Fall Etsy Sale.

This weekend only, save 50% off your entire purchase of $10 or more, in my Etsy shop. 

There are a bunch of printables and digital scrapbook items that are being discontinued after this sale so if you want to get them before they are gone go over and check out the deals. 

Leg Warmers on the go

I got this yarn from a stash on Ravelry and I am loving the way it is knitting up. This is a pattern that I will be releasing soon. I am almost finished with the second one now and I really need to take a picture of the progress. This is Marianne Dashwood from Yarn Love. The colorway is Amore. I love how the greens and blues interplay with each other. 

I am using the magic loop technique to knit these and I love how easy it is to do. This is my first time working magic loop, I have always worked on DPNs. 

I have also been bit by the Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits. 

I am working on my first hexipuff but I chose a scrap yarn that I thought would be enough and ran out before I was finished so I am back to the beginning.  I will post my progress as I get them knitted up. 

EarBud Keepers

Are you like me and always are having to deal with tangled earbuds every time you go to pull them out of your bag? Well I am thought that making a little pouch would help solve the problem. I have been playing around with to up sock magic loop style and I thought how cute would it be to knit a small pouch for some designed the same way.  I decided to work from the top down with about 1/2 inch of 2 by 2 ribbing and then increase like you would for a toe up sock. I then added a few rounds with no increases and then worked a top down toe. I closed it up with the Kitchener stitch and sewed in the ends. 

Once I start with a small project like this I couldn't just make one. It is like potato chips you can't have just one. 

I have made 5 now i just need to take a picture of the 5th one. 

I have been using my zippered project bag for these because they are so small and I am using up my scrap balls of yarn for them. 

Hooked on Cables

I teach knitting and crochet and I have a student that I am working with her on a project and it is a cabled scarf and so I have been working on cabled in my own projects that I am knitting for a big festival this November. I will be at the 50th annual Deer Festival in Monticello, GA on Saturday, November 5. I used Red Heart Soft yarn for this project, and size 8 needles. 

These are a couple of cabled card wallets that I have made. They are a quick knit and now I just have to find the perfect button to finish them off. 

I was digging around looking for buttons and found this little stash of stitch markers and I am so excited.Iit really makes me want to knit a complicated pattern so I can use them. 

I am also super excited about getting this in the mail. No matter if I know that I can shop online at anytime, there is just something about getting the catalog in the mail. Now I am just drooling over the beautiful yarns. 

We are Building a Yurt UPDATE

May 2015 is when we started this journey. We decided to sell our home that we had lived in or almost 17 years. We had brought our girls home from the hospital to that house, and we had made it a home during they years that we lived there. All of their memories were made in that house. It was really hard to leave but we knew that God had bigger plans for us, bigger plans for our family. We had purchased a large tract of land the previous March and knew that this was where we would move. It was 30 min away and it offered us a place to grow. It offered us a place to be able to pursue our dreams and place to take everything that we did to the next level. 

My husband has had horses for as long as I have know him and so this gave us a place for him to get back to training horse like he loved. It also gave us a bigger place to have all the animals that my girls love. We have chickens, guineas, a goat, 2 dogs, a cat, and 4 horses. 

It gives me a place to host art retreats and teach classes, a place where I can explore my crafts in the wide open spaces. 

Early on when we were planning our farm we wanted to build a big house and a guest house. We decided that we would build the guest house first and live in it a while so that we could save up to start building the big house. We decided that the guest house has to be cost effective and easy to build. So we decided on a yurt. I shopped around to find the  biggest one that we could afford. I wanted to make sure that it was affordable and large. We would need to live in it and with 4 people I didn't want to be tripping over everyone. So, we settled on a 30' yurt from Pacific Yurts. Their quality is excellent and customer service is spot on. So on July 2, 2015 it was delivered. We began construction on the foundation and had a few bumps in the road due to illness but we kept trudging on. Fast forward to April of this year and we were able to get the foundation completed and the exterior up. We have been working hard every since and here is where we are today. 

Who knows if we will ever build the big house as we really are excited about living in the yurt.

From the outside it looks like it is ready to move in but once you walk through the front door you will see that it is still a construction zone. 

The loft walls are up here and ready for the stairs. It is a very big accomplishment to have it completed this far. 

Here we are starting to put up the wall boards for the wall behind the stairs to the loft bedroom. 

Halfway up. It came along fast because a friend brought over a nail gun and made the process flow so much better. 

The wall is finished and ready for the stairs to go up. I wish I had taken some pictures of the process. It was about a 5-6 hour process for them to be built.

The steps to the loft have been built and the wall behind it has been covered. Anastasia is so excited that she can get to her room without having to climb a ladder now. Now I just have to convencer her she can't move in until we are finished. 

These beautiful steps were built for us by a very generous friend. We supplied the wood and he supplied the labor. It was truly a blessing. 

A Busy Few Weeks

I love going to my local library and finding knitting books that are just as fun to read as the patterns are to knit. Both of these books Faith, Hope, and Love Knitting and Mother-Daughter Knits are great reads and have some beautiful patterns that I want to knit up. 

I have been on a weaving kick lately. So I built a rug loom out of scrap wood and $6 worth of hardware. It was such a fun project to build. it took me about 4 hours to sand the wood and put it together. I had to warp it as soon as I finished. Now I just need to get started weaving one on it. I plan on using denim yardage that I have had in my fabric stash for years. 

Lowe's has been a major place that we have been visiting a lot over the past few weeks. We now have almost everything to  finish our house except for the electrical and HVAC.

I am painting the cabinets with DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish Paint. I will post more pictures as I progress.  

And last but not least I have been going a little cable crazy. I am working on a cabled cowl and I have knit up a couple of little card wallets with cables as well. 

August Recap

 August has been a super busy month. I have been working a temporary job filling in for someone who was out sick and so I have been working 3 days a week at that job. I really enjoyed it and I am sad to see it end. The girls started back to school and they are doing good,. So in my down time when I have not been working on Client projects I have started something new. 

I got a new loom, I can't say it is my first loom as I have a triangle loom that I have in storage, nut this loom is my first real loom. A Schacht School Loom. 

I have already finished my first project. I used some scrap yarn for the weft and I used some cone yarn from my grandmother for the warp. The square dowel that I used at the top is from a stash of wood that I got from my Dad's workshop when we were cleaning it out. So I like to think that even though they are not here I am working with them in some way. 

Then I had to try my hand on weaving fabric. I have a collection of Laura Ashley fabric samples in my stash and I loved the colors but the patterns are not ones that I would really sew with now so I created a bunch of 1/4 strips that I made by just ripping the fabric. I really like how it is working up. 

I decided to take some of the warp yarn and add in come shapes after I had woven the fabric strips to tighten up the weave. I want to add just a few more rows before I take it off and add it to a dowel. 

What I am reading now: I am Listening to Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst. I love this book. I like to listed to audio books while I am knitting to drawing. I find I really get more out of the book than when I just read it. The narrator is very good and I like her voice.  I always listen to a sample before I buy an audio book to make sure I can stand to listen to the person read the whole thing. 

 I have finished a couple of hats this month. The really have only taken a couple of hours each and where just a way for me to use up some stashed scraps from other projects. I had just enough of the pink to make the brim and the one stripe row. I did a knit one, slip on on the next row of gray to break up the stripe a little and add some interest. 

I am working up a couple of new patterns that I hope to be posting soon. The one below is a cowl pattern that I have knit up and written up, I just need to get it typed up and photographed on a model. It has been way to hot to model this one right now. I really love the yarn and how soft it is, 

I also designed and knitted up this shawl and I have the pattern written out, and it just needs to be typed up and the stripe pattern charted. I need to block it and photograph it too but the heat has been a problem with this one as well. 

I hope to have these patterns and a couple of more up on Ravelry soon.