Sshhhhhh! Don't tell anyone - More Stash Enhancement

Here's some more of the Sundara Yarn that I'm so lucky to have acquired. Pictures are not quite giving the right color as I only thought to take these at 10pm tonight and I can't stand bright lights, so my house is full of dimmed warm tone bulbs which tend to distort color, but make me feel happier as fluorescent lights tend to make me want to grind my teeth.

I know this looks like the Desert Sage Sock yarn from yesterday (again the lights) but its a light more golden tone. If you've seen any of the pictures of my entire main floor of my house, you'd see that this is a color I love. When you know what you love why fight it.

I don't have blue anywhere in my house, but I love it. Thought I'd try changing it up a little and go with something a little more in the purpley range.

Sundara Deadly Nightshade Sock Yarn.

Just because the sock stash was growing dramatically lately (I haven't posted even a quarter of my sock yarn on Ravelry), I thought I'd go with some Silk Lace by Sundara. I'd really like to knit a wrap with this. I'm not really into foofy lacey things. I admire them and how they're made, but wouldn't really wear them. Hasn't stopped me from knitting them before either. A wrap in a nice dark rich shade in an elegant wrap is something that I could see myself wearing.

Space Odyssey was perfect.

Now, I'm surrounded with so much gorgeous yarn (okay, I had lots of gorgeous yarn before - now I just have more of it) and haven't cast on anything new, because I'm trying to complete lots of UFO's that have been hanging around or need to hit the frog pond.

I mentioned in my post the other day about the quilt I'm busy stitching on for Madison. Here is the piece for it that I'm trying to finish up by tomorrow. I have four more of these purses to sew, before I even start the crazy quilting, piecing and then lots more stitching on top. I have a month to get this done and sent off to be quilted. Can you say P.R.E.S.S.U.R.E?!! However, I do well under deadlines; I can remain fairly focused and will get this done. I think.

Okay, so it's not Saturday

I know!!!! I said I'd post pictures on Saturday and then didn't. I don't know what I was thinking. Our Saturday was spent enjoying one of the last days of Spring Break with the kids. We played a new video game with the kids (Hummer Badlands - I know, we're pathetic!) and drove out of town to take them to eat - we don't have a Chili's in Wausau and it's one of the few restaurants that has a Gluten Free menu for Declan, so Drive 30+ minutes to Stevens Point for late lunch/early dinner seems completely reasonable.

Sunday was busy with attending a friend's daughter's baptism, church and then quite honestly... lazing around watching MI-5 episodes and weaving in some ends on a scarf (unfortunately not all of them), tracing out an embroidery design for Madison's quilt that is supposed to be completed for her 8th birthday and I have oodles of stuff to do on it. I haven't even gotten to the crazy quilting and all of the embroidery on that. It was very busy earlier in the day and then our favorite kind of Sunday, just hanging out together being lazy. Well, and then there was the issue of my sneaking off every minute I could spare to read a few more pages on The Host. I'm shocked, but I've really enjoyed this book. Push through the first couple of chapters and then it takes off.

So.... pictures of some of the latest acquisitions. Here are some. More will follow on the next post (see, I'm getting very non-committal now).

First up, the second shipment for the Sundara Sweater Club. It's three skeins of lovely Fingering Silky Merino in Ember Over Flame colorway. I love this yarn. Love it. Haven't decided what it will become yet, but am still having fun fondling it and smiling affectionately at it.

Then there's two skeins of Sundara Sock yarn in Desert Sage. Sundara sent these to me after there was a little mix up with the yarn quantities that were supposed to be available and one of the skeins of yarn I had ordered was not available, so they credited me my money, including the money for the yarn of Creamy Toffee sock yarn that I had ordered and was supposed to be available for shipment. I contacted them to say that I still wanted this yarn and they were unsure as to whether or not the order had been sent. So to make sure I was happy they sent this yarn to me. The Creamy Toffee yarn did show up anyway and they wouldn't let me pay for it. Now, if this company didn't already have me hooked as a customer because of their delicious yarn, their wonderful customer service went way above and beyond and how I totally crushing on them.

Here is one of the FO's that was finally completed last month. You know it's sat around too long when you have no clue as to what the yarn is that you knit these socks with. I know I got it from Loopy Ewe and I think it was a Numma Numma yarn, but I could be wrong. Who cares, they're lovely to wear and was very nice yarn to knit with. Just your plain old garden variety sock recipe that I have lodged firmly in my brain and knit up with no actual pattern in front of me. They need blocking, but wanted to finally get them posted. Will try to determine the yarn origin.

Another FO is my scrappy scarf using lots of left over sock yarn. Admittedly this can be quite a tedious slow going project, but once you hit the half way mark, you start getting really excited to get it done. That much linen-y type stitch is enough to drive me crazy after a while. But, it was perfect knitting for watching Season 5 of MI-5. Did I mention I am pathetically hooked on this show. I watched the first four seasons for free on my laptop with my Netflix account and then couldn't wait for season 5 to show up at my door so I ran to B&N and snatched it up. Steve and the kids claim that my accent is now fully out of the box and that they can tell when I've been watching it because the Devonian accent is at his peak.

Although it sounded like I was complaining about this pattern, I must say that I will absolutely do another. I still have lots of sock yarn leftovers hanging about and the fabric this pattern produces is beautiful. A densely woven fabric, that either side is beautiful. To be honest, I think I prefer the wrong side. Of course, if you had a loom, you could probably whip this out a lot faster. Hmmm, maybe I should reconsider that loom purchase after all??!

At least it's something

Just happened to look and see that it's been almost two months since I've posted. That doesn't seem write, because I know I've wrote a hundred posts in my mind - doesn't that count.

Too tired to write much today as the kids were on Spring Break this week, so I took them out of town to have some fun in Minneapolis. Last night we came home late, leaving 'The Cities' at around 10pm. The majority of them fell asleep within minutes of entering the car - one didn't even make it out of the Mall of America parking lot before crashing. I made sure that I was wide eyed on the way home with four snoozers in the car by drinking Diet Coke and listening to The Host by Stephanie Meyer on audiobook. It was a great choice, because although I had devoured the Twilight series last year, I had struggled with getting into the Host. It had sat on my bedside table for a few months now and this was the perfect way to dive in. Hooked. So, what did I do once I got home and got the munchkins into bed at 12:30pm. I laid in bed and read the book from where the tapes had ended (23.5 hours of audio - it's only 2.5 hours from the Cities to the Northwoods). Finally at 2:30am I forced myself to turn off the light and attempt to sleep. Sleep is not the easiest for me at the best of times and caffeine and the addiction to a book does not help. Still lots more to read, but I'm trying to keep focused and got a couple of things done today.

Sometime over the past couple of weeks (I don't recall when) my package from the Woolgirl Sock Club showed up. To be honest, lots of packages have been showing up at my door recently - the Sundara yarns I kept ordering and the Sundara Sweater Club yarn too showed up this week as well - will post pics tomorrow of those goodies for you to drool over.

There was so much stuff in the kit:

one skein of Zen Yarn Garden Sock Yarn.

2 patterns, one for a sock and one for a scarf

one pyramid gift box with one silver dusted and one gold dusted chocolate - eaten within seconds of opening package (yes, i have no self restraint)

A note card by one of Jen's favorite artists (involving sheep)

one magnet calendar with the shipment dates marked

a soak sample

a Mama Llama stitch marker

a Lantern Moon project bag

Container of some handmade hand cream

and a queen of knitting pen.

All nicely tied around the Cleopatra theme. Haven't cast on for the Majestic sock pattern yet included in the kit, as have been finishing some single socks that were hanging around and needed their twins knitted. I've slowly been finishing up some UFO's and it feels good, but I'm itching to start a new project.

I did start a new quilt that just's a quick little thing, I have the top done and need to put together the backing and then quilt it. It's very simple, fast quilting. Hopefully will be able to get that finished when the kids get back to school.