A Teaser

Just to keep you interested, here are a few teaser pictures for today :)! I'm getting there, and soon enough I will be able to try this Lace Camisole on and see if it fits! Keep your fingers crossed for me...




And here is one of the special order Watermelon skeins I dyed yesterday. I used Henry's Attic Kona superwash yarn and it has such a nice sheen to it...

Sunshiney

I love making up words, hence the title of my post.. but, I just couldn't resist because I made a bunch of notecards yesterday and they were very "sunshiney". I bought this great new stamp and some coloring pens and "got creative". There are five different sayings I came up with, but my favorite is: purl the day away. Johanna seemed to like that one too :) Go check out the gorgeous sweater she is making and say hello!



I did some more dyeing the last few days including the custom order, Green Bay Packers yarn. I was happy with how it came out, though I still can't seem to get a really rich dark forest green. I think this green is perfect for the Packers though :)

I did realize that a few of the dyeing issues I have been having off and on are due to the Knitpicks yarn I use. I did another custom order with a special request yarn.. Henry's Attic Kona superwash fingering weight yarn. Oh man, I wish it were economical for me to use this yarn all the time. It was 580 yds of pure beauty and held the colors perfectly! I will be using this yarn in the future if I actually dye up some sock yarn for myself. Speaking of which, I wonder if my dad would wear Broncos socks?! I can get the yarn for about $11 per skein, but you have enough for two pairs of socks.. Unfortunately, that would cost about $30 dollars to sell, and though it looks like a lot of money, at least you have way more yarn (and its superwash to boot). So, if anyone is interested in this, I am totally willing to custom order with this in the future since it was a pure pleasure to work with.



And last but not least, the camisole is getting there as I am finally at the armholes! I should finish this week, so come back this weekend and check out some FO's!

More Dyeing Nonsense

Once Etsy is back online again (they are currently doing maintenance) I will be posting these new variegated yarns that I dyed this week! I am really happy with how they all came out (even though I don't like pink). So, go stop by Sunshine Yarns and take a look around!

UPDATE: Etsy is finally back online after two days of maintenance. I just listed these new items, so now you can go check them out :) (Sun, 11:00 am)

The colors below are: Secret Garden, Mountain Rose, Blue Lake, Sweet Dreams, and Amazon. They are all variegated with three to five colors and were a blast to make. I wanted to do more experimental dyeing this weekend, but I have all these custom orders to keep me busy. After those are done, I am out of luck with dyeing more sock yarn for a week or two since Knit Picks is out of stock on the color your own yarn. Ouch! I guess I need to order more at a time. So, until I receive my order the beginning of October, I am going to be doing some of their worsted weight yarns. So, stay tuned for that!

I Do Actually Knit

Yes, there has been a bit of knitting progress the past few days! I have managed to finish up three little preemie pumpkin hats for the Preemie Project and one bootie so far. For reference, the smallest hat is only 8.5 inches around and 4 inches high. The small bootie I made today is only 2 inches from heel to toe. I am hoping to do matching booties for all three sets before I send this out to Laura at the end of the month.

I've also been making good progress on the Lace Camisole and really want to finish that up in the next week or so as well. I am over halfway through the body and just don't want to bore you with blah pictures. :-)



What I did alot of the past few days is dye more yarn to restock the store. I have a bunch of custom orders that I am going to be working on the next week or two as well. But, I wanted to try out variegated hand-painting rather than striping since I am getting sick of hand-winding these long skeins.. and I just was curious to see how they came out! And behold, I have some beautiful new yarn to add to the store probably tomorrow and Friday (I need to let the yarn dry so I can take pictures), but, here are a few that are already finished.... The dusky light doesn't really do justice so I'll be taking more pictures when they are all finished.

A Tag

"Hold my head, inside your hands. I need someone, who understands. I need someone, someone who cares, for you I've waited all these years. For you I'll wait, 'till kingdom come, until my days , my days are done. And say you'll come, and set me free, just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me." by Coldplay

I was tagged by Dani the other day.. so here it goes.

Ten Years Ago: It was the beginning of high school and I just remember not really knowing exactly who I was or who I wanted to be. Life seemed so dramatic back then between boys, school, friends and trying to find myself. I was growing, I was learning, I was studying music, I was training. I made Junior Nationals for USS swimming and all I wanted to do in life was be a sports doctor and train for the Iron Man.

Five Years Ago: It was my sophomore/junior year of college and after having dealt with alot of hard situations my freshman year, I finally discovered the person I wanted to be. Scott and I had been dating over a year and I remember just being so happy and loving the girls I was living with. I also spent a summmer in the Turks and Caicos which was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I knew after that that I would always have a career in the environmental field.

One Year Ago: I moved to Boston last summer with Scott to work as an Environmental Scientist for a consulting company. I was eager to start my career and live by some family. A bunch of my friends started getting married and had a great time traveling to all those weddings! We also adopted our kitties almost a year ago at this point! Kali and Soma have grown into the best kitties ever and we love them so much :)

Five Snacks: Fruit (love it, love it... any of it, all of it!); Home-made cookies (I bake way too much because of this addiction); Pretzels (especially the honey whole wheat kind); Starbucks latte's (tall nonfat extra-hot almond latte to be exact); tortilla chips and salsa.

Five Songs I know all the words to: Pretty much any song by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Tom Petty, Van Halen, Patrick Fitzsimmons and Glen Phillips to name a few.

Five Things I would do with $100 Million: This is too much money for any single person to have, so I would give a bunch to charities and environmental organizations; make sure all my family was well taken care of; get rid of any debt and buy a house outside of Telluride, CO and have lots of horses; travel tons and volunteer all my time.

Five places to run away to: Turks and Caicos (but one of the "other" islands such as Grand Turk); New Zealand (speaks for itself); the Seychelles (is 1000 miles off the coast of Madagascar enough for you?); Fiji (I'll take that); and/or Bonaire (best scuba diving in the world and a totally environmentally friendly island).

Five Things I would never wear: Any shade of bright pink (not a fan of the color and it looks awful on me); one of the Abercrombie mini-skirts (I have a nice butt and legs, but these just scream look at me); a tube top (the broad shoulders just won't let this happen); a sequence dress (not in a million years); plain white cotton underwear (I hate cotton underwear, its just so uncomfortable to me).

Five Favorite shows: That 70's show is the only show I really watch, but you can always find us watching football, hockey, soccer or swimming.

Five Biggest Joys: Scott, Soma and Kali, my family and friends; beautiful scenery (love the mountains, the oceans and the forests); music; visiting home and traveling; making those around you smile.

Five Favorite Toys: My road bike, my violin, all my knitting gear, the computer and my hiking shoes.

Friday Goodness

Wow! The last few days has been a whirlwind with Sunshine Yarns finally going public. Thank you all so much for your support and I am happy to announce that three skeins are gone off of etsy and I have 12 custom orders! Who knew there were so many of you who wanted, for example, Green Bay Packers socks! I love it and am so excited to try out all the new colorways. So thank you, thank you :) Oh, and I have a new button on the right that will always take you right to the store.

On the knitting front, I finally finished up the first Go With The Flow Sock out of IK Summer 2005. I am pretty much happy with how it came out, though I didn't mark the toe decreases and it doesn't look **perfect. The socks are a bit small on me (tight around the ankle) but they are for my aunt who has feet that are a size smaller than mine. Hopefully she doesn't have mega high arches too :)!

** Perfect as in complete analness (if that's even a word).



I also whipped out this little pumpkin hat, using Anne Norling's pattern, for the Preemie Project's Halloween donation. Can you just picture an entire preemie unit decked out in pumpkin hats?! How cute...

Good News All Around...

It's finally here! My 'lil shop is called Sunshine yarns with the official address being www.sunshineyarns.etsy.com.
Go check it out! On Monday, I dyed up a bunch of fun new colors: Iris, Moss, Deep Ocean and Fiji. You'll also find some Tiger, Watermelon and Gryffindor. So enjoy looking around everyone and spread the news :)



In other news, my cousin is doing MUCH better. I truely appreciate all the support.. I was totally stunned at how so many of you went out of your way to send my family best wishes. My family thanks you all so much.

And now I can say finally, FINALLY, an FO! The Harry Potter Gryffindor scarf is officially done! I blocked it on Monday night and did the fringe yesterday. I have to say, it looks super nice and professional (ignore the cat hair). The tube idea is a great one and I think I will be knitting more scarves like this in the future. However, a warning goes out to all of you who think this is an easy knit. I mean, its easy, but mentally it got way too boring for me to handle. The last four or five repeats made me dread knitting, which is not how it's supposed to be. So, think twice before you jump on the bandwagon for this one...

Some froggy morning pictures:



And, some sunny ones too:



And the project details:
Pattern: Prisoner of Azkaban Gryffindor scarf by Lauren Kent
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Maroon (2401) and Gold (7826
Measurements: 8" wide by 63" long
Started: May 30, 2005
Finished: September 13, 2005
Other Important Details: I knit this scarf for my 11 year old cousin who is on the shorter side. So, I cast on only 80 stitches rather than 90 and did only 11 repeats rather than 14. As you can tell, its plenty long and I hope he loves it! Its going to be a Halloween present for him... now, to find those disguisting flavored jelly beans to gift with it :)

A Few Days Off

The end of this week was rough, and I am going to take a much needed break the next few days from blogging. My cousin was in a cycling accident on Thursday morning and and I really want to devote as much time as I can to making him feel better! I'll be back in the next few days... but just wanted to let you know where I am. Hugs everyone :) And look forward to seeing a Knitting Sunshine Yarns storefront up and running this coming week!

SP Goodies!

Ok, I had the best SP ever! Turns out it was Anne, who lives all of... okay, I'll give her 1 mile, from me! I've never seen her blog before believe it or not. In this last package, she sent me: a beautiful card made by Cara (another local blogger I've never heard of unfortunately), an entire case full of beads (you know I love my stitch markers), some chocolate (um, its gone already), and a beautiful scarf which I am going to wear on Thursday when I am working at my LYS! I want to wait to take a picture of me wearing it since I look horrible tonight with my red, itchy, allergy eyes :)

So, thank you Anne... from the bottom of my heart. You really made so many of my days so pleasant with your comments, gifts and emails.





Besides the SP high I am on right now, I am still trekking away at the HP scarf. I dyed up 5 more skeins of Gryffindor yarn for those of you who ordered some this week! I am attempting to get a logo (see last post) and seperate blog going by next week.. so keep your fingers crossed!

And The Winner Is....

Wow! Thanks everyone for your warm wishes and all of your answers to my quiz question! Believe it or not, out of the 27 people who responded, no one got the exact hours; however Adele was the closest with 85 hours. I officially worked 86 believe it or not. So, congratulations Adele!

In other news, I am attempting to come up with a very simple logo design for my hand-painted yarn. I want a simple tag that I can tie onto each skein, maybe a business card size. If anyone wants to take a shot at this, I am willing to donate a skein or two of hand-painted yarn in your choice of colors to the chosen design. The basic design I am looking for involves a sun (with maybe a ball of yarn for the center) and the title Knitting Sunshine Yarns. I also want "hand-painted yarns by Dani" somewhere on the tag too. On the back, I would like to write the yarn details and say, design by xxx. Anyways, sorry for the rambling. I stink at basic designs and of course there are so many of you who are glorious artists.. So, email me if you are interested :). Of course, if you want money instead of yarn, that could be arranged as well!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but my progress on the HP scarf is simply the same old repeat. I am hoping to have that finished by the end of the week so I can move on to bigger and better things :)

100th Post!

Thanks for bearing with me this week... I had an extremely busy last 10 days due to field work up in the Whites and starting a new job at my LYS. I definitely didn't get in a lot of knitting time, but did manage to do another repeat on the Harry Potter scarf! I really need to crack down on that and finish it up soon!



Yesterday I also realized that this is my 100th post! How exciting (no, not really)! But, of course I have to do something fun to celebrate, so here it goes....

If you can guess how many hours I worked this week, you will win a skein of Gossamer lace weight yarn in your choice of either Blue Jeans or Leprechaun. If lace doesn't suit you, I might have some sock yarn lying around in my stash :) So take a guess! I promise I will have something more entertaining in the next few days!

Take A Look

Take a look at Give A Little.



Also check out this site for other knitters who are raising money for Katrina disaster relief.

Pray for New Orleans

I am not a religious person, but I am sending constant prayers that things will start to improve in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf that was impacted by Katrina. I am so sorry for, and sickened by the situation down there and can't even believe this is all really happening. I just read the latest story online and am blown away by the stories of people lying dead in the street, the lack of food, water, medical attention and order. Riots, rapes and guns seem to be clouding the news tonight and it just makes me ill thinking about it.. To those of us who are far away, its unbelievable... I feel like I have a movie on the screen. I also feel so helpless... who am I to just go to work and pretend like everything is okay? Don't even get me started on the politics of Iraq and the need for soldiers right now at home.

Nevertheless, the lack of knitting content today is well deserved. Between just getting home from the White Mountains, starting work at my LYS (that was great!) and more devastating Katrina news, things will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry about the downer post, I just needed to vent and cry a little...