Oh Wows! First Sale!

I think the title tells all, but I must reiterate...


I HAD MY FIRST ETSY SALE!!!
I SOLD A HAT!
TO A LADY IN TEXAS!!!
I'M SO EXCITED!!
 Ok, now I'm done. It looks like marking the hats down a little really helped. Hopefully this will help get my shop and brand out there a little more.
I have to say, this is a pretty big milestone for me, this is the first time I've ever had an item I've made with my own hands be wanted by someone else. There is a definite sense of validation here, that I'm not crazy and no one else thinks like me.
Its.... nice.

Balls of hand spun dyed in Cactus cooler, and Spring Salad

More two ply hand spun, dyed in Carnival, mini skein

Colorway- Flutter Shy, next in the MLPFIM series

Hand spun Alpaca, First batt I ever bought. 

Any whoo, Pictures!
As you peruse these pix, please remember that all my hand spun is spindle spun, so consistency is hard to achieve, at least at my level. 

 Any ways, Enjoy1

CLEARANCE SALE!!

Because of the slow pace of interest in my shop, I've decided to mark things down a little. These price adjustments are temporary, so if you see something you like, GET IT NOW!
This is to make way for some new inventory I will be putting up in the next few weeks, some more yarn and yarn tools, some hand spun , and a few new accessories. Look forward to it.
Meanwhile, here are some pretty hat pix- all these are for sale at my Store!         

Brown and Cream Striped Women's Beret

Adorable Gourmet Chocolate Stitch Markers

Fun Blue and Brown Mushroom Ruffle Cap

Funky Geometric Cut Stitch Markers with Silver

Classic Marbled Stitch Markers with Gold

Still Alive, I Promise!

Ever watched "The Biggest Loser"? Ever wanted to try it?
Well, W. and I are. Trying it, that is. The Biggest Loser competition between the two of us.
Which means... I'm tired, sore, and hungry. And still being a reasonably nice person.
How is that, you may ask?
Knitting. Glorious, simple, lovely, complex, fun, distracting, focusing knitting. Specifically , this:

 This is the Bombshell, from Big Girl Knits by, Jillian Moreno and Amy R. Singer.
I bought this book about year ago, but haven't had the courage to make anything from it.

This is my first attempt at an Adult Sweater.

My biggest concern about starting the Adult Sweater is yardage. I've done several baby sweaters, all which take one or two skeins of yarn, max. Not a huge investment for something that might not turn out right.
But an Adult Sweater?
That's at least five skeins right there, depending on which yarn used. Sometimes, for us BG's, it can take ten, twelve, fifteen skeins! At $5 per skein, that is a serious investment. 

 With this one, I was lucky. The yarn I decided on, Caron Simply Soft, has a good amount of yardage on each skein, so I only needed four. You can see my maths on the page right there. I know, your not supposed to write on the page, my inner middle school librarian is yelling at me too. At least I used pencil, okay?

  Plus, it was on sale for 2.50 each. Not bad at all!  Seeing the yarn in the color I wanted, on sale, with enough that I cold make this sweater, AND enough for a headband/ something cute to wear with it, I decided to take the plunge.
 Knitting an Adult Sweater is not as daunting as I thought it would be.
But then, I picked a easy pattern, top down, raglan short sleeves, simple shaping.
 I may have ruined my self as far as ease of knitting goes, I doubt I'll ever find pattern as simple and charming as this one.
BTW- these pic were taken 2 or 3 days after I started th Adult Sweater, and I'm already almost at the armpits. Quick, it is also. I mean, along with easy and charming.

UnHappy Thoughts

So, I haven't been posting much lately, and I have a very good reason for this. I'm not deathly ill, or have a terrible family tragedy, nothing so heartbreaking as that. I have, however had a slightly unpleasant situation involing work scheduling, and have been having some difficulties with my husbands depressive moods. Nothing terrible, but enough that I have had a really hard time being positive, and I've had to stuggle the last two weeks to say something nice. And my mother always told me, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So, instead of bringing my irritable mood here, I've opted to just not bring myself here.

Well, now that some things have resolved themselves, and I'm feeling much more bright and shiny, I would love to show you some of that bouncing baby blue fiber I mentioned earlier. And by earlier, I mean two weeks ago.

 This is it. I can't remember where I bought it, but I got it at Madrona. It was a batt, but I stripped it before I even got to the car. It's so soft, and just buttery smooth.

 It spins up super nice, too. I'm so used to drafting woolen style, just letting all the fuzzy bits hand out, that this super soft stuff is too easy to draft. I keep pulling too hard, and am ending up with a super fine, almost lace weight single. I know I'll have to at least two ply this, I might even three ply it.

It's going to be a hat for William, because he threw his beautiful grey basket weave one in the washer, and now it is a baby hat. I have never felted anything before, on purpose, or accident. Now I know how easy its is. Maybe I'll be making some felted slippers this year, for Hanukkah. They can go with the felted soaps I was thinking of doing with my leftover dyed Lopez special locks.  We'll see. If I do the soaps, I'll step by step it, here.

So glad to be back, and with unequivocally happy thoughts.

Will totally make that again!

Warning- Picture heavy post here. Feel free to skim over the text, and just oogle the loverly pictures.

First up, Dinner!

 
This is a Roasted Veggie Pie with a Quinoa Crust.  Actually, three of them, because I made too much of the quinoa, and cut up too many veggies. At least I have lunch for the next 3 days!
I couldn't find a recipe for a quinoa crust that wasn't for quinoa flour, so I made one up.
This one used four cups of cooked quinoa, which is
2c dry. I mixed the quinoa with one egg, after letting it cool to room temperature. I pressed the cooled
mixture into each of three well greased pans,

 firmly across the bottom and up the sides. The one recipe I found that was kinda what I wanted, here, said to blind bake it at 350* for 15 minutes.

 I did that, and the crust came out kinda soggy, so next time I think I'll bake it for 25 min, and maybe at 375*.
Then I sliced up 2 green bell peppers, 1 red bell pepper, 1 yellow bell pepper, 1 orange bell pepper, 1 sweet onion, using my brand new food processor! And cut into 1- 1/2 inch pieces about a pound of baby asparagus.
I beat 2 more eggs, and mixed them with about a cup of

water. I layered the veggies into the baked and cooled crusts, and poured a third of the egg mixture onto each one. I baked all three at 400* for 25 minutes, but they came out not quite done. Next time, I think I'll bake them for 35 or 40 minutes, so the veggies are nice and tender. But I will totally make that again!


 Next up, Fiber!

This is the Lopez Special, from Island Fibers.
I had washed it one once, and it was still pretty smelly. So I gave another go with the soap, and it turned out much better the second time around. Then I died it. I was originally going for a pink to purple variegated, but I didn't put enough die in the bath, and not all the fiber got it. That's ok, I'll just over dye it! This time I added some peachy color, and just a splash of green, after flipping the mass of wet fiber over so the bottom and middle could get saturated. This time, it came out perfectly! I let it dry for a few days, and then I started processing it. Now, I don't have a lot of experience, or a lot of tool, pretty much just my two hands, and my spindle. So this was a bit of a challenge. This fiber wasn't all in nice lock formation, like the Cormo, or SBL. It was all kinds of higgeldy piggeldy. But I am, if nothing, stubborn. So to work I went, pulling and fluffing and drafting and sorting and occasionally pushing my cat out of the way. Yes, that is my demon spawn cat, Chaotie. It's short for Chaotic Evil.  And, eventually, I ended up with something resembling sliver, kind of. And a big bag of squiggly odd and ends, that I'm not sure what to do with. But I'm sure I figure something out, the colors came out too pretty to ignore. Maybe felted soaps for Hanukkah presents? 

Good idea, Saylor!
This is it for now, I'll sow you some beautiful blue baby something (wish the animal this stuff came from started with a "b", that would have been too good!) tomorrow, and see how this rainbow-bright stuff spins up.



P.S.- I will totally dye this color again, if I can.

Broken Camera, Uh-Oh!

Last night, I was getting ready to shoot some pix of some beautiful fiber I got at Madrona, and how nicely it was spinning up. I turned it on, and it said the battery was running low, and would turn off. OK, sure, new battery time. So hunt, hunt, hunt for batteries, find some, put in camera. Now it will run, right? Wrong. I take one picture, and it shuts down. No warning, no blinking red battery light, nothing. Just dead. Hmmm. OK, try different batteries. Same thing. Six different sets of batteries later, I'm thinking my camera is actually broken, and I'm going to have to take it back, and get a new one. Not something I really want to hassle with, mainly because I've lost my receipt. I know, I'm dumb, always keep major purchase receipts in a safe place. Thanks, Mom.
So i take it in this afternoon, back to RadioShack, where i got about 6 weeks ago. I explain everything to the guy, including how i don't have my receipt, had it for more than 30days, don't want to return it, just exchange it, can you do anything for me? All in one breath. He just looks at me, and says, "Where do you get your batteries?" Uhm, the Dollar Store? He pops open a pack of the ultra nice, expensive batteries, pops them in, and begins taking pictures. Many pictures, and the camera doesn't shut down. It works just fine and dandy, actually. I, of course, gasp and exclaim, oh! Why is it working for you? Do batteries really make that much of a difference?
Aparently they really do make that much of a difference. The nice guy let me keep the batteries he put in my camera, and gave me the rest of the 4pack, to boot. I offered to buy them, but he wouldn't hear of it, saying they would cost me $4.99, while they only cost him $.21. Super nice peeps at RadioShack.
I went back later, and bought two more 18 packs. I am now a firm believer in expensive batteries.

In other news, I put another hat up on SaylorRaye Creates. This is one of my very favorites, I almost didn't want to put it for sale! It's a really nice, classic design beige beret, not from a pattern, just my own pattern in my head. Take a look , and say if you like it!

First Knit Night Ever!

Tonight I went to my first Knit Night. I have never been to a gathering of knitters where I actually sat and knit with them. I have only been to stores to buy yarn, and to fairs and festivals to buy fiber.
I have to say it was really nice.


And I'd have to be lying.


It was AWESOME!




I finally could talk about wool, and knitting, and spinning, and say Kitchener, and splice, and they all (except the super newbie, who was still learning to purl) KNEW WHAT I WAS SAYING!
And they cared, or at least had some interest. 
I brought the 12 stitch blanket, which is a slight variation of Frankie Brown's Ten Stitch Blanket, except instead of 10 stitch rows, I use 12, and am using stockinette, not garter. Other than that I am using the pattern exactly! Right.
I also brought some of the Cormo Special and my Ashford drop spindle, and worked on that for a while.
When I first walked in , I didn't think I was in quite the right spot, I didn't see any one knitting or spinning. But then I spotted someone in the corner, and I saw a ball of yarn in front, and knew I must be in the right location. That person ended up being David, the super newbie. I ended up not spinning or knitting that much, but helping him with the whole purl thing. Which was totally cool. It made me realize that I am not really a beginner anymore, and am what would be classified as an "Intermediate" knitter, which is totally weird, because I still feel like a beginner.
But, all in all, it was super fun. And I am planning on going back next week, which will hopefully have better open-mike-nighters. Dude, whoever you are, stop trying to sound like Eddie Vedder.

PS- I got to hold a 2month baby boy, named Nathan. To a non-mom, yet, this was like getting free candy. The. Best. Thing. Ever.