Pay it foward

Look what mama-e sent me! I was on my way to the way to the po to send two ‘good karma packages’ and found this in the mail! Totally made me tear up. Thank you, mama-e !

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve posted photos of a finished project, hasn’t it? These were finished over a month ago but I hadn’t taken photos yet.

Well here are the legendary Toe Up 2 socks on 2 circs made with the Koigu my parents got for my birthday last year. I’m so friggin proud of these. That Crazy Heels and Toes book is really good. A bit hard to follow in some parts but if you read the instructions over a few times and follow slowly you get some great socks!

This is the lengthwise shawl I made with a bunch of cool yarn I bought at ArtFibers when I was in San Francisco so I consider this my major souvenir from the trip. It’s mostly knit on US 15s but I would change needles or yarn whenever I felt like it. I also cut the yarn to make the fringe at the end of every row. As usual the fringe is big and shaggy and varies in lengths. I love that craaazy fringe. I’d say with the fringe this puppy is 8 feet long? Way longer than I am tall anyway. It’s so soft and gorgeous I can’t wait for it to get cold. Next year during that cruise, I’m kidnapping Jocelyn and heading straight for their store the minute we dock.

I just heard about a woman who’s selling some of her yarn to pay for her sick kitty’s procedures.

Here’s the link.

Lots of Classic Elite and Cherry Tree Hill.

Buy some yarn! Pass it on!

Too tired for a decent entry so I’ll just post photos. We had a marvelous time meeting the delightful Ms. Pearl-McPheeand listening to her wonderful stories. Then some of us snb gals took her out for a beer at the Chama River Brewing Company. She seemed very happy to get the basket of New Mexico goodies Cody and I had picked out for her (we wanted to be sure she didn’t get out of here without some chile goodness) and was more than understanding about getting photos with Barry. Or more importantly, having Barry and The Sock pose together.

We even got a little cleavage action. They don’t call her The Yarn Harlot for nothin’.

These are what I worked on during her talk.

That’s the crazy heels and toes 2 on 2 pattern knit with my Green Tea Frappuccino silk merino handspun. Wahoo! I’m to the heel turn bit now.

Gratuitous close up shot

I’d say a good time was had by all. It was so nice to have a night out with the gals and really fun to meet this knitblogging, knitwriting, knitting icon and get to casually chat with her over a pint of beer. (And my diet coke). A very good night.

I finally got my real camera out and took photos of some yarn today. I’ll be putting the ones that are for sale up in the shop tomorrow so let me know today if you want it first!

Here are the yarns that are for sale:

Strawberries and Cream with Marmalade

It’s hard to photograph this yarn properly but I’m going to get some more photos later. It’s a really nice, evenly spun and strong sport weight with shades of orange, red, with lighter bits in between with little spirals that I like so much. Very soft Finn wool that I dyed with food-safe dyes.
144.48 yards
20.00 + 4.30 shipping (9.00 international shipping)
first to comment or email gets the sale

Lemonade with Blueberries

This is also handpainted Finn but this one has been spun in a thick and thin style with lots of soft tufts and tightly spun thin bits to hold it together. Lots of yellow and white with blues and a bit of green. I’m working on a thinner companion yarn using roving from the same dye pot that will be sold separately.
120 yards
20.00 + 4.30 shipping (9.00 international shipping)
back on sale but I sold its skinny sister

Old School Necktie

Handdyed solid silver plied with handdyed solid crimson. Reminds me of an old school kind of men’s necktie. I keep thinking of Salinger prep school boys.
135.88 yards worsted weight
$ 15.00 + 4.30 shipping (9.00 international shipping)
first to comment or email gets the sale

There are more photos of these yarns in the new For Sale flickr set

This is some 2-ply I spun for another sort of charitable thing that I’m going to mail out Friday. It’s spun from some handpainted BFL, my July installment from Amy Boogie’s Spunky Fiber of the Month Club. The yarn is just under 300 yards and will make some gorgeous socks for its recipient. I’m very proud of this and I have to admit I’m kind of sad to see it go.

And these are the two rovings that I painted for the people who won my prize donations to the Dyeorama prize drawing. I gave each the option for roving or handspun and they both chose roving. Yay! That’s easy to do!

These are also going into the mail on Friday. (I have two tons of things to mail and can’t really afford to spend that much on postage until after Thursday night’s paycheck)

Snb tonight! Ms Harlot on Thursday!

I’ve been working on the illusion version of my fleur des lis washcloth this weekend and wanted to see if the pattern made sense to other people too. I’m sending an illusion cloth as well as two knit from the regular pattern off the the Louisiana state museum on friday along with the patterns to give away (or sell for charity) at the exhibit.

I’m working on a chart but right now just have the text file that goes row by row. I was really surprised to find that it was five pages long when I printed it out.

Knitting this shouldn’t take long at all - three or four hours for a moderately fast knitter and 1 ball each of cotton yarn in 2 contrasting colors. Anyone interested?

I’ve learned a lot about karma this week. My belief in “karma” or “the three fold law” or “reaping what you sow” or whatever name your belief structure assigns to a basic universal balance waxes and wanes but a few events this last week have been like “hit over your head with a baseball bat” kind of karma lessons.

Of course there was the cool email about my fleur-des-lis washcloth designed for Katrina victims, which seemed to have kicked the lessons off. I don’t knit stuff for charities for recognition or to feel superior in any way at all. I genuinely enjoy knitting items that would make people happy, or help comfort someone. This knitting thing has helped me feel artistic again, be able to meet new people and make friends, and actually have people want to buy something I’ve made has been a huge boost to my confidence. Being able to use something that’s helped me this much to help other people makes it even more meaningful to me. So getting that kind of recognition for doing something that had been an honestly selfless act was like breathing pure oxygen for a minute.

Then I did the drawings for the Dyeorama prizes and it was kind of spooky. Believe me, this was totally random. People had gotten a number assigned by the program when they signed up, it was how we kept track of things but we didn’t have anything to do with what numbers people got. Then I used a random number generator to shoot out a bunch of non-repeating non-sequential numbers.

When I started going down the prize list I noticed that a weird number of people who won prizes were familiar - mostly because I’d been seeing their names and websites for weeks. Because they were still waiting for their yarn to come, or had waited a very long time for their yarn to come and I’d been checking their websites every day. They were eligible to win prizes because the yarn they dyed had been sent and their buddy had received it, but the person who was supposed to mail yarn either lost the package in the mail (which is understandable), mailed a lot later than they were supposed to, or never mailed it at all when they said they did. But now these folks who had been waiting for six weeks for their yarn were getting extra prizes It was weird.

I’m not sure what the odds were really. There were 4 our of the 7 remaining yarnless people whose names were drawn out of 40 prizes. With a total of 270 people eligible for prizes out of 277 participants. Any math isn’t hard barbies out there want to figure these odds out? 2 other prizes that were randomly drawn were real-life friends of mine too. Which is why I’m probably so insistent that these drawings were totally random.

It’s reassuring to know that if I keep putting good things out, keep working on projects even if it feels like I’m doing all kinds of work for little return sometimes that it will balance out. I’ve been rethinking the reasons about why I give gifts and if I have weird buried expectations in there and how I really shouldn’t do that. I should just give, without expectations, and be happy with whatever returns. Because it all evens out right?

I’m going to try not thinking about wars and senseless violence and men who get rich off of other peoples’ blood or stealing from respectable peoples’ retirement accounts Or that asshole who thinks that he’s the only one trying to get anywhere on the freeway being mean to other drivers and think about the simple balances of fortune I watched this week.

I’ve been asking the prize donors who had winners that are still waiting for yarn if they would mind throwing in some extra stuff and they were totally accomodating. And everyone I emailed about filling in as a swap angel has been wonderful about it. And my good friend, Laurie, was totally happy to give me some of her yarn to send to people whose prizes I was mailing out. These are good people. We all understand disappointment and want to do what we can to make these people feel better. I hope their generosity comes back to them three times over.

In non-karmically-related news:

Two of our snb friends had surgery this week and I’m happy to say that both made it through just fine and are relaxing at home with their spouses taking excellent care of them.

I’ve got a lot of prize packages going out this week and some yarn to spin for another donor project package I’ve got going and washcloths to knit to send to Louisiana and patterns to print out so they can be given out at the exhibit and roving to dye to send out to the prize winners and possibly more yarn to dye and spin for Reenie and Angela’s Charkha project although I’m not sure if my stuff is good enough to stand up with theirs. Whew!

I feel good though, if a bit busy, and an interesting post-menstrual serenity that I’ve noticed happening the last few months, a nice trade-off for the longer and stronger nightmare cramps that are also more recent. The house is still clean and the cats are playing like kittens, especially the 18 year old. I can tell that Kurry feels really good these days you’d never know she was that old. Winter needs some exercise she’s a bit bored I can tell but it’s also the time of year where she gets to lie in the sun on the den floor in the afternoons so she’s very happy about that.

Cody’s ipod that I got for him for Christmas broke but he called Apple and it’s actually still under warranty so they’re replacing it without even charging for shipping.

I’m working on several different versions of the fleur des lis including an illusion knitting version (from my own pattern not the one published January 2006 that I still suspect used my chart) in black and gold (closest Saints colors I could find) Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere.

And working on some toe-up socks in my silk merino frappucino handspun that are going to be totally decadent treats for my feet.

And spinning. Cody has figured that I will need to spin 30 skeins of yarn to pay for the balance on the cruise so I better get to it! LOL

Cody cooked breakfast!

Blueberry pancakes w Homemade blueberry syrup!

No mom donwanna go to bed

Winter was cozy last night