And now, some knitting time

It's been a crazy week. Permit me to explain:
Monday- lots of errands. Got home from work at 7. Went to tap at 7:45. Got home after 10.
Tuesday- loooong meeting. Got home from work at 8.
Wednesday- another loooooooong meeting. Again, got home from work at 8.
Thursday- actually left work on time. Had tap rehearsal at 7. Got home late. Did manage to work on the SWTC sweater during other groups' rehearsals. Everyone loved the Amaizing yarn. (Corn? They said. You're kidding.)
Friday- tap performance after work. Got home late again. Hubbo's reaction? "You guys kicked ass."

The end of a busy week- my tap performance.

Sockapaloooza socks done at last! Just plain toe-ups, I'm afraid, in Koigu.

A peek at what I've been working on- at 7 sts and 9 rows to the inch it's not fast work. Soon (hopefully- I've cleared my calendar to do nothing but knit this weekend) it will be a sweater for SWTC.
Wish me luck.

Additional Finished-ness

Can't really show off the magazine stuff, but suffice to say it's all done. The pillow for Cast On is in Fair Isle and then felted, and I managed not to over-felt it so that it actually fits the pillow form. I'm happy. Did more work on the Amaizing sweater and a little on my Sockapalooza sock too- hoping to have more to show for myself later. I have a few things to do for my "real" job first so until then...

Yes, I'm sore

Design for Creative Knitting = Done
Design for Cast On = Well underway, shouldn't take long, it's a pillow
Design for SWTC = Started, not fast knitting, I'm afraid (yarn is sport weight-ish) but so nice to work with I don't care. Need to finish the Cast On ASAP to meet deadline (and reduce stress related to size of project pile) and then it's nothing but the Amaizing sweater (and finishing my other Sockapalooza sock, I hope!) for the rest of the month. After that it's back to the design for the Alpaca Yarn Co., which needs to be done soon too- before TNNA (which I'm going to, did I mention? Too exciting!)

5 Places

Kat is having a contest wherein you must name 5 places you have knit other than home or the yarn store...sounds like fun.
1. During breakfast with Tony the Tiger at Kellogg's Cereal City in Battle Creek
2. Very sneakily during jury duty until I got busted
3. At the pool, while wet from swimming
4. In a hotel fitness room, while exercising (treadmill)
5. At the movies, in the dark

Yarn Store Adventure!

Got lots of stuff today! Since it's Spring Break (and Hubbo was home today) I decided to have a little impromptu yarn store crawl. There are two new (okay, one is just newish) yarn stores in Brighton, not close but not super far either, so I decided to check them out. The first was Ewe-Nique Yarns, they had lots of normal stuff. I bought the Noro there, the Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille, and the Addis (trying to fill in some gaps in my collection.) Next I went to Noisy Needles, which is brand new. They have a "Made in USA" attitude, which is unfortunate when it comes to yarn, since so little is actually made here. Pretty much all they had was Brown Sheep, but I did get the nifty little Bryspun circular. On the way home, since I still hadn't found what I went out to get (One Skein) I decided to swing by the Knitting Den in South Lyon (it's on the way home) and found it, along with a nice skein of Trekking to make some springy socks for Emma when I get my deadline knitting done. When I got home, I found the UPS man had come and left me the Big Pink Cone, which is SWTC Amaizing (100% corn) which comes out this fall. It is totally soft and machine washable AND dryable. I have to finish the Amaizing sweater as soon as possible, so I'm getting started right now.

Sockapaloooza Updates and FOs

One down, one to go! It's a little big on me, but you get the picture. Got to love the Koigu!


Another design finished for SWTC- this time it only took a week! I'm just giving a peek, but it's in SWTC Phoenix (I love this yarn!!) in the new Mermaid color- a little summery t-shirt kind of thing. (Edited to add a better picture.)


Now to do something with all of this (for Creative Knitting) plus the pile of Lopi that just arrived for the Cast On design and the SWTC Amaizing that is supposed to come tomorrow!! (Pinecone II says "hi," apparently.)

When it rains, it pours

I got a call this afternoon informing me that the submission I sent to Cast On has been accepted! This means that in the last 2 weeks, I have had a total of 4 designs accepted for publication: 2 for SWTC (one in Amaizing, their awesome new yarn made of corn), 1 for Creative Knitting, and now 1 for Cast On. Good thing I've got next week off and that I just got a new wrist brace for the ol' carpal tunnel- I'm going to need it! I'm totally excited though- being too busy is fun when it's knitting, right?

3, 2, 1...

Three more days until Spring Break. 10 glorious days of wallowing in all the "deadline knitting" I have to do. Yay!
P.S. Tomorrow is the 16th anniversary of Hubbo's and my first date. Cute but scary. We're up to half of my life here people.
P.P.S. I'm working on something new for SWTC in yarn made of corn. Yes, corn. It's pretty cool.

Finally, something finished!

The Elizabeth Cardigan for South West Trading is finished at last! Here's a sneaky peek (before I blocked it.) It's in their new Amerah yarn, which is 100% silk and kind of raw and nubby looking. Sorry so blurry- it got all messed up when I cropped it, I guess.

Sick + Secret Pal

My Secret Pal was revealed to me today, along with my final gift! I got Wrap Style and 2 skeins of pinky-red Atacama yarn, of which I will post pictures as soon as I get all the confetti out of it (!) The box had a lot of paper confetti in it, and it's totally stuck to the yarn. The person I was spoiling just posted about her final gift. I'm glad she liked it. In other news, I'm sick (!!) which is not good considering my looming knitting deadlines, but I did get the last sleeve finished on the Amerah cardigan for SWTC in between naps today. Hopefully I'll get it seamed soon, since the Phoenix yarn arrived for the next project (and more yarn is on its way for other stuff!!) Big mail day today.

It's that time of year...

Happy Blogiversary to Me! One year old today.

Hocus Pocus

Look what I magically transformed my old Needlemaster into (thanks to the lovely ladies at the Knitter's Review Forums!) I sold it last week and with the proceeds bought two skeins of Socks That Rock- Queen Rock and Carbon Dating. Ooh la la!
P.S. In other news, the editor over at Creative Knitting called me today- looks like they want another design of mine, this time for the January 2007 issue! I've submitted to them 3 times so far and gotten every one accepted- not too shabby! I'm not one of those people who submits multiple proposals and makes every submission deadline (far from it- this is the first time I've submitted to Creative Knitting since last summer) but I do what I can. Somehow despite this I seem to end up with really busy periods with lots of deadlines at once- now is one of those times! Glad Spring Break is coming up soon- that will buy me the knitting time I need.