Help me help you..........

Well, it's more like help me help myself! I need some help! I have done 9 colorways to submit to the Sock Summit contest and I need to narrow it down to about 4 or 5. That's where you come in. Let me know which colors you like (or don't like). Also, if you have not seen this already, I am running a contest HERE for naming the yarns. The yarn names need to be something related to the Sock Summit or the Portland area. If I use the name you suggest I will send you a skein of that yarn! It may take a couple of weeks for me to send it though because I am running out of yarn! I'll need to order a bit more. You can submit your name suggestion(s) here in the comments or in the Knit Witch group on Rav.

Another vendor, Yarny Goodness, will be having our yarn in her booth. That is where the Sock Summit colors will be. So, if you are going to Sock Summit, be sure to look for our yarn and top in the Yarny Goodness booth (#417) and the Wild Geese Fibres booth (#729)!

There is a poll on the sidebar where you can vote for your favorite colors. You CAN select multiple choices on the poll.

Color 1



Color 2



Color 3



Color 4



Color 5



Color 6



Color 7



Color 8



Color 9

Patio Update

The patio is almost done! We got a nice delivery of rocks and sand on Tuesday. I don't think the delivery guy was too excited about being on a "knitting blog" (if that is still what you want to call this blog) but I took the pictures anyway. It's more of a home improvement blog written by someone who also happens to be a knitter.





So we worked on the patio for a few days. Holy cow we moved a lot of sand. Petey loved laying in the sand so much that we had a hard time even getting him in at night. He was rather perturbed as we placed rocks into the last section that he was guarding. Check out these pictures:

Here's what it looked like before we moved in:


Then we started working on it.............

BEFORE:






AFTER:



What a difference, eh? We can't even believe how much better it looks. I'm sure our family members who read this reguarly won't believe it either! We aren't quite finished yet. We still have the flat areas to go on the hillside. We are having another ton of sand delivered today since we ran out last week.

Wayne made a little aquaponics garden behind the pond - that is what is in that box under the windows. The water will filter from the pond, through the containers that are filled with gravel, then flow back into the pond having been filtered. We will grow some lettuce and herbs in there in the gravel I think. No dirt required!

TGIF!!

It has been a busy week around here at Knit Witch. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend of installing a new flagstone patio! I can't wait to show you all pictures - I'll have them for you next week. Right now, our patio looks like a large beach. I now know what it is like to live on the coast. I have never swept up so much sand in my life!!!

A couple of quick shop announcements for you. We have a few new things up on the site.

We uploaded some new yarn bowls yesterday and you can find them HERE.

We also have a few new yarns. These two are on the sock yarn page HERE. The first one is "Castor" in the 100% superwash merino fingering weight. The second one is "Hail to the Redskins" also in the 100% superwash merino fingering weight in honor of the beginning of football season and my team heading a stealthy march to the SUPERBOWL! That's right you Pittsburgh fans out there - read 'em and weep. You can't win the Superbowl twice in a row - not unless you are New England!! I'll be collecting a cool frosty one from each of you when we get there!



There are also a couple of new yarns up on the discount page HERE. This 100% superfine merino laceweight turned out very nicely even though it isn't what I was intending so - off to the discount page it goes!

This one is one of those "end of the dyepot" colors. I figured instead of pouring out my unused dye I should use it to make some surprises, right?? My new line of "non-reproducable" colors is Calamity. This is "Calamity 2". The laceweight above is "Calamity 1".

We also have a couple of DK weights on the discount page like this one:

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be looking forward to showing you pictures of our (hopefully) nearly completed patio on Monday!!

A Finished Object!

Haha! Silly readers. Not MY finished object of course! I was lucky enough to have someone ask me to model this sweater for their pattern and website. I love the sweater! Very soft and a nice, light sweater. Here are the pictures that I think are going to be the ones used on the website. I'll let you know when the pattern is up on the website so that you can purchase it if you are interested. If you are supposed to be working but are looking for excuses not too you can see all the pictures we took of the sweater HERE. We took them all here at our house. The gnats were so bad around our pond that day (humidity must have been 110%!) it took a lot of shots to get them so that I wasn't ducking or swating or squinting to keep them out of my eyes!

Check out the first beets and carrots I picked the other day! These are tiny - I was really just thinning things out a bit but those little carrots were delicious! Everyone in my family (and our friends) have all received the gift of lettuce. Between our garden and our neighbors we have so much lettuce it is crazy. Speaking of which, I need to go next door and take some pictures of our neighbors garden for you - you won't believe how huge everything is and she planted hers about 3 weeks after we did! Sounds like a blog post for tomorrow...........

The Wild East

I have managed to capture a few shots of random animals around here over the past couple of weeks. We have a Little Blue Heron that keeps hanging around our pond. I hear him almost everyday but he has eleuded capture via the camera as of yet. I will keep stalking him.

First up - baby Blue Jay. We had a pair of Blue Jays build a nest right outside of our bedroom window. It was so fun to sit in bed in the morning with our coffee and watch mom and dad sit on the eggs, then start feeding little tiny babies and then have the honking babies flowing out of the nest. The whole process took about 4 weeks. I never did get any pictures when they were tiny but here are two pictures of the last baby on his first day out of the nest. These were taken through our bedroom window so, hence the glare.

Next - bullfrog. We hardly ever get to see these guys just hanging out in open space. This one is in the pond at the bottom of the hill where we walk every day. Can you see him? He is almost right in the middle of the picture just to the left of center.

Finally, look at this cute little juvenile wild rabbit! We see these rabbits along our road just about every time we leave the house and come home. We have lots of them around here. Luckily, they have not discovered our garden yet. I think the cats help to keep them away - at least during the day. We took this one as we were driving down the road and he just stopped like he was posing for a picture. Isn't he cute?!?!

Train!

Over the weekend our good friends Pam and Kelly came to visit us. The last time they were here we had JUST moved in and they helped us lay the first floor that we put in for the upstairs bedroom. Seriously, that's how you weed out your friends - ask them to come help you put in flooring.

They couldn't believe how much we (read: Wayne) have done to the house in a year. They rode the train while they were here. Here is a picture of the train coming in and some action shots of them on the train. From L-R is Kelly, Pam and their friend Alicia. Pam and Kelly are the proud new owners of our former dashund, Leo. They gave him to us and they still have his mom and brother so he is totally in daschund heaven. A few hours worth of a visit from them while Pam and Kelly were here gave us an excellent reminder as to why he is no longer here. We like those LOW maintenance pets like Petey!

Check out Mr. Studly sitting beside them, right? YIKES!!

The day before they came we went to a nice little dinner on the balcony of the coffee shop (L&L Beanery) right in the middle of downtown. Here are a couple of shots of the dinner and of the view of downtown.

I love it when people offer to take pictures of Wayne and I. I feel like we are always taking pictures of all kinds of stuff but we so rarely get pictures of the two of us together!! Thanks for taking the picture Diane! Oh, and if you want to see some crazy cool miniature wood working - check out her site. WOW! She is also a knitter and spinner which makes her extra cool!

In the Cohutta

First of all - we have decided to run the sale for one more day! Some of our announcements did not post as planned so we wanted to give everyone a little extra time. Lots of people have already taken advantage of the 10% savings so don't miss out!

Last weekend we took a little drive over to the Cohutta Wildlife Management Area just to get out of the house for a bit and do a little exploring. We had a huge thunderstorm earlier in the day so there were a lot of trees down and debris all over the place. Still, we managed to get a few cool pictures. Here is the view from on top of the mountain.

Then we stopped at this little campground on a stream at the top of the mountain. It was a very cute little place! Petey had a good time running around and exploring.

And, check this out! Ever seen a campground complete with horse stalls?

It was a fun little trip and a beautiful drive. Our local Chamber of Commerce has these "driving tours" that you pick up complete with maps and instructions. They are just self guided tours and they take you through different areas around North Georgia. The tours change with the seasons so that you go to see whatever there is to see during that particular season. I think one of those tours will be our next driving around adventure. It should be interesting!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Happy Father's Day to the bestest dad in the whole world!!!!! I definitely would not be where I am today without this great guy in my life. And, I am so glad that he and my husband get along so well - that is really nice. I guess it helps to marry a man that is almost as old as your father so they can sit around and talk about the "good 'ol days" and about all the tv shows they used to watch when they were kids - haha!!!

Many of you got to meet him at the Scalini's dinner in April. He had such a great time with all of you. Since you met him - you know what I am talking about. The man has never met a stranger. He's kind of Italian looking don't ya think? :)


Oh - and don't forget about the Summer Solstice sale going on at Knit Witch today! 10% off of everything in the store! I will have to refund your 10% since Paypal does not accept coupons. But, I'm good for it - I swear!

Random Photos

Here's a few random photos for you to round out the week. I caught this picture of Petey sleeping in his crate and I thought it was pretty funny.

Geeez. Relax much?

Here are a couple other photos we took at Piedmont Park - complete with official Piedmont Park ducks (whatever that means).

And, check this out. At WWKIP day Regan told me about this ladder she saw up against some condos near her house. I knew right where she was talking about and we just happened to drive by there a little later in the day. Apparently, the ladder they wanted to use for painting wasn't quite long enough - so they added another ladder to the top of that one and tied them together!! Nice.

I was like "LOOK!! There's the ladder!". Luckily we were already stopped for a red light so we didn't cause any accidents getting these lovely photos.

We have another busy weekend planned which will involve yet another trip to Atlanta. I'll show you why on Monday! Have a great weekend!!!!

One day sale - get ready!

OK - so Sunday is Summer Solstice (and Father's Day don't forget!). I think that is cause for celebration and a sale at Knit Witch, yes? We will have a ONE DAY ONLY sale all day Sunday where everything in the store is 10% off. Anything! Unfortunately, Paypal does not allow for coupons (which is how we have our site set up) so I will refund your 10% for your order as long as it comes in on 6/21/09. The 10% includes any product but not shipping.

Go HERE and figure out what you want and the sale starts at 12:01 AM Sunday morning! We should have all yarn colors in stock but if something runs out - just order it under the "custom order" tab and I will dye it for you. Or, you can always email me and I can send you a paypal invoice which will reflect your 10% discount.

Happy shopping!

Frisbee!

I know. I have built up all kinds of anticipation for these photos and they aren't really all that exciting, right? Thanks to Regan the professional photographer on all of these action shots! We love playing frisbee and Piedmont Park was just the perfect place for it!

Oh, and no matter what Wayne says - I totally kicked his butt in frisbee.

We played a few times during the day and I'll be totally honest with you - it was a lot more entertaining for other people to watch after we had both had 2 beers.

WWKIP day 2009

For World Wide Knit in Public day we joined the Knitch crowd at the Park Tavern which is right next to this lovely park smack dab in the middle of Midtown Atlanta. This is Piedmont Park.

This park seems like it has been in Atlanta forever but it has recently gotten a little bit of a face lift. Behold the fancy new water park! If you are a long time Atlantan like me, you know that the pool at Piedmont Park has looked like nothing more than a huge, yukky, cement hole for a very long time. I was amazed with the transformation! They have built it very green too - check out the solar panels!!

We had a small but fun crowd at Park Tavern (where the food was YUMMY I might add). One of our major events of the day was helping Kim, who owns Knitch, to untagle her tangled bamboo. Most people helped - Regan and I just took pictures and laughed. Isn't that terrible? Luckily, my husband is the "helpful type". If you see the beer in the background you can clearly see how the problem started.

I get extra points for scoring this picture of Regan.

I did absolutely NO knitting on wwkip day. See? That's me with my knitting bag beside me and no knitting in my hands. Dudes, it was too hot and humid to knit! I do, however, have a tasty, frosty beer!

Check this out. Here is Regan modeling her Shipwreck Shawl! Trust me. The picture does not do this justice - it turned out beautifully!



Frisbee pictures tomorrow!

Good news!!!!!!!

I found out when we got back from Atlanta last night that my son has officially been accepted to Georgia Tech!!!! Woo hooo!!!! I am so proud of him. He has chosen physics as his major so I'm sure over the next year or so he'll be refining exactly what he wants to do. But, that was very exciting news and I couldn't wait to call him and let him know that he got the letter in the mail. He was pretty darn excited about it. So Sandy, it appears that I will be making the Steelers/Yellow Jackets yarn afterall! :)

Our trip to Atlanta was a lot of fun. We had a great time at Piedmont Park with the Knitch crowd. Luckily, we had our Frisbee in the car so the weather and setting were perfect for a few games of frisbee with Mr. Man. I know Regan got some pictures of that so those should be interesting!

When we got home last night we were completely exhausted from all the weekend activities so I haven't downloaded any pictures as of yet. Honestly, I'm not even sure where the camera is at this particular moment. Also, I have a bunch of Knit Witch orders to get out this morning so I need to take care of those first. I should have lots of pictures downloaded later this afternoon for blogs posts tomorrow and later in the week.

TGIF!!!

Woo hoo! It's Friday! Don't forget - there are still a couple of days to enter the latest Knit Witch contest - HERE.

AND - Knit Witch is sponsoring another contest for Miss Cristi the turtlegirl HERE. It's another pretty easy contest so check that one out too.

I am so excited about going and hanging with the Knitch crowd tomorrow! I'm so glad that wwkip day is falling on the same weekend for some other fun stuff in Atlanta. We are staying with my mom so THAT is always a good time too! My mom totally rocks. We'll be heading out for Atlanta tomorrow morning. I haven't been to Park Tavern in a really long time so this should be loads of fun. Also, I hear it is supposed to rain tomorrow - if it rains, they pour ($1 drafts!). Who can resist that.

I knit 2 rows on February Lady last night. 2 freaking rows! Kids, it's just too hot to knit. We use ceiling fans in our house because we like to leave the windows open. That's fine - I don't mind not running the AC at all but, for knitting, the high humidity totally blows. So, there just hasn't been much knitting going on around here.

This morning has been interesting. I have already rescued 2 tiny toads from being smooshed and a wren got trapped in the exaust pipe for our wood stove (I have no idea how he did that) so I had to rescue him too. Yesterday we rescued 2 box turtles out of the road and one came here to live with us (in the yard of course). Luckily everyone fared well and was happily released back out into the wild.

Oh, and I dyed some Washington Redskins sock yarn the other day in full preparation for us heading to the Superbowl this year! These colors work for FSU fans too I believe so if you are interested in some "team spirit" socks just let me know.


I hope everyone has a great weekend - I'm sure I will have plenty of entertaining pictures for next week!

Life on the Farm

Guess what?? If you haven't seen it already - we're in Knitty HERE and HERE!

Last weekend we also managed to go see my dad for a while. We got some cute pictures of the farm animals.

Here are some brand new baby goats hopping around and playing.

Here is the new mallard duck.

And, of course, what visit would be complete without peacocks? There are a few baby peacocks right now - I think we need a couple of peacocks around here!

Oh, and check this out. The other day Wayne and I were hiking down a hill and I decided it would be much faster if I rolled down the hill than walked. Unfortunately, I rolled right into a patch of rose bushes which were not too friendly. It was pretty funny though - I looked up and asked Wayne (who was behind me) - Did I just do a saumersault? He confirmed that I had. Very entertaining.

Then, the next day was when we were at my Dad's. We were walking through one of the pastures and a honeybee got hung up in my sandle and stung me on the toe. It hurt REALLY, REALLY bad - like someone was holding a lit lighter under my toe - but I refused to cry! This is how it looked 2 days later.

See how you can clearly see veins on one foot and not the other? My whole foot was swollen. Now, for all of my fellow nurses out there - yes, my toes were still warm and pink - yes, I still had a pedal pulse and yes, I should have put ice on it but I didn't.

All of that put together equals one sexy wife, right?

I know you love a good yarn sale so.......

I thought I would pass on some information for you. Remember when I told you about the new online yarn shop called Uptown Stitches? Well, they are offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders until the end of July! When you check out you can use the code W2D4-06 to claim your free shipping. There is now some Knit Witch BFL top listed there too in addition to some Knit Witch Merino/Nylon yarn. There are lots of other products on there too so don't miss out on an opportunity for free shipping!

Last weekend while Wayne worked on building the deck back up, I started with this:

Here is some progress:

Now it looks like this:

It still has a long ways to go but it's getting there! And just to clarify - this is a DIFFERENT deck than the one you saw yesterday. This is the deck on the front of our house that overlooks the pond. We aren't quite that fast - the new deck still needs rails!

Weekend Warriors

As usual, we have lots of ongoing home projects at the current time. Here's some before and after shots for you:

Last week, Wayne and I started with this (this picture was taken before we even moved in):

All of this had to come out. Someone, way back when, decided that it would be a great idea to build an outdoor deck out of wood that is not pressure treated and then not do anything to waterproof it. Needless to say, it was falling apart and everytime someone walked on it I felt like we needed to have them sign a liability waiver.

Wayne and I spent a day doing this:

After all of that we ended up with this:

By the next day we had this:

Now we just need some railings!! We saved the wood that was savable for other projects

and the rest of it will be enjoying a nice, cozy campfire.

Water stuff

First of all - Happy first annual World Oceans Day!! Go HERE to check out information about this inaugural event.

In other news, our washer finally bit the dust. It has been making these terrible noises for months even though Wayne has tried everything in his handyman power to fix it. Finally it just quit. Now, it wasn't quite as tragic as the death of Sir Washie but ya know, it stunk. The conversation went like this:

Wayne: The washer isn't working.

Me: What do you mean?

Wayne: I mean that it isn't working.

Me: What? HOW is it not working?

Wayne: Like it isn't DOING anything!

Me: Nothing?

Wayne: What did I just say???

Me: Really? Nothing? Have you tried the buttons?

Wayne: Blank stare ::Realizes this is going nowhere and walks away::

So ok - I get it. Not working. Oh goodie - just what I wanted to do today - go spend $1000!! Whoppeeee! Not. Wayne could fix it for a couple hundred bucks but it is kind of old and will be petering out anyway so we just bit the bullet. We decided to just go ahead and get another washer and a dryer even though the dryer works perfectly well. We donated the dryer to our local humane society so that will be going to good use.

We go to Home Depot to pick out a set and Wayne wanted to be sure they were made in the US. Score! Maytag is made in the US and they had a set that we liked that was reasonably priced. Have you gone looking at washers lately? I'm looking at some of them like - uh, can you put a CD in this thing or something? What is this huge panel of buttons for? I mean, how much do you really need a washer to do? Does it wash your car too? With all of this crazy technology WHY, for the love of all that's yarny, can they not make ONE machine that is both a washer and a dryer?? I'm not talking about an over/under here - I mean one machine. Think how much space that would free up for more yarn storage!

Then, the woman tells us it will be 8 days before it can be delivered. Seriously? Holy cow. She says that it is in the warehouse in Atlanta and it will have to come up from there so the soonest they could get it here was 8 days from now. Sheesh. I guess I am used to shopping in Atlanta at noon and they tell you "We can have it there by 5 if you like!". Oh well. I'll be wetting my fiber for dyeing in the sink for a while.

So, last Thursday it got delivered. We had to get a top load because of the whole using the washer to wet out fiber thing (I really don't see the appeal of a front loading washer anyhow). BEHOLD!



I know - that is probably the most un-exciting picture I have ever posted on this blog - but there you have it. Now, my only beef with this washer is that is was OBVIOUSLY not designed for someone to soak their fiber in. We made sure that we got an "energy star" efficient set, right? Because we are all about living as green as we can (we are currently looking into solar panels - I am so excited about that!). But, the problem with this model is that it auto-senses the amount of clothes you have in there and then fills up the tub to the correct level, thus saving water. Well, that's all fine and good - for clothes. Not so much for fiber. I always fill the washer first (on the lowest water level) and THEN put the fiber in because I don't want the water pouring onto the yarn, right? Well, with this model I can't select the water level and then just let it fill up. If you open the lid, it just automatically assumes that you are a moron and fills up to the highest level - which of course is overkill for fiber so I would never do that and waste all of that water. SO, I'll be working on figuring out a way to make this work.

I know you all wanted a commentary on my new washer. Class dismissed.

Ocoee Whitewater Center

Wayne and I (and Petey) took a little day off last week to go play. We went to the Ocoee Whitewater Center in Copperhill, TN which is about 30 mintues north of us. This is the place where the 1996 Summer Olympic watersport games were held. Last time we were there the dam had been relased so the water was CRAZY and deep. This time is was like a lazy trickle. The difference was amazing. We packed up our backpacks with some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (one for Petey too!) and some water and headed off. Then it promptly started to pour down rain as soon as we got to TN. Nice.

Well, we went anyway and the rain let up long enough for us to have a nice little hike and sit by the water for a bit and let Petey play. I tell ya, that dog LOVES the water. He has a dip in the pond here at least once a day.

All in all it was a fun trip and we had a great day. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

d

Gone batty........

Wayne and I were dog tired after working in the yard and around the house all day on Saturday so we finally quit around 8:30 or so Saturday evening, came upstairs, made a great salad and settled in for a movie (which BTW - if you have not seen Seven Pounds GO. SEE. IT. NOW! I'll wait - oh and take any kids you have too that are over say about 12 years old).

All the sudden Willow is jolted out of her snooze and looks beyond me. I look over to see what has startled her and I see a bat silently swooping around the kitchen. Great. Pause the movie, gather all 3 cats into the bathroom while they are going ape, go get the camera, go get the fishing net and attempt to catch flying bat. Luckily, it was very easy to catch. Unfortunately our picture didn't turn out very well but we didn't want to keep taking pictures and scaring him.

We caught him in the net and got him outside. He was screaming bloody murder the entire time. Apparently he was not very happy about being in the net even though he was not harmed in any way. Once outside he stopped screaming and promptly flew away. He sure was a cute little thing though! YAY for the sucessful capture and relocation of the bat!

More Gardening

Well since we just don't have anything better to do around here we decided to put in ANOTHER garden! We have this great little piece of flat area and we weren't really doing anything with it. We thought that since that area gets lots of sun it would be a great place for another garden. Turns out, the soil there was really good. We also added about 30 bags of mushroom compost and we ended up with this.

Here is how the original garden is looking.

And Wayne and I also built this:

We have had 4 grape plants hanging around in pots for months because we needed to build a trellis for them. After a lot of debate about where it should go we settled on this location. Wayne and I (mostly Wayne) got it built and we finally were able to get the grape plants in the ground. YAY!

Oh, and look who moved in down the street!!!


SHEEP!!!!! Aren't they cute?!?! I'll have to work on getting some better pictures of them.

New Contest!

As you all probably know, wwkip (World Wide Knit in Public) day is fast approaching. This year it falls on June 13th. We are having a little contest over in the Knit Witch Ravelry Group in honor of wwkip day so come on over there and check it out. Again, super easy contest. I'm going to work on making the next contest a little more challenging! The winner will be randomly drawn from all the enteries and will receive a 3.5oz skein of Knit Witch DK weight yarn as a prize. That is the same yarn that I am knitting the February Lady from. Don't forget the usual rule - you must be a member of the Knit Witch Ravelry Group to win. Go check it out.

These little toads are so cute we can't seem to stop taking pictures of them.



I trimmed the flowers off of our lavender the other day and I just couldn't bear to throw out those pretty, wonderful smelling flowers. So, I gathered up some honeysuckle and shasta daisies and made a little home for them on our kitchen table.

Introducing...........

Zodia!!

Beverly designed this pattern just for Knit Witch! She did a wonderful job on this great pattern and has definitely impressed me. The pattern is very professionally written complete with concise instructions and charts. You can find the pattern download HERE. You can also see more information on the Ravelry link HERE.

Beverly just happened to be going to see The Yarn Harlot in Dallas last week. She took a copy of the pattern and some Knit Witch yarn with her to give to Stephanie. I sent the colorway "Pisces" for Stephanie. Apparently Stephanie really liked the pattern and was excited about getting both the yarn and the pattern. She even had Beverly sign the pattern for her! Haha! Here is a picture of Beverly with Stephanie along with the pattern and some Knit Witch yarn. When Beverly was reminding Stephanie about me she was telling her that we saw her in Atlanta. Stephanie said "Oh yeah, I remember them. I signed her husband!"