Yoga Socks and Handspun Mittens

Yoga Socks. I take a yoga class at IXL here in Mercer two mornings a week and I love it. My flexability and strength have improved over the three years I have taken this class. It really helped when I was moving all the store stuff. The socks I usually wear slide more than I would like. My the yoga socks in the picture were designed with holes to grip my matt. I have not tried them yet since I am still working on my second sock. I'll post the pattern if they work well.

A logcabin cotton baby blanket is on my needles for mindless knitting. I usually have a couple mindless knitting projects on my needles and a couple pair of socks and mittens. I also like one challenging project to work on for times when I want to escape into my knitting. My new challenging project is a short sleeved top with lace detail in leaves up the front. I will knit a small one as a sample to take to Knitters Fantasy in April to show off some summer yarn that I am hoping to sell. I will use a Dale Pattern and some Cascade Tencel Yarn. I will post pictures when I get it going.

I am finally figuring out my new camera. I lost all the pictures I took at the Pgh Knit Fest and ruined the 2g memory card I had in the camera. The nice sales person at Staples said the card was hopeless and sold me a new one. I guess I pulled the card reader out of the USB or was it UBS Port while the pictures were loading and some how corrupted the data and then I initialized it again by mistake on my laptop.



I've been working on handspun mitts again. I really want to get back to my spinning, it's been tooooo long. I know once I get started I will be fine. I have had spinners block for a few months now, I have everything ready to go but just have not been able to sit down and ply off the beautiful red yarn that I spun about a month ago.
I need to get all the loose ends of closing my store and scaling back my business taken care of. I am still working on my tax stuff and time is running out. Today will be a good day to get a grip on the value of my inventory. I have been counting for a couple weeks but have not started totaling up the mess. In the mean time I have been knitting mittens for my little friends. I have one more set to finish up and I will have all 7 of my little friends in handmade mittens. It's been cold and snowy here so they have had a chance to try out their mittens this winter.

Happy Valentines Day

Ellen and I drove home from the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival Sunday evening. It was nearly zero outside and very windy. The wind blew off the snow but made driving difficult. My little boxy Sion is not good on windy highways. I had to really work at keeping the car on the road. It felt really good to was very happy be home safe. The car did not get unloaded till the next afternoon before I went to Grove City to visit my knitting students. Elizabeth just completed her second knit heart Valentine. I am so proud of her. I have only been teaching her for a little over a month and she has made 2 hats, a knitted rose for one of the hats, a mouse cat toy, 2 heart dishcloths and several squares for a baby blanket. She is 13 and seems to really enjoy knitting. I try to teach a new skill each week. I really am enjoying teaching children again. We made some cut paper valentines last week and the children decorated a Valentine mail box. This week when I arrived there were Valentines for me too. I picked up some flowers at the store on the way home to go with my Valentines.

Verna Greenan's husband passed away on Friday. I went to the viewing this afternoon in a blizzard. 8-10 inches of blowing snow fell. I almost rear ended a car a block from my house on the way home. The funeral is at 10:00 am tomorrow. I am glad the Funeral is just a few blocks from my house. The windows are frozen over and covered in pebble like ice. You cannot see out so I suppose the freezing rain has started on top of the snow that fell today. It is a good day to stay inside and knit mittens. I still have 4 pair to knit for my young friends.

About the pictures I took at The Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival. I was using my new camera and made a mistake and lost all my pictures. I was so anxious to see them Sunday night when I got home. I took out the memory card put it into the card reader and open my IPhoto program and clicked import and erase the card when finished importing button and a message came up that a disc error occurred. I was very tired and when another box came up I clicked a button that asked if I wanted to initialize the disk. I thought this might fix the problem so I clicked yes. This erased the memory card. I shut off the computer distraut and depressed. I went to bed. How could I be so stupid. Yesterday I got out my camera manual and learned that the disc erased if you click initialize. Ellen took some pictures also maybe she will share some to post.

Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival

Well its early around 6 AM I have to get up and pack my car for the trip to Pittsburgh.
I am wondering if all the boxes will fit in my little Sion. It will be fun to see just how much will fit in the car.
I am taking all the Lambs Pride, Step sock yarn, Ultra Alpaca. Sissi a beautiful lace mohair, all the 220 Cascade plus an assortment of books. Keeping the booth simple offering only a few choices. The yarn will be sold at a discount in hopes of selling most of it. I am teaching a class, Gauge Mysteries on Sunday. I ran out of ink for my printer yesterday in the middle of printing my workshop handouts. Tom finished them up on his printer but I did not get my new business cards printed and sale signs. So Magic marker and paper will have to do. I will make the signs at the show.

I am not looking forward to this drive into the South Hills. There is just no easy way to get there from here.
Ellen O. is riding with me and is bringing her GPS so I am sure we will make it okay. I was only lost for a little while last year. I am picking Ellen up at noon and I have much to do.

I will take my camera and post to the blog so you all that have decided to stay home can check in and get a feel for what the show is like. Next year it will be held at a hotel in Cranberry near the turnpike exit. It will be so easy to drive to.
Knit On!
N

Blue Felt Bag and sweater

I finally got to finishing this sweater almost finished. I have one more sleeve to go. I started it a few years ago and then lost it when I moved the store to the new location and I found it again when I had to empty the back room when I closed the shop. I am trying to finish us or frog all the knitting that was in the store. I would start projects to show off the yarn and sometimes finish them other time I would sell them as is, sometimes take them apart when they served their purpose of selling yarn.

I finally finished the button hole bag. I ran it thru the maching twice so it is felted very firm and is a nice knitting bag. It is knit with two strans of bulky wool held together. The color shading is achieved by using two differrnt colors of yarn and changing them as it is knit. I really like how this bag turned out. I am using it as my take along knitting bag. It is the perfect size to put a couple small projects in. This pattern is a free pattern from the Mason Dixon Blog. I registerd my bag project on Ravelry and was surprised to find pictures of hundreds of these bags finished and posted on Ralvery. This was a very popular pattern. It is easy to kit and with #15 ndls it can be knit up in a week end. With the bulky wool knit double it felts into a thick sturdy bag. I added an attached icord finish around the top and button hole. I used Brown Sheep Lambs pride bulky in 3 colors and used a little multi color Desert from Classic Elite with the Lambs Pride on the top and in the finish icord.

Knitting and cats at play

I am working on my yoga socks. I am writing the pattern as I knit.
This is what I found one morning. Poor little emmet had a little tooomuch of his new catnip mouse that I knit and just gave to him the night before. Bob saw me taking his picture and wanted in on the fun.