A Week Goes By

Hi Knitters,
First off, I want to quickly remind everyone that the Vogue Knitting Live Chicago, Oct. 26th-28th, 2012, classes are now open for general registration! I am only there one day, Sunday the 28th, and will be teaching two classes. I hope you can come!

Click here for Vogue Knitting Live Chicago class information!

A lot happens in a week or even a day sometimes. Here are some of the happenings around here over the past week....

I plopped a small ball of bulky weight handspun, my first handspun yarn ever, in my Julia Knowles yarn bowl (photo above).

Click here for the yarn bowl information.

I quickly knit up a sweet little homespun toy for a swap on my Itty-Bitty Knits group.

The pattern is called, Lamb from Scratch, and it is a charming, simple, fast and fun knit. Any bulky weight yarn will work great. I have seen this knit up in all sorts of yarns.

Click here for the Lamb from Scratch pattern information.

I got my swap partner's gifts and goodies all boxed up and shipped off in time. I hope she gets it soon.

Yesterday, I received my swap package in the mail. It is incredible and I am going to share this piece by piece with you later. What an amazing effort by my partner. More on this one soon when I get photos.

Our neighborhood pool had an adult social and silent auction fundraiser last weekend. I helped run the silent auction that night but found time to bid on a dozen homemade cupcake cookies baked and decorated by a neighbor of mine. Aren't they cute? They were gone in a flash soon after I brought them home. She is talented!

After finishing the Thin Ice Shawl, I had so much of the handspun yarn left over that I cast on a pair of socks to use up the rest. It is working up quite densely on US size 1 dpns which is good because it is a 2-ply yarn and might not be strong enough for durable socks. I know they might wear out quickly but making the fabric dense will hopefully help a little with longevity.

Sock pattern? Click here for How I Make My Socks.

The handspun yarn cake is spinning smoothly off of my Sun Valley Fibers Yarn Buddy. This is a beautiful handcrafted tool that I love using. I purchased mine at the Knit Circus Retreat last spring.

Click here to find out more about the Sun Valley Yarn Buddy.

During this past week I also finished up a bunch of projects for the upcoming holiday issue of Knit Simple. I got the finished knit samples shipped off to New York and finished writing up the patterns, which was no small feat with the amount of activity going on in my house. It's great fun to design for magazines but it is always a challenge to get all of the work done and on time.

After sending off the finished patterns, I quickly hand-stitched elastic sequin strips on five black swim suits for TC's water ballet routine group. That took forever! I sent them up with TC for practice, her instructor is none other than Miss Molly. The sequins all stayed on except for one girl. The silver sequins popped off on one side so I have to tack down again and allow for more stretch. It is tricky that stretchy fabric and sequin sewing.

Mostly, I have been doing a lot of book page editing. Reading, writing, checking math, checking photos, all that good stuff that needs to be done when creating a book.

It is going to be a really fun, playful book. I am pretty excited about it. It's not out until next spring 2013.

I even snuck in a couple hours of knitting and chatting time with my friend, Jaala Spiro. We treated ourselves to black cherry smoothies to boot. It was a good time. I'm so glad Jaala lives close by and that I've gotten to know her better over the last year. She's a gem.

Click here for Jaala's wonderful website, newsletter, tutorial source, and podcast!

While together that night, I started Jaala's Bridge Over Troubled Water Shawlette. By the time I got to the start of the first lace section they were closing down the joint but it was a good spot to stop knitting anyway.

Last but not least, last week my son made an extensive robot costume complete with silver spray paint, boxes, aluminum tubing (which they taped up to cover up his arms later), lightbulbs, a calculator, and a megaphone which made his voice sound robot-like. He coaches swim team at our neighborhood pool and showed up at practice as Robo-Coach. He coaches 9 and 10 year old swimmers and they absolutely loved it. He would shake hands with the kids using the tongs to grasp their hands. It was pretty funny. Another day he hosted a formal dance party with punch served in a punch bowl on the basketball court for his group after practice. Then yesterday he bought them donuts. He loves those kids and I love seeing the extra effort he puts in to make it fun and memorable for them.

Now this huge robot costume is sitting in my small basement along with my college son's stuff and all of our stuff.... oooph, it's not good down there. What are you going to do? It's all in the name of fun.

Well, I'm off to edit pages and pages of book material and to write tutorial copy to go along with the fantastic tutorial photographs from not too long ago.

I hope you are all doing well! Don't forget to enter the Cakewalk Yarns Cherry Blossom giveaway on Veronika's Yarn on the House blog. There aren't that many entries and she has 3 skeins to give away. Don't miss your chance and go enter! Click here for the giveaway!

What are you all up to this week? I'd love to hear.
best, susie