Earthwhisper Fiber Arts

I finished my first pair of Monkey socks. They are done in Claudia Co. hand painted yarn in the color way of Oops, which is blue, purple and turquoise and brown/maroon. I made them for a lady in my mother’s club who won a charity auction. She wanted blue and earthy colors, not bright colors. I hope this is a color that she will be happy with. I love them. This was a pretty easy knit.

Tomorrow you will get to see a picture of Sierra’s “pretty” black eye. She was making a village up on her bookshelf while standing on a plastic table and slipped and hit her cheekbone on the toy box. She is okay, just bruised. Nothing like going to school the second week with a black eye. I went and got her some arnica for it. They sell it at Longs, the dissolving tablets and gel.

Yep, I finished them last night and washed them this morning. They were suppose to be mailed today. I will mail them tomorrow. I hope my swap partner likes them.

I have never participated in a swap like this and am nervous that the socks won’t fit or the toe isn’t the way she will like it. I am going to send her the remaining yarn so if she needs to make them longer or different she can. I wish I had sock blockers so the socks would dry more uniform, but ah…once you get them on your feet it won’t matter that much, right?

I won an awesome blog contest a few weeks ago and look what came in the mail last weekend.  Thanks Sara!!!

Esta muy bueno!!  Te quero!

The book is more awesome then I had expected.  This is my first lace weight yarn.  I look forward to knitting a shawl. 

I finished one of my socks for my Sockapalooza 4 pal.

I am lining my Larger than Life Bag:

Here is the inside with pockets, one wide one and one long skinny one.

Here is the outside, you can see I put the print on both sides, not sure I like that, but that is how it is going to be, I am not changing it.

I fixed his eye:

Don’t worry, he isn’t going to be a toy for the kids, though that is how his eye broke. Froggy is going to be a gift for someone’s new desk. Froggy will make a good paperweight, yes? I can’t say who he is going to.

Tomorrow we will be having a garage sale. Wish me luck as I am trying to make some money to reduce my medical expenses. Those bills are starting to hurt and are getting in the way of future fibery purchases.

Larger than Life Bag:

Side 1

Side 2

I need to buy some bright fabric to line the bag and am still contemplating on how I will work the handles. I took this picture at night in my house with the flash, so the colors aren’t exact, they are the old cotton-ease colors.

I crocheted the squares using dc, in red. For me, it was easier than sewing them together.

Sidewinders: (I was intrigued by this pattern by other knit bloggers and had to try it. I am going to try again, real soon…really, really soon.)
I worked the gauge swatch and was excited I got gauge. I cast-on on Friday and was addicted to this pattern. I had half of the sock done Saturday and decided to measure gauge, on a whim and wasn’t getting gauge, which is suppose to be 30st/4 inch and I was getting 26st/4 inch. Since I was knitting these for my sock-A partner, I decided I am going to frog this and look for another pattern. (I will post the pics, just so you can see how odd and cool the socks were looking before I realized I had to frog them.)

I want to use this yarn as my sock partner has purple shoes and green shoes. However, this yarn is so busy, it is hard to find a pattern that will work. I tried RPM, but they were coming out too large, too. Though I can easily change it. I might just cast on less stitches on the RPM and start over, I don’t know. I am so indecisive on this and the clock is ticking.

Askew:

I casted on, and worked up a few inches and wasn’t getting gauge. The cast-on stitches are small, so I figured it wasn’t worth making a gauge swatch. I am this way. I think I need to work with size 9 needles, instead of 7

I had a great weekend! I got to see some friends, my cousin’s new baby, and got a lot of sun. It is amazing how the sun on your skin makes you feel (even if it isn’t good for you.) I also got a new pair of shoes. I wanted them in the light brown, but they didn’t have my size. I bought the black. Ignore the price…I pay a lot of money for shoes that help my back. I think they are worth it.

Crochet:

Because I feel I can never have too many projects. I started another one:

Knitting:

RPM socks for my sockapalooza swap partner. I knitting with size 2 needles. I love the pattern. I wish my needle didn’t have a splinter in the middle of it where the Brittney name is stamped. I am constantly wondering if these are going to be too big…

First, I need to say…I love Patons SWS!  I just love it!  I love the stripes, I love how soft it is!  It is a happy yarn.

This Sunday I attempted to organize a knitting/crochet group for this area.  I advertised at Knitter’sReview, Knittyboard.com, Crochetville, I left my email/blog address at meetup.com and then on several of the Yahoo lists I am on.  I also did a google search for knit blogs in my area and spammed a few people.  After my efforts, I was able to meetup with one person, Annie Elf.  She is a new crocheter.

I had a fun time with her.  She is doing some really nice granny squares.  I think the yarn she was using was Lang Mille Colori.  The yarn is gorgeous and I love how the grannies were looking.  I mentioned to her the yarn looked similar to Patons SWS.

Tonight, I remembered I had some small leftover balls of the SWS in various colors.

So, here are a few grannies in the Natural Pink colorway.

These Grannies were fun!

This weekend, I finally finished one sock.  I quickly casted on the second sock.  It is my way of making sure a mate gets made.

On Friday I had to do a class demo.  I worked on an Entrelac scarf in Patons SWS Natural Earth.

People were interested in learning this technique, so I am going to add that to my class schedule for this summer.   Every time I knit or crochet or display something in Patons SWS it draws attention.  Did I mention I loved Patons SWS?

This would be a silly question for most people. However, for those who knit and crochet socks, this question may have popped in your head from time to time.

Do you sort your socks so those that are superwash wool are separated from those that are not?

Do you wash them all together in the sink with wool wash or do you wash them separately? Do you wash hot, but not hot enough to felt? Warm? Tepid? Cool? Cold? Soap? Shampoo? Conditioner? (just curious here…) Wool Wash…Laundry detergent?

Do you (GASP) wash them in the washing machine?

Dare I ask how you dry them? Do you roll them in a towel? Spin them in the washer? Hang them?

So, tell me how you wash (and dry them.) Then, tell me any sock nightmares you have had, like accidental felting or sock bleeding or anything you would like to share.

I put them all in the sink in a warm wash with a little bit of wool wash, a little bit of baby shampoo (only because I have these little sample bottles from when the kids were babies that I didn’t use) and a little bit of lavender oil (because I love the smell.) I soak them for 30 minutes and then rinse them. I roll them in towels and then lay them flat on the backs of all of my chairs around the living room.

A couple of Madeleine’s socks have actually gone through the washer and dryer and came out perfectly fine. Those were the socks I made with leftover Trekking. Crazy, I know.

My mom washed her socks in her washer (front loader) on cold. The ones that were not superwash felted. The ones that were super wash remained fine.

This is alternating rows of 1×1 ribbing and 3×3 ribbing…can’t you tell?

While the yarn is pretty, this pattern is completely lost in this yarn.  It will be frogged tomorrow.  Some patterns just don’t work for some yarn…

I signed up for .  Woot!  I look forward to the sock swap!!

Sock…Baby Cable Rib…in Lorna’s Laces…

You can’t really see the stitch definition real well, but I am liking it.

Crocheted baby blanket for my cousin’s baby:

It is made with 2 different colors of homespun and then two strands of Caron Simply soft. It is kind of thick, so I am hoping it is used more as a floor blanket. I ran out of the darker homespun, so I am probably going to start going around the blanket in the dark blue SS and the light blue homespun.

I did some more spinning. This has silk in it. I am looking into getting involved with the local spinning guild. It isn’t very close to me though. Their last meeting on Sunday was an hour away. I hope that I can get together with them periodically. I really want to be able to learn to spin sock yarn.

I know I have some old projects I need to pickup and finish. One of those is my dad’s sweater. I need to get the sleeves knitted up.

The job search is going okay. I have been thinking about the job I interviewed for and I am not sure if it will be a good fit. Honestly, besides the commute, their hours are not set. So it could be possibly that I would have to work the late shift and get off at 7:30pm. I wouldn’t get home until 8:30pm and that isn’t acceptable to me. I want to find something closer and where I got off work around the time Sierra got out of school.

I received an email on another application that was an auto-email. They told me I didn’t meet the minimum criteria. So, I sent their hr an email explaining why I thought I did with my resume. We will see what happens.

It is crazy that I am looking for a job and then today I didn’t leave the house because my kidney stone was killing me. Apparently I am a factory for those. Don’t ask questions here as I have no answers. The doctor told me I had no stones in my left kidney and that is where it hurts. That is where the last stone came from, too.

eta:  this morning I had blood in my urine again, so maybe this is a sign that I am closer to passing the stone.