Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Baby, It's COLD Outside!!

Actually, it's friggin' freezing! We've been in the midst of a nasty, blustery cold spell for a few days now and it looks like it's here to stay at least through the weekend. bbbrrrr! Nothing like below zero wind chills to inspire one to cast on some handspun wool mittens for her little hands...
Speaking of cold... I hear that its quite chilly in Iraq this time of year too. Hence Heather's "Call To Arms." Which means I have a FO... a nice warm, made with lots love, helmet liner. Heather's little brother Jay arrived home last night and will be back off to Iraq far too soon... but the good news is he will be able to deliver helmet liners to his whole unit! Go look at Heather's blog for some wonderful, happy tear jerking photos!!!! Here's the liner...

helmetliner


Here's another shot, laying atop my new Vera Bradley tote bag (for which I used a gift card given to me by the wonderful leasing agents from work as a complete surprise at Christmas... they happened to hear that I was eyeing a new Vera...)!


helmetliner2


My Sugar On Snow is almost a FO too! I just have the leaf icord left to go, which as you can see I started ... got really bored ... and put down. Must finish this week!


sugaronsnow


I mentioned its been cold, right??!! Cold inspires me to knit... especially warm, wooly projects! Here's the capelet I'm working up in Wisdom Poems (the pattern called for Noro, but I think I made a great substitution!)...

capelet

Aren't those colors going to look absolutely fabulous with a pair of jeans and an off white t-shirt? I hope to finish it by next week... and am crossing my fingers that it comes out the right size. I had to fudge the pattern a bit and frogged it at least 4 times before settling on the needle size and amount of stitches I have now. I hope the yarn gods are looking after me on this one...

I've also been working on a little Valentine's project ... which I hope to have out in the mail by the beginning of week for gifts. Can you guess what I'm doing?


valentinewashcloth


I purchased the beautiful hand dyed chenille yarn at A Knitter's Garden during Joanne's anniversary sale ... can you believe it was dyed with bugs? Speaking of Joanne's sale, here's a pic of the awesome pins she made and gave out as special thank yous...


JoannePin

Cool or what? Joanne is so talented and she always thinks of the best things for us knitters! I got some absolutely gorgeous Peace Fleece yarn at her shop last week to make myself a sweater, only I forgot to photo it. Heather helped me pick it out (oh no.... she's not an enabler, now is she?!?!? ha!).

Speaking of recent "acquisitions," I've gotten a few lovely packages in the mail lately (shhh... no one tell Matt I updated the blog... he never reads it anyway!)....

~ Some Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk from Webs closeout for a sweater for myself. Only thing is I thought it was a red color and it turned out to be a burnt/rusty orange color. I still like it, though will probably use it for a different project.

~ These books from Amazon... and I've already pre-ordered the new Yarn Harlot book!

books


~Just this morning I got a nice box from Knit Picks with my Gloss yarn in Burgundy (yea, I'm in to reds lately) to make Thermal from the current Knitty... love the way it looks, but do you see that this thing is knit on size 2.5 needles? Yes, US Size 2.5 needles! Wish me well... and those yarn gods had better be on my side for this one! I also got the size 2.5 circulars from them since I certainly didn't have those in my stash, as well as some more Elegance, possibly for a second Sugar on Snow (though they didn't have the Fawn color anymore, bah!)

Before the blustery winds came and made everyone want to stay in (times like these I wish we had a fireplace to cozy up in front of with some knitting and spiced cider!), I ventured over to the new yarn shop in Windham, The Yarn and Fiber Company, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. I was quite impressed with the store - friendly staff who greeted you almost immediately but were not pushing or overbearing, a nice big store with plenty of room to walk around and browse, nice prices and a wonderful selection of higher-end yarns. I picked up some gorgeous Louisa Harding angora for a pair of gauntlets. I met the owner Cyndi, who was an absolute doll, and I signed up for the "Socks to Dye For" workshop with Cheryl Potter from Cherry Tree Hill in April (my main reason for stopping by - to pay for my spot, but of course I couldn't stop in and not get something to bring home, right? Besides the angora I also grabbed a skein of CTH sock yarn too... shhh, remember, I said don't tell Matt... he hasn't really noticed the stash is still growing!). This will more than likely be my first dying experience ... unless I get adventurous before then ... although I have another venture to try at home before then. I'm going to give a shot at hand crafting some stitch markers and point protectors, hopefully soon to be up in my Etsy shop!

As for that growing stash... it seems many of my fellow knitters are trying to go on fiber diets and adopt the theory of working from your stash for 2007. Me too! :-) ha ha ha ha ... Did I mention I picked up a beautiful skein of Sereknity Triple Scoop last week too? It was on order though, so it doesn't really count... right?

Well, back to the blustery New England winter weather (I guess the unseasonably warm temps couldn't last forever...). I'll leave you with some adorable photos of the house guest we had on Saturday...

In case you didn't already know, I'm all about animal rights and rescues ... and I work with a dog rescue from TN... Well, meet Simon! Simon was adopted by Ginger from Maine ... new Mommy Ginger had to work on Saturday and was unable to meet the transport to pick Simon up in the morning ... which brought temporary foster-Mommy Nichole in to the picture ... which brought the most adorable, little love bug in to our home for a few hours!

Simon

Can you believe this handsome little man (he's only 6 pounds! 6! our dogs range from 66 to 135 pounds!) was almost put down at a kill shelter in TN? Our rescue went and saved him the day before his time was to be up. Makes me insane... especially given that this little boy came in to our home for a few short hours and was giving kisses, cuddling, playing and all around just enjoying life! Matt is happy that it was just a temporary foster... had we been actual foster parents for longer than a day, I'm thinking we would have failed once again - as we did with Teutul 3 years ago the same weekend - and become a 4-doggy household!

Lola was infatuated... and in love... I swear if we get a puppy or small dog, she will mother it! I was waiting for her to decide to pick up little Simon and start carrying him around the house!

LolaSimon


Simon was infatuated by Zeus, our biggest dog...

SimonZeus


Perhaps that might've been due to the fact that Zeus came to check him out but wasn't chasing him around the house and shadowing his every move, as was Teutul and Lola...

TutSimonLola

I was just happy to share some love... and check out Teutul's expression below... I swear he was saying to Matt "Hey Daddy, can we keep him?? Huh? Huh? Daddy can we keep him??? Can we, can we??? Huh Daddy???"

TutSimonNic

5 comments:

Gina House said...

Wow! Wonderful pics! Your liner came out great and I love the Sugar on Snow...the Poems yarn is awesome, isn't it??? You're really cranking out those projects! Way to go!

yarnophiliac said...

OMG -- that puppy is adorable! will he get very big? As for the FO -- THANK YOU! The helmet liner looks awesome. I can't wait to show them all to Jay (and heck, can't wait to see him either! sheesh.) If you really don't like that Debbie Bliss I'd be happy to check it out...you know...just to help a friend...hehehe

Kare said...

Hi Nichole. I'm not sure how I came across your blog but I'm glad I did. Knitting, yarn and dogs! My favorite! Hope you don't mind me stopping by.
Your work is beautiful.

Lora said...

OMG your dog SO wants to keep the little guy!!!!! How precious! My husband is a sucker for cute pups too!!

NH Knitting Mama said...

I have actually been a lurker of your blog for a while now... but I had to comment on your WONDERFUL Vera bag! I have one in that same fabric that I love. OOH LA LA!

Looking forward to meeting you at B&N some Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by my blog a couple days ago!

Amanda
http://nhknittingmama.blogspot.com/

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