I have been busy. I have been documenting my time with photos but whenever I log on and sit down to edit photos and upload photos, things crash and so thus I have bided my time.

I attended the PDX blogger Holiday Knit-a-thon. It was really fun to meet everyone and catch up with other. Here is a photo to prove I was there. We met at Gino’s which is owned by one of our members. Thanks again Deb.

I knit on my Tree Jacket while I was there. I am knitting it along with the Sexy Knitters Club. I had gotten to the end of the garter stitch section that day. Someone took a photo of me with it on and the neck around my face, but so far no one is fessing up. Since then I have taken pics for WIP Wednesday, which had a computer crash while I was uploading pics and editing them. And I finished it on Saturday night at church. It is currently blocking its little heart out. This is were I was on Wednesday.

We also held a yarn swap at the knit-a-thon. I got 4 skeins of yarn. Only 3 are shown below because, the other one was a simple skein of TOFUtsies that I took pity on and brought home.

I also have been working on socks for my Brother-in-law and his two boys for Christmas.

I also purchased my first skein of Malabrigo. I love the color. I hope ya’ll like this sexy yarn photo. If you would like more, click on the pic and there are more on flickr.

My monkey pal flaked on me. Amazingly the angels jumped on it and the packages pummeled my front door the week of Thanksgiving.

I received a little monkey name Hoodwinked, which I thought was so aptly named since I missed out on getting a proper package. The socks were a lovely color of Koigu but they did not fit me, they fit churchable.

The last bits that I have to show you are my FOs for the week. I actually spent quite a bit of time in front of my sewing machine.

First up: A simple black A-line skirt

This is a simple skirt that I drafted from my measurements with a invisible side zipper and a faced waist. I don’t know what the fabric is but it did not melt at the almost cotton heat setting. Most of my fabric stash is unmarked except that each box has a color grouping.

Second: Reversible Place mats

These are to be given to the bride and groom of the wedding we attended in Arizona. The reason we went on a big road trip to Utah and beyond. They were going to be folding a 1,000 cranes for their wedding, so I gathered inspiration from this. The fabric is quilting cotton from the local quilt store. Simple no pattern place mats.

Boxed and ready to go

Spread out. The other side of all the place mats is the color of the napkin.

Third: Pillows for a friend

Man I just can’t get my head in the game. I am super groggy and I know I am getting enough sleep, exercise and food. People keep asking me if I am pregnant since baby’s take away brain power. I can tell all you people to stop hoping at least this month. I know I am not with child. I also don’t hope to be, but I do know the drs are messing with my hormones and it is murder. So all this to say if I seem to ramble and have flat wit this time around that is the unknown reason. It is hard to be on your toes when you want to fall flat on your face, but when I try to nap all I want to do is twiddle my thumbs. Grrr. If you are looking for the FOs scroll down but don’t miss the yarn and the contests on the way down.

Oh you want to know about the yarn and the FO. Well first I want to talk about churchable’s weekend. When I met my man, he was training for this race. No he did not start training 3 years early. He ran the Hood 2 Coast relay in 2004 and this year. The event happened this weekend. His team has consisted of 6 of the same guys for the 3 times they have raced. He stopped running after the race in 2004. Last fall the guys got together and decided to race this summer. Churchable was a little apprehensive since he stopped running because he hurt. Well my man ran and he ran well and he said that he felt better after running this year than in 2004. Yeah. He is going to continue running. This makes me happy since he was a cross-country runner in high school in Spokane. He enjoys running. I am proud of my boy.

Back row: Cindy, Sarah, Maia, Judy
Front row: Fyberduck, Moirae, Me

Now onto the interesting things. While my honey ran his heart out, I went on a sock hop. Ok it was a sock yarn crawl but I like sock hop better. Fyberduck put this grand adventure together over on Ravelry. A small portion of us PDX bloggers got together and partied it up. Ok we sat, we knitted, we squeezed yarn, we ate yummies, and we bought yarn.

The following was our plan:

Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm,
The Yarn Garden from 1:30 – 2:00 pm,
Twisted from 2:15 – 3:00 pm,
Knit/ Purl from 3:15 – 4:00 pm,
The Farmhouse Knit Shop from 4:30 – 5:00 pm

Kathy showing us her muslin and its oddities, Cindy bought a bracelet with Rodger’s assistance, Judy and our newest knitter (please forgive my brain forgetfulness) watched.

Well I met up with Judy and Cindy and we rode together. It was nice and quiet and filled with conversation since we rode in Judy’s Prius. We ended up being the first to arrive at Abundant Yarn except Rodger but he was working of course. It was a very leisurely stay at Abundant. We made ourselves quite at home in the cafe, ordering lunches and making sure there were no more seats available. We were joined by a few others at the cafe for just this stop. Kathy came a de-stressed a little after another hard week. She was knitting away on a cute little EZ February Baby Jacket. We had another out of state couple tag along for the first stop and to Pix.

Since it was Judy’s bday, we had to celebrate with chocolaty goodness. She was most decidedly happy to have a low key birthday but to enjoy the yarn.

On we hopped through the Yarn Garden, since we were behind schedule we did not stay long.

Look at that lovely wall of sock yarn. Some of it had just arrived.

Then onto the store that I knew would be my downfall. Oh why did I come? I knew that indie dyers would be hard for me to resist. but now I have a new favorite store. Twisted.

I ended up buying 3 skeins of yarn. 2 count as Christmas presents since my BIL asked rather offhand if I had ever seen camo colored sock yarn. Hmmm….. I think someone wants something. Hopefully I am right and these will be perfect. The other I would not even let Cindy take from my hand to investigate further. I had it by a death grip.

Now I rarely have to have a yarn, but this one just did me in. The colors were so soothing and calm, just what I wanted. Too bad I have too many socks on the needles and not enough time.

Well we all pried ourselves away from the wall of yarn, most spending a bit more than we intended. I have to say the gals at Twisted know their business. Then we trooped down to the home of Shibui (aka Knit/Purl). We were greeted at the door with a lovely sign and cookies. They offered us ice tea and water. I some how missed the tea, but oh well. The colors in this shop g
low.

After this Judy dropped Cindy and I off at our cars, Cindy and Judy headed off to Farmhouse. I personally love farmhouse knit shop but I had been there just a week before and was feeling the need to head home. One of our dogs was feeling ill when I left home in the morning. She is better now, she had re-sprained her tail again. I don’t know how she does it but I gave her the pain meds from the last time she did this.

Since i have little luck of winning contests on their blogs, I will send my lucky readers to a few that I have run across this week. The first is at Golden Purl, she asks that you give her your favorite date (month and day) and if it matches hers she will send you a treat. Mine of course was my 25th birthday (April 26th) when I realized that I needed to go out with this guy named churchable that I had been talking to online. The second is at Extravayarnza, tell her how you cheer up during the long gray days. The third and final is at schrodinger knits, she simply asks you to comment and she can bless you after all the good luck she has been having at winning contests.

Ok finally we have the FOs

The Orange Goddess
Pattern: Pale Green Top #13 from Rebecca #12
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece color Harvest Orange (I don’t think this is an active colot)
Needles: US8 (I think)
Thoughts: I love this pattern. Super simple. Now I did not make any mods, but I should have. I made the straps too long originally and so it sat in my mending basket waiting for the simple task of strap shortening. I think the bust detailing is too wide for my frame. I would measure it and make it more centered, then I probably could wear the shirt alone. I even like the rolled hem on this one (I normally change them all to garter st)

Now my other FO was less knitting and more fiber. Here is my first non knitting FO in months. I hope I have some in October when my friend CareBear visits.

This was some fabric that I had indigo dyed and then I sewed it up on my serger. I gifted it to the wonderful Judy on her birthday. It is some of my design collection that I tried to sell before I gave up and pursued my knitting.

My entrelec sock has gotten many ohs and ahs lately. It especially caused many passerbys at Fabric Depot to stop and pet it and comment on the fact that I was not even looking. My response would have been why do I need to look at my knitting when it is all little tiny squares of knit stitches, but I was brought up to be nice and accept it. My inside voice was screaming STOP PETTING the SOCK people. I might understand now about the whole people petting pregnant women’s bellies. Totally not ok. Ok it was fine for a few knit bloggers but not the entire group of people that I did not know and who did not ask.

My sweater with cables from Rebecca 30 is coming along well. I think I might only have enough to seam and crochet the neck. I don’t know how much I can do with the sleeves. I have one small ball left. It is currently blocking and waiting for me to seam it and figure out how much yarn I have. I started this project happy if it only becomes a vest.

I have restarted Fifi with more stitches in the neck and then realized that I was lazy and did a swatch but did not measure it. I just cast on willy nilly. It’s not good to toss about starts. So I got the sweater with cables off the size 8 needles and I will be swatching tonight and hopefully casting on tomorrow morning before I start work. I just got my yarn today for my big project for Tina over at Blue Moon.

Now on to the big weekend event. If you don’t care about my crazy life move along there is no more knitting till Friday. So I finally decided that I had had it with cousin It and he had to leave. I mean what good is a tree that is supposed to flower and has only flowered once in the 4 summers you have been spending time at this house. You must first know that cousin it is most likely about 40 years old. SO it was not easy. Now the house looks a little bare but much more to my liking.