Single Skein September!

We survived our first vendor table at the Lancaster Farmer's Market last Saturday. It was an interesting and informative experience. Check out our display:

I had fun designing labels for everything. Now that we've gotten our feet wet, we have submitted an application to have a table at the WNY Fiber Festival (formerly the Knox Farm Fiber Festival). That will be on the 24th of this month at Emery Park in South Wales. I encourage everyone to attend and support this festival so that we can keep it going for years go to come. And of course, if you do go, stop by and say hi to us!

In other news: It's Single Skein September, so I'm trying to get through at least ONE single skein. Of course I'm knitting socks! And, I'm trying to finish up my Jaywalkers that I've been working on since forever. I'm on the ribbing at the top of the second sock, and then its just the afterthought heel and all done! I'm also spinning some sock yarn that I hope to have done this month so I can knit it into a pair of Rapunzel Stockings.

October will be SOCKTOBER and our knitting group be doing a Knit-a-Long of Hungry Bees by Emma Grundy Haigh:

Want to join us? If you don't have yarn, I'll be dyeing some up honey coloured yarn soon, and I've got a nice golden wheat colour now in the shop that I think would look great as Hungry Bees: Scrimgeour

I still haven't updated my stash for August yet, but that will be happening soon. I have to get to 15,000 before Rhinebeck so I'll be a knitting fool the next month and a half!

Happy Knitting, keep those needles a-clicking!

Sereknitty

I made a couple stitch markers today

Why? Because Lolo and I will be at the Lancaster Market this Saturday from 7-1 selling hand dyed and hand spun yarn, knitted and handmade gift items AND...stitch markers!! If you're free, stop by and say hi (and maybe buy something?)

We will be joined by Jenn of 716knit, whose self striping yarns are so bright and awesome.

Hope to see you there!!!

Sereknitty

I DID IT!!!

I finished the shawl!!!!

Isn't it beautiful? Don't you love it? The pattern is now available. It's called Dancing Birds of Paradise and you can find it here.

In other news, I knit 2570 yards in July! Pretty amazing, huh? Well, not all of it was knitting, I did give some yarn away, but still, in coldsheeping, destashing counts. So far I've used up 11,562 yards, bringing my stash down to 27,370 yards. I think I can make my goal of hitting 15,000 yards before Rhinebeck in October!!

All in all, good news. We are both knitting/dyeing/crafting furiously to prepare for the craft table on the 27th, so clear your schedule to come visit us at the Lancaster Farmer's Market between 7 and 1. We'll have hand dyed and hand spun yarns along with knitted and hand made gift items. There will be something for everybody and hopefully it'll be lots of fun!

Paragons of awesome

Hello!
It is I, the illusive Loloknits. Sereknitty has been doing a hell of a lot of the work around here, I am so grateful to her! Life has thrown me some serious (emotional) curveballs lately and it's been really hard for me to get myself together some days. Now, things are looking better and I'm so excited to be back on track! I'm lucky enough to have some time off from work and have lots of plans for fun and knitting. :) I've just bought a new camera - a test action shot:

We got the good news the other day that we've been accepted at a local farmers' market! Our goal date to start is in late August, so I've been working on pumping out lots of inventory - washcloth and bookmarks mostly for now. The washcloths have no rhyme or reason, just whatever I feel like!

I'm a local coffee shop right now, my train of thought keeps getting interrupted by the fabulous dude candy that keeps strolling in! I guess it's that time of the day for sexy runners and guys with great hair and swaggers. ;)
The plan tonight is to turn these:

Into real bookmarks! They're in a larval, kinda looking like kelp stage but when they grow up, I'm hoping for loveliness. I'm gonna use a very scientific concoction of glue and water to stiffen them and bring out the laciness (I promise, it's there).

Huh, interesting podcast just popped up on ye olde iPod - Does size matter?
Any thoughts? Ladies? Gents?
Should we be using metric?
This seems ironic, given my surroundings ;)

Well on that note, time to sign off!
May you always get gauge,
Lolo

Slog Saturday

I didn't get a chance to work on my Finish Friday project on Friday. I'm knitting a shawl with a deadline so I've been mostly knitting on that (more on THAT below). But, I did find time last night to work on my sock. Here's where I started:

I popped in a DVD and ended up here:

Not too much farther to go! I can have it finished in a few more Fridays if I keep this up!

LoloKnits and I managed to get lots of crafting time in during the 4th of July weekend. Here's our Knitting in Public Tip for you: If you're going to sit outside to watch fireworks, make sure you score a seat under a street light so you can knit after it gets dark. Loloknits and I made great use of a street light at the Harbourfront in Buffalo. The fireworks were late, so we had LOTS of time to knit, while everyone around us was bored and complaining.

And we also got plenty of knitting time at a parade in Lancaster on the 4th. One of my favourite bits of the parade was the Four Presidents of Mt. Rushmore. I only got one terrible picture, but trust me, they looked amazing.

Oh, and back to my shawl with the deadline: Guess who is running out of yarn? YUP, that would be me. I was doubting whether I'd have enough yarn for a few days now, but I suddenly realized last night that I would not have enough to finish. I did the math, it would not work. So I think I have no choice but to frog back and reduce the number of pattern repeats on the body and then redo the two edge charts. It's going to set me back a couple weeks and I'll miss my deadline! I emailed the designer and I'm waiting to hear back from her to see what she says. The crazy bit is that I OVERESTIMATED how much yarn I'd need, I thought I'd have plenty leftover. I was even fantasizing about what I'd make with the leftovers (socks of course). It's very upsetting!! But, if I tink back now and knit furiously I can have it done before the end of the month, easy. I was so close! I had 13 rows left.

What lessons can be learned from this? Well, thankfully I left in my last 2 life lines so I can frog back to the beginning of the edge rows no problem. That's a good lesson; leave the lifelines in place, just in case! Also, I could probably also learn to give myself plenty of time to meet a deadline. I knew this would be a tight squeeze when I signed on for it, not much room for error. So maybe that was my bad. And then, I guess I should pay more attention when I start to get that little niggling "something's not quite right" feeling. You know what I mean. The sweater's just not working in the yarn, yet you keep knitting it. The sizing is off but you think you can make it work. And you keep knitting and knitting and then when it's finished you HATE it and have to frog it. All that wasted effort. If I had paid more attention when I first started having suspicions, I might have realized earlier on that I'd have to go back and would have saved myself time and heartache. That's an important lesson to learn, listening to your Inner Better Knitter. Ah well. Tinking makes us better knitters, right?

-Sereknitty

Catching up

Wow, it's been a while! We've been so busy this spring/summer. But here's what's going on with me:

My Coldsheeping totals for June are:

Total Yardage in my stash: 28150.08
Total yards used in 2011: 8992.08
Total yards used in June: 780.06

Not too shabby, but a slow month compared to what I've been doing. But, that's ok, because I have some larger projects on my needles that will be done next month, and I'm always churning out a few small projects.

Plus, I'm really trying to work on finishing up some UFO (unfinished objects) so I've instituted FINISH FRIDAYS (I didn't coin the term) where I work on a UFO for an hour on Friday to try to get it done and off the needles. I can do more than an hour, of course, but squeezing in an hour when I have deadlines looming can be tough. So, this past Friday I picked up my Jaywalkers, or Sreklawyaj, as I like to call them, as I'm knitting them toe up. :)

Here is the picture before I started. The rubber ducky marks my starting point.

I popped in a DVD, knit away and when I was done, it looked like this:

Not too shabby for one episode of "Wonderfalls". Tune back in next week when I'll try to get even further!

Besides working on UFOs and some larger projects I haven't finished yet, I did manage to finish a few things in June. First, a pair of ankle socks (because I am addicted to ankle socks!)

A second Whisper Cardigan that I knit out of a worsted weight, hand dyed cotton boucle that I am calling my ROAR! Cardigan (for obvious reasons)

And this adorable toy. It starts as a squirrel:

And flips into a hedgehog!

I know I shouldn't have favourites, but isn't that hedgehog CUTE?

Oh, and I also spun up a small skein of some llama fibre I got at Rhinebeck last year. I'm going to dye it and then knit it into something for myself:

It's the first fingering weight I've been able to spin so I'm quite proud of it!

And that's what I've been up to recently. What have you been knitting?

The End of April

It's been a mad month with snow storms and heavy rains, muggy and hot one day and freezing cold the next! But we've been busy here in Buffalo, knitting the month away. Here are just some of the things I've accomplished this month:

I knit half a dozen dish cloths, some oven mitts (to be felted later on). I crocheted little face pads for washing my face instead of using cotton pads and I finished my Whisper Cardigan. I'm in love with the cardigan and will be wearing it constantly!

I'm also making good progress on my coldsheeping diet. My End of April/Beginning of May totals are thus:

Current yardage: 29072.93
Total knit: 7663.23

My stash took a BIG jump this month when LoloKnits found a huge shopping cart full of gorgeous hand dyed yarns at a thrift store. We divvied them up. This is what I came home with:

Half of that is roving!! She had even more, I think. I added over 7000 to my total stash! But, such gorgeous stuff, it was completely worth it. We're still hoping to do a craft booth in August, so we're both knitting items for that. Should be fun!

Cheers!

Sereknitty