Finished!

So, I've been a bit quiet. Mea Culpa. Things have been rather hectic around here, but I'm hoping to get all updated.

I have a bunch of projects on my needles, have snagged some more fabulous fibers and stitch markers, and I doubt I'll ever get the opportunity to share them all with you. LOL.

However, I did just finish a hat and I want to introduce you to the Bubba hat:

The Bubba Hat ... in action

It was crafted from this fabulous yarn I snagged over at Gherkin's Bucket on Etsy. It's creamy, soft, luscious and just sparkly enough to keep me happy without sending me into a glitter-coma. The pattern is Handmaiden's In An Evening Toque hat, found on Ravelry.

Here are the yarn skeins I got:

Bubba - Superwash Merino/Silk/Nylon Sparkle/Faux Cashmere blend; bulky, 90yds

Quinn - 80/20 Superwash Merino/Silk blend; worsted, 202yds

The colorways are from the Vamp Camp Collection and are based on characters from the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Yes, I am a fan. I couldn't resist and the price was SO reasonable it made it a certainty that they'd be mine:)

I also picked up some stitch markers from the lovely soccerchic21 over on Etsy as well. Again, with the True Blood series (and trust me, there are more I'm waiting on because I went on a mini shopping spree as it had been ages since I'd gotten yarns to fondle!)

Eric Northman markers

Pam markers

Sam Merlotte markers

I have a few more projects on the needles right now and hopefully, when finished, I'll share them!

XOXO,
Bella

Happy Post-Zombie Jesus Day!

This is what I get to see everyday that I take Dragon to work. See? Mountains:D

So not much going on in our household this weekend (or for the past few weeks rather) thus the lack of updates. HOWEVER!!! I have completed some projects, started some new ones, taken a SLEW of pictures and I am here to inflict all of this information upon you.

Behold ye, and tremble in fear.

Purple Jade and Sterling Silver...so pretty!

This is a purple jade pendant with a silver dragon on it, courtesy of Uwajimaya Market in downtown Seattle. I also got some Puchi miniature meals...and they are made of awesome and cute!

Puchi Mini Meals...dangerously addictive.

It was amazing and we will definitely be going again sometime soon. It's so refreshing to finally have a place to go to get the awesome Japanese food that I remember from Japan:)

Now, on to the completed works! First up the infamous crochet orange scarf and knitted hat out of the Orange Slices Merino yarn from Andrea :

Finally completed. Very warm and very bright, they help to keep the dreary Seattle chill away. My favorite part (aside from the yarn) is the edging. It's a crochet braid stitch that looks to be much more complicated than it really is.

Then I splurged a little bit (a whole $6) and bought the Applejack hat pattern from Croshay Designs and proceeded to make two of them. The first is out of the amazing BFL in the ColdSteel colorway from the faboo Andrea .

And what's more, I had so much left over that I decided it needed a scarf to go with it, so I'm currently using the Magic Scarf pattern by Crazy Aunt Purl and still working on it:

Then I used a combo of the Dexter colorway in Merino/Silk blend from Cosmic Fibers Yarn on Etsy and some of the Obsidian Merino/Tencel from Andrea :
I didn't have enough of the Dexter to do more than the hat, so I'm thinking that if I knit a scarf for this one I'll do it strictly out of the Obsidian. And I'm thinking cables:D

Then we have the latest Calorimetry that I'm making for my BFF Dawn down in Alabama out of the most AMAZING chunky baby alpaca yarn! I picked it up from Yarnzilla for a steal and I will definitely be getting more of it because oh...it's so lush! I believe the colorway is called Ember Melange and the photos just do NOT do it justice!

That's my little purple skull cupcake stitch marker from Scary Merry over on Etsy. I adore them:)

And last, but certainly not least, I'm working on yet another scarf, this time using the incredibly gorgeous Her Eyes tencel from Andrea . Again....photos cannot capture how truly beautiful this yarn is, folks.

Those are the new bamboo needles I picked up on Amazon for a steal! I now have no excuse because I now have every size from 0 - 13 in 9" straights and DPNs.

I'm using the Old Shale Pattern, found on Ravelry, and so far, it may not look like much, but I swear, when it's blocked? It's going to be utterly fabulous!

So that's it for now:) I swear it's taken me entirely too long to get this update on here. But I'm sure that after viewing such beautiful yarns, you'll need a rest.

The battle for the water box is on. First Blade...

Then Kratos;)

Until next time;)

XOXO
~Bella

Finally, an update!

The view coming home from dropping Dragon off at work this morning. Sno!

It's been pretty slow around here since my last update. Most of the concerns have all been related to the economy and how I'm being impacted, financially, by losing one job and starting over at another one. Unfortunately, it's a significant reduction in income for us that I'm quite unhappy with. So, when the going gets tough, I get out there and try to find something else. I've had 3 interviews so far with one particular company and there's really no reason why I wouldn't get the job, I'm just going to keep most of it under wraps until I hear yay or nay.

So in lieu of boring wah-wah-meer-meer complaints, I'm going to give you pictures!

Mumbles approves of this post.

We went to see Abney Park this past Friday as a way to blow off some steam (haha!) and in celebration, I finally pulled out the Lumina yarn (from a few posts back) and crocheted up some skluv gloves! (By Copperscale Dragon on Etsy) I had bought the pattern a while back and was just fiddling with it, trying to figure out what yarn to use and how I wanted them to look. I finally decided on Friday that I was going to use the loverly red/black glittery Lumina I'd gotten back in January. I think they worked out pretty well:
I love the little skull pattern, and the buttons are some that I picked up from JoAnn's Fabric up the road just a few hours prior to the show. I'm glad I made this yarn into gloves, but my only beef with it is that it's quite scratchy. Definitely an accent yarn more than a garment yarn, in my opinion.

Speaking of the show, it was as amazing as the first time we saw them last year. And! Because I have a tall husband who can reach ON stage, I managed to get one of Finn's keys! (They were coming off her skirt as she danced):

Biggest and BEST concert memorabilia I have:) She's so beautiful to watch, not just being physically attractive, but also because she's an AMAZING dancer with a beautiful voice.

And because you can never have enough cat photos, my Dragon caught the Doom Brothers snuggling the other day. It was utterly adorable because, while they love on each other quite often, it's very rare to catch them completely passed out in a cat pile.

Mumbles and Kratos.

The Doom Brothers in a moment of brotherly love.

Nothing to see here, move along.

That's all for now!

XOXO
~Bella

Happy New Year!

I've been dealing with a sick Mumbles. Apparently, his brother stole some yarn and HE ate some of it. Cue massive bouts of puking combined with lethargy and non-interest in food or water. It's been going on for about 24 hours, and of course, with the exception of emergency vet clinics, any regular vet is closed today.

*sighs* Why oh why does my problem child have to do this on the holiday?

He's puked up some of it so far, twice, and looking at the pattern repeat (as well as how long I was out of the room) he couldn't have swallowed more than maybe 6 inches, 4 of which is already out of him.

I'm just keeping a really close eye on him right now.

As for everything else, we were up, bright and early, at 7:30am to take Trina her Calorimetry. She was extremely squee about it, even putting it on and running outside for a smoke so she could test it (it was coooold and windy today). To say it made my morning is an understatement. Especially when it was to have a smoke break and I was able to bum one off of her (despite my, erm, quitting this morning *blush*).

How is the new year going for all of you? I'm working on my first swatch from the pattern book of stitches, the twisted stockinette stitch. I skipped regular stockinette and garter stitch because, well, let's face it...I think we're all pretty familiar with them both;) I'll post a picture of the swatch when it's done later today!

I have some Sauerkraut and Kielbasa bubbling away in my oven, our traditional New Year's fare, which we'll chow down on with some molasses bread later. So the house smells pretty wonderful right now.

What are you guys up to? Anything?

XOXO
~Bella

Low key.

So this was perhaps the lowest key Christmas I've ever had. Go figure, it's the first one spent away from my folks.

I didn't get any presents, not because they weren't sent, but more because they're lost in the USPS aether somewhere with nary a clue as to when it's going to show up. Hell, we were shocked when the Christmas ham showed up on our doorstep last night (as it was supposedly not to be delivered either).

So we've spent the day chilling, eating pot roast and ham, watching Season 2 of Supernatural and just relaxing.

Mom loved her scarf. I'm sure you remember which one I'm talking about. *grins* It was the tencel lace leaf scarf in Coppertop that I'd been slaving over. It actually turned out really nice! I managed to snap a picture of the lacework just to show you how pretty it was when it was blocked out:


The picture, as usual, doesn't do it justice, but mom loved it, so that's all that mattered:) I ended up frogging the whole thing and starting over, doing only 2 pattern repeats instead of the three it has, so it's a little skinnier (but certainly not SUPER skinny) and longer. The drape of the tencel after it's dried? Fabulous! And since I have some more here (and on the way) it means I'll get plenty of opportunity to knit other fantastic projects:)

I'm still working on the Kitty Paw scarf, and I'll post pictures once I get far enough along to really get a good idea of how it's going to turn out!

I hope the rest of you had a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for the upcoming new year:) I promise to post more often and hopefully, this will be a very knitty new year for me too!

XOXO
Bella

*Insert gratiuitous whining here*

How can one stand it when you have a picture like this teasing you?

Those are the beautiful bits of lovely waiting on me to play with! Andrea, in her awesomeness, has not only spun these sexy strings, but she's wound them into balls for me because she is made of complete awesome and win.

Let's see if I can remember what the colors are. Clockwise from the top: Her Eyes, Lemon Drop, Obsidian, After the Fire, and Hawk's Eye (I believe).

*whine whine whine* Ahem.

So come payday this Friday, I will ship off for these most craved for yarns and will soon hold them in my greedy paws!

In other knitting news, I will upload pics of my mom's present after she's had a chance to see it (because I know she looks at this blog *waves* Hi Mom!) so I don't want to spoil the suprise:)

We were out for coffee yesterday and I was wearing my latest Calorimetry head scarf. Side note: I am seriously addicted to making these. They take up very little yarn, so they're great stashbusters, plus, they're ridiculously quick to knit. They keep your head and ears warm and...well...I'll just let a picture speak for itself. This one was knit in Cosmic Fiber's Moonlight series Josef colorway, 100% Leicester wool!

Anyway, the one I was wearing is done in a lovely skein of black Noro Cash Iroha yarn which is a cashmere/silk/lambswool blend and OH so warm!


As she was handing me my coffee (because I adore Terravida, just sayin') she said she loved my hat.

This is where my Dragon pipes up with, "She knit it herself!" Bless him. She looked shocked and then when I asked if she wanted one, she asked how much I'd charge. I told her it's Christmas...so it'd be all for her. She said she liked the black, but, oh noes, I don't have anymore black, BUT! I do have a beautiful deep garnet and a vibrant purple, both in the same yarn...so I think I'm going to follow Jack's advice and make one of each, and let her pick:)

She's such a sweetie, so perky and upbeat (and adorable as hell), and she makes me smile. So it's nothing major for me to make her a little something to keep her adorable head warm:)

I'm also working on turning the Silver Lining bamboo into a pair of glovelets, but it reminds me, working with the DPNs, how much I detest the DPNs. I seriously need more circular needles because man...I feel like I'm wrestling a hedgehog. It's slow going, but that's mostly because I have very little experience with them.

And just in case you haven't had enough yarn porn...behold, the newest additions to my stash that the most lovely Andrea is going to spin and ball for me:

The Morning After, and:

Copper Penny;)

I'll explain why I got one so close to the coppertop colorway a little later on.

Anywho. So there you have it. Current WIPs. Yarn Porn. Awesomeness and Win.

And freakin'-A, it's snowing!!! I'm going to go dance in the snowflakes for a bit!

XOXO
~Bella

Finished!

I have finished one project, the most important one right now, because it's for my mom's Christmas present:)

It's currently blocked and drying in the bedroom, much to the chagrin of the cats. I don't have a blocking board or proper, er, needles? for it, so I'm making do with what I've got. The blocking does, really, open the pattern work so you can see it better and from what I understand, the drape will improve and this particular yarn should hold it's shape much better:)

I just hope she likes it! Last year, my mom gave me a beautiful handmade quilt that serves as my "hug" while I'm up here and she's down in Texas. This year, I'm returning the favor.

And that's all I'm going to say about that, lol! I'm just so damned proud of myself for finally finishing it! And it's beautiful.

So I suppose that I need to add blocking board and pins, and, possibly, blocking wires, to my list of things to get. It joins the ranks of ball winder and Signature Art needles with stiletto points (alllll of them, in all sizes, AND the DPNs).

Oh. And yarn;) Of which the lovely Andrea will be getting her payment and I should be getting my order of the latest yarn porn soon:)

That's all I have right now. The weather outside is frightful. Windy, rainy, and temperatures plummeting to the point they're forecasting snow showers all weekend. I'm excited because, hello, I adore snow! And we don't really have anywhere to be this weekend, so I might get a chance to sit and watch it...and possibly make a tiny snowman. *insert cheesy, child-like grin here*

XOXO
~Bella