chris (The Boy Hat, which is a simple ribbed hat with awesome decreases).



And then I had probably around 20 yards of yarn left, which isn't really enough to do much with, except possibly seaweed, which it was the perfect color for. So with that and other yarns from my stash (white Cascade 20, as white, two different pinks and green; Lion Wool, as red; and Elsebeth Lavold Cable Cotton in Straw for the chopsticks), the knitted sushi was born. I still have a bit of the Vaa left, so I may make a few more pieces, but I am out of pink Kool-Aid since I only dyed a little bit of the white yarn as needed, so if I do make more it will have to be once I restock my Kool-Aid for more fishy goodness.

And since I said I'd post the Mr. VaaJeans photo, here it is, with a photo that I am not entirely happy with but it suffices for now...



And it's button, a beautiful sea glass piece I got on Etsy...

Malabrigo March...

There is a group on Ravelry called Malabrigo Junkies. They have declared it to be Malabrigo March (or at least, it will be in a few hours).

I am only planning one Malabrigo knit in honor of this month, and it will be Mr. Greenjeans from Knitty's Fall, 2007 issue. I've taken to calling mine Mr. VaaJeans, in honor of the lovely colorway I am using. It all started with the
Malabrigo Swap. I fell in love with this yarn and had to have more. Thankfully, the yarn shop that my pal got it from still had some of the same dye lot, and she picked it up for me and sent it, along with one amazing skein of the Vaa laceweight.



Isn't that gorgeous? I have tentative plans for it already too. I may just turn into a lace knitter one of these days.

Anyway. Back to the Mr. VaaJeans. I wound my 6 skeins the other night with my ball winder and make-shift TinkerToy swift (I either need a more complete set of TinkerToys or a real swift, but that is another story), and did my half-assed swatch yesterday.



OMG. Look at those colors. I am almost wishing today wasn't a Leap Day just so it'd be March 1st instead so I can cast on this amazing beauty.

As a side note, this is my 97th blog post. Post number 100 will be a contest for a gift of hand-knitted baby goodness. More details will come soon.

Mmmmmmalabrigo Swap

My addiction of Malabrigo knows no bounds. I am currently participating in a Malabrigo yarn swap on Ravelry, and I happen to be one of the swap moderators. Not that moderation matters right now, though.

The above photo is missing one item from the package, a cd of music by In Our Cups. I am about to load it into the computer to see if it is what I think it is and yep... Renaissance-Medieval wenchiness. I love it. And looking at the inset, one of the lovely ladies in the group is my swap pal, Ravelry user FaithEllen.

The Malabrigo she sent? My formerly favorite colorway, Stonechat, just changed to the Vaa that she sent. Look at this beautiful goodness:



*drool*

I feel like Faith has known me for ages, she sent some of the most perfect things ever. Sushi tissues. A book (Knitorama) that I have wanted for a while (come on, everyone needs a pattern for a knitted ham sandwich!). Jasmine pearl tea (my one major consumable weakness). A new tape measure (funnily, I mentioned needing a new portable one in the swap group, and the next day I found mine - but the day after that it broke so I still needed a new one). A dashboard pirate (Yarrrrrrrr!). Wind-up sushi! And the wee little cutest plastic rubber chicken. Come on, look at this wee little cutie:



This is by far one of the absolute best swap packages ever. And I've done a lot of swaps in my time. Thank you, Faith!

Let it snow...

We had heard that this was supposed to be a really harsh winter. One filled with cold, snowy days. Shoveling. School closures (for Chris, it doesn't much matter for kids when you homeschool them). So why is it then, that I was taking pictures of him in his gator mittens on Monday in 65°F weather?



I even made mittens for myself after twice frogging fingerless gloves in progress (I will make fingerless gloves, and they will be perfect, but right now I need to settle on the perfect yarn first). I am not normally a winter accessory person, but I fell in love with the Malabrigo after using it for hats and mittens for the girls (er... only one got mittens, Harley likes her bulky polarfleece gloves). And now I have mittens.



I love my mittens. I was almost tempted to wear them today, but it hit 71°F earlier, I had the back door open so the breeze could come in through the screen door, and well... I just couldn't bring myself to wear mittens when it feels like May outside.

Come on, Old Man Winter, I want to play in the snow.

*specs - Chris's mittens are the Later Gator's from Stitch and Bitch Nation, modified to have 4 more stitches per mitten since he's got man hands, done in Cascade 220 Heathers #2429 and kool-aid dyed Lion Wool for the mouth (teeth are Caron Simply Soft, since it's the only worsted weight white I have in the stash and I wasn't going to buy something else for only a few feet of yarn). Mine are the Classic Mittens pattern, with modified decreases and a larger needle size because I have wide hands and didn't feel like making the men's size. Oh, and Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Stonechat, which is currently my all-time favorite yarn colorway.

Mmmmmmmmmmmalabrigo

Or maybe this should be titled "It was this big!"



I couldn't settle on just one photo from this afternoon's shoot with Sage in her new hat and mittens, so you get four. Trust me, it wasn't easy to narrow it down that much. Really.



I cannot for the life of me think of a good caption for the above photo.



So instead of a caption, Sage will show you how many years old she is... er, or maybe not.

Anyway, this hat and mitten set was my first (but certainly not last) experience working with Malabrigo. I. Love. This. Yarn. Seriously. If I was only allowed to use one brand of yarn again, it would be Malabrigo. This was their worsted weight merino, in Azul Bolita, which is such an amazing gradation of blues. I love those deep rich almost-but-not-quite-black blues, and this has them along with a smattering of lighter shades tossed in for a blend that keeps you entertained through every last stitch.

The patterns from both were found on Ravelry, which is such a positively wonderful resource for all things knitterly (or hoolerly, if you go that way). I forget which they are offhand, but they are linked on my projects page if you are really curious.

And now for the last photo... Sage, who has no inkling who Madonna is, doing her version of Vogue.