Wednesday's Web

I thought I would try and keep up with a feature on Wednesdays with a sampling of what I found of interest on the internet (or book or magazine) each week.

The Spring Issue of Knotions is live. I love Andromeda, its a lace sock pattern complete with beads and a picot cuff. It might also help that I'm obsessed with the color purple, and the image for the pattern is a lovely purple sock yarn. There is another great sock pattern called Scottsdale that uses two different colors for a fair isle effect.

I found some super cute animal patterns on Barbara Prime's site.

Speaking of super cute animals, there is an adorable bunny pattern in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Debbie Bliss magazine. The website doesn't show inside the magazine, but there's also a lovely cabled jacket, simple, yet beautiful blanket ... and a more involved cabled blanket. There's a few sweater patterns in there for the little ones as well, you just have to check it out for yourself to see all that's in there. This is the second issue of the magazine which will be published twice a year and I've been pleased with both issues so far.

I recently purcahsed Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns by Carol Sulcoski. I had time today to read the entire section at the beginning and was very pleased with the information on color, how pooling and striping occur in handpainted yarns. In the book Carol explains how best to choose a pattern for a handpainted yarn based on the color value and repeat characteristic of the hank. I do like most of the patterns in the book, but was a little dissapointed that most of them were recommended for nearly solids or muted multis instead of wild multis. Wild multis are those skeins with many loud and vibrant colors, which is most of what I own and like to purchase, however with the knowledge gained from the information in this book I can better choose other patterns that I find online or in books to go with my handpaints.

This month I received my first installment of The Lord of the Rings Sock Club from The Unique Sheep, while this particular club is closed to new members, there are other themed clubs open and more have popped up on their site since I joined this one. The yarn is beautiful and the pattern looks lovely. I moved after I joined this club and had to change my address so I emailed Laura and received a quick response, so customer service is great.

While searching to feed my addiction of podcasts I found a blog devoted to that topic, Knitting Podcast.

Want to do more things that make you happy in 2009? Check out Day Zero - the home of the 1001 Day Project. A unique meme that challenges and inspires you to set and complete realistic goals in life. Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days. I am currently working on my list ... might take me 1001 days to get 101 tasks on a list, LOL!

Inaugural Post

2009 ... a new year ... a new blog. I have blogged in the past, unsuccessfully I must say since I didn't have very many readers. In December 2008 we purchased our first house. Before that we lived in a place that we nostaglically refer to as the cesspool of society. Some of the neighbors were obnoxious and had absolutely no concept or understanding of personal privacy, these people aired their personal "laundry" so to speak in the form of in-person or telephone conversations (sometimes outright arguments and fights) outside when each unit was only about 15 feet apart. Needless to say we could not find any peace in a place like this. I for one am a person who enjoys her peace and quiet and really has a dislike for dramatics (I don't watch reality tv for that reason) so this really tortured me.

Since we are now in a better place, both physically and mentally I am hoping this will allow my creative juices to flow freely and I will be able to knit more and maybe start dyeing yarn, designing my own knits, etc.

As of late I have been completely addicted to podcasts and was thinking about creating my own, however, I should probably get the blog thing down first.

This is a knitting blog, so let's talk about some knitting! I have been knitting since September of 2006. Fell in total and absolute love with the craft from the very beginning. I took several different classes at my local yarn shop to learn new techniques over the years. Mostly I knit socks ... I love sock yarn ... I hoard sock yarn ... I buy lots of pretty skeins of fantastical colors ... I hope to actually knit most of them someday before I forever depart this earthly realm.

I had a bit of a problem with my last sock project ... and had a gut instict reaction which I should have heeded, but didn't. I am saving this for another post. So since that happened, I am going to cast on a new sock project today with this:



Which now looks more like this:




Please leave a comment so I can come and visit you at your blog :o)