An open letter to Knitting Dragon

Dear Knitting Dragon,
Around Christmas time, mama used some of your yarn to knit her friend a little Christmas Stocking. I got a taste of it, and knew I had to have more. Today, while the staff was at work, I had my chance.


Mama left some of your beer-colored goodness on the coffee table (she's got big plans for it), and I made my move. Nomnomnomnomnom!
Your yarn is so delicious! Please make more!


Sincerely,
Tripsie

Arctic Lace - Blog tour!

If you are a super-duper loyal reader, you might remember that I did a blog post for a virtual book tour nearly two years ago! So when Donna sent another email about her new book on lace, I was very excited to take part again.


Arctic Lace is a very beautiful looking book, which focuses on lace patterns inspired by native Alaskan knitters. If you watch the LetsKnit2Gether podcast you might remember that Cat had several recent episodes about traveling to Alaska, and purchasing Quivit, which is one of THE most expensive (and soft, and warm, and OMG did I mention soft?) luxury yarns ever. This book is all about knitting with that wonderful fiber.

This year I took my first dive into lace knitting when I decided to make my own wedding veil. I had to keep it hush-hush because I didn't want Sam to know about it (which was very tough, considering we live together).


But I was pleasantly surprised. Honestly, there's a lot of lace patterns out there that you can knit if you're able to knit a washcloth. It's just yarovers, knit 2 togethers, and slip slip knits :)

So check out Arctic Lace (There's an Audio book version too!) See below for details:

Successful Lace Knitting by Donna Druchunas will be released in May on the Musk Ox & Glaciers Knitting Cruise, where Donna will be teaching along with Lucy Neatby. The audio book edition of Arctic Lace http://sheeptoshawl.com/arcticlace.html will also be published at the same time, so cruise participants will be among the first to have
a chance to see (and hear!) these two new releases.

To enter to win 2 balls of laceweight qiviut yarn, sign up for the
cruise mailing list here: http://tinyurl.com/ybv6jqm

(ps. I've repurposed my veil to be a lovely centerpiece on my table, under a yarn bowl!)

I love heels!!!

Ok, so yeah this is a bit silly, but I just love sock heels.
You start off with your round tube of fabric.


Then you knit a nice heel flap. (By the way, the below picture is the most accurate as far as color is concerned)


Do some magic short rows and voila you have a triangle!

Pick up all the side bits and you're one piece of fabric again.


And like MAGIC! You've got the better part of a sock!


This sock (and its future mate) are for Sam. I'm using the Lorien colorway from the Unique Sheep LOTR Club. He said he wanted bright yellow socks, and when I saw the Charlie Brown cables I just had to put them together ;)



In other news, I got a package from Germany today :D Extra love to my mail lady for braving the weather to deliver it by hand.


IT'S WOLLMEISE!!!!!

I somehow just managed to be in the right place at the right time and caught an update.


I just keep thinking some kind of awesome green lantern shawl. Also, the yarn came with a really pretty glove pattern, and I might use the cable motif on something else.

Cat-astrophe

Well, its been quite a week for everyone. Globally, there were the devastating earthquakes in Haiti. Closer to home there was a horrible shooting in Appomattox which has torn several families to pieces.

While this isn't anywhere near as devastating, its what's been weighing on our minds. At home, miss Tripsie had a bit of a problem too.
As you know, Kitty has been battling ear mites for the last year or so. The medicine our vet had given us made him very sick, so we've been fighting them as well as we could with vinegar and q-tips.

Recently, Kitty and Tripsie had been getting along better. Which while it was good they were getting closer, it meant Tripsie finally caught Kitty's ear mites.

Look, actual physical contact!

We noticed early this past week that her right ear appeared swollen. When it didn't seem to get better, we googled "swollen cat ear" and realized she may have shaken her ears so hard she burst a blood vessel. We were right.
Thursday she went to the vet, and was sedated and put under so that her ear could be shaved and operated on. She came home Thursday night and was a hissyfitty mess.
We were heartbroken, thinking all her recent progress of being more friendly was lost.

Luckily, Friday morning she seemed to be more herself.


And today her ear seems to be standing up more normally.

She has 4-5 small stitches throughout her ear, and she'll have to go back in about 2 weeks to have them removed. It's actually quite good that she doesn't have her right hind leg, she can't tear the stitches out!


So please, pet owners! If your pet is shaking its head, please try to find the root cause and fix it as soon as possible.


In other news, I have been knitting more.
I've got a monkey and a half.

And I'm to the row before the last set of increases on my Shalom Cardigan. Next I'll separate out for the arms !
And, so that he doesn't feel left out, here's Kitty!! Kitty is actually doing much better. We found an ear mite medication which has the same stuff as what the vet gave us, but weaker doses, so it doesn't make him sick. His ears look so CLEAN!!!

"Why you wake me?!"

Looking back/looking Forward

Being the end of the year, it seems natural to look back at what we were doing at this time last year. Since I shared my goals with you all last year, I thought I should own up to what I did and did not manage to do!

1. Lose weight. Well, while I definitely failed in this area (I think I've actually gained some) I am not upset because I know that I am a much healthier person. I eat salads fairly often now, and they include more than just lettuce, carrots, and ranch dressing. I'm more physically fit, I drink water on occasion, and I have a lot more energy.
2. Yarn Diet. Um, ok so I have way more yarn now than I did last year BUT my spending habits are better under control. I owe a big part of this success to Mint.com which ROCKS. It showed me how much I was spending and helped me to put a limit on myself, with a Digital Wristslap if I went over. So while I spent more wisely, thanks to being in multiple yarn clubs, I just accumulated way more than I could knit.

Which brings me to my goals for this year.
1. I want to complete one project per month. This may sound super rediculously easy, but I am an ADD Knitter as in all things, and sometimes I get a bit of cast-on-itis. I also tend to get a case of "OMG this facebook game is awesome and I shall play it 5 hours a day." So sometimes I don't knit for fairly long stretches of time, or I'll swap back and forth so many projects that none of them see any drastic progress. I am going to partially achieve this by doing something I saw on Ravelry. I am printing off patterns, collecting all needed materials, and putting them in a plain paper bag. Put the bags in the closet - whenever I feel like starting something new I grab a bag and cast on!
2. Read. If you don't include Audio Books, I don't think I read any books in 2009. 0! So I want to keep a book on my nightstand, and read a few pages of that instead of catching up on twitter or looking at lolcat pictures on my phone every night before bed. I've already started reading Rowing The Atlantic by Roz Savage (pardon, can't find how to underline).
3. Continue to eat healthier! I've made some very good steps in the right direction. I just need to keep it up and get back to a good work-out routine.

We're heading out to party with our nerds. Happy New Year everyone!!!!