Happy Early Blogiversary Photo.Knit.Dog!

As promised, I’m writing this post before I go off to Australia! In fact, I’m writing it exactly 1 hour before the car service comes, so you can all feel pretty important right about now.

I’ve loved writing in this blog in the past year and it’s been wonderful being able to connect with other knitting bloggers and Ravelers! It’s been fun and I can’t wait until the next year to see what you all come up with as well as what I come up with. As a thank you to all readers of this blog, as well as a celebration of a year of blogging, I am holding a Blogiversary contest which has extremely exciting prizes, if I do say so myself. Don’t believe me? Well, check it out:

That’s eight – count ‘em EIGHT – skeins of gorgeous beautiful yarn that I’m giving away for my blogiversary! Am I generous or what? And modest to boot! You all love me, don’t you? haha!

Here are the close ups and yarns from left to right:

Yarn Love Juliet in Ancient Forest

J. Knits Superwash Me Sock in New Jersey

Zen Yarn Garden 100% Superwash Merino in Black Plum – the picture is a little off, it’s like a dark dark dark purple – black with hints of purple, if that makes sense

Fiberphile 2-ply Squooshy in Silver Lining – you all know how much I love this!

The Sanguine Gryphon Kypria in 24. Adopted

Three Irish Girls Beckon Merino in Lagoon

Numma Numma The Regular in Organic Greens – no close up of this one, but the main picture is accurate for color… it’s a really nice bright green.

Finally at the top, Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Applewood – this is the same color that I made my Vine Yoke Cardigan out of (see post below). I have 3 extra skeins of this and thought one of you might like one to make a hat

In addition, the first place winner will get not only yarn, but this gorgeous set of stitchmarkers generously provided by Lillie of A Planet 4 Creation! These are mine that she made for me and the winner will get to choose a color from her line and she will make the markers specially for that person.

So how will this work? You have until my actual Blogiversary (Nov. 12th) to put in a comment here telling me what (if anything) you’d like to see more of in my blog. The dogs? The knits? The pics? The stories? Whatever you think. If nothing, just go ahead and say I’m perfect, I won’t mind. Also in the comment, please state your top 3 wanted skeins in order of preference. This will help me when assigning skeins to winners. After the contest is over, I will use a random number generator to pick 8 winners. This makes it more fun because there are greater chances of winning! Keep in mind, however, that you might not hear from me until I get back into the country on November 21st. If I happen to be able to post before then I will, but if not please don’t feel like I’ve been ignoring the contest! I promise I will send the skeins off to everyone. Oh and this contest is open to any and everyone who wants to join (no matter where in the world you live). The skein might take a while to get to you if you’re far away from NYC (yes, I will probably use cheap-o shipping) but I’ll ship out to those of you outside of North America, so comment away!

In addition, for a second chance to win, blog about this post in your own blog then come back here leaving a *second* comment telling me you did so and you have another chance right there. Just like that!

Good luck to all of you! I have a plane to catch now so check back in 2 weeks for Australian scenery. yay!

Applewood Cardigan

It’s finished… and I love it!!!

The fit is perfect (3″ negative ease) and I love every bit of this sweater. I can’t get over how nicely it turned out… especially after the hell that was the Sweater Dress I made for my sister.

The yoke is beautiful, IMO… I even like the ruching that you see on the back (pic above)… the Malabrigo is also amazing, not only on the skin but also with the great stitch definition. I loved working with it! It blocked out beautifully.

Not to mention having found what I think are the perfect buttons for it when I was at Rhinebeck!

The buttons are from Melissa Jean and just look like they were made for this sweater… I totally lucked out that they had enough in the size I needed too as she was really selling out of them when I went to look.

Pattern – Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda Teague (rav link | project link)
Yarn – Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Applewood (rav link | store I used)
Needle – US8 (5mm)
Cast on – October 2, 2009
Cast off – November 1, 2009
Modifications – None

As I finished it on the 1st I was also able to add this FO to my Yarn Snob Stashdown that I’m taking part in for Nov-Dec. We do have to count stash in (as well as stash out) for total yardage at the end, but at least it only counts for anything bought after Nov. 1st… which means that this gorgeous Wollmeise package I got last week won’t count… neither will the Lace update I hit up on Friday!

I’ve been pretty bad with yarn-buying lately (the above Wollmeise is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends), so joining this stashdown will hopefully keep my yarn-purchases to a minimum. We’ll see how I do!

In other news, hubby and I decided to take a total and complete last minute vacation (we just bought the tickets on Thursday) to Australia! We leave on Friday and will be gone 2 weeks. We are SO excited, but this also means that things are a bit hectic around here. And, sadly, I will be missing two big dates: Hitchcock’s 1st birthday (by 2 days – we will take him out for a celebration when we get back!) and my first Blogiversary! I’m also sad about this one (though sadder still for Hitch’s birthday, sorry blog!), but I will just have to move things up a bit! SO, at some point this week I will put up a contest for my Blogiversary (on Nov. 12th) that I will send off to the winners once I get back from my vacation. And there are some AWESOME things being given away so you want to keep your eye open for it! Want a little sneak peek before I leave you for the night? Well, I guess so…. I can be nice.

Happy Halloween!

We just took the pups on a walk around the neighborhood and had a great time seeing all the little kids dressed up (as well as the not-so-little adults) and trick or treating! The part of Brooklyn where we live is incredibly family-friendly so it was actually quite overwhelming how many people were out there tonight. They all seemed to be having a great time. We aren’t doing much of anything for Halloween (watching scary movies, the usual) but it’s still one of my favorite holidays.

This month was pretty worthless for me sock-knitting wise. Despite my best intentions to make this a Socktoberfest month, it just did not happen. I even missed the deadline on my Vilai socks, haven’t touched them since I posted about them at the beginning of the month! I do have an excuse as I’m trying to open up a new business, get new clients, and wrap up my other work, but I still feel bad… I have, however, done very well on keeping up with my Vine Yoke Cardigan that I posted about swatching earlier! I actually have pretty much finished it (it’s blocking right now) though I still need to put the buttons on it and wait until it’s dried. I’m excited, though, as this is the first sweater I have ever made for myself! And I think it looks pretty good so far, but I have to wait until it’s dried before I can try it on for myself. As I don’t have pictures of it on the blocking board, here are some pictures of it while I was working on it a while ago:

This is being knit using Malabrigo Worsted in the color Applewood and I think it looks pretty good in it!

That’s a close up of the gorgeous yoke. Be prepared for some pictures of me modeling it within the next day or two. I’ll leave you guys now to go watch some scary movies with the hubby and puppies… the puppies love to snuggle up on the couch to watch movies!

What are you doing for Halloween? Scary movies night in or big dress up party? Whatever it is, I hope you have fun doing it!

A Finished Object…

I *was* planning on showing knitting for this post, but a more important FO came up! One of my dearest friends that I have spoken about quite often before and that I threw that baby shower for in September just had her baby boy! Everyone, meet the gorgeous Tudor with cherry red lips!

Isn’t he amazing? Such a beautiful baby and just slept the whole time we were there (he had a long day, after all), though I can’t wait until he can interact with us. Knowing his parents, I’m sure he will be a fun baby to be around.

Congrats (yet again) to the happy parents!

And in case you noticed the logo on the pictures, I’m pleased to announce that I am starting my own business in photography! I’m hoping to do mostly weddings, lifestyle pictures (people and pets) as well as knitwear for designers. I hope you will all check out my photo blog and my website when it goes up! I’m excited about undertaking this new venture! Please visit TripleC Photography. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Rhinebeck fun

I went to the NYS Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck and I had such a great time! It was my first fiber festival ever and I just loved being there! It was awesome to have so many yarn shops to peruse in one spot. The festival was so big there was just no way to see it all in one day, but I did cover a lot of ground. I’m exhausted now. I woke up at 5am to be at the bus by 6am. I have a hard time sleeping in buses (same as planes, actually) so I didn’t really sleep much beyond the 4 hours I got during the night. But I certainly had an adrenaline rush when we arrived! It was a very cold day but that didn’t stop me in the least! I was wearing my Mara (that shawl got me more compliments than I have received since my wedding day, LOL!) and fingerless mitts and they both did a good job of keeping me warm – along with a jacket, of course. The first thing I noticed? The absolutely gorgeous colors of fall all over the place. It’s actually amazing how beautiful all the trees were. This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but you can get an idea:

The first thing I did? Hit up The Fold for some Socks that Rock, of course! I grabbed some gorgeous skeins and then spent another 20 minutes trying to pay for them, LOL. It was worth it, though!

That’s five – count ‘em, five – skeins of STR! I’m excited about all of them but especially Pond Scum (on the far right), Jubilation (the dark purple one) and the Mill End (on the far left). I can’t wait to knit with them! And on my way around I ran into Ysolda Teague and Laura Chau, both of pattern-fame, shopping for baskets! I was so surprised I couldn’t think of anything to say, but it was still strange and exciting to just see them around!

Of course, I was *way* too busy shopping to take many pictures. I feel a bit bad about it, but then I look at my acquisitions and don’t feel bad anymore. I mean, just look at it:

Is that a great pile of fibery goodness or what? I spent quite a bit but managed to stick to my very sizable budget (remember the yarn diet? that was to save up for this!), so I’m happy. While there I got to meet up with the wonderfully sweet Christi and her equally sweet mother, Cindy. They were a lot of fun to hang out with and we did some shopping together and a bit of lunch (well, actually, I pretty much stood in line for chicken pot pie the whole time!) before we parted company. It was great to finally meet Christi after talking on Ravelry for so long! After waiting forever for the chicken pot pie, and eating it all up, I wandered over to the outside vendors and checked out some sheep! They were very cute, though I think some of them were a little tired of being there… I got some nice shots, though.

And I know it’s probably just dirt, but doesn’t he (she?) look like he’s wearing mascara? haha!

And one more shot of a sheep checking out some kids hand. I swear it wasn’t trying to eat it or anything.

I wandered around some more and found Briar Rose Fibers with all these gorgeous colors!

I bought quite a bit from them (including some buttons!) and will hopefully do a sweater sometime soon as I got 1300 yards of this gorgeous DK weight:

And that’s about it for pictures I took… I was pretty worthless as I mentioned before. But at least I took some! I also bought lots of yummy goodies – maple sugar cotton candy amongst other sweets! – for the hubby so he wouldn’t feel so bad about the yarn purchases… it’s called distraction, people, and you should learn it!

Anyway, I’ve done some knitting since my last post – and on the bus trip too! – but I will leave that for a following post. I had a *wonderful* time at my first fiber event and can’t wait for the next! I’ll be off to Stitches West in February (going with my mom!) and I’m very excited about it. I managed to snag one of the seats in Cookie A’s class on traveling stitches and I’m beyond excited about that – you all know how much I love her socks!

Hope your Saturday was as good as mine… though maybe that you didn’t spend quite so much money! I’ll leave you all with one of my favorite purchases for the day – THE SOFTEST yarn – Suri Alpaca lace weight… is this gorgeous or what?