Dress inspiration turned up to 11!

If anyone is looking for a gift for me... for any reason... say Valentine's Day?

100 Unforgettable Dresses

This is a gorgeous book!!!  I found it on Pantone's Color and Design Blog.  There are so many amazing dress moments... fantastic shapes, silhouettes, color, and detailing.  I do love books.

Knitting Stash

I keep my knitting stash in this lovely old trunk owned by my Great-Aunt Elsie after whom we named our daughter.  Aunt Elsie was an amazing woman who was into all sorts of crafts and herb drying and fun.  She would brush their dog Sardis and knit things out of his hair.  I have very fond memories of her.  Her name is still on the trunk.

I was desperate to find a storage place for my ever expanding yarn stash which had two exponential leaps in the past couple of years:

1. My father found a trove of wool yarn and hand weaving yarn at a yard sale for $7.00... and of course you can't say "No" to a deal like that... so it was added (not all of that haul is in the trunk by the way)
2. Last spring I went to an Estate Sale of a MAJOR knitter, world traveller, and Powell's Books employee and found unbelievable deals on mohair, lambswool, and sock weight wools.  So into the trunk those yarns went... the books are on the bookshelf.

The trunk being rather old and closed up for many decades by the time I received it wasn't smelling too fresh.  This past summer, determined not to let my lavender go to waste, I sewed up two really big sachets.  You can see one of them in the picture in the green and black check.  The trunk smells fantastic!  Especially when you first open it and that first blast of lavender escapes.  No moldy, ancient smells anymore.

I did some yarn sorting and organizing today and put some yarns together in plastic bags and left others in their piles.  I don't think anything is going to turn itself into a complete knot in here.  It did make me remember what I had.  I unravelled some UFO's that weren't going to ever get finished.  In some cases I had forgotten what I had even started.

More knitting!!

Woo hoo!  Double post today.  I am taking dance classes twice a week and eating more fruit... maybe that's the secret to productivity.  Anyway... here is a project in progress.  I usually don't post many knitting projects partway done, because they sometimes stay that way for many years.  But this one is a fast project.  The red had in the picture belongs to Miss E's grandfather.  She brought it home and announced that she wants one just like it, but with a pompom on top.  I rummage through my stash and found this beige yarn that is almost the same size as the red yarn.  You can read more about the yarn specifics here.

I knit a little bit every night, and since I'm using size 8 circular needles... it's a fast one.  Hopefully it won't become a UFO... I have enough of those that need to be frogged and repurposed.

Christmas Knitting

I am finally getting around to posting some of my Christmas projects.  Here are the socks that I knitted for the kids.  The dark grey colorway is Blackjack and the orange colorway is Tequila Sunrise.... I had to laugh at that once the socks were underway.

The dynamic duo had been wanting new socks for awhile. This was my first time knitting with a self-striping yarn.  I thought that the color increments were totally random, but as I was working on the second knee sock (Blackjack), I realized that I could have made the stripes line up on the pair if I had started knitting farther into the skein.  Oh well... I think the end result still looks random enough that most people won't notice.

Besides kids move fast, so you can hardly see the stripe repeat let alone that these are hand knit socks.

It is fun to pull them past your toes and make "floppy feet"..... just like Don Martin does in Mad Magazine of course.

Portland in the Winter

Miss E and I went down to the Pearl before Christmas to do a little last minute shopping.  I do like the way the old buildings look down there.

I need to spend more time out and about in the city.