I can't think of a title Tues.

This weekend was a rough one. Our garage door broke and consequently dh was parked in the driveway. I unfortunately forgot this fact and managed to back into his truck denting both our vehicles in the process. Ugh. I also foolishly and carelessly have lost something I treasure and to all of you who believe in prayers and saints or some combo if you would please say a little prayer to St. Anthony I would be grateful. I will know Thurs. whether or not it is lost forever.

On the brighter side of things. Here is what I am currently spinning. It is a beautiful merino/tencel blend.

I started spinning it on the drop spindle with quite some success albeit slow. I was shooting for a nice fingering weight when plied. The consistency is pretty good, but not quite there yet.
Unfortunately it seems I am having a tougher time of it with the wheel though. This fiber is definitely more tricky than the others I have spun so far, and I am constantly breaking it. I am debating whether or not to go back to the spindle to finish the rest of this fiber or just stick it out with wheel and hope that it looks better when plied with the first spindle spun batch. We will see.
Recently a bunch of us local knitters pulled together to make an afgan for my dear friend Nicole who is kicking breast cancer's ass. It turned out to be quite lovely and I enjoyed working on the blocks that I contributed. I have never made an afgan before and although this project is now complete and gifted I feel the need to continue making squares.
So I bought a few more balls of the Berroco comfort, which is mighty soft but awfully splitty and am going to see how many squares I can make before I lose interest. I can't decide if I want to give this to my friend who just had a baby or continue with my plans for the Buster sweater V.2. If I do gift this afgan, I have figured I need to start whipping out a square a day to be done in time. Do you think 4x4 squares would suffice? The blocks are about 8.5 inches. Add to that the crocheted edge and then I would probably do a border as well. I like the one that Marly did on the afgan for Nicole, but I am not sure that my crochet skills are quite up to par to do that, so we will see.

Yummy new yarns

There has been a lot of talk on message boards about MCY (mystical creations yarn). Apparently they have been banned from ebay and etsy and have cheated a lot of innocent people out of their money. Unfortunately another ebay seller has been ensnarled in the mess and been accused of being MCY selling under another name. So I sent an email to Yarntopia and flat out asked what her affiliation is. She informed me that she was indeed a former employee but had been doing business on her own for several years now. After some correspondence I went ahead and decided to purchase some sock yarn. I received it last week and it is every bit as gorgeous as pictured in the auction. Tammy also sent me a skein of her best selling rayon boucle to test out as well. The colors are so vibrant and it has such a beautiful sheen. In addition she also sent me some of her 100% bamboo in the Starbucks colorway. It is so yummy, I want to drink it up like a big latte. She was quite kind to send me these complimentary skeins and I had indeed mentioned on ravelry that I would give her yarn a test. So in the next coming days I will knit up a swatch of each and give them a wash and see how they do. So far I am pleased with the yarn and eager to knit it. I do believe it is best to have a little knowledge before one threatens the reputation of a business. Sometimes our manners get lost on the internet and it is a shame.
I also recently purchased this mohair blend at Knit Knack. It is so soft, like big giant cotton candy skeins.
I am planning on knitting this sweater out of it. I think it is just darling and will hopefully be flattering.
And it was serendipity to find this yarn on sale. It was with all the Valentine colored yarns at Knit Knack calling out to me. It was in fact the first yarn I fondled as I wandered around the store.
And just merely a half an hour or so after I had been eyeing this pattern. Sure enough when I looked back at the pattern this indeed was the yarn it called for. So tell me now could you resist?
This will be a lovely spring garment, I hope to knit it soon, but I do have a long quere, so maybe it will be done next spring. I really need to get some of these projects done.

A Very Monkish Sunday

It started very innocently. Sat. evening while dh was napping I perused the gallery over at Two Peas in a Bucket. Looking at the pictures of some of these women's craft rooms are inspiring, daunting, and some just plain jaw dropping. Now I am happy with my little room and thrilled to even have a craft room, but there are a few things I would like to do in the future. I love the idea of an island, and built in cabinets would be awesome too, but for now, with two mortgages that just isn't in the cards. However, I could use the inspiration found in their rooms to improve mine at least organizationally. So alas when I awoke at 8:30 am on Sunday (I should have slept in since we were kid free) I began my task. I gathered all my scrapbooking embellishments from the various places they were currently inhabitating and started to sort. I began with all my letters. About half way into this I was starting to doubt my sanity, but I need not fear, when Dh walked in and surveyed my project he confirmed my suspicions that indeed I had crossed over into new OCD territory.
I must say that the payoff is good however. All my little letters and numbers now have a new home in the cute cubbies that sit on my desk. Oh and see the cute little hearts adorning the wall, my dearest little boy made those for me.
See, look at all the pretty Zs. Completely worth it.
Next I started sorting all the other embellishment by color. About the time I finished with this task my friend Mariah showed up for knitting. Ha, fooled her. Off we went to find the necessary storage devices to house my new organiztional system.
And after a couple of different stops and a bribe of dinner I found what I was looking for. I already had a few of these drawer units, but to do what I needed
would require 8 more. Thank goodness Mariah was there to help me get them out to the car. Each drawer hold a different color. And in each drawer is one of the these tackle units to hold the smaller items.
I also did drawers for my stickers. These are the baby and Christmas drawers. The other drawers are: flowers, sports, nature, travel, birthday, cards, saying and quotes, neutral alphabets, colored alphas and misc. Here are the colored alphas. So now I should be able to find things more readily. At least that is the plan.

Six of the 8 units. The other two are under the dresser (see baby/christmas pic). And lastly I sorted all my buttons and placed them in these cute little glass vases.
I found quite a few buttons that will be used shortly for knitting projects. Its amazing what you forget you have.
And while out shopping we hit Archivers and I purchases some goodies for V-day cards. I neglected to send Christmas cards this year due to all the commotion in our lives so instead I think I will have the kid's pics taken and send them with the valentines. I also plan on making some funky magnets with the papers on the left for some special people.
Can you guess whose card will be bestowed with the Love of My Life die cut?

It was indeed a productive day. I finished around 8pm, so almost a good 12 hours of work and a few more inches over the OCD line.
XOXO