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I am back to working on dad’s dress socks for his bday. I leave Friday and would like to have them done but I have a sneakin’ suspicion that I will be knitting on the planes & then maybe he’ll get them sometime over the weekend after I have some secret knitting time at night when he’s already in bed.

I know I said I was going to rip them out. I know I said I was going to knit him something else. But I let them sit while I pondered (and knit 3 other pair and a sweater and a hat) whether or not to finish them.

Well, I am going to finish them!

I have 2 pair, count ‘em, 2 pair of finished socks! Yippee! First the toe-up rpm’s out of Over the Rainbow yarns Freaky Purple superwash. love them, so fun. I did a shorter leg cuz I don’t have any short socks & wanted some.  The other pair are of my own design using Trekking XXL in color 104. They are a L-O-N-G leg. I love them.

I have sockblockers coming from the Loopy Ewe to block the trekking socks. They fit snugly & I don’t want to stretch them out but the lacey pattern needs to be blocked out a tad for full effect. Then you will get some serious photos with more details about the sock, pattern & why I designed it.

I spent all day, I mean all day from 8am-4:50pm working on my office, living room, organization, yarn inventory, etcetc. It ran the gammet today of what had to be done. You start in one room & before you know it, it involves the entire house and everyone in it. As I mentioned a week or so ago, I had to forfeit one of my beloved bookcases to become a china hutch. It was well worth it but I needed somewhere to put my books. Hence, the entire office overhaul that still is not complete. Now the decorating needs to be done. But for now you can see that I removed all yucky office stuffs from the shelves above my computer and replaced it with loveliness

Notice my books go in order of height, although I do have authors lumped together in most cases (publishers are good to me like that to make them relatively the same size). Tracy’s books are organized alphabetically at her house. How do you organize your books??

The rest of the office pics will come once I get things really in their places. There are still random things sitting willy nilly wherever they landed. Tomorrow. I will finish. And decorate. Not that I have much planned but I will do something to make it cute & happy! Maybe paint a wall or two? Who knows!

I leave you with a gratuitous shot of Charlie. He was a happy sleeper today.
He just plops himself down in the middle of the playroom, legos & grabbers all around & gets himself a bunny nap.

Etsy is the devil.

Okay, not really. that was justification for the fact that you get on their & see all the pretties other amazing artists & crafters list and must buy. I mean, MUST buy. Cannot pass up. With even more justification that you just made monies from destash and all that cash is just burning a hole in your paypal wallet. I love handmade things, even more when I didn’t have to make them. The fact that I can purchase a handsewn wallet and messenger bag made from gorgeous, fresh fabrics, reinforced and sewn straight, for a price that makes your chin hit your chest in disbelief, makes me happyhappy.

You can see the wallet tucked in one of my other ‘active’ bags.

I also found a couple of great girls that have a fantastic selection of stitch markers and bracelet row counters. I bought one for myself & one for Tracy, this one is mine. I have worn it a couple of times this past week as anormal bracelet and love how it looks and feels.
Gorgeous batts of green goodness by Miss Violet herself that may have just brought me out of my spinning slump I have been in

And have a look at the inside

Scrumptious I tell you.

I have a few other ingenious goodies on the way also. I can’t wait to get my hands on them! I didn’t have make them, just pay for them. Now that is the mood I am in!

InterweaveKnits has the summer preview up, looks great!

I placed my 6th order with Sheri at The Loopy Ewe & became a Loopy Groupie! sweeeet….with the order I got all kinds of free goodies, not to mention now I get exclusive insights to what they have coming in stock. That is a great bonus especially since a lot of their handdyed & painted sock yarns are gone within a day or two of being listed. And, they are going to be carrying lace yarns soon, heehee
 Here is what I got in my package today!

I ordered the CTH supersock in birches and bark for more socks for George.
Tracy has taken a vacation week (which she needed & good for her for taking it) and so today we went down to Ojai to see MaryAnn at Pine Mountain Quilting about quilting a top that Tracy has from her Grandma & Mom. It was so fun to see someone else so addicted to their craft! She was delightful and full of knowledge. While down south we decided to stop in at Quilt Ventura to get the quilt backing and more fat quarters for our hoop project. Here’s the goody goodness from that stop.

All the pinks on the left are going in Sadie’s room, it’ll be cute me thinks.

Next door just happened to be Anacapa Yarns so we ducked in there too. They had Tofutsies in stock. Tracy had a swatch sample of it and the light weight feel of the yarn was  a seller for me. Forget the antimicrobial chitin, it’s the feel of the yarn that gets me. I am hoping that there is little pooling and much goodness that happens with this yarn. It’s destined to be another pair for George. Good colors to go with his Crocs.

I am just busy working on socks for classes, designing and I did start the Orangina last night. I was ready to knit something back & forth. The around & around was starting to give me vertigo. I do teach a fair isle class starting tomorrow night. A simple hat pattern that I designed, I will teach them the 2 hand technique of working your colors using magic loop so we don’t have to worry about using dpn’s. It’s going to fumbly at first but so worth the effort!

I got hoops, more lovely hoops, bring on the fabric ba-by

and if anyone can tell me what the article title is from you get a prize!! a free yarn prize to the first correct answer!! and Tracy doesn’t get this one, she heard it the other day in the car for the first time & I kinda made a big deal about it. sorry, Trac!

Happy 33rd Birthday to my Main Squeeze!

Okay so his birthday was officially on Friday the 13th but I just didn’t get around to posting that day/night.

We had a lovely birthday, he loved his gifts; xoxo socks from moi (which he wore all weekend and now need to be washed), vintage danish novels (which he loved and can’t wait to start reading, whew! That was a gift I wasn’t sure he was going to like as much as I do), lots of soccer stuff (danish nat’l team and Manchester United, cross your fingers they make it through their game tonight) and last but not least, the Danish KPM antique china, inherited from his farmor (danish father’s mother, or Grandma Andreasen) and gifted by his sisters to him. They thought it was time he had his inheritance now that his mother isn’t around and his father really has no use for china in any form. He grew up in DK eating meals of all occasions on this china. So, without further ado, the china

Those are not all the pieces and the top shelf has our wedding china. But the rest are all packed away safely in the kitchen to be pulled out and used whenever needed.
This is actually a bookcase that used to house all of my knitting books/magazines/stationary/Bibles. The kitchen is too small for a hutch of it’s own so I sacrificed my bookcase to become a china hutch (sans doors which George says he may install).

As you can see, there are many fun little accoutrements to this set. A spoon rest, a toothpick holder, a salt/pepper/mustard set (missing the cutest little porcelain spoon, it’s got to turn up somewhere) and another fun little dish that is not in the picture. As well as all the large pieces, 2 coffee pots (one missing a lid and chipped on the pourspout), a potato bowl, a leaf shaped platter, a 3 section candy dish, a round platter and a fantastic gravy boat. All are pictured in the hutch picture.
My favorite thing about this china is the surprise flower in each teacup. Every cup has a different flower inside.

George’s favorite piece is the salt/pepper & mustard jar set. He found this set the last time he was in Dk visiting his Aunt & Uncle in Skjern. They had stopped for lunch and were walking through a small square where there was a Saturday flea market. Out of the corner of his eye he spied this set on someone’s table for sale. He immediately bought it. It’s nice to have it in our posession now where he can croon over it to his heart’s content.

Here is a shot of the books on the piano where he can get to them easily & it’s good eye candy for me ;o)

On the knitting front I actually did get something done this weekend. The picture below is the RPM socks before the short row heels but they are through the heels now and working up the leg. It’s a fast pattern and the yarn from Over the RainbowYarns is great to work with.

I am working on a pattern of my own today and having a bit of trouble in the stitch pattern placement once past the heel flap but it’ll work itself out & I am pretty sure the bumps are out of the pattern once I am past this point. I won’t say what the pattern is for, that part is a surprise!

George requested a soccer/danish birthday this year. Thank the Ebay lords for one hot day of auctions about 2 weeks ago. Having gone to school from the age of 6-15 in Denmark George reads much better in danish than english. Last year I had one of his cousins send us a Lord of the Rings trilogy in danish. That was a hit. So when I found a lot of 23 danish written novels from 1900-1978 I had to get them! I don’t think he will honestly read them but look at how cool they are! If nothing else, they make radical decorations.

The covers and bindings are so cool. And, as you can see above, some have watermarked pages to match their covers. Brilliant I tell you!
There are many other gifts that are not as ‘cool’ in my opinion but I am not a Danish soccer player that loves Manchester United either. There are many t-shirts (which I don’t ever buy for him but thought I would gratify him this time), soccer jerseys, classic Denmark national team cards, stamps- yes a Danish postage stamp from when they won the EuroCup years ago, I am not kidding when I said I found a lot of stuff on Ebay. Random stuff too. But it will all make him happy so that is what is important.  I even found some danish national team soccer briefs (that they wear under shorts so they don’t chafe) for him & Tyler (who is also a soccer freak & loves whatever his dad loves). They also got matching Manchester United jerseys.

Anyways, I am happy about the books.

Mom’s horsey hat is done! I love it, I love it, I love it!

Those are pretty close to the true colors too. It’s more burgundy but that works. And of course, I always post the picture before I block the item so yes, there is some puckering still. You can see the seam of the liner too but that may disappear with blocking.

The cotton liner makes all the difference in the comfort of the hat. Instead of seaming it up after the rest of the hat was finished I chose to just blind hem it in like you would on a sweater with a turned hem. It was so simple that way and the least obvious that I could think of.

Now, I am going to admit something. My dad’s dress socks…they are being ripped out. I can’t get anywhere on them & I hate them. How ’bout that reason? So, since mom’s hat turned out so darn great I am going to make dad a similar hat sans horses. Not sure what motif to use but I can come up with something fun for him. He doesn’t really love anything iconic other than his computer & I am not doing a fair isle laptop linked to his pc both running at the same time. Sorry, not gonna happen.