Monday already?

Wow. Here it is Monday and I am completely unprepared with a blog post for you. I have lots of pictures for you I just need to get them organized!! I will work on them tonight so you will have some interesting reading for the rest of the week. I realize interesting is a relative term...........

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday and I hope you all did too!!! We had fun at my dad's. We didn't play cards so that was good - Wayne and I got to hold onto our $6 until the next meetup. We had another Thanksgiving dinner again yesterday with our neighbor. Our poor neighbor had family staying at her house for the weekend and she was about to go over the edge having to deal with them. I won't go into all the details but let's suffice it to say that by the time they left yesterday morning she was thoroughly fed up! So, we made dinner and poured her several glasses of wine so she appears to be making a recovery from them this morning!

Later last night I spent some time ripping out about 10 inches on one of the Girl Friday sleeves. Yeah, fun right? It wasn't until I finished and had bound off that I realized............hmmmmm - I did the DECREASES for the sleeve cap but I don't think I did the INCREASES for the upper arm! Sure enough my sleeve did not appear to look like the schematic in the pattern. So.........RIBBIT! Oh WHY did I not take pictures for you?!?! I spent some time working on the sleeve correctly last night and will hopefully have the first sleeve finished tonight.

OK - I have a major announcement on the 2010 clubs coming up this week so stay tuned for that. Also, I'll be announcing our December charity plans tomorrow.

Happy Holidays to Me!

Look what came in the mail for me!


Want a hint?


It's a fancy bronzy color!




I figured it was about time for an upgrade. Wayne found a great deal on this for me at TigerDirect. The computer came with Windows Vista so I opted for an upgrade to Windows 7 because of all the negative things I have heard about Vista. I also bought the new versions of the Microsoft Office software.

Now, of course when you get new programs and a new computer there is always a learning curve, right? Well, how is this for annoying - there is no "save as" feature in Word or Excel!!! I don't know about you but I use this feature A LOT. So now, if I want to create a similar document I will have to copy all, paste it to a new document and then save it. This is going to be a challenge to remember so that I don't rewrite the original document. I use this a lot - especially when I am printing up yarn labels. If anyone has any secret trick about there being a "save as" feature somewhere - please share!!!

Other than that it's just a matter of getting used to where everything is I think. The menu looks pretty different so again, learning curve. I still have Windows XP and the previous Office versions on my desktop so I'll have to keep going back and forth between them. But, no biggie there. I'm just a little annoyed about the "save as" thing. I mean, why would they get rid of a feature like that????? Obviously, they don't print many yarn labels.

Check out this teeny tiny remote control that came with it.


I mean, this thing is SMALL. It must weigh about 1/4oz or something.


Wanna place some bets on how long it will be before I can't find this anymore?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope everyone has safe travels and a great day with friends and family. We are in Alpharetta for the day visiting my dad and hopefully not losing more money in cards!!! I'll have some farm animal pictures for you next week as well as a progress report on the home addition!

WIP Wednesday

Amazingly enough there is actual progress on the Girl Friday sweater. I have finished the back, the left side and most of the right side.



This project is moving along fairly quickly (for me anyway). I would have had the right side finished last night but we were watching Angels and Demons and I didn't want to leave the movie long enough to go get another ball of yarn! Yes, I know I could have paused it but that would have ruined the momentum, ya know? It was a pretty good movie! It actually followed the book really well. Of course, you don't get the level of detail in the movie that you get in the book but it was definitely an action packed thriller!

Today Wayne will be baking more apple pies to take to my dad's house tomorrow. We are expecting a pretty laid back day. We'll be going over there early and visiting and then probably heading back fairly early as well since we'll be leaving Petey here.

Speaking of Petey - here's a few shots of the Petemeister:

Lounging on the dock



Swimming after his toy in our pond



Lounging on the patio with his BFF Slim

What a life, eh?

Early Thanksgiving

First of all - there are new yarn bowls up on the site again!

We headed out to my cousin's house in Rome, GA for an early Thanksgiving celebration with the family. However, we are terrible bloggers because I don't think a single one of us took any pictures! We had a great time though. As predicted, Wayne and I again lost all of our money to the family peeps in cards. Good thing we only pay $3 to get in a game! So, we lost a total of $6 - not too bad but ya know - we never win! I think it's fixed.

Amazingly, I didn't even eat too much! Which really wasn't too difficult since there was a lot of meat involved. Wayne made his famous homemade apple pie! We figured that if we made two and generously brought both we would end up going home with at least one. Not so. Our other pie was confiscated by my cousin - she didn't even ask either - just told us - "Oh, I'll be keeping that pie!". It's probably best. We don't need to be eating all of that pie anyway!

As always we had a great time playing cards with a lot of laughing, goofing off and making fun of each other - it isn't really too hard with our crowd. We had a healthy mix of Democrats and Republicans so that always makes for a lively debate. Seriously - I don't understand how some of these people even stay married! :) It was a good time - even though the Redskins lost - AGAIN. Sheesh. I have actually seen that some people have Redskins related projects on Ravelry that are in hibernation until the Redskins start playing like a real team! Guess they will be hibernating until next season.

My son and his girlfriend got to go with us so it was nice to visit with them for a while. My elusive brother actually showed up as well with his new girlfriend. My cousin said to me "Well, do you know if Bob is bringing Paige?" I was like - ummmm........who's Paige? That made her feel better because she had only found out the day before about my brother's girlfriend Paige who he has been dating for 8 months apparently. She felt out of the loop but when she realized that I was even MORE out of the loop she felt much better. He does not really tell us much as you can see!

For the "real" Thanksgiving we are headed to my dad's house so that will be fun too. Until then I'll be finishing my wholesale yarn order for Only Ewe and Cotton Too and working on the new club project which we will hopefully be able to launch next week!!! What's everyone else up to this week???

Updates!

Knit Witch 2010 Club News

We have made some changes to our clubs for 2010. Namely, we have made a definitive sign up period instead of having rolling sign up (namely to save my own sanity - I’ll be completely honest with you!). The sign ups for all of the clubs are now up and sign up for 2010 will be open until December 15th. There will also be a limit on the number of people that I accept into the club this time so if you are REALLY interested be sure you sign up before December 15th. There will be more luxury fibers in next year's sock club!

If you need to know when your current club membership expires just email me at theknitwitch@gmail.com and I'll be glad to let you know.

Also - we have another club surprise coming up soon so I’ll let you know about it as soon as I have the details. We are working furiously on this project. So, don’t rush into purchasing the club just yet because you are going to have one more option soon!!!

IF YOU ARE ALREADY SIGNED UP FOR A CLUB - you are already in - assuming that your club membership extends into 2010, so not to worry. We will make special arrangements with you if your membership runs out in 2010 and you would like to continue.

Shipping changes

Knit Witch is now offering a flat $3 shipping price on ALL PRODUCTS!! Knit Witch yarn bowls and yarn make great gifts for your friends.......just sayin'...............

Shawl Pin

I found this on Etsy.......................



Isn't it beautiful!!! I love it! I got it to go with the Girl Friday sweater since I have opted to not put buttons on it. I thought a shawl pin would be so much more chic don't you think??? Well, whatever. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :)

If I'm not mistaken, this is made out of oak. I got it from Wooden Treasures where it is, of course, hand crafted. One of the things that I love about this shawl pin is that the pin itself is not straight so it won't pull out of the fabric easily. Also, I love how lightweight it is. The price was reasonable and the shipping was fast. Last time I looked he had a few more left. They are all unique designs and colors so I love that too!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!! We have a date on Friday night to go do some sooper seekrit family restaurant snooping (more about that when I have details and can spill some beans) and then we have an early Thanksgiving celebration in Rome with my family on Sunday. We are really looking forward to that - always a good time. As you may remember from last year we usually lose all our money playing cards. Hopefully my aunt will at least keep the salt and sesame oil out of the whipped cream this year and stick to the sugar and vanilla. Sheeesh! Wayne will be making another one of his famous apple pies with fresh N. GA apples - YUM!!!!

Just a bunch of random stuff

LOOK! I have a new keyboard!

Fancy, eh?

We made some applesauce with some yummy fresh N. GA apples!!

Did you know that a candle will melt if it is left on your porch and the sun is in the right place in the sky to shine directly into your porch onto said candle?

Has anyone seen my desk? I can't seem to find it.

Note to self: Get to work on the wholesale order for Only Ewe and Cotton Too! so that I can get all of this BFL off of my desk!

WIP Wednesday

So...................the back for my Girl Friday sweater is finished! I finished the arm hole decreases so I just need to bind off. I started on the right side on Monday night too so that's coming along as well!



Also, have I shown you this?




We made a path to our pond with some of the left over flagstone from the patio. It still needs a little work but it's a start. Right when you get close to the dock it gets a little too steep for these and since we don't really want anyone walking down to our pond and landing on their butt from steep, slippery rocks (namely us) we need another solution for the end of the path. We'll probably end up making a few steps down there.

We are working hard on getting all the yarn back in stock that sold out at SAFF. I have also been working on a couple of wholesale orders so the restocking has been a little slow going. Plus, I have a couple of new projects that I have been working on that I will hopefully be able to tell you about in a couple of weeks. We did manage to get some new bowls up on the site and we are still working through the custom orders.

Tabby Tuesday

Note - this blog title shamlessly stolen from Cristi

Someone last week mentioned that I needed to post pictures of the kitty who was trying to get his nose pinched by the crayfish last week. And, I got to thinking that I haven't had the cats on the blog for a while - and what's a good knitting blog without kitties, right? The knitting isn't necessarily imperitive but the kitties are. Plus, I know I have gained a bunch of new subcribers lately so I'm sure that you all want to see the kitties too, right??

First up is "Mr. I am probably going to get my toe pinched by this crayfish" Slim.

Then we have the twins - Willow and Goose. Neither one of them are really that fond of us I don't think (read: ferral!) but they do occasionally grace us with their presence when they are cold, tired or hungry. We do bring them in every night so that they don't get consumed by bears, coyotes, large snapping turtles, crayfish, etc.

Willow (we call her Missy because it is just so much easier to say) is in the closest box. Her twin brother Goose is napping in the box behind her. He was so tired from playing outside all day that I couldn't even get him to pick his head up for the picture. They ARE both actually tabbys so they qualify for the post - they are just buff colored so their stripes are really subtle.

Here is Goose looking a bit annoyed about being woken up for a picture.

Oh and remember when I asked you to see what you thought the latest pottery was last week?

Well this is the final product.

This is a spindle holder made especially for Kate of Dragonfly Fibers! I mailed it off to her yesterday so I can't wait for her to get it! We will start carrying these because I think they make beautiful spindle and/or needle holders! I will let you all know when they are available.

Monday, Monday.............

Hmmm.........what do I have to report? We had a pretty low-key weekend around here. Friday we worked and then went to our neighbors for dinner. Saturday we worked and then we went here with some friends:

So THAT was really fun!!! We drove to the Canton location (about an hour away) and it was totally worth it! I meant to bring the camera but I forgot. This is actually the store front for the Roswell location but, ya know, the sign at Canton pretty much looks the same!

Sunday, we went for a walk because thankfully Mr. Man is finally feeling better after that nasty flu - yay!! Then we spent the rest of the day just doing stuff around the house. I did some much needed cleaning and organizing (ugh, clutter starts to get on my nerves after a week or so!) and Wayne did this!!



We have been really needing a new fire ring to get all of that old deck wood burned so now we have one! These bricks used to be the lining around our awful pea gravel patio before we made it into a flagstone patio. Now they have a new home!

Wayne also did this:



This is our second story porch. I hope the birds will want to use the new feeders here. You may recall several postings ago that the bear destroyed our previous feeders. Hopefully he won't be able to get to them here!!

We have a new pet!

The other day I stepped out onto our upstairs porch to talk on the phone. As soon as I got my intended party on the phone I happened to look over the edge to see Slim downstairs on the patio poking at something he should NOT be poking at! I yelled to Wayne to go down and see what Slim was up to. Of course, my poor conversation recipient is listening to me yell to my husband and yell at the cat!!

When Wayne went down there he found Slim playing with just what I had suspected, even though it was one of those moments where you see something and you think "I CAN'T be seeing what I think I am seeing!" But, I was. Check this guy out!!







Crayfish are what is known as an "indicator species". So, if you have crayfish living in your water, you know that is a sign of some really clean water! Of course, he wasn't IN the water when we found him but we are assuming that is where he came from. We have seen them in our pond before. We didn't put him in the big pond though because they are notorious for digging holes in the mud in the side of a pond and causing leaks. We put him in our small pond where he seems to be staying pretty happy. See??

Rivers Alive

Over the weekend Wayne and I participated in our annual Toccoa River Cleanup. A bunch of folks got together at 3 different locations along the Toccoa River to do some serious clean up. It really is a shame that we have to even do this but I am really glad there at least a few of us willing to get together and clean up after the rest of those people who just don't seem to care about the effects of throwing their trash all over the place.

Can you believe all of this trash we picked up???? This was only 1/3 of it too - this is only the trash from ONE of the 3 locations!!! Isn't that ridiculous?

Here's us after a job well done.

I hauled back a tire.

Look how beautiful the Toccoa River is!

Wayne and I managed to follow this up with a 1 hour walk to down town Blue Ridge in which we picked up about 3 bags of trash off of the streets. Grrrrrrrr............people and their pigginess!!!!

Do you live in Charlotte?

If you do, you might go to Charlotte Yarn soon and see this:

I just shipped off a nice big box of lace for Charlotte yarn on Monday. I think some of these colors turned out beautifully!!! Hopefully they will have it out and ready for you to purchase soon. The yarn is Mystical World (80/20 Merino/Silk) in a lace weight yarn.

I started a little something yesterday.

This is Girl Friday. That is the back. So far, I have completed the 4 inches of (just shoot me) 1x1 ribbing and the first pattern repeat. I am very pleased with the pattern thus far. I actually saw this sweater on the designer at SAFF and ironically, I had just printed it out the day before! I have opted to not do buttons for the closure but to use a shawl pin instead. I ordered a gorgeous shawl pin off of Etsy today so I'll show you some pictures when it gets here.

I am modifying it just a bit since I am using a DK weight yarn instead of a worsted weight. I am doing the width size for large but the height size for medium so we'll see how that works out! I didn't want to use needles that were too big in order to get gauge so I'm going to knit a little bit of a bigger size. Sounds good in theory, right?

The yarn is Knit Witch Ancient World in colorway Apollo. I thought about going with Diana for the colorway but I really love this browny-gold color!

Correction on Esoterica yarn!

I just realized an error on my labels for the Esoterica yarn. If you have this yarn, you purchased it from me at SAFF. I am so sorry about this error. The label reads:

70/20/10 Merino/Silk/Cashmere

What it should ACTUALLY read is:

70/20/10 Baby Alpaca/Silk/Cashmere

I am so sorry for the confusion!!

Knitch!!

One of the other stops we were able to make on our Atlanta trip was to the brand new Knitch location in Virginia Highlands!

I love the new spot, it is a perfect location with actual parking even! The new shop has lots of light to show off their beautiful yarns. I love how they even have a chalkboard in the meeting area - Brilliant!

One of the best things about Knitch, from Wayne's point of view anyway, is that Knitch is now located right across the street from Wayne's most favorite woodworking shop - Highland Hardware. I know Kim and the Knitch team moved here just to make all the knitting husbands happy!! :)

A visit to Georgia Tech

Finally! We were finally able to coordinate schedules with Nathan and go visit him at Georgia Tech. I suppose I can stop feeling like a horrible mother now.

The campus is HUGE but we were finally able to make it over to the dorm.

See how spacious it is? I have no idea why he keeps coming back to Kennesaw every weekend......haha!

We took a little tour of the campus and rode the trolly. We made our way to the bookstore and bought some t-shirts!

We had a really fun time with Nathan even though we weren't able to stay very long. We didn't get to meet Nathan's roomate unfortunately but I was glad to see that he is at least much neater than Nathan. Maybe his habits of actually folding clothes will rub off on Nathan!

Atlanta Knitting Guild

I gotta tell you, we had a GREAT time last night at the Atlanta Knitting Guild! There were probably 100 people there and they are SO INVOLVED in so many projects in the community it was really inspirational to see! You can read more about their charity giving HERE. Everyone was so nice and seemed genuinely happy that we had come to speak. I always enjoy telling our "Knit Witch" story!

We did a lot of stuff while we were in Atlanta yesterday. Each time we go down there it seems that our day is just packed with all kinds of stuff! I'll tell you about more of it next week.

Have a great weekend! Tomorrow we are going to the Toccoa River Cleanup here in town - I hope we don't freeze!