This Little Piggy went to Market

The First Market Bank that is.... This is my Fall Fiber Festival Piggy Bank. Isn't he cute? I got him back in the summer so that I could save up odd change for the very first ever...for me !!! Fall Fiber Festival. As many of you know that is coming up Saturday and I am soooo excited. Just like a kid at Christmas I am!! I am just a few rows, a 3 needle bind off and 3 buttons short of finishing the Blossom vest! It will be worn when I depart this house at 7 am on Saturday no matter how long it takes. It isn't anything spectacular in the knitting category, a very simple pattern butin the very soft and colorful Noro Blossom yarn. It works for me.

Now...Back to my pig. He is going to Market tomorrow and I thought I would have a little contest. I have never had one and my stash isn't huge ( yet) but I will give a skein of Recycled Silk Sari Yarn OR a ball of sock yarn ( enough for a pair) to the person that comes closest to guessing how much Fall Fiber Festival $$$$ is in the pig! Contestants get your guesses in by 8am on Sunday October 2nd! In the event of a tie, I will draw a name for the winner. I will not tell anyone on Saturday at the FFF and I plan to take some extra $$...you didn't think I would rely solely on the pig did you?!?! So don't guess based on what I buy or don't buy! I just wanted it to last long enough to give people a chance. DS12 has a guess in but his won't count for this. NOT that he wants yarn hehe . I will take potential prize pictures in the light of day and post soon!



Here is a side view. Does that help??
Happy guessing ! Can't wait for Saturday!!!

It's Blossom TIme

....here in ole Virginny.....well maybe not in Virginia but here at Lakeknitter's house. I woke up yesterday morining and realized that I had less than a week to finish the Blossom vest that I want to wear to the FALL FIBER FESTIVAL!! Those of you that know me know what a slow poke knitter I am. I read blogs, I surf the net for knitting related "stuff", sometimes I actually post to my own blog and I knit.My projects move slowly since I also have to work 40 or so hours a week not counting the "mommygirl" job mixed in with all of that. Well I kind of panicked yesterday morining. I bought the lovely colorful Noro Blossom from Orchardside last Saturday at NOSO in Roanoke. WHY I thought I could do this in less than two weeks I don't know. I guess I just got Knitting Crazy in the company of so many awesome knitters.Check out pictures of NOSO at IndigoMuse 's Blog.She has some great sky pictures and three pictures from NOSO.

Well I put the petal to the metal and I have been a knittin fool this weekend and I have finished both sides and half the back!! I can see the end is in sight and I am going to make my lovely patient boys Breakfast for Dinner . They are so excited. Pictures to come later in the week.

I hate that I am not at the lake for my traditional lake knitting picture. Oh well....winter is coming must get used to that!

But in the meantime here is another lake picture. Luckily I have lots of them.

One More Try

I have been around the blog block and I see that there are lots of bloggers with more than one picture for Sandy's weather/sky contest. ( Special thanks to Tanya for helping me to link!! Whoo Hoo!!)This is quite fun actually! I have been happily perusing my many many digital pictures. I love pictures! Thought I would try to get another entry in before the deadline...hehe.

This is a "lake moon" sky at night It is not my favorite.My favorite involves some positioning before I can post it and I am just too tired for that right now. Maybe I will squeeze one more in tomorrow :)

Tonight was ds8 PTO meeting and I knit through the whole meeting. The little boy sitting next to me was fascinated by what I was doing. I could tell by the way he was watching me and then he couldn't help himself and he had to ask me what I was doing. He also liked my red Katcha katcha.Now how was that for a bit of KNITTING content in my KNITTING blog!

Night rather "Mornin' All Y'all"

TEST!

I have hopes of getting this right! Tanya has been kind enough to supply me with the information so let me see......if it will work for ME.....internet dummy that I can be!!

I don't want to get tooo excited tooo soon but it is LOOKING good. I spent almost 2 hours trying this using blogger directions from their help section one night. I am thinking that maybe Tanya needs to write their instructions...hers were so concise and CLEAR!!

Here goes publishing...fingers and toes are crossed.....

A Sucker for a CONTEST

Yep....that's me and I found a good one. I don't know her real well yet.....tho I like what I see of her blog so far. Her name is Sandy and she is a fan of "weather/sky pictures" it seems. Here is her link http://www.sandysknitting.com/ Sure wish I knew how to link this just to her name...gotta. learn. THAT thar trick!

Anyhow here is my entry. It is the sky reflected in the lake. The day I took those pictures was so special. I had never seen it quite like that EVER. and I haven't seen it again. It was a calm quiet day with no one around. When I noticed how the sky and literally EVERYTHING was shining reflected in the water. I walked back up the very steep steep hill to get my camera. I was glad that I went immediately because half an hour later it had all changed. Musta been the angle of the sun, the type of clouds and the stillness of the water. I don't know but it was awesome. That is why I love love to knit by the lake.
There are more pictures of that day in previous posts if you are interested. Just in case.

Best time in a long time !

Some of them thought I had finally lost it...that would be some of my coworkers, my 3 sons for sure, and many of the other folks with whom I just had to share the news of my good fortune. What good fortune you might ask? No...I didn't win the Mega Lotto or Lotto South but I felt like I did! You see.....

Last Wednesday night I was reading the blogs and Tanya at IndigoMuse( http://indigomuse.blogspot.com/) had a link to NOSO Knit.http://www.thinkingknitter.com/NoSo2005.htm Being the curious sort I had just HAD to check out that link and when I did I knew that I was missing out on some good fun, really good fun!! KNITTING fun. The registration date was past, heck it filled up BEFORE the registration date. Well nothing ventured, nothing gained I emailed the person listed as the proper one for emailing such requests you know to see if there was a WAITING list! What else could a knitter do? I was going to be in the Roanoke area this weekend and I could make it work if they could. Well Rae ( the Thinking Knitter) emailed right away...several times in fact to update me on the waiting list. By Midnight..early Thursday morning I had a spot! I was so excited. My ds17 asked me who I knew that was going? Mmmm no one . But that was ok I would make new friends...KNITTING FRIENDS and there is no such thing as a stranger in the knitting community. I believed that going in and I am sure of it coming out!

Here is a run down on the 2005 Roanoke NOSO Knit
* GREAT GREAT People just as friendly as I knew they would be :)
* Goodie Bags with free patterns, yarn for next year's charity knitting, Lawre's stitich
markers,and lots of good resources
* Shopping! Shopping! The vendors were Yarn Theory in Bedford, Orchardside Yarn from Raphine, and the Fuschia Fleece. There were some demonstrations of projects and spinning. I have been wanting to get to Orchardside and this was the next best thing. I got some yarn and a free pattern so I cast on for a new project then and there.
* Door Prizes. I think every attendee ended up with a door prize. I got the book "Mittens" donated by Margaret of "Maggie's Rags" Patterns. I also got to meet her and the lovely ladies from http://www.liisu.homestead.com/. Also at my table were two delightful knitters from Hot Springs Va.
* The Charity Knitting.....filled up a couple of tables along a wall and there were 28 scarves for the "scarves of hope" program. There was much yarn and other supplies collected to be used for the prisoners Charity Knitting. I learned that most of their knitting is done for children in Appalachia. How wonderful is all of that!

I got to meet Tanya of IndigoMuse Knits ( blog link above) I have been reading her blog for some time and really enjoy it. I had met Jane online as she is a Richmond Knitter/blogger and I had thought she might be there with her sister,Lawre. Jane's plans had to change at the last minute ( I might have even gotten her spot! Thanks Jane!) but I was fortunate enough to meet Lawre. Bless her heart she hunted me down! She is lovely and I already had some of her beaded stitch markers. If you haven't seen them go here:
http://lawreslaine.blogs.com/photos/markers/index.html and for her blog:
http://www.lawreslaine.blogs.com/. I got to go out into the parking lot and shop at "The Black Market Yarn Shop". I was looking at her fabrics and her needle rolls and her buttons. Really nice. I told her that I thought she should have a trunk sale at "FFF"

Such a super great time and I already can't wait for next year...Wonder if Rae will let me sign up now?!?! The only bad thing about the day was that even though I remembered my camera I had left the memory card in my laptop..darn and double darn. So no pictures .

Let me leave you with a picture of a favorite spot of mine. Mmmmm wonder where that could be?!?!

Have You Seen?

The awesome total raised so far by "Give A Little"? Well...it is over $82,000!!!

I wanted to post a picture of my gift for the Prizes that Margene and Susan are giving away to the people that donate.

As you can (hopefully) see it is 2 balls of Sock It To Me self patterning sock yarn and a set of Comfort Zone DPN's in size 3. I hope that the winner will enjoy using them. The color is pretty accurate on my monitor...it is blues and greys with some white mixed in.

My next post will be about the "Sock that Almost Wasn't"

I"m Getting A Little Behind

In keeping up with my posts that is ...there is no dieting going on here ...yarn or otherwise.Let's see.....Oh I know I have been very negligent in reporting on the lovely outing the Knit Nite Gals had Saturday before last. We ( meaning Becky , our intrepid and very brave yarn crawl driver extrodinaire, Beth P. Sandy and I ) headed on off to the lovely town of Ivor to meet up with Pam. It was a day threatening to rain a bit but we didn't let this slow us down in our quest for yarn.....at this point we were headed to the Farmer's Market in Smithfield where we had it on very good authority ( our intrepid Becky) that the yarn spinner, hand dyeing "Purled Llama" would indeed be there on that day! Becky's email to her that we were planning a trip helped alot!! We "oohed and awwed" and left with yarn. Here is what I bought to make a great shawl ( had to get that pattern as well)














Isn't it gorgeous?! and so silky feeling. I bought some bamboo circulars as I thought it might prove too slippery for my Addis.

We went to a small but lovely knit and gourmet food shop where we decided to venture a bit farther afield to the city of Chesapeake to visit "Spooling Around" a Quilter's Dream and great Yarn Shop!!


Now of course more FOOD Is involved so here is the group enjoying a lunch at Pargos before heading on for more yarn and fibery fun.



The food was delicious especially the SHRIMP BISQUE. Divine!!








I forgot to take anymore pictures that day...blame it on the food or just having so much darn fun that I FORGOT!!!

I leave you with a Lakepicture. I call this one "Boats and Tiki" Tune in tomorrow or over the weekend for a "Sock Story" and some more stash/project enhancement.


KNIT ON

Just Passing Through

I have been on vacation this past week and I did get a somewhat late start in going to my beloved lake. Some things just can't be helped. I decided that I would take my time on Wednesday and visit Mom and Dad. Now there are several ways to get to the lake and to Mom and Dad's so I decided to take the route that I knew would take me right past the turn off to get to Holly Spring Homespun. ( Good thinking huh?) I had never been but I have heard good things about the shop. Several girls from Knit Nite took a dyeing class there in June.

Now let me tell you I was NOT disappointed. The shop is quaint and Kathy could not have been nicer. I got there about 15 minutes before closing and she very kindly did not rush me and let me look and shop to my heart's content. Let me just say that my heart could have bought a whole lot more than my pocketbook would let me. She has some nice yarns, patterns and notions that I have not seen elsewhere. I can't say enough about how helpful and friendly Kathy was and especially at the end of the day. It is well worth the trip out to Powhatan if you are in the Richmond Va area to see all that she has to offer. Would you like to see what I made off with?






This is some of Kathy's hand dyed superwash merino in a colorway called "Mixed Berry" I have found a sock pattern and some "Blueberry Waffle Socks" are in my future. I got a pattern I couldn't resist for a top down sweater that I may be able to adapt to make my HP Weasley sweater. I know I KNOW... I am a kid at heart just can't help it sometimes.







I was very excited to find that Kathy had the lovely beaded stitch markers made by Lawre's Laine. I have been looking at these online because I needed some larger ones. Liz had made me some beautiful ones but I needed some more for my larger needles. I had even ventured into Michaels to see if I could make some myself. HA! It was just way too much to even think about. I think these are beautiful and appear to be well made. If you are interested in seeing more here is a link to her site where she sells them online. http://www.lawreslaine.blogs.com/

Or you could go to Holly Spring Homespun. I left some there I promise! Here is a link to her online store as well. http://www.hollyspringhomespun.com/index.php
BTW if you are interested in knitting socks she has a great free simple pattern and a turorial on her website. It is the first pair that I EVER finished.

Well it is another sunny and NOT humid day here in Paradise so I must go. Hope that you are having a great holiday weekend.

"Give A Little"

Give A LOT, Give what you can!

Knit Bloggers make me proud. I am just a fledgling blogger but I am proud to be even just a tiny part of such a fine group. Margene and Susan came up with a plan to help our friends devastated by Katrina ( I knew someone would do this and I was watching for it)Just how new I am to blogging is evidenced by the hour I just spent trying to make links with just their names. Sorry but I couldn't make it work. Not tonight. If you go to either one of their blogs they can explain it better than I can. I will be giving and donating a small prize. I hope that you will do whatever you can and help spread the word.

http://ma2ut.blogspot.com/


http://zeneedle.typepad.com/

Thanks