Pixie Purls

Well I finished this yesterday but was too lazy to post about it. Instead of casting on for #2, I cast on #1 for another sock, in the pretty twisted rib from Sensational Knitted Socks or whatever that book is called.

Yes I did manage to get this photograph while carrying an extra 30 pounds on my stomach and NOT falling over. I am proud! lol

Ready to be enabled??

YUMMY! I saw some of this on flickr and went to the Flawful Fibers website and quickly snatched up this one hank of a sea color-way. So. Pretty. Wish I could spin it right now! I'll have to wait for my back to get better though. I almost kicked someone's ass while trying to kitchener stitch that toe shut as it involved sitting in a bad position (sitting up and hunched over). The toe closed up niceley though!

Posted by pixie at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

You know you want more... admit it!

Those teeth could easily eat a sock

Unless the sock eats her first

That face says it all

Now admit it, this photo isn't nearly as interesting as the others

Posted by pixie at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The things I do to entertain myself...

Posted by pixie at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Well this weekend a friend came to visit me which was wonderful, the main accomplishment of the weekend was getting my toes done, besides the fumes in the nail place I very much enjoyed a leg message!

Last night I started a little "swatch" on size 2's and then switched to 1's this morning, much better. It's amazing what a difference needle size can make. Not much progress but I only cast on today and seeing as how I woke up at noon (omg I slept in HECK YES!) I consider this good progress. I want to have a sock to show for it, send me "FO" happy dust and maybe I will get atleast 1 finished sock this week. Oh the yarn is TOFUtsies from SWTC;

50% Superwash Wool
25% SOYSILK brand fiber
22.5% Cotton
2.5% Chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells!)
8 sts = 1"
needles: US 2 (2.75mm)
425m / 100g ball
machine wash and dry

It's very nice yarn, I think it was $16 for the ball from Only Ewe and Cotton Too one of my LYS's.

Posted by pixie at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Saw it on the local news tonight, looks like he got it to work on tmobiles network. Said he opened up the back, saudered (sp?) two wires together, then he could insert any sim card and ran a little program he wrote on it. Word is he is selling the first "hacked" iPhone on ebay. Here is his blog. He looked to be about 16, smart kid.

Posted by pixie at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the name of this cardigan has changed like 3 times from when the pattern came out.

I finished a sleeve up today, hurray for FO's! She's washed and now blocking. Once she dries I'll sew in a few loose ends. I want to knit a matching hat, I just have to figure out what size!

Not terribly excisting, but hey it's an FO!

Posted by pixie at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my fair isle swatch, here is a crappy photo of the finished one, I'm to tired to take a photo of it outside in better lighting but the colors are so drab but well I'm very pleased with the swatch!

I did start the sleeve and on the ribbing so nothing very interesting to show there just yet. I'm using DPNs and I think I need to switch to Magic Loop.

I am done with work, got the note from the doctor monday and yesterday was the best day I have had in a long while. I slept well the night before and because I had no stress and didn't get on the computer hardly, I had very little back pain. Today I've had more because I slept poorly and was on the phone with my mom for a while, which I think aggrevates it due to posture etc. But enough about THAT but there is an update in case you are curious. I've been watching Oprah, Dr. Phil (its like Jerry Springer in so many ways) and Ice Road Warriors. Have you ever watched that show? It's actually really interesting. My husband and I like to watch it together. I think the season Finale is this weekend but they replay the other episodes all the time.

Okay so I have meant to post these photos, I've very slowly worked on my ex-craft room and it's very close to done now. I have a rug coming in the mail but I'm not sure if the color will work, and I still have more things I want to put on the wall, and I would still like some sort of bookshelf, new blinds and some curtains... but I think it's looking much more *finished* now and I'm very happy with it so thought I would share.

The little table is missing the nobs, husband has to put those on.

Handknit booties always look cute as decoration.

We finally got the antique prints from Australia framed. I loooove them!

The chair has the shawl Jen knit for me, I really like it laying there. As long as I can keep the cats claws away from it of course... she might accidently snag it.

I'm very pleased with everything. I hope the rug works, it's so hard to find this particular aqua/teal color that I like. I don't want too much green in the room or rather I would like to pull out the teal more from the antique prints.

Posted by pixie at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Okay here is my swatch, I had to rip half of it and re-do it and re-organize the colors to get the contrast correct. So my color replacment didn't exactly work but we there are pretty much 12 colors with 1 ball each so you can re-organize them any way you want. I just reversed the order for the green/blue in the circles so that the darkest blue was up against that shetland black. I'm not technically done with the swatch but wanted to share :)

Size 2 needles - I havn't measured for Gauge yet.

It's hard to photograph it, I think it needs outside light as it blends better but above is a flash and no-flash photo. Then here is the back of my first REAL fair isle!

I'm so proud! My husband is very amused, he said "Why would you want to knit something that hard?" I said well it's not really that hard but it is intimidating so thats why I like it. It's a challange. I knit Continental style, so I either A) hold both colors in my left hand if its lots of quick switches or B) I drop one color when I am working on a longer strand that is 3+ stitches wide.

I took Friday off of work due to my back pain and spoke to the doc for a little while. They want me to try a maternity belt thingy so we need to go out and get one today. If I lay down in the bed in a certain position I can make the pain go away, but if I sit up like in bed or in a chair, or try to do tasks that require leaning forward or using my arms too much it gets a bit painful. Kinda sucks because overall I feel FINE, it's just all in my back. I'm really not misrable other wise though the back is making me pretty frustrated if I have to do anything, such as deal with work or any stress. Just trying to do a few things around the house last night for when my husband brought friends over was very painful. I was lighting candles and just putting a few things away. Or even trying to fix something to eat hurts.

Work asked me to go out on friday to interview people at stores, after I had told them I had to take friday off. Now I know they would not have made me go, but I couldn't believe I was asked at nearly 38 weeks to go out in 100 degree weather, by myself around Atlanta like that. I only have 5 days left of work! I have a doc apointment Monday so it may wind up I stop working sooner due to the back issue. We'll see what happens on monday.

Posted by pixie at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Okay Two Swans is back in my good graces, it only took 3 days to get here, if even! I was all shocked when I went outside to check the mail and saw a fedex box up against my garage. I knew what it was though! Wow this is a pretty book. I have never gotten Simply Shetland or Jamieson's before. It's all so pretty. I'm about to photo-over-load-you. All I can hope is there isn't need for an errata, this is the bain of any knitter who decides to knit something right after the pattern comes out and before others have yet.

A very nice note apologizing again for taking longer to send it. Totally great customer service.

The book is beutiful.

But the yarn is even prettier :)

I am very pleased with my color selection, considering it was over the internet and a tad bit of a gamble. I think the contrast between the gold and the blue/green is there. We will see when I swatch!

Posted by pixie at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I ordered my Autumn Rose kit from Two Swans on the 6th. I never heard anything, and I called and e-mailed on friday. So FINALLY today I got an e-mail letting me know they/she had been out of town, and she would get my order together ASAP and then later today I got an update e-mail letting me know my order had changed to "shipped" status. No trackng info but hey it was free shipping. SHEW. I was geting anxious. I want to swatch! I'm not in the mood to finish anything, I'm too lazy to do the last sleeve on tulip and too lazy to do the sleeves on the paper chromatic cardi. Silly isn't it? I would feel so good if I finished them both but I am un-motivated.

So today I was talking to my mom on the phone and she was like "What are you doing for your wedding anniversery", "I dunno, working on making a baby I guess". Then suddenly I realized why she asked, my wedding anniversery is in 2 days!! CRAP!! I nearly forgot my own anniversery!! Classic pixie... it's why no one in my family takes offense when on occasion I forget their birthdays. Of course my husband had no idea either. We are two of a kind!

As I never like to blog without photos, here one of the dogs, they often sleep this way and sometimes with their butts up against one another, this is why we got a King size bed. Spoiled. Rotten.

Oh and in baby news as I know I don't really write about it much, I am now officially full term, at 37 weeks. Baby is pressing on a nerve in my back so I have gotten to experience my first true discomfort with this pregnancy with a nice chronic pain in my middle/upper back. Baby is getting big! I think baby's are around 6lbs at this point. The thing I am most excited about???? I scheduled next friday to be my last day at work. In college I never took a summer break, and I have worked from 15 years old on. I am thrilled to just simply not go to work for a while. My old boss made fun of how excited I was about it, but man I am truley and really excited about getting a true break. I have worked there for 6 years this October, I think every company should give their employee's an automatic 1 month sabatical every 5 years. I think it would make a huge difference in performance. People get burnt out. I don't want to be a jaded corporate employee. I am thrilled about the break!

Also did I mention I got Mollie Maid? They have come twice now and it's sooooo cool! They come again this wednesday, I am a happy girl! Oh and my new favorite hobby, to listen to BBC Internaitonal on XM Radio, but I'll talk about that more another day.

Posted by pixie at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

So on friday or saturday I got a call from an old knitting friend, Tammy. I havn't gotten to see Tammy in a while and she was heading over to Only Ewe and Cotton too which is about 30 minutes from my house. So what the heck, I figured I might as well go for it. After all, who wouldn't want to knit on the worlds biggest sock? Or it's something like that, I havn't kept up with the it but the AKG is taking it around town and I think it started in Europe. I think it's going to be in a record book. I'm too lazy to research it at the moment but I contributed a bit and got to put my name in the book.

I had a super cute photo of Tammy knitting on it, but it went poof when I dragged and dropped it into flickr, and it's not in the trash either which really weirds me out. I've never "lost" a photo before. The sock is freakin huge, I think you could fit 10 people in it, I am curious to see it when it gets to the heel, which seems to be a bit of a ways off. There was a great turn out at Only Ewe and Cotton Too (Alpharetta, GA).

I finished up the body on the Chromatic Cardi, and I was in search of DPN's to finish the sleeves with, but I couldn't find any at home, and the yarn store only had 8" ones which are way to long, and then I ran by micheals to pick up a frame order and okay they had like 2 different sizes in DPN's, wtf?! I grabbed some Moda Dea "Dream" so I could get some instant gratifiation and knit a cute hat to match all the pink clothing we have recieved. A girl has to have a matching hat. With this weather though, who NEEDS a hat??

Looks like I'll have to magic loop the sleeves.

Do you spot that cute little box bag in the right hand corner? Yup thats the same pattern that Wendy has, except I don't think she got the cute box bag, which has been attached to me from the day it arrived in the mail. It fits my knitting notions and my small projects. Check out Wendys blog for more info.

Posted by pixie at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

While my husband dorked out with his work buddies playing DnD until nearly 10pm, I sat at home and knit. Work finally has calmed down a bit and I am hoping for a calm weekend as well, but it's possible I may have to work some. We'll see. It's funny how work can effect how much energy I have to knit.

It's that cool Rosetta yarn I talked about before that I got from San Fransisco, the Chromatic Cardigan which apparently you can only get at Art Fibers there. I can't seem to find it any place on the internets.

I ditched the other 3 rows of fairisle as doing that on the purl rows is far too misrable to repeat. Now I just have to knit 3" and the body will be done. It's such a fun yarn to knit with, I've never liked tape like yarn before, not sure why I like this stuff...

Posted by pixie at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I got a box today from my sister. I'm basically the traveling one in my family, my parents and sister very rarely go anyplace unless it has a beach. So when my sister went to New York just a few weeks ago, she picked up some presents for me.

Now that is not real, thank goodness. Could you imagine how much the real ones cost? I love this fake one though! It's so cute, and the perfect chocolate brown that I love. I imagine for real prada owners it's easy to spot a fake. Seeing as how I have never seen a real one it looks pretty good to me!

Also to the right of it you will notice a beautiful deep aqua Pashmina Shawl. I haven't yet found out the story behind each item, I'm supposed to call her and find out! Interesting factoid;

"Pashmina refers to a type of cashmere wool and textiles made from it. The name comes from Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm (= "wool"). This wool comes from a special breed of goat indigenous to high altitudes of the Himalayan mountains. The special goat's fleece has been used for thousands of years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The Himalayan Mountain goat, Capra hircus, sheds its winter coat every spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes."

In other news, as I am not allowing myself to buy yarn I somehow convinced my husband to get me the yarn to make that Fair Isle top *gasp*. If your interested in buying it, most of the kits are very overpriced if you plan to knit a size 37" or smaller. I spent $86 and that included the $24 pattern book and free shipping from
Two Swans. They actually show you how much yarn is required for each size. Yes I did my own color-way. I just decided to go for it and swatch up, I can always swap out 1 color as to swap a color in this pattern only involved 1 ball of yarn! The free shipping was nice! I might be insane, yes indeed. I think you all understand how it is with yarn. Work was better today, I got some help and got a lot done.

Posted by pixie at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Okay as I haven’t knit in a week and figured I needed to come up with some knitting content, so I give you this treasure. I didn't want to share it because secretly i wanted to knit it before you even knew about it. But with my track records in FO's we know that will happen like, never. Unless it's a baby sweater! Hah.

So anyway, work is kicking my butt, and making me miserable and so all I have had energy to do is re-watch all the Harry Potter movies and surf the internet. I found this;

The Autumn Rose Raglan Pullover by Eunny Jang

Click here to order the kit!

My big issue is the colors. I went out onto the internets and found some examples being knit, this one in particular caught my eye. Look how RED that is. It put the word ROSE back into the name of the pattern, but the photo of it on Eunny on her blog, and the photo of the model show a far more muted and earthy tone of red-ish brown. I'm disappointed, I don't like to wear a lot of red anyway. So I contemplated some other color-ways...

The bottom has the original and the top is my variation. I don't think I'm brave enough to make the purchase though, what if my colors suck?? I really want to see it knit in some different colors. It would be easier to change the colors if it wasn't, oh I don't know, 12 freakin different colors! So if you hadn't seen this pattern now you have and I bet your eyes nearly popped out of your head. Raglan Fair Isle with Feminine shaping and modern appeal. ME WANT!

In other news work sent me out Friday to some of our sales stores to interview people to get to the bottom of a problem and on the way home a huge rock hit my windshield and now I have to have my brand new car's windshield replaced. Hope it doesn't freakin leak. It was 5 days old when it happend, and if I hadn't been out for work it wouldn't have happend. Of course I'm very happy and thankful nothing worse happend. Did I mention I'm not that thrilled with work right now? ARGH!!! I had one days notice I had to go out too, wouldn't have changed anything but like at 36 weeks I don't think I should be running around Atlanta in 90 degree weather by myself, NOT FUN!!

Posted by pixie at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)