More New Yarn!

Many of you may already be familiar with one of our new yarns - Celestial Twist. We did the Dye for Glory colors Portland Rain and Waters of the Wilamette with this yarn. This yarn is the same make up as our Celestial Cloud (100% merino) but 2-ply instead of 3 and with a nice, tight twist. This yarn is perfect for socks as the added twist gives them a little more strength. But, you still have the softness factor because of the 100% merino. This yarn has been very popular thus far and I really like it as well. It gives GREAT stitch definition!!

Here are a few of the colors we have already put up on the site. I'll be doing a few solids as well.

Mars



Venus



Black Hole



Pandora (formerly Portland Rain - this color was so popular we have decided to incorporate it)



Neptune (formerly Waters of the Wilamette - this was also a very popular color)

Calamity 3 - going on the discount page (I LOVE this yarn!)


You can find all of these yarns HERE. Be sure to check in tomorrow and the rest of the week for announcements about sales, specials and contests for September!!!

Wow!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You guys are seriously awesome. In 2 days we have turned our $50 donation into $360!! It is amazing how fast all those $5 and $10 donations add up so, every little bit helps. Thank you all SO MUCH for lending your hard earned money to this cause. I really think this is a worthwhile venture for us to embark on and I really appreciate you all taking the ride with us.

I can't believe it is already Friday! Next month is vacation for us - woo hooo!!! We'll be heading to Key West for some R&R and I am really looking forward to it. This is our first "real" vacation in like 3 years because of all the moving plans and such. We are really looking forward to it. But, you know what that means??? Our vacation means special deals at Knit Witch next month!!! Since I realize people will be waiting around on shipping while we are absent we have decided to put up a few perks for you for September. Watch the blog and the Ravelry group HERE where we will make announcements about what we are doing. The annoucements will be out next week.

On Wednesday we headed to Atlanta for a few errands and to see my mom for dinner. I also did a little teaching with the new incoming nursing class at Emory. That was really a lot of fun! It was good to be back and be involved with the students. They were so excited and overwhelmed just like I was during my orientation several years ago. Mr. Man managed to wrap up the errands and got a few pictures of one of the teaching sessions. Here I am looking all professional and stuff in a lab coat. Yes, I had to dig one up for the session. Yes, I had to find some decent pants and iron them. Yes, I actually wore a bra all day. Yes, I actually put on make-up. It was just like the good 'ol days of having a real "out of the house" job.

So, I have been toying with the idea of entering an online PhD program in nursing (don't worry dad, I won't be calling you about this!). Am I completely nuts??? The thing is though - if I do it now I can get it completely paid for so I feel like I am completely wasting an opportunity if I don't do it. I'll be thinking about this during the weekend. If I do this and I graduate though you will all have to call me Dr. Knit Witch - haha!! :)

Have a great weekend everyone and thank you all again for your generosity with helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

Water

Do you ever think about it? For the most part, we never really have to. We turn on our taps or water hoses, flush the toilet, run the dishwasher, wash clothes and there it is - clean, drinkable water. We are so fortunate to have access to such an amazing thing yet many of us never give it a second thought unless we are without it for some reason.

Here are some interesting facts for you:

- 1.1 billion people in the world have no access to clean water (that's 1 in 6 people).
- If we divided all the freshwater among all the people we could allot about 2.5 gallons/person/day. The average person in the US currently uses 300-400 gallons/day.
- Our planet is 70% water - of that 70%, 97.5% of that is saltwater leaving us to divide the remaining 2.5% of freshwater.
- Many communities must have wells in order to access underground aquifers for clean water
- Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.
- Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault.
- Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

Wayne and I have been struggling and looking for a charity to support with Knit Witch. We want to support something that is worthwhile, does good, is necessary and has a reputable mission and goal. There are so many things that we are passionate about that we will probably end up supporting different organizations in different ways. But, no matter what we think about, it all comes back to one thing - water. You have to have water to do anything so that is where we have decided to start. We already run BRAEA and Smaller Footprint and we do work for our local Humane Society so we are reaching out a little more globally this time.

This morning, Knit Witch donated $50 to Charity: Water. I know that isn't a whole lot but it is enough to give 2 people in Africa clean drinking water for 20 years. Here's why we have decided to support this charity:
- Water is the basis for all life as we know it and necessary to support hygienic conditions, medical aid, growing food, raising animals, environmental issues, human rights issues, animals rights issues - pretty much everything.
- This charity uses 100% of donations for their field work as their administrative costs are funded by other means. If you donate, even the paypal fee is funded via their private donor money specifically used for administrative costs - therefore 100% of your money actually goes to building clean water sources. You can read more about this HERE.
- This non-profit works to support other non-profits already working in the field. In other words, they use resources that already exist, organizations who are already familiar with the people, the needs and the language and they work to support people who are passionate about helping others - information on this is HERE
- They have amazing documentation of their work HERE
- They have great information about their organization and their mission HERE

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because I know that knitters are a generous, caring bunch of people. No one knows better that great things are built one little step at a time repeated over and over and over again. The Yarn Harlot supports Doctors Without Borders - another wonderful organization that provides another thing that I am passionate about - health care for those who need it. She has inspired me to give to this cause as I am sure many of you have done as well. Charity: Water gives us knitters another way to make the world a better place.

Knit Witch's Goal = $5,000 - don't you think we can achieve this in order to provide clean drinking water for 500 underprivileged people? I do. I started it off with $50. I don't care if you donate $5 or $500 - whatever you can afford helps. If you skip your morning Starbucks coffee tomorrow you can send that $5 as a donation instead. Send me an email to theknitwitch@gmail.com and let me know how much you donated so that I can keep track of our total - or - you can leave a comment on the blog. I'm keeping track of the progress over on the right hand side of the blog.

Everyone who donates will be entered in a drawing and we will draw some names for prizes. The first drawing will be on October 1st and I'll let you know the prize when I figure it out. If you blog about what we are doing and link to this post I'll give you an extra entry into the pot. Just email me and let me know that you did it - theknitwitch@gmail.com.

Let's do this. Let's make a difference in the world around us. Let's make a difference in the life of someone who is less fortunate than ourselves. Let's share our resources. Let's show the world that knitters are the most amazing group of people in the world who can come together to create good in the world.

Here is a picture that I took in our garden yesterday morning. This beautiful flower certainly wouldn't be here without life sustaining water............

Unbelievably Soft!!!!!

That is the best way to describe this yarn. It is sooooooo incredibly soft and silky!!!! I love the way it takes dye. I present to you........Esoterica.

Esoterica is the latest addition to our line and is 70/20/10 Merino/Silk/Cashmere. I have dyed this yarn in the seven chakra colors. This yarn is going to SAFF so it won't be available for purchase until then. Here's a sneak peak at the colors though.

I have dyed 4 hanks of each color so if you are interested in it be sure to put Knit Witch on your list of booths to visit early at SAFF. We'll be in the outdoor sales arena!!

PS - Everyone be sure to tune into tomorrow's blog post. We're starting something big here at Knit Witch and tomorrow we are kicking it off!

I will be very happy when..........

canning season is over. Don't get me wrong. I love canning. I love that we have the opportunity to have all these wonderfully fresh local vegetables all year round. We are so very fortunate to be able to do this. But dudes, canning is a lot of work!!!! I spent Saturday cleaning off the space over our kitchen cabinets so that we could put some cans up there. We have a lot of stuff going to the thrift store as a result (our local thrift store supports our local Humane Society so we try to support it as much as possible). Here is what they look like right now:

Here is the side of our kitchen island (Slim added himself for scale):

Wayne and I spent Sunday doing this (pay no attention to that Bailey's in the background):

Those jars are full of roma tomatoes. I made some into sauce with garden fresh things like onions, garlic, eggplant, zuchinni and herbs. Most of the cans are just crushed tomatoes for soups and such.

Rest assured that if you are a family member I feel certain that you see a holiday gift or two on those shelves!! We haven't done a final count of everything we have canned but it would be interesting to count it all up and see how much we have done.

I am really excited though because our goal was to can enough stuff so that we didn't have to buy any canned goods at the grocery store this year for our soups over the winter. I think we are pretty darn close to that goal. We shall see. When it is cold we almost always have a pot of some sort of homemade soup going on!

Yesterday we planted beets, collard greens, brussel sprouts and spinach. We planted this in the lower garden so we'll go do more work in the upper garden probably next weekend. All of this gardening is a huge learning experience.

We have a trip to Atlanta planned for this week. I am going to Emory School of Nursing to help do some teaching for the new nursing students at orientation as they invited some of the alumi back to help. I am really excited about being able to do this so it will be fun. I love to teach and I love to help answer questions for the new students because they are always so excited and overwhelmed about the journey they are about to embark on. While I am there Wayne will run around town and get our shopping done. I better go through some closets and dig up a lab coat!!

Flowers and Knitting

Always a good combination, right? I have made progress on the "thisisaGTscarfnotasteelersscarf" scarf. See?

However, I'm not too happy with how I did the striping. I was thinking that knitting all the way across the 2x2 ribbing when I changed colors would kind of give it a cool look on one side but I'm not really convinced that I like it. At all.

So, I will probably just cut off the end part and redo the stripes or something when I finish the other side. What does the blog think?

Here is a beautiful dragonfly that we saw on our walk this morning.

And a Morning Glory.

And some pretty yellow flowers.

And - I don't think I ever showed you the sunflowers in our neighbors yard.

Have a great weekend!!!

Thursday Hodgepodge

Remember that super soft and yummy Merino/Silk/Cashmere yarn I was telling you about? Well, I finally was able to dye some of it. I'll give you a sneak preview of some of it before we make our official annoucement about it's existance.

I know - you can't really see the colors but trust me - this yarn takes dye BEAUTIFULLY! The colors are gorgeous. I can't wait to get them all skeined up and photographed.

We went for a little dinner at Provino's a couple of weeks ago and I failed to share some of the pictures. Here's our desserts:

Panacotta

Cannoli

Spumoni

And us

Yesterday, my mom left a comment on the blog stating that she was sick of snakes. Here's my mom now.

So, of course, when your mother tells you not to do something, what is the first thing you want to do? RIGHT! More snake pictures!!! We saw this guy on our walk one morning last week. I believe this is another black rat snake. We like having these guys around!

Interesting Day

Obviously, I have missed my blog post for the day. Without going into any details for fear that it will incriminate the criminals, I'll just suffice it to say that I really get tired of people just not being able to do the right thing. Know what I mean? Why is this so hard? Thank goodness I have the most awesome of awesome husbands to keep me from seriously overreacting at the asshattery that is around me at times. Moving on............

Tomorrow we will be back to our regularly scheduled blog. For now, please enjoy the moon rise.

Cool pictures, eh?

First up - a quick shop announcement! I have put all of the 75/25 Merino/Nylon yarn ON SALE. I am probably not going to carry this yarn anymore (even though it is a GREAT yarn) it just isn't as big of a seller for us as our other blends. So, go enjoy the sale while it lasts! It is listed at a pretty good price for that particular blend. Also, keep in mind that I believe most of the ones that I have are actually 4oz rather than the 3.5oz that are listed on the site. When I made the change I still had a lot of 4oz skeins already made up - so you might get an extra .5oz on top of the sale price!

The shed is filling up. You can clearly see why Wayne needs a shed. This isn't even a fraction of the tools that he has but he is getting some of the big stuff in place. There is stuff going upstairs too but that is mostly just for storage for stuff like camping equipment, plastic yarn bins, Knit Witch display stuff, etc.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:


He got a wood lathe last week so he is very excited about that.

Speaking of Mr. Man......he started a mixed martial arts class last night. He has been VERY active in the martial arts in his life but not much in the last 10 years or so (as far as a formal class goes) so he was pretty stoked about that. All I can say is - it's a good thing I'm a nurse! I might need to brush up on my first aid skills!!

While he went to class I went on a nice long walk in downtown Blue Ridge. Next time though, I'll bring Petey for company!

Even going to the grocery store is exciting around here

First of all - THANK YOU ALL for your supportive comments on the last blog post. I am so glad to see that there are many others (including Philly locals and fans) that are seriously disgusted by the acquisition of Vick. I mean, we wouldn't hire teachers with those kinds of "credentials" would we?? Why is it ok for athletes who are just as influential (if not more so) over our kids? I just don't get it and as a coach I would never compromise the integrity of my team just for the hope of winning games. Whatever. My boycott continues............

On to more interesting (maybe) stories...........WARNING: I have learned that I need to warn the squeemies when there will be snake pictures on the blog!!!!

Yesterday we were on our way to the grocery store. As we pulled out of our driveway onto the road we noticed something in the road. Sorry for the bad picture - all I had was my phone camera.



Helloooooooooooooooooo Mr. Copperhead! Luckily, we had one of these in the back of the truck.


So, we caught him (because he was going to get squished in the road) and then drove him out to the local Wildlife Management Area for release. This guy was FEISTY!!!!! He was striking at us and spewing venom all over the place. Wayne was finally able to wrangle him into the bucket though with neither one of them getting hurt. It really is amazing how different snakes have different temperaments (like different breeds of dogs do). It isn't absolute of course, but generally you know which dogs you really need to be aware of and which are usually good natured. I learned this very well being a vet tech for 10 years! We knew which dogs were going to be likely to bite us.

Hopefully he is enjoying his new home. He can't help the fact that he is poisonous. I don't see the point in killing anything unless you absolutely have to for your own safety (well, except for mosquitoes!). They really are beautiful snakes. I think snakes are just amazing creatures.

Here's another shot we got on one of our morning walks. This is the pond across the street from us. Beautiful picture isn't it?? I love the mist on the pond.

Can I just say..........

that I am now boycotting the Philadelphia Eagles? Because of THIS. I have no respect at all for someone who would treat ANYTHING the way Vick has treated animals. I am seriously disappointed that the NFL has even let him back into the league. I generally don't discuss controversial issues on this blog but this is something I feel REALLY strongly about. Besides, I really don't see how this issue can even be at all controversial. This guy is a jackass and now we are putting him back out in front of the whole world to be seen as a football hero. Really nice role model for kids. Ugh, I am completely disgusted by this.

When the whole story broke about him several years ago Wayne and I wrote several letters to the NFL saying that he needed to GO. Why in the world would we support someone who had committed such atrocities? I don't care who he is. Why would we let the kids who look up to him think that this was no big deal? I don't understand this. Yes, I know that he spent his time in prison but in my mind, that in no way makes up for his mistreatment and slaughter of innocent animals. No one who is a real "man" or real person for that matter would commit the acts that he has committed. It is seriously disturbing to me that ANYONE can treat another living creature like that. Just because you are rich and famous does not give you the right to just do whatever the hell you want to do no matter who suffers from it. There is something seriously wrong with anyone who thinks that sort of treatment of animals is ok. I'm not convinced that sort of internal evil is subject to rehabilitation.

You all know me and know that I am a serious football fan. I am thinking about whether I want to support the NFL at all this year though. Animal cruelty is way up high on my list of things that repulse me. I think a vast majority of people could never even come close to doing the things that he has done.

Besides my general feelings of disgust for this "person" (I certainly won't call him a man), I have a soft spot in my heart for pit bulls. The last dog we had was a pit and he was the BEST dog we could have ever asked for. He was a total love sponge. We got him because someone pushed him out of the cab of a truck right in front of us on the road. Nice. I'm sure because he wouldn't fight. He had a big chain and padlock around his neck and was obviously not fed well or taken care of. However, I sure am glad we picked him up because he added so much joy to our lives.

So, I boycott the damn Philadelphia Eagles in honor of our very good friend - Ponce. I can't even tell you how much I miss this dog - I am crying right now as I look through these pictures to post them for you