A little life a little knitting

So things have been pretty interesting in life right now. We've been trying to do things to the house to get it more livable because we don't know how much longer we'll be here and it's not a great house. Whatever though cause it's free. :) But on the down side I'm starting to get depressed again and even knitting isn't pulling me out this time. Normally I can knit lace or something and seeing it emerge and blossom helps me out so much, like I'm accomplishing something, but not now. I've got like 7 projects on needles right now and can't keep working on one or another because I just can't stand it. It sucks but not much I can do about it. Just cross my fingers and hope it goes away on it's own. :)

Uh on the knitting front, I've made three shop samples for Wool n Cotton, a Purse out of Lanaloft yarn (by Brown sheep) from my own pattern, a little scarf thing out of Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton, and a mini-Swallowtail out of Cascade Alpaca Lace. I'm so happy Judith is getting so much new yarn at Wool n Cotton!!!
On my needles right now:
Jaywalker socks in Knitpicks Imagination in Mermaid Lagoon... but my dog decided to chew on them so I have to fix them before I can continue on.
I have the Echo Flower shawl in a local lace weight yarn on size 7 needles
Vernal Equinox Shawl in Worsted weight yarn, Black Paton's Classic Wool to be exact and green seed beads. I'm only on the third chart though so IDK about all that.
Spring Thaw Shawl, done in Lion Brand Fisherman's wool dyed by me with Wilton's food color.
Lung Wang is another project done in Lace Weight local yarn, it's by MMario (Rav user name) and it's circular and has dragon's on it.! But I ran into some fun with that so it's hibernating for now... till I can stand to look at it again. Big mess!
Last but not least is a test knit for a dress. I won't go into details on it until I know how secret the designer wants it to be but her website is Armyofknitters.com and she has the most gorgeous work ever!!! I'm in love... with the designs of course.
Oh I lied I have gloves on needles for my uncle for Christmas Dashings to be exact.
I'm thinking I should start finishing projects now... but who knows. Because a lady that lives around here made the most gorgeous shrug/sweater thing EVER and I have to have one so it might become my 8th project on needles. or ninth ;) Anyways I guess that's all I'm doing. I hope everyone has less projects on needles than me. And doing better in general.
Peace out.

my bad (and a semi pattern)

So I know it's been ages, it's been busy! My baby is doing awesome, he's so smart and is learning so much every day. Right now he keeps making up his own songs... so what if they're basically all the same, they're still cute. Reindeer reindeer do do do do do, or Tractor tractor vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom. I love it. I've been knitting like crazy and have completed:
Santa hat for Jordan's niece
Christmas presents for Lacy, Jordan's dad and mom
Like 4 shawls (this year alone)
5 hats...
I'm working on two other shawls, overalls for my kiddo, and a couple other things so eventually I'll get it all done.
I've just been going crazy with stuff.

I thought of a really cute scarf pattern that I don't think I've seen anything like this anywhere. It's so simple but I'll post it here, I don't have a picture but maybe it won't matter yet.
It's like this:
cast on 25 and Knit five rows (garter stitch)
keeping first and last two stitches in garter stitch through out and purling the rest on wrong side rows.
RS rows: K3, (yo, K2tog) to last 2 K2
Keep repeating the RS and WS rows until desired length or almost out of yarn and Knit 5 rows then bind off. Weave in ends and block if desired.
The end result is a pretty almost slanting eyelet pattern. It can be worked in any weight on any needles. I don't know how much yarn you'll need because it'll depend on length and weight and all that but since it's so easy I though I'd share it.
I've been thinking about opening an etsy shop to sell some stitch markers and other things (hats and stuff) but it's still in thought process right now. Life has been pretty okay though in general and my knitting is coming along fine. I haven't been able to go to any of the guild meetings because the timing and everything that's been happening. I hope everyone is doing okay! I'll try and keep updating, sometimes I just forget I have a blog.

Life is what happens when you're trying to finish things

So, I suppose it's time for my monthly post (giggle giggle), I should have been posting more, then maybe more would have gotten done. In the past month I have: Set up a class to teach the Hobby Horse, Written out my first pattern (I did the project then wrote the pattern out which wasn't that bad cause it's simple), started to try to do my second pattern, both are crochet scarves, I'm working on a scarf for Jordan that will in essence be my own pattern (seeing as I'm not looking at anything to do it, just winged it and am liking it so far), I completed two hobby horses (the lonely pink one in Judith shop for a look into the class and another blue one personalized for a friend of the family but will explain that in a bit), am trying to start a Christmas present for Jordan's sister but have found out that apparently my gauge is way off so I don't know what to do about that but will go in more detail in a bit, I celebrated my 22nd birthday and my dad's wedding anniversary, I'm about to house sit while my parent's go see my sister in Hawaii (lucky them), then there's cleaning house, dealing with ranch work, our truck needing to be fixed and having to drive the car (oh but thank goodness we went and got the truck today, after over a week in the car), realizing this is a complete ramble by now so I should insert a period. WOW. Then there's always the baby, who has gotten more and more aggressive over the past couple of months but I guess it's about time. He's just too much, but in a semi good way. He's a flirt and just too darn cute for words. Trying to potty train himself (kinda) so we need to get on that ship too. Oh boy, just when I thought life was settling down. And we started the knitting guild for San Angelo the other day, which will be my saving grace. All the women that I've talked to in the group have just been wonderful I don't have an unkind word against any of them. Anywho, the hobby horse I did for the friend I personalized by putting the grandson's initials on the back of the head and it turned out darling. I'm just so impressed with that pattern. I did that one using magic loop, my first time, and didn't even use a stitch holder or anything (I needed the challenge at that time). I am now a HUGE fan of the magic loop method just FYI. But then to make things weird I try to gauge swatch the gift and it says with a sport weight yarn on size three needles I need 24 sts and 36 rounds for 4", well that should even out to about 6 sts an inch right? Well I was coming up with 9 but I, for some reason, could not come up with this gauge to save my life. I guess I knit WAY too tight. I wonder how big the horse would be if I check my gauge and adjusted my needle accordingly because I'm using the size it calls for in the pattern and never checked it (why would I it's a horse). Now that I finally got the first pattern written out I can now finally start working on my second crochet scarf project, do the scarf for Jordan, make some soap for a woman I met, clean the house, watch the kid, juggle three chainsaws while riding a unicycle playing the violin. But I am not complaining, I need the extra motivation and this is definitely not boring so I love it. For those interested in the class it'll start the 26th of September and there will be three classes, you can call Judith at Wool 'n' Cotton for more information. Her number is on her website which is linked to a couple of blogs back. Enjoy your day!

half personal half craft

I'll do the craft part first I guess so everyone who doesn't want personal can stop reading eventually. I have done 5 hand-dyed yarns now and am really thinking about selling them, I've talked to someone about it but if it falls through then I guess I don't know (has to do with the personal stuff so I won't say). I knitted a hobby horse out of the Knitted Gifts book, which is an awesome book but I don't think there's anything else in it that I can do right now. I'm still slowly working on a couple of scarves but I doubt they'll be done by the time it gets cold, maybe next winter. I'm just not feeling it.


So here's my personal part. Stop reading if you'd like I won't feel offened. I promise. I just feel like I'm falling back into my depression again and I'm fighting with everything to keep it from taking over my life like it once did. I'm fighting tooth and nail with my self everyday but I feel myself wearing thin. I can't even entertain myself with knitting or anything like that right now and that's bad. I have been trying to get life set up, to try and bring in some money through my hobby so that I'll have something to spend on new projects, I've tried a couple of times to get a job somewhere I'll enjoy, or even just volunteered so that I could get out and do something but it's not working. Maybe ... I don't know. I don't want to get too deep and personal into everything cause I don't know but it's just getting hard. I feel frustrated half the time and I don't have a release that I want to do right now. Nothing gets me by, I'm not a mean person but I feel angry and I don't want to be mean and I try not to but I just don't know. I do know that it's nothing Jordan did, I'm perfectly happy with him, it's just a chemical imbalance I've been fighting over half my life. I hate it because things can be going so well, better than they are now, and it just happens. Whatever though, I'll stop ranting. Enjoy you're day people. Peace out.

More Stuff/ amazing LYS

Well, it's been long enough. But life happens. I have gotten into dying my own yarn more and absolutely adore it. I just cannot describe how much fun it is to have this plain boring yarn turn into something gorgeous (no I'm not humble about that) come out of it. I have been thinking of spinning, made a drop spindle (maybe), and found some WONDERFUL Alpaca roving at Wool 'n' Cotton that was raised in Christoval. I met the woman that raises them and she is fantastic. Just a totally nice down to earth woman, she seemed pretty funny too. Not to mention how awesome the shop in general is, plus the woman who owns it is just fantastic too. The three of us went into the shop before Jeyton's Dr appointment on Tuesday to kill some time and we almost killed too much. Judith is just darling. While browsing around she offered Jeyton a cookie (cracker to him) and put on a pot of coffee for Jordan. There was tons of fabric and other sewing/quilting supplies along with the gorgeous yarns and roving's. Most of the yarn that I looked at was made right here in Texas, which is pretty cool in itself. Okay, okay I'll stop making you jealous about how fabulous it is. On to Jeyton's Dr. appointment. He got two shots so he wasn't happy, plus it was about 2 and he hadn't had his nap (which is usually about 11). Any who, we told them how many words he says, which we have figure to be about 40, FORTY words. He's not even two yet. The Dr and nurse were dumbfounded and told us that most 18 month olds' only have a 15-20 word vocabulary and 24 months have about 20. I mean wow for Jeyton. Plus he's putting two words together (hot dog, hot food, good dog, right there) which most 18 month olds' don't do. Our son's a flipping genius! The only thing he lacks on still is his weight. I can see how that works because he eats ALL day and NEVER stops moving. So it's gonna be hard for him to gain much weight at all. I suppose that's all right now. I'll try bs-ing again later.

Knitting Backwards and some more stuff

Well I learned a new trick tonight, knitting backwards! Who's ever heard such a thing!? I saw something about it when looking at entrelac (or whatever) so I was like hey what's that? Looked it up and found an easy (for me) tutorial about it on knitty (which is GREAT if you've never been there) knitty's tutorial I hope that works. Any who, the shirt I'm knitting is from Knitty too and I don't really remember what it's called. I'll update that later. anyways, I'm going along knitting my shirt, find that tutorial and decide I should try it. Instead of being logical and starting a quick sample swatch I just start trying it out on my shirt. Could you have imagined how bad that could have ended up if it didn't work for me. Like if I'd have messed up somewhere? BUT, to my knowledge I picked it right up and i love it cause I hate to purl. :( Now to get rid of it completely ;) In other life news I think it's time to cut my nails, just kidding although it would be smart cause I keep typing numbers, but seriously though Jordan found a gun he likes and wants and that fits him. Now I guess that's not as exciting to everyone else but it's been forever since he's done that. But then again he misses a gun that he recently got rid of so he may get this one and another in the caliber he got rid of. Whatever though, no point in trying to fight about it. It gets deer meat in the freezer and you can't beat that with any beef/chicken/pig whatever else out there. Oh it's so good. But I digress, he is trying to find a job guiding hunts which would rock out for him since that's his passion and he knows so much about it. I was bored the other day and instead of finding new patterns I found myself looking at guns/hunting info. God forbid Jordan ever finds out about that. just kidding, kinda. I swear everyone that goes into the local (good) gun shop is going to know who we are by the end of the summer. That's great huh. I guess that's it right now. go to sleep.

Stuff

Okay okay so I didn't get around to posting pictures... I just don't know enough about this blogger thing to know how to put in pictures other than with html BUT I don't feel like figuring out where to upload them online so I can do the coding to put them down where I want them. I used to be real good at HTML and played with it all the time, even to the point where I almost made my very own website but alas, I didn't. I like the blog aspect of things and prefer this one to my MySpace one even though I'm pretty sure that NOONE reads this one... it's so lonely in here. hello hello hello is there anybody in here, just nod if you can hear me... But I digress. I have started trying to knit a tank top and it's going along just fine. Last time I tried knitting a shirt it was actually a sweater and I Hated the yarn. So it's about 4/7th of the way done. I don't know where that fraction came from but whatever. I have been making stitch markers which are so awesome, I'm testing them out with this project. They are working! Uh, I went to my parents house for the 4th and we had fun. My aunt was there and I like her but don't get to see her much. I don't know why. anywho I'll keep you (whoever you are, introduce yourself to me) updated on my progress of everything. Peace out!