Exciting announcement

After a year of requests, Philip has finally decided to sell a few of his sock creatures. His latest designs made their debut yesterday at the Lexington Artists' Market in Pheonix Park. At this point, he is only selling premade creatures, but if things go well, he will start taking custom orders. Here is a sample of the latest batch of creatures hanging out at the park.

Pressies

Dear Secret Pal,
You sent this package to me two weeks ago, but since I was out of town I totally missed its arrival. I opened it the other day and I meant to post, but procrastination got the best of me. Anyway, I got your package full of sparkley yarns and yummy smells and I love it. How did you know that I am going through an iced tea phase? Your timing is perfect. Thank you!

Market Bag Pattern

Since our booth at the Artists' market is right next to the Farmers' market, Zabet suggested that we sell some market bags. I already had a few of these on hand from several years ago, but not enough to really sell so I pulled all of the extra cotton and hemp yarns from my stash (excluding my precious manos) and packed them in my bags headed for Norfolk. I made the first few bags using a simple crochet template I came up with eight years ago, but that quickly got boring. Since I am more of a knitter now, I thought I would try to make a knitted version of the bag and I came up with this on my first try. The pattern is really more of a guide than a pattern so feel free to try different yarn weights, needle sizes, and number of stitches.

Materials:
1 4oz ball of worsted weight cotton
1 set US10 double pointed needles
1 set US10 straight needles (optional)

First Strap
CO 90 stitches on dpns and join
Rnd 1: K all
Rnd 2: P all
Rnd 3: BO first 60 stitches, k30

Body
If you want to use straight needles for the body, now is the time to switch.
Rows 1-2: K
Row 3: K4, *wrap twice, k1* rep to last 4, k4
Row 4: k5, *drop wraps, wrap twice, k1* rep to last 4, k4
Repeat row 4 until sides measures 9"
next two rows: k

Second Strap
If you are using straight needles, now is the time to switch back to dpns.
Rnd 1: k30, CO 60, join
Rnd 2: k
Rnd 3: p
Rnd 4: BO all stitches and sew in ends.

Shoppers in the US consume more than 100 billion plastic and 10 billion paper bags annually, that's over 300 bags per person. Market bags and other reusable bags are a great way to cut down on wasteful plastic bags, making the world a cleaner place. Because of this I am offering this pattern free of any type of copyright. Please feel free to copy, distribute, and repost this pattern if you like it. Also, feel free to make and sell these bags as your own.

If you find any mistakes in this pattern, please email me and I will post corrections.

Air guitar

Last night I attended the second preliminary round of the 96X air guitar championship. I went to the first preliminary last week because one of my co-workers, stage name CroBar, was competing. CroBar has competed in a few larger air guitar competitions, but he has never competed locally so this was his chance to show off his mad air guitar skills for his friends. Last week he made it into the top three of the evening which means he will be competing in the finals on June 28. They also asked him to perform again this week and since I had so much fun last time I decided to go along. The show was great, even better than the previous week since people had practiced their routine this time. CroBar was also better than last week.

The most surprising part of the evening was when, spur of the moment, one of the girls in our group decided to go up and perform. She did an amazing job. I think CroBar might have some competition in the finals. I can't wait to hear how it comes out.

Tiki tiki ya ya ya

Tonight after dinner, I ran by the Dollar Tree with a friend from work. We are both visiting staff so we needed to buy storage containers for a potluck in our department tomorrow. Right inside the entrance way of the store there were two entire shelves of tiki figurines. There were a total of eight styles and of those I purchased 7 for $1 each. The figurines stand about 6" tall and are made of resin that is painted to look like wood. I am completely in love with these guys and I think that they are by far my all-time best dollar store score. This brings the Norfolk tiki total to 10 pieces in less than a week; that's a record.

Monsters and thrifting

Yesterday I was in a bit of a thrifty mood so after spending a few hours working on my submission for the new snb book, I set out for the neighborhood thrift stores. There are only two stores within walking distance and after a small score at the first one I decided to skip the second on and hit some antique stores on the walk home. The first couple of stores didn't have anything special, but the third store was a treasure chest of good stuff. It was technically an antique mall since there several vendors in one place, my favorite kind of antique shopping. I ended up leaving with a tiki mug, Hawaii salt and pepper shakers, a vintage postcard for my secret pal, and some vintage embroidery patterns for kitchen towels. I found some more great stuff, but I have to wait for Philip to get here since I need his opinion.

An overview of my finds (minus the postcards and the embroidery patterns. In the back is a powder room sign found at the first thrift store. I am going to revamp it a bit and use it as the rest room marker in the store. The book is a 60's Ford cookbook with recipes from famous restaurants across the country. Lots of fabulous illustrations.

A close-up of my tiki finds. I actually found several tiki mugs, but most were new being passed off as vintage (a very common practice at antique markets.) I don't have a problem with new tiki mugs, but I won't pay vintage prices for them so they will have to live at the antique mall for a little while longer.

After my thrifty outing I went over to Angie's house with Lindsey and Colleen to watch movies and be crafty. They were all working on sock creatures for their site, I heart sock monsters, while I worked on bags for the Farmers' Market. It was a really fun and full Saturday, I hope today is just as much fun.

My yarntainer

I want to do more reviews on this blog since I rely on the reviews of other when deciding what to buy. My first secret pal, Ariane, sent me a Yarntainer as part of one of my packages of goodies. I have to admit, when it first arrived, I thought it was one of those frivolous knitting tools that no one really needs and that I probably wouldn’t even use it. It was a couple of months before I even tried the thing out.

I was going on a trip to LA and I was working on one of the staff shrugs from Interweave. I was planning on wearing this to my friend’s wedding the next month so I really wanted to keep it free of dog hair and other debris. I broke out the Yarntainer, put my yarn inside and started my project. For the duration of the project I used my Yarntainer as a knitting bag, storing my yarn, needles, scissors, pattern, and stitch marker inside. When I finished knitting for the day, I would also store my project inside. As I knitted, I noticed that my yarn was staying in a ball instead slowly unraveling into a mess. I also noticed how easy the Yarntainer traveled; I could throw it into my backpack or luggage and not have to worry about my needles breaking or falling out. By the end of the project I was in love with this little plastic container. I now use my Yarntainer mostly for socks I love that it keeps everything together and tangle-free. I would highly recommend a Yarntainer to any knitter who travels with their projects, across town or across the country. I have the medium version which has enough space for most projects I do, but eventually I am going to invest in the smaller version for socks since I like to travel light.

Jaywalking

As promised, here is a picture of my Jaywalker so far. I wanted to post it last night, but I got sucked into Star Wars Episode III. By the time the movie was over I was to tired to deal with blogging.

I love the way this pattern knits up with the nice striping effects. My yarn is variegated with about 15 inch color sections and they seem to work perfectly with this pattern. My favorite thing about the pattern so far is that as you rotate the sock, the color sections change; it is a really neat effect.

When I am in Norfolk, I usually stop by Fair Grounds on my way to work to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea before I head off to work. This morning I really wasn't in the mood for coffee so I used my extra 30 minutes to walk the long way to work. I walked through some back neighborhoods and then followed the Elizabeth River bike path up to Colley. There were tons of really cool flowers in bloom, including one that looked just like my sock.

Since the flower was so close to the colors I used in the sock, it seemed like a good excuse to rip off the Yarn Harlot and photograph my sock with the flower.

Traveling and giant food

I spent the majority of the day today flying to Virginia so I can work in the office for the next two weeks. Before boarding the plane, we stopped off at LaBamba in Louisville where they promise “burritos the size of your head.” While they were not quite the size of our heads, they were definitely large enough to make the claim. I ordered the bean and avacado burrito and I am pretty sure that I won't need to eat for at least a few days.

The flying went pretty smoothly. It has been a few years since I flew Southwest airlines and I must say I noticed a great improvement. They still don’t assign seats which I hate, but the flight attendants are so friendly. Also, all of the snacks they gave me were vegan including the little crackers shaped like airplanes that made me smile every time I ate one. I brought along a pair of socks to work on while on the plane. I started a pair of Jaywalkers (yes, I am the last knitter in the world to try out this pattern) in some candy corn yarn. I had a few problems in the beginning because I always make socks using four needles, even when the pattern calls for five. The Jaywalkers need to be worked on five. After about two inches of struggling with the stitches I added the extra needle and that made all the difference in the world.

On my way out of the house, I grabbed the mail which contained a postcard from my secret pal! I always forget that in addition to getting to spoil someone for three months that I get fun stuff too! In my frantic packing rush this morning, I forgot to bring along the first package for my secret pal. There were a couple of items that I wanted to get on my trip before mailing it, including a few things I picked up today. I guess that I will just need to mail it when I return. I did get her a couple post cards so that she will at least be getting something within the next two weeks. When I return she will be getting a rockin’ package, I can’t wait!!!