Etsy is an addiction!

I swear it is.  If you haven't yet visited Etsy.com, you should. I would say it is like eBay for crafty people, except there are no auctions or craziness and the fee structure for selling items is simple and logical.  I could spend all day browsing.  In fact, I may spend a bit too much time on there.  I've been purchasing a few too many things lately.  As shown in my last post, I purchased 2 gauge rules and since then I've procured three more items from sellers on Etsy.

The first:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Winking Owls Zippy Pouch"][/caption]

An extremely cute Zippy Pouch from Piecesofkandee@Etsy.  The winking owls are great and it is backed with red corduroy.  I am a bit crazy about owls.  My love of owls had faded some over the years, but as soon as I saw Clash of the Titans again a few months ago and watched Bubo, the mechanical owl, my love was fully renewed! :D

Next on my list of purchases is related to something else near and dear to my heart.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="385" caption="Pokey Little Puppy Magnets"][/caption]

Pokey Little Puppy magnets!!!   I might have to name the Pokey Little Puppy as my favorite book ever.  These magnets were made from actual pages of the book.  They were purchased from LittleMommaErin@Etsy.

Last, but certainly not least is this:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Silver Maple Nostepinde"][/caption]

I know.  It looks a bit... questionable, if you will.  Let me explain what it is for those that might not know.  It's a nostepinde (also spelled as nostepinne).  What is a nostepinde? It is a tool used to manually wind a center-pull yarn ball.  Why the funny name?  It's Scandinavian.  I don't really know much about the history, but I figure these things have been around a good, long while.  If you want to know how it works, feel free to go to the same place I learned about them: Fiber Fool's Nostipinne Tutorial.  It's a very good tutorial and has lots of pictures and a video.  Anyway, back to my nostepinde... It's from Craftiness@Etsy.  It's made from Silver Maple and is extremely pretty.   I haven't used it yet, but I know it'll be great.

As you can see, a great variety of all things crafty can be found at Etsy.   Now I better get away from this computer before I start shopping again! ;)

Lunch, Mail, and (slow) Progress

Have you ever made yourself a lunch so yummy you felt the need to photograph it?  Probably not, but  today my lunch looked so yummy I had to snap a picture before digging in.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Mmmm.... Lunch! :P"][/caption]

It sure was tasty. :P  The recipe can be found here.  I don't change much from the recipe.  I think I use more onions and use dried dill instead of fresh.  Oh, and I use cheddar cheese.  Of course, if you have more than 3 people to feed, you might need to double the recipe.  It says it serves six, but never has come close to that when I cook it.  Probably because we all eat way more than we should. ;)

I've had some cool stuff arrive in the mail lately.   I ordered my interchangeable circular needles and they arrived the other day.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Denise Interchangeable Needles"][/caption]

They are nice.  I haven't knit with them much yet, but it'll be nice to always have the size I need, when I need it.

I've also just received some gauge rulers I ordered.  They are handmade out of bamboo.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Too Cute Gauge Rulers!"][/caption]

I found them on Etsy after seeing some that another knitter had.  She doesn't have many in stock right now, but her shop is karatstix.etsy.com.

As for knitting progress, I'm not really putting a dent in any of my current WIP (works in progress).  I'm getting the most progress done on a U-Neck Tunic.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="356" caption="U-Neck Tunic, cast on"][/caption]

I'm excited about it and so far it's knitting up really easily.  Hopefully it will turn out well.  I'll be totally dejected if it doesn't fit.  I already had to start over because it was way to big the first time.  Here is how far I've gotten so far:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="U-Neck Tunic, progress"][/caption]

Sit and Knit

Most people would find it odd that I've lived here in Charleston since May and don't actually know anyone.   In fact, other than to say hi to a neighbor or two (of whom I have no idea what their names are) or speaking to the doctors or the dentist, I have said nothing more to anyone than whatever pleasantries you'd say to a stranger in passing.  How is that possible?  Well, to me it's easy.  Since I work at home I don't have much opportunity to interact with people and I actually like my peaceful alone time.   Not to mention I'm always weird around people so I tend not to be very social.  I've been thinking for a while now I should try to get to know people more and try to interact at least a little.  So in that spirit, I attended my first ever "Sit and Knit" last night.  Loops had to all but push me out the door to get me to actually go, but I went.  It was held at the new yarn shop in Summerville, the Village Knittery.  She has just opened this month.  I'd already been into the shop once before.   That's how I knew about the "Sit and Knit" she was planning to have for Third Thursdays (which, from what I gather, is a downtown Summerville thing held once a month to promote the refurb of the area by having shops open late and special events and such).  Anyway, I enjoyed my first visit so much and thought Emily, the owner, was so nice.  In fact, the thought of her not having a super turnout for her first event was what finally got me out the door and on my way to Summerville.  I arrived a little after 5pm.  I was aiming for 4:45pm, but I took a wrong turn and got lost.  That's what I get for going a new way and not at least jotting down directions.   The place was already filling up with knitters by the time I got there and kept a pretty steady flow of people coming in and out the whole time.  It turns out I had a really good time and met lots of nice people.  I'm actually looking forward to going back next month.  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures to share of the event.  To make up for that, I did get a cute shot of Moxie this morning.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="334" caption="Moxie Sitting Pretty"][/caption]

In other knitting news, I finally got the yarn Moxie tangled all sorted out and finished my arm warmers:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="385" caption="Toast, complete and toasty warm"][/caption]

Pattern: Toast by Leslie Friend

Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Summer Sock

Needles: US 8

More details… here (ravelry link)

Sorry there were no modeled shots, but it's not easy to take a good picture of your own arms. ;)

One last picture, to make my mother jealous:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="334" caption="Yummy Trinidads! :P"][/caption]

What do you mean I'm doing it wrong?

Since I started knitting small diameter in the round (I have yet to knit anything large, ie a sweater, in the round.), I have had a few problems.  I started with a sock using 5 DPNs (that's double pointed needles to my non-knitting readers).  It was going fine with that method except all those needles were annoying and no matter what I did, I still had ladders, or spaces, in my knitting where one needle ended and the next began.  I knew I'd have to learn some way to fix this or I'd never be able to make  sleeve for a sweater without having to make it flat and seam it. :(

Recently I tried another method for circular knitting.  It's where you use two sets of circular needles, which are two knitting needles connected together by a thin cord.  I did ok with this method.  I think I would've even liked this method had it not been for my cheap needles which had cords which were way to stiff.  Here is a progress shot of my knitting by this method.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="385" caption="Toast on 2 circular needles"][/caption]

The pattern is Toast.  It's a great, simple project and I love my first arm warmer.  Since I've only finished the one, I've just been wearing it around the house, rocking it Michael Jackson style.

Since I was unable to fix my ladder problem with this method.  I decided to knit the second using yet another style of circular knitting.  It's called Magic Loop and you use one set of circular needles that have a longer cord.  It's easy to do, but not as easy to explain.  So far, so good.  I think I've finally fixed the ladder problem and I should be finished with my second arm warmer in no time.

I'm not 100% happy though.  Today I came to a realization.  I'm doing all these methods wrong.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Does this look funny to you?"][/caption]

This is the inside of my arm warmer.  In the other picture I flipped my knitting right side out before taking the picture.  This picture is what it looks like while I'm knitting.  I find out today that when most people knit in the round it is NOT inside out.  All this time I just assumed inside out was how things went and when complete you just turned them right side out.   I pretty much figured out how to fix it and even did a round of this right side out, but I found the cord was all in my way and I messed up because of it so I just went back to my old way.  It works.  I suppose I should learn to do it correctly though just in case inside out will not work for something.  I suppose it serves me right for insisting on learning how to do everything myself.  Loops always tells me to ask people questions and have them show me stuff, but I always prefer to figure it out in my own way.

One more thing before I go.  I have a Print Store on deviantArt where all my photographs are for sale.  I haven't actually sold any, but I buy small versions of everything and since my kitties are so cute, I had to buy magnets of a picture of each of them.  I finally received them earlier this week and they're up on the fridge.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Awww! Cute Kitties!"][/caption]

Too Cute!!!