Woot!!

New yarn bowls are up on the website!!

I'm back! (sort of)

Whew!! We have had a really busy week around here! We are driving BACK to Atlanta again tonight for a birthday dinner celebration. Needless to say, I haven't had much time for knitting lately!

I started officially teaching my first class for University of Phoenix this week. So far, I love it! This first group of students have been great and I am busy learning all the ropes of getting all their questions answered, assignments graded and learning how to enter everything into the gradebook appropriately. There are LOTS of things for me to keep up with and it is just a matter of developing my own system. Once I get that down things will be much easier!

Of course, you all know about our neighbor. No word yet on the specifics of what is going on but I think she is doing ok. She is definitely right where she needs to be though - in the hospital! I am much happier with her care on this last episode. The last time we had to take her to the hospital I was very UNHAPPY with her care and both the hospital and The Joint Commission (the governmental regulation office for hospitals) got a nice long nasty-gram from me.

And, I'm keeping up with my own schoolwork. So far, so good in the PhD program. They haven't kicked me out yet!

We have a NEW super, super cute baby pattern coming out soon that will be at Stitches that is made with our DK weight yarn. I've been busy getting all the yarn dyed up for the kits for this and I'll hopefully be done with that next week. I can't wait to show you pictures of the pattern when I have it - baby stuff is SO CUTE!!!

AND - we have a new addition to the family! We have a brand new filly that was born at my dad's farm on Wednesday!!!!! We haven't seen her yet and don't have any pictures but I bet we'll be making a trip down there really soon to see her!

I did actually start a new project. This is Stulpen. I did manage to start on the cables but I had to rip it all out because I apparently cannot correctly read a chart. It will go better on the second try I'm sure! I am making this with the Merino/Cashmere/Nylon yarn that is on our discount page. It's on the discount page because it was a little "overhandled" during processing but I think it is working out just great!!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

She is BUSY!

This the Knit Witch's slave/employee (the barefoot potter) posting for the Knit Witch. She has really been busy with all of her school endeavors as well as being the neighborhood nurse. Our great neighbor has been having some health issues and they came to a head this week while she was up here in her Blue Ridge home. Tuesday we took her to the local health facility, Riverstone Medical complex, because she was extremely ill, in pain and dehydrated. We stayed with her and nurse Brittany assisted Liz by accompanying her through some of the examination procedures and speaking with the nurse practitioner (which my dear wife is also) and the doctor. Well Wednesday we took neighbor Liz back to Riverstone for follow up on blood tests and CT scans. The result? Well we ended up taking a road trip to Atlanta to get neighbor Liz admitted to Emory hospital! So off we went with Brittany, Liz and Petey the wonder dog in the Knit Witch mobile and me driving Liz's car down so she would have her car when she is discharged. Flexibility in life is a valuable gift! We are so very fortunate to have that flexibility and the ability to help when called upon. As of this morning we have not heard from Liz but will keep you in the blog world informed as we get information. Send Lizzardo some good vibes y'all!

Kilt update: It's here, I tried it on, it fits and I like it! Talk about comfortable....nice! I will see if I can talk my boss lady into taking some pictures if ya want. Any ideas what accessorizes kilts? Lizzardo says I should have a knife and a sporran and a kilt pin. Britt says I should wear sandals. I was thinking something more substantial. I know I have to wear a Knit Witch shirt while at Stitches South so I have no option there. She is the boss ya know! I know my place! Haha!

Oh yeah...it's snowing again! Come on spring!!! I want the barefootin' weather back!

Fair Isle Adventures

I think the second pair of gloves that I made turned out much better than the first as far as the fair isle portion is concerned. I took the blog's advice and went ahead and added one row to the beginning of the round and one to the end of the round giving me 2 consistent rows of grey. At the end of the fair isle portion I just decreased 2 stitches to get back to the regular stitch count.

By doing this, I was able to slip the first stitch on every other row and that seemed to help even up the colors a bit. It wasn't perfect but it was definitely better and less noticeable. I also made some minor adjustments on the fair isle pattern itself so that the notes would look a little better. I felt like some of the black portions were too close together and didn't give enough "grey space" in between for the notes to look right.

All in all though I liked this pattern (enough to do it twice even!).

Pattern: Musica
Yarn: Knit Witch DK in custom dyed colors
Mods: Described above

I have already started another project - we'll talk about that tomorrow. This blog seems like it is sort of turning into a knitting blog................what's up with THAT?!?!

And.............we're back!

Wow - that was a whirlwind weekend! We had a great time though. We dropped off a BUNCH of yarn to Only Ewe and Cotton Too for their kits they are making for Stitches South. Did we take any pictures? Of course not. That would be silly.

Then we went to Needle Nook and dropped off a prize for their Ovarian Cancer Fund Raiser that I can never seem to attend because it coincides too closely with Stitches South craziness. If you are in the area though, please check this out - what a great fundraiser they do every year! I know for a fact that one of the prizes will be a Knit Witch yarn bowl and another prize will be a skein of Knit Witch yarn!

Then we ended up going grocery shopping (and wine shopping) for my mom so that she could make her famous eggplant parmigiana - YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had a few family members, including my son, so that was really fun and delicious.

I got practically NO sleep that night because we were sharing our bedroom with Petey who does not seem to understand the value of silence as a part of nighttime activities. One time during the night he got up and stuck his cold nose on Wayne's face so Wayne was telling him to get back to his bed! Plus, I had a couple of glasses of wine (which never helps me sleep) and I was stressed out about a few things so all of that equals - no sleep.

Regardless, the next morning it was off to Emory for teaching the simulation. OMG - what fun!!! The students were hilarious. Some of them did a REALLY great job with their assessment and treatment of the patient and some of them left a little to be desired. It was great though because their instructor (speaking as the patient) was trying so hard to get them to do certain things like give the drugs in a certain order, etc. If you are a nurse you will appreciate this - the patient was there for a COPD exacerbation and not one student (out of like 60) asked him if he was a smoker!!!

Anyway, after that - we were off to the Brickstore (Jane - we will definitely call you next time - that would be FUN) and we met Ian (Wayne's son) and one of his friends for lunch. I had the veggie burger just like I always do because they have the best. veggie. burger. ever.

Then, on the way home we stopped off at my dad's for a short visit to check in on the house progress. WOW! It is getting really close to done. Did we take any pictures? Of course not.

I finished Ian's Musica gloves - did I take any pictures of him wearing them? Of course not. I did manage to get a couple of them before I gave them away though. We'll talk about the fair isle issue tomorrow!

Busy Day Today!

Today I'm teaching nursing students at Emory for half the day, then it's off to lunch with my sweetie and then driving back to the hills. We have gotten a few fun pictures for everyone so I'll get those uploaded after we get home.

Funny story about teaching there.............I'm teaching a clinical segment. The students will be practicing assessing a patient and doing things in the right order, talking to the MD and giving report. I got a whole host of preparatory materials so that I would know how the segment is supposed to run and what to cover during the debriefing, etc. Well, when I was there, in school, we didn't have these fancy patient simulators so I don't really know anything about them. In the materials it said that the students could ask the simulator any questions and that the patient would answer them. Ummm - really?!?! Now THAT is pretty amazing, right?

One of the faculty members called me to make sure I was ok with all the materials and the procedures. We got to talking about the simulator and I was telling her how impressed I am with all of the things that the simulator can do (have a certain heart rate, pulses, breathing issues, EKG abnormalities, etc. Then I asked her - how in the world is this thing able to answer student questions?!?!? Then, she revealed the amazing secret. The simulation lab has a one way mirror and the faculty actually operate the simulator from behind the mirror (can change the heart rate, make vital signs respond to certain interventions, etc). Well, they also have a microphone that they can speak into that transmits into a speaker in the simulated patient!!!! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - OK - duh!! Hahaha!!!!

In other news, I've made decent progress on the first of my second pair of Musica. I'll let you know what I came up with to help fix the fair isle issues.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!! I hope we will actually have a weekend without snow or rain this time!!

And we're off!

We are heading out early this morning since we have so much stuff to get done. That means a brief blog post my friends. BUT I finished the first pair of Musica!! Ta da!!!



I think these turned out ok - I'm really not at all pleased with fair isle knitting in the round. Now that I look at the pictures I see that I screwed up one of the FI rows. Oh well. It's just about impossible for me to get the rows of color to line up. So, how do you do it? I know all of you smart people out there must have some tricks for getting this done.

I tried the slipping the first stitch of the round thing and that helped but the problem is that almost every round started with a different color so in reality you would really be traveling the opposing color in the slipped stitch making it even more obvious IMHO but I slipped them when I could. It helped but definitely did not solve the problem.



Here's what I'm thinking - that there just needs to be at least two solid rows of color at the join before the fair isle starts. That certainly won't solve the spiraling effect but it will definitely make it less obvious and that way you could slip stitches or not but neither method would be exceptionally obvious. I'm making a second pair of these so I will need to ponder this. I don't want to add in two additional rows because they are already a little on the "not snug" side but I could adjust the fair isle pattern somehow and then make it so there are a few solid rows around the join. Hmmmmmmm...............

Kilt Update

So, my husband has been at the gym just about everyday working on his "kilt legs" as he calls them. This is good I suppose since it gets me to the gym just as often!!

The kilt has been ordered so we'll see what it looks like when it gets here. Apparently it is being custom made by someone he found on Ebay.

Tomorrow we are off to Atlanta. I'm actually looking forward to our trip even though it is going to be packed full of stuff! Thursday morning we'll be stopping by Only Ewe and Cotton Too in order to deliver all of the yarn for the shawl kits (WHEW! It's nice to have all of that dyed, packed and on it's way!). Then we have lunch with a friend that we haven't seen for a while and then it's on to my mom's where we will be spending the night and having dinner. Petey gets to go to Grandma's!!! He loves that. Hopefully the snow will all be melted by then!

The reason we are going though is because I am teaching a patient simulation activity at Emory Nursing School for the nursing students on Friday morning. I am always up early but I will actually have to be dressed early and out of the house! I think that Emory would frown upon me wearing my pjs to work even if I put my lab coat on over them!

After that - lunch at our favorite place in Decatur - The Brickstore - and then heading back home. While I'm teaching I'll be sending Wayne all around town for Sam's shopping and other such exciting tasks. What a great husband, eh???

Musica

Here is the other project I have started. This is "Musica" also available as a free pattern on Ravelry. These are fingerless gloves (without any finger separations in the hand). I specifically wanted this type of pattern because the 2 kids I wanted to make these for are both guitar players. As I was searching I found this pattern with the music notes on it - Perfect!! I figured these would be great for outdoor gigs.


My Fair Isle knitting leaves much to be desired so this first one will probably just be a practice one. I'm not doing the full pattern - I think I'll just do the music notes around the wrist and then do the rest of the glove solid. When I started this one I forgot to adjust my rounds so that they would not "spiral" up the side and my floats are too tight at the spots where the needles meet. They aren't so tight that they are unwearable but still................it bugs me.

This is the first FI pattern I have done in a LONG time so I'm glad to have some practice with it. It forces me to practice my continental knitting!

This pair will be for Nathan since these are in the Georgia Tech (NOT Steelers) colors. The other pair will be for Ian and I am undecided on the colors for those as of yet.

Olympic Knitting

First of all - thanks to everyone for their comments about the References. I LOVE that you all always have wonderful solutions for me!!! I know there is so much I need to learn about Word but I just haven't taken the time to work through tutorials. I need to do that! I must say though that I am loving my new version of Office!!

OK - who started Olympic projects?? I started one but it obviously wasn't very challenging since I have already finished it! This one was finished while watching Apollo Ohno win silver - woo hooo!!! Isn't it kind of funny that the colorway is Apollo??? Totally unplanned but entertaining all the same.



Pattern: South End Knitter's Hat (available for free on Ravelry)
Yarn: Knit Witch 100% BFL Aran weight (available wholesale only) in colorway Apollo
Skeins: 1
Made for: My son Nathan
Mods: This is the 3rd time I have made this pattern (I know, the first 2 I didn't take any pictures of) but I have knit 5 or 6 cable repeats instead of the 3 called for in the pattern so that the hat is long enough to wear with a folded brim.

I'll show you the other project that I started tomorrow!

Memories...........

Ah yes - memories are what I had of nursing school papers and good 'ol APA style. Until this week when all of that became reality. Oh how I have missed you APA (NOT). I just finished my first paper for my first doctoral class and I was thrown back into that wonderful world of citing references. However, I noticed this AWESOME thing that the new Microsoft Office 2007 has. You can keep all of your references in your document and then at the end of your paper you just hit "Insert References" and POOF! You have a reference page!!! Seriously - that is made of win.

OK - now a question for all of you techo peoples out there. I love this blog for the information it provides me you understand. If you are soley here for yarn and knitting information please feel free to tune out and I'll see you again tomorrow! I'll throw this picture of a beautiful shawl in here for you. This is the wholesale order that I am currently working on. Only Ewe and Cotton Too is putting kits for this shawl together for Stitches South. We have 6 different color combinations and I can't wait to see more of them knit up!

Now, when you put your references in they are supposed to be single spaced (not according to APA but according to the University) and the second line of the reference is supposed to be indented. For me, it is abso-freakin-lutely impossible for me to get the second line to indent without the first line also indenting if the lines are single spaced. Why???? Who the heck knows - it's simply to taunt me I feel certain.

I have to hit return after the first line and then indent the second line (which makes the reference then double spaced). Then, if I try to go back and highlight the entire thing and change the spacing it simply won't change.

Anyone else out there battled this issue??? If so - any hints for combatting this would be greatly appreciated!!

Moving On

Now that the club yarn is gone and the studio looks reasonably clean for a day we can look forward to anticipating our next big yarn delivery. We have the biggest yarn delivery we have ever ordered coming this week so this should be interesting. I have no idea where I'm going to put all of this stuff!!

As soon as the clubs were full and closed I went ahead and ordered all of the yarn I would need for the clubs. That way, I'll already have the product and I won't be having to fake my own death or anything when club shipment time rolls around if ya know what I mean. So, we have all of that coming, plus all the yarn I need for Stitches, plus yarn for some wholesale orders, plus just the regular yarn for the site. I can't wait to get a picture of all of that for you.

In the meantime, please enjoy this cute picture of 2 Pileated Woodpeckers that our neighbor took this weekend. It's about time for next building down here!! I have already seen some wren's scoping out places around our house. We have a pair of flycatchers that come and next in an eve of our house every year. They hatch 2 batches and they usually lay the first set in February. I always feel sorry for the cold little babies!!

Yarn Anyone?

Here is how Wayne and I (and Petey - though he wasn't much help) spent our day yesterday:




WHEW! What a busy day! It took us a while to get all of these packaged up and ready to go. The good news is........if you are in one of our clubs, or if you won a prize from us or if you ordered from us - your package is now on it's way!!

We have never mailed out this amount of packages before. I am hope, hope, hoping that all of these packages reach their destinations safely.

We have some winners!!!

Wow! What a great game! I was undecided on the winner but the New Orleans folks sure did look happy to win!! Here's our winners for the Superbowl Charity Squares contest:

1st Quarter - Vicki H.
2nd Quarter - Gilascave
3rd Quarter - Kathy H.
4th Quarter - Tracy A.

Congratulations to all the winners! Thanks to everyone for playing and helping us raise $250 for Charity: Water!!!

If the 1st and 3rd quarter winners will email/PM me with their contact information and the 2nd and 4th quarter winners will email/PM Kate with theirs we will get your prizes out in the mail!

If you signed up for Superbowl Squares you can view the grid HERE.

We raised $250 for Charity:Water - woo hoo!!!! Thanks everyone!!!

Edit: Sorry about the problems. Try the link now.

FO Friday!

YAY! Another finished object - I'm on some kind of roll, right?

I present - Mythica!





The yarn is Knit Witch Ancient World (DK Weight) in colorway Zeus. This isn't a color I would have normally chosen for myself but I wanted to knit it in a different color than the other test knitters had. I actually LOVE the way it looks in this color though and feel like I couldn't have made a better choice! This was a great knit and I was able to finish it in about 2 weeks! So, if I can knit it that fast you KNOW it is a fast knit. Cristi could probably knit it in an afternoon!

I love it though. It fits great and there is plenty of room to wear something under it if I want to. I didn't for the pictures mainly because that meant that I would have to find and then iron something to go under it!

I didn't make any modifications to this really, since it was a test knit. One thing I did do is add a crochet edging around the bottom just to sort of neaten it up a little bit. It was kind of funny, I told Wayne that I was done and he said "Aren't you going to put an edging or something around the bottom?". Too funny - he is learning way too much about this stuff!!! I had thought about doing it anyway and then when he said that it just solidified my resolution to do so. It took just a few minutes to add the crochet edging and I think it really does look nice.

I have never done an applied icord before. It was a little confusing at first but once I got going it went really fast. It was totally worth it too because I LOVE how this looks around the neck and armholes. It really gives a nice polished look to the sweater.

All in all I really recommend this pattern (and not just because it uses Knit Witch yarn either!). It was challenging without being too fussy but I also think it is something that a relatively new knitter could tackle with a little help. This is a great project for learning about putting together a garment and sewing seams and increasing and decreasing for garments.

This weekend we are busy getting all the packages packed for the club shipments!! Our downstairs looks like a tornado hit it with all the patterns, goodies, yarn and mailing supplies everywhere. Wish us luck!!! If you are in any of our clubs the shipments will be going out on Monday barring some major catastrophe.

New Visitors!

Check out these visitors we had in our pond yesterday morning.






Check out the colors on that fancy Mister Duck! The pictures aren't that great because we took them from pretty far away to avoid scaring them. They hung out with us for a couple of hours.

Aren't they so cute?!?! These are Wood Ducks and they are the first ones we have seen in our pond. So, you know what this means, right? Mister Man has a new project. Wood duck boxes for our pond!!

We had already talked about doing this but now we can see it would definitely be worthwhile. I suppose that now is really the time to put it up so hopefully we will have one for this season. Wouldn't it be SO FUN to have baby ducks in the Spring?!?!

Pet Fun

Our pets generally get along well. We have 3 cats and a dog and they play fairly well with each other with one exception. Goose. Goose likes to pretend that Petey is trying to kill him anytime Petey even steps anywhere near him. Petey, of course, thinks Goose is playing and rushes around him trying to egg him on. This usually lands Petey with a bloody nose but ya know, he doesn't really care.

The two of them had a hilarious battle going the other day with Goose up on top of the hot tub and Petey running around and threatening to "get him". Goose was all dramatic up on his hind legs swiping and hissing at Petey who was just loving the game. I wish I had videoed it!

The other 2 cats LOVE Petey and play with him, sleep with him, steal blankets and toys from him, etc. However, there is one thing stronger than Goose's fear of Petey. Peer pressure. If the other 2 cats are doing something then he knows he has to do it or else he'll be kicked out of the kitty community club or something. In that spirit, I was able to capture this photo the other day, one which I will probably never get again.



That's Goose in the back right behind Petey ALMOST touching him. Apparently the combination of peer pressure and warmth from the fireplace overcame Goose's extreme drama laden antics when it comes to Petey.

Crazy.

That's what the weather is around here. On Thursday, we took Petey for a 2 mile walk downtown. I had on a short sleeve t-shirt and a hoodie. I shed the hoodie pretty quickly because it was so warm. So, we were out enjoying the beautiful 60 degree day in our short sleeves walking our dog.

The next day, Friday, our yard looked like this:






Seriously - crazy!! They actually had 11 inches of snow predicted for us at one point - 11 inches!!!!! That is unheard of here and I have never even actually SEEN that much snow in my life. Luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective) the system moved just north of us and we only got about an inch of snow.

I am thoroughly convinced that we received this small amount because we were completely prepared for a big storm and a power outage. We had the lamp oil and lamps all ready to go. Wayne put together our camping stoves and other stuff in easy reach so we could get to it if we needed to. I finished all my dyeing and clothes washing, anything that required electricity by noon that day so it would all be done. Of course, that completely sent the storm moving elsewhere to less prepared people.

Petey had a good time though as you can see.



Don't forget about the Superbowl Squares contest!!! We have filled a lot of squares but we still have a few to go! Don't forget - you get one free square just for blogging the contest!!

New Helper!

OK - Knit Witch finally hired a minion!! This is great news since I have been drowning in skeining lately. He's a really great worker and a fast learner too.

Behold!!!



Ok, ok - so "hire" might be a strong word since it implies that I am actually paying someone. It's more like............teaching and old dog new tricks!! Haha!!!

Seriously though, I did teach Wayne to skein last week because I have been dyeing huge amounts lately. I have 2 really big orders to get out, plus I am dyeing for Stitches South and plus I am trying to get some of my bigger obligations knocked out before school really kicks into high gear. All of this equals - lots of skeining!!

Wayne has been a really great help and he hasn't even complained too much! Well, except for that one skein that got a little "tangled" and we worked on it for about an hour. I thought it might push him over the edge and make him quit his high paying job but luckily it didn't!!!

I would like to say we had a really fun weekend and did all kinds of cool stuff. But, the reality is that we spent much of it skeining! I did a lot of reading for school but we did at least manage to make it out of the house to go to the gym once or twice!