I walked to the end of the driveway a few minutes ago to get the mail. Best thing I've done all week. MY YARN IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Ok, now that the yelling is out of the way, let me explain...

I have a favorite sweater. I bought it about 15 years ago, oatmeal in color, basic construction, fairly lightweight as sweaters go. Essentially, it is the perfect garment.
Fastward to 2008, where I have been noticing that said sweater weighs a little less than it used to...it is starting to wear. No holes yet (Thank God!) but, I'm afraid, they may be inevitable in the coming months. Now, I was concerned about this, so I thought - I knit - why not make a new one? Use the same construction, maybe a dk weight yarn, and just knit up a new one. I thought, eh, it will be all right, hours of stockinette in an oatmeal colourway...I'll survive the boringness of it all. So I began passively looking for said yarn. Something lightweight, yet warm and oatmeal, definitely oatmeal. I didn't find anything that screamed perfect sweater to me.
Then, one day, a month or two ago, I was reading a blog post by fellow blogger , Red Sox Fan and indie dyer Amanda Dahl (of NH Knitting Mama fame). She was having a bit of a yarn sale on her blog and I was glancing through the colors going...ooohhh I wish that one hadn't sold, oh I like that one, ooohhh that's pretty...when I happened to see a skein labelled - Cordial -. It had sold already, but I was smitten. It was GORGEOUS! AND - it screamed make me into a sweater! I commented on her blog and the rest is history. She was very willing to make up a sweaters worth in dk weight Blue Face Leicester for me (omg soft!) and voila! I have just opened a package of yarn that promises to be a beautiful garment. It's not oatmeal. It's better! (Best of all it won't be boring to knit all that stockinette, given the gorgeousness of the colourway!)

Of course, you need pictures!

Here's the original:

Here's the original, plus the package:

Sneak Peek!:

YARN!:

This woman is very talented! Run, don't walk to her etsy shop...NH Knitting Mama

love. hats. family. and yarn. lots of yarn.

Moved.
Finally.
Currently Unpacking.
Ugh.

On the upside, I have the best significant other in the entire world. Long story short, he is in Australia, I am in the US. It's difficult to be so far away. Very difficult.

On the upside, He was able to come here last September for three weeks and I was able to go there for the month of February. There are also plans in the works for more international/intercontinental travelling in the coming months, and possibly more (fingers are firmly crossed...except when knitting...then it's needles crossed ;) ).

The trip to Aus was hands down the most amazing thing I have ever experienced in my life. When I arrived home I gave my dad the "Aussie" cowboy hat that D had purchased for him (he got one for himself as well and oh my...) as a souvenir. He Loved it. Apparently, so did both of my grandfathers. I mentioned it to D and he went out and got two more and just recently shipped them to me, so that all four of them could have matching hats. They were tickled pink....

errrr....

I mean,

ruggedly enthused???

While we were in the middle of the move this past week, we made a point to get a pic of the three of them (my dad, and both grandfathers) to send to D. I thought I would share them here as well... aren't they dashing?

Now, all I have to do is convince D to let me post a pic of him with His hat on...

Oh, and in knitting related things...here is my newest adventure...it will probably be a pillow soon... "Ummm, Jenn, there isn't a pillow in that picture", you say, with one eyebrow raised inquisitively...? Stay tuned. :)

wonderful = love. hats. family. and yarn. lots of yarn.

Movers and Shakers. Ok hopefully just movers...I have a lot of breakables.

Moving Day.

Yep, that's right. I'm moving! At the moment I am sitting in the middle of my bedroom with my laptop on the floor and just a bed and a nightstand for furniture. Everything else is gone. In the next few minutes I'm headed to the new house to beginning the crazy unpacking process. I am sincerely hoping that it all fits! Tonight is the last night in the old house and tomorrow the bed and nightstand join the rest of the stuff in the new house. For the past (and the next) several days my life will be in utter chaos as I try to rearrange everything to fit. Unfortunately, internet will not be hooked up until Tuesday (June 3), so I won't have access to anything on the interwebs for a few days. I hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll see you next week!

wonderful = settling in.

so...what do you think???

Here they are...pictures of the purse I made. So far so good.

This first one is the purse on the couch (Obviously :) )

This one is a picture of the straps...

This one is up close. ...

and.....

This one is a lame attempt at using my hand as relative size :)

Let me know what you think....should I sell them on etsy???

I just made a purse out of almost completely up-cycled materials. Trash to treasure. I love that.

There are a few things I enjoy doing so much that they easily land in the top ten in my never-ending list of hobbies. One is bargain shopping. To me it is a sport. I'm not talking just any bargain shopping here. No. Anything less than 75% off doesn't even get a glance. I have it down to a science, and while I don't do it all the time, I really enjoy doing it when given the opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I will certainly buy something if it is 25% off, and I've been known to pay full price on occasion, but for me the thrill of finding something perfectly usable for 95% off just blows my mind. Also, I have worked at retail stores where the product which has been marked down that far has to be destroyed and throw away if it doesn't sell. It feels good to rescue something from the landfill.

Now, I have honed down the process and given a few rules to myself over the years:

1. The item in question has to be something I will use or can give to a friend. If I won't use it, it's a waste anyway.

2. The quantity of the item(s) purchased can't create a SELE (pronounced seal). Seals are great animals, but they don't belong in the house. And, if you haven't already guessed, this seal (SELE) is an acronym for Stash Exceeds Life Expectancy. I have noticed this phenomena creeping away from my yarn stash and into other stashes around my house, and it is incredibly important that bargain shopping does not create more!

3. The price of the items purchased must be as low as possible, especially if I'm on a bargain shopping only expedition. We're talking pennies here...lower than a dollar is good, lower than fifty cents even better.

There are more, but I have a feeling this is going to be a lengthy post so I will end here for the sake of brevity. Using the above rules, I recently purchased several satin shirts in a women's XXL at JC Penney's.

Now, another hobby that rates in the top ten is obviously fiber arts. I love anything that involves yarn. Knitting, Crochet and most recently weaving, tablet-weaving specifically are among my loves. With tablet-weaving come some pretty spectacular lengths of very strong material that are perfect for purse straps. I made two in the past few days (See where I'm going with this).

Ok, satin shirts, handwoven purse straps....what else huh?

Well, you can probably gather from my love of bargains and crafting that I love to shop at Goodwill...really, it is a gold mine!

Yep, you got it...several 100% wool sweaters. Yes, they got a good ride in the washing machine. With soap. and agitation. and wool. comes....gorgeous felted fabric that's perfect for a purse! So, I dusted off the sewing machine (it has been too long!) and started in. Ta-dah!

The only problem is, every time I get into a craft project like this, especially one that blends a lot of my interests together, I want to keep doing it and I don't want to go to work the next day! What do you think? Etsy them? Or no? Let me know. :)

warp. weft. weave.

Well, apparently it has been a month since I sat down to write. A whole month. This is getting a bit ridiculous. I have found that part of the reason I'm not writing more often is I have been telling myself that a photo in every post is necessary prior to posting. From now on, I will write the post and then add a pic later if the mood strikes me...that means more content and less procrastinating (I hope :) ).

My fiber project du jour is....tablet weaving. I have always wanted to make and sell purses, but haven't been able to create a design I really like. In other words, would carry myself. It is really important to me to looooove what I'm creating, and I feel that's a great way to show it. I had experimented a bit with tablet weaving in high school, but had long since abandoned it for other pursuits. I had recently been thinking about how I could create the straps for my bags and voila! What better strap could there be than one woven out of 36 strands or more of yarn! Talk about strength! My father put together a freestanding loom last night for me to create the tension...tying the warp threads around my waist was killing my back. At the moment I have quite a pile of warp threads ready to be threaded onto cards, and soon I will be weaving! Can't wait to show you the results!

Hope everyone is doing well - more to come...
wonderful = warp. weft. weave. - jj

waterfalls. cameras. socks

I've decided my bf doesn't like knitting. It is a little depressing. Ok, it's a lot depressing.

I was hoping it would be a happily ever after, he will love to watch me knit, hear about my knitting, want to learn how to knit, knit his own items, lovingly wear the gorgeous handmade socks I made him, and totally understand why our house is insulated with yarn. Um, no. He doesn't really watch me knit, in fact doesn't seem to notice that I am managing to wrestle a porcupine and produce fabric from it. He tunes out the knitting talk, only occasionally noticing that I have somehow managed to change the subject from world politics to merino, or cricket to alpaca. He refuses to learn how to knit, saying (and I quote) "I already know how to knit, I just haven't done it before". I am afraid that he will not be knitting his own items anytime soon and absolutely refuses to wear handmade socks on the grounds that he wouldn't want to hurt them and would prob want to frame them instead (that was a stab to the heart I have to say!). To really clinch the deal, he says, "Well it is 36-40 degrees C outside most of them time where we will live so we don't need insulation!" Alas, my poor heart! My bf doesn't appreciate wool!

Now, there is a happy ending to all of this, and I still feel that I could easily marry and be very happy with this man despite his apparent dislike of all things fiber. The main reason for this is that he is a Photographer. With a capital P. He is intensely interested in all things camera, just as I am interested in all things fiber. We have - ta-dah - found common ground here. During our recent trip, while hiking, we discovered quite quickly in fact, that while he was out running off the track to take amazing photos of all things nature (he really is quite good) I could take my low resolution snapshots, and then quite contentedly, hang out working a few rounds on a sock. Brilliant! I had quite a few comments from fellow hikers that ran the lines of "is the rainforest so boring that you have to bring your knitting?" and my quick response was to say, no I can look at the rainforest, knit at the same time, and yes I have been in this one spot for a while"...calmly pointing at my bf (I will call him D from now on) who happened to be about 5 metres off the track taking pictures like they were going out of style. "Ohhhhhh a photographer" they would say, once more admiring the socks, then admiring his camera and then heading on their way.

In this manner I managed to finish just one pair of socks during the trip (they were only worked a few rounds at a time and I have to admit that the rainforest was quite beautiful and yes I did spend quite a bit of time enjoying it on its own). The socks have been given to D's grandmother who declared them a perfect fit and who can really enjoy them, given that she is a crocheter herself.

That said, here is one of the many "socks pics" I took during the trip (a la Stephanie). There are many cool pics to come over the next few weeks...stay tuned!

I believe this is Dangar Falls in NSW (but don't quote me yet), I will double check and get back to you... (Isn't it gorgeous...the whole country is like this!!!!! Just breathtaking...