Purling Sprite

From Argyle to Fair Isle

What a challenge this simple fair isle hat design for the book has been! 3 hours into my original design and I had to frog it.

In my search for personal fulfillment, I kept walking away from the "Beginner vision" of the book. So what started as an allover Argyle design, got shrunk to a band of fair isle (and a few more hours of designing went into the pot again). Next time--make me a huge sign that says: KISS. The Argyle design had to be put away--at least for the moment....sad, sad.

But all my hours of playing/designing have actually been made a lot easier and enjoyable since I got the designing software by KnitFoundry--talk about an easy way to create charts. If you haven't tried it, go to their site and download the free demo. The software rocks! I am now making charts for everything and anything! Gosh, I love my job!!! And if you buy it and are forgetful like I am--contact Nancy and she'll give you a special deal for both the instant download and the CD! Now, if I could just find a CD with nice body forms for me to draw my ideas on--then I would be completely set!

A peek into another book project: From vision to actual life:

   

Challenge 1: writing the instructions easy enough for someone new to loom knitting.

Challenge 2: Writing the pattern for bigger sizes than mine

Off to loom knit a few more things....chugging along...almost done...I can see the light!

On another topic--I am trying to clean out my craft room and I have put a bunch of stuff for sale over at my Destashing site--yarn, looms, and needles will be posted there soon.

Random

Sky at 8pm, on our last Saturday in July. By far, it is one of my favorite Saturday Sky pictures that I have taken--for some reason, it gives me a sense of hope.

I have spent the best part of the day designing a fair isle stitch pattern for a hat--every time I thought I had something, I faced a wall--a set amount of pegs that I needed to meet. After several hours, I came up with the exact stitch count that would work with the knitting loom in mind....what do you think?

You see that pink something--it is a little sneak peek into a huge project that my friend Dlandra helped me knit. She did such a wonderful job! Thanks for having my back! Love ya Sista!!

And lastly, I wanted to share a picture from my other little one--he fell asleep thinking--I have named the picture--the Thinker, hehehehe...original :). The little stuff dragon is his favorite--his name is Scorchy and I brought him with me when I moved from NY--it has been B's nite, nite "protector" since he was about 1 year old.

One last picture of our Saturday evening sky.

Sleeping Beauty

A look into my poor parenting skills-- Look, no one to cuddle her but the lowly step! Poor little munchkin.

One moment, she was playing around, the next she sat down next to her dad (the feet in the picture), and next we knew,she was out (it was like 1am!). I had to grab the camera and snap a picture of my little Sleeping Beauty.

My Little Princess!!

Throw me a line...I am drowning!

The.end.is.near.

I am dying. My hand hurts from all the loom knitting I have been doing. You have heard the saying, an apple a day keeps the doctor away--well, the same principle does not apply to a Loom Knitted Project a Day.

So if you see me a bit quiet for the next few days--I have not died (at least I hope not). I am just innundated with yarn and looms.

Send energy and good karma my way. Oh, and sleep for me just a wee bit!

Oh, check my new shoes....me loves them. They are PINK! I wanted them in blue but they were all gone :(.

No Looms in Sight

 

The looms stayed home (ok, not really, I had my knitting bag with me) on Saturday and we headed out across the mountain to Tremonton to the fairgrounds. Life has been a bit busy lately and I have been innundated with yarn and knitting looms--my children know that the moment I wake up I am either at the computer typing away, or loom knitting, or reading a book "doing heseach".  This weekend though, I wanted to give them something back and guess what--I had fun--I enjoyed myself as much as they did!  The heat did not hinder us one bit on our day of adventures. Overall--it was a great fun date, I felt rejuvenated--especially after my nap!

Tomorrow is a Utah holiday and we have big plans--weeding the yard, BBQ, and then fireworks over at the park--but most importantly--a funnel cake, a churro, and maybe a yummy gyro for me! It is all about the food, lol!

They do listen...but most importantly--they watch you

Children can be so adorable. I just had to share this wonderful little bit of today with you. I was folding clothes when the following was happening:

It all started when Nyah found one of her babies in the toy room. She brought it upstairs and both her and Bryant started playing together.

B: This baby needs a diaper change

N: (runs to get a diaper-gives it to Bryant) Bryant takes off the diaper the baby is wearing and gives it to Nyah. Nyah runs away saying "garbage, garbage--pewweee"

B: Mom, baby needs her clothes changed.

(I give them a little outfit)

Bryant proceeds to take off the clothes on the baby and Nyah helps by pulling on the little arms.  After fumbling with the outfit, they finally get the baby dressed.

Bryant wraps it in a blankie and sings

"Rock a baby and good night is time to go to sleep--mommy is knitting so you sleep...."

They both lay down on the couch and Bryant realizes that the baby doesn't have a bed and he says

B: You little stinker, you can't sleep with us, you kick too much.

Bryant gets down from the couch and goes up to find a box for the baby. Nyah grabs the baby and starts singing Twinkle Twinkle.

Bryant finds a box and puts the baby in the box-now a baby crib. And he tiredly says--

B: Oh this baby kept me awake all night long, now I have to go make looms. Nyah you stay home and feed the baby bottle and knit.

He goes to the other room then comes back saying

B: Oh, I am tired! Making looms is hard work. I waxed all day....(exhales a huge Sighhhh)

He grabs the baby and sits with it and starts playing with it. 

(I go upstairs to put the clothes away)

A couple of minutes pass:

B: Mom, we are going to buy the baby diapers, you watch the baby. Take good care of her. She needs a bottle and don't give her candy! (We have been trying to get Nyah to stop eating candy--Bryant has caught on to the general idea!)

N: Bye baby, wooove you.  (She gently picks up the baby and gives her a kissy).

The afternoon was one of the most pleasant and revealing of my life. I keep thinking that my kids never listen to me--despite my screaming, but today, I realized that they may ignore my voice, but their little eyes watch my every move!

In the loom knitting front--I was able to finally finish the shrug. There was some frogging and some headbanging as the original pattern I had in mind didn't exactly work with the yarn, but at the end, I found the perfect beginner stitch pattern.

In Mommy duties--we are just tickled pink--Nyah can count to 10 in both Spanish and English! And...wait, that's not all, she is completely off the bottle--it took us long enough (she is 19mos), she was very much attached to it.  She looks for food when she needs comfort (I think she got that from me, poor muffin).  Bryant--well, he is my little helper. He has learned to fold all of his clothes! It is such a time saver! He folds his little clothes and Nyah's! Yay!!

Oh--Check out Nona's Research in Comparing Left Slanting Decreases!

I spy

Another beautiful Saturday in this side of the world.

During the past week, I have been converting some needle knit dishcloth patterns onto chart form. The charts have been a great hit and a few friends have been asking me about the knitting font I use...but I won't tell...it is my secret, my secret. HAHAHAHA! Ok, it is not a secret, it is actually a well known website through out the blog-sphere. 

A few months ago after searching low and high for a way to create nice looking charts for some of my loom knitted patterns, I came across a terrific website, Aire River Design, they provide a free knitting font for personal use and for self-publishers. It is very simple to use. Just download the font onto your pc, install it and you are set. You can use the font on any of your computer programs and create professional looking charts.

I use mine in Word. I simply insert a table with the number of columns (for stitches) and with the number of rows necessary. Then I just insert the symbol needed into each cell. That's it! Really neat and easy!

There now, you know my secret to my pretty charts. There are other free knitting fonts out there, but I have not had the chance to try them.

Now...for the things I spy on my beautiful Saturday--what do you Spy?

I am official--check my new blog banner!

I am so official now...see my new banner and cute little button! I am officially the Purling Sprite in the blog-sphere! Cynthia hooked me up with a mystifying-sizzling web banner. For lack of better words---it totally rocks! Look closely--I am knitting socks (my favorite item to knit), it is purple--lots of shades of purple, and she even added a couple of knitting looms! I just feel so glamorous--a glamorous Purling Sprite ;).

To celebrate my new banner, I had to start a pair of socks--in purple of course. The stripey goodness is the self-striping yarn I got from Scout..I love the swirling stripes of black and purple. The design--my own crazy thing, I'll post the pattern when I finish the first sock, it is not difficult at all. I am using size 1 Crystal Palace dpns and a rib of k6, p2.

 

  In other projects, I am chugging along with the loom knitting projects...slowly but surely. I can see the end near....yay!

I have decided that every day, I am going to set an hour aside to knit on needles...an hour a day may not seem like much, but I can get a few rounds on a sock done, or even a small project done--time to take out the One Skein book out!

Reporting on the weird plant: It has some type of weird-looking-flowers now.  My neighbor next door (whom cornered me after coming back from Knitter's Nite) inform me that it is a thistle and I should take it out. So--the weird plant is not from out-of-space like some of you suggested, so no big money is to be made...sad news, I know, hahahaha. Come this fall, I am afraid a lot of the plants in the yard are going to be taken a one way trip to plant-heaven.

Checking out for now from the bunnies in Utah....the glamorous, purple,  Purling Sprite :). Thanks Cynthia for the great banner!

I spy...something purple...

Lookie what I spied outside...a little dragonfly flying around. It was a little hard getting a picture of a flying little bug, but the chase was fun. It kept flying high and hiding behind the leaves but I succeeded in taking a few blurry pics of the flying purple/blueish beauty.

Another purple beauty to share...a new sock yarn for my collection, a ScoutJ handpainted original. I can hardly wait to try it out--I am thinking a simple sock to allow the beauty of the yarn to shine! Scout has terrific service! She even sent a wonderfully scented incense stick--which is now housed inside the little footstool with all my current projects.

Purple projects all around--a little fishy to help in practicing increasing/decreasing on knitting looms. The loom holds the purple blob--a never ending project that after many days of procrastination has finally been bound off and it is currently drying...something good about this heat wave, anything felted dries up in one day flat!

Some of you asked me about the socks on yesterday's post--the picture is just a little peek to one of the projects I have been working for the "big project"....shhhh, it's a secret, don't tell anyone you saw the picture.

Speaking of yesterday's pictures, do you remember the "interesting- looking-speciment"...well, my darlin' hubby informed me today (after hearing me nag about the "ugly" plant with the huge buds that don't flower) that the interesting-specimen actually doesn't give flowers. The buds are not buds for flowers, they are the flowers...hmmm. Apparently, the specimen is called a "CatTail." I don't know where it got its name as it doesn't look like any cattail I have ever seen...I don't know. I don't think it is a cattail...at least it doesn't look like the cattails pictured all over google. Whatever it is, I will keep an eye on it...cattail, dogtail, fishtail, whatever it is, we will wait and see...patiently....sighh.

Lily Beauty

Over the weekend, I acquired a super cool set of couches for an unbelievable price. My neighbor next door is moving to California and they had a garage sale on Saturday. Although I love garage sales, I tend to avoid them as I usually come back home with unnessary items, but this time, I scored big!

My living room upstairs has been void of furniture since we moved into the house (with the exception of my wheel that has been there since the first day we moved), it wasn't really a big deal, the kids enjoyed playing in the big empty space and we never get any visitors so having furniture there wasn't really a major thing. But, having it empty felt that we weren't really "living" here, it seemed that we were in the brink of either moving in or out.  But not anymore--look, 2 couches upstairs and my gorgeous new throne (hubby says so, lol).

On Friday (before scoring the couches) I stopped at Wal- mart and I found the cute footstool on the picture above, it is some suede imitation, nothing fancy, but oh so functional. The footstool doubles as a storage area. Take the top off and you have an area of about 28" L x 12" W x 8" D, enough space to store at least 2 projects (that be it needle knitted or loom knitted) and all types of notions needed for a project. I am a slob--and I tend to keep at least 3 different projects right next to me on the couch at all times, so naturally, they tend to occupy at least half of the couch, but not anymore, I have them now all neatly inside that little footstool. On top of the footstool, I have my trusty research knitting books.

Outside in the yard: we have been growing flowers like crazy. The strawberries are ripening despite the heat wave and the ants are still roaming around scaring Nyah.

But, look at this interesting specimen on the picture on the left. It started like any other weed, short, nasty looking, (it is still nasty looking) but it is no longer short, it stands about 5 feet tall and it keeps growing. It has buds, they have been there for about 2 weeks, I have been waiting patiently to see what type of flower it has--I mean for all I know it could be a carnivorous plant (yeah, that is how little I know about plants) . It is an interesting looking plant (weed?)...do any of you know what it could be....the suspence is killing me.

I leave you with a picture of my Lily Beauty