Angee and Shop Hop

I'd intended to do both pairs of socks in this month's Cookie A knitalong. I ended up just finishing Angee (with about 24 hours to spare). I've been too busy sewing cat toys to do much of anything else. My reward for completing the order of nearly 200 toys is to do Shop Hop Atlanta. I'll report back on my adventures as they occur. I'm planning on starting with the most local of my LYS on Sunday.

Labyrinth Socks

labdet
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

Here's the pattern for these socks. I recommend a solid/semisolid if you want the pattern to show up clearly. If you like patterns that are just complex enough to keep you entertained, you might like this.

Labyrinth Socks


ETA: Never mind. Here's where you can find a better version of the same pattern. She's got a bunch of other cool-looking free patterns, too. The blog's in French but the patterns are in English (at the the first one I checked was in English).

Cute Attack

candycorn
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

I saw some too cute candy corn amigurumi that someone's selling on Etsy. I decided that I had to try to make one of my own.

Okay, I'm done having fun, it's back to the cat toy mountain. Only 50 more catnip mice and I'll be done.


ETA: D'oh! I really have the dumb big-time today. The candy corn should be a little yellow on the bottom, a big band of orange in the middle, and a little bit of white on top.

Hats

hats
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

This is all the knitting I've had time to do the last couple of weeks. the two little hats are for charity, providing they stretch out enough to fit some little heads. The gray is my handspun alpaca.

Shop hop clueless rant

I've been doing these online yarn and fabric shop hops. You go to a site and find a graphic that you click and you get credit for finding it. Most of the time, the shop will give you some sort of clue as to where the graphic might be found. The other times, you have to deal with the clueless. I mean that in both senses of the word. I can understand that a business would like people to look at many parts of their site. Not supplying a clue will definitely make people look at a lot of different pages. However, this can backfire big time. If someone clicks on every possible link on a site with menus from hell, that person will remember your site. That person will also never EVER wish to return for any reason. I'm unlikely to finish the current yarn dash because of two sites with no clues (and I suspect no "found it" graphics).

Clueless ones, there are options. One site I visited today made a little game of getting people to look through their site. The owner's picture was put on a series of pages that she wanted people to see. You looked at the page, found the picture, clicked on the picture, and were moved to another page. At the end of about a half dozen pages was the "found it" graphic. The owner got what she wanted and so did I. That's the exact opposite of what happened with your sites.

Knitter Twitter Party with Vickie Howell

Join Me & Lands’ End for a Twitter Party to celebrate the kick-off the FeelGood Campaign! The party will feature more than 20 fun giveaways ranging from the FeelGood sweater and my books to Lands’ End gift cards and FeelGood yarn. Here are the details:




Lands’ End FeelGood Twitter Party

Date: Wednesday, September 16th

Time: 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. CST

Location: #landsend




What IS a Twitter Party?
A Twitter Party is where a group of people can discuss or “Tweet” about a specific topic in their own little chat room. To participate in the discussion you’ll need to sign up for a free Twitter account (instructions are listed below).

Why Attend?
Twitter parties are a great way to connect with other people while chatting about a specific topic. Lands’ End will be hosting a two-hour Twitter Party to kick-off the FeelGood campaign – complete with fun and giveaways.

Twitter Party Hosts
Twitter Party Hosts oversee the event, answer questions, and keep the flow of the party going.

How To Participate

1. Twitter Account - Go to www.twitter.com to sign up for a free Twitter account.

2. Find and Follow any or all of Lands’ End Hosts:
@LEPRMichele
@LandsEndPRKira
@LEPRAmanda
@LandsEndPRAdam
@VickieHowell

During the party if you want to address one of the hosts directly, be sure to use their entire Twitter handle (ie @VickieHowell).

Hashtag – The Twitter world calls a pound sign (#) a hashtag. A hashtag is a code used to mark a specific topic. The Lands’ End FeelGood Twitter Party is marked and happening at #landsend. You can search for #landsend to participate in the party and see the party tweets.

Set Up TweetGrid - On the day of the party, use TweetGrid.com or another Twitter application such as TweetDeck to follow all of the “tweets” marked #landsend and participate in the party.

On TweetGrid - You can comment, reply and read all at once in TweetGrid, and it even puts the hashtag in your comment for you.

Click here for a TweetGrid tutorial list. The Twitter Party Tutorial should be #8.

Fast Followers – Something to note, Twitter parties are fun and fast!


Hope to see you there!


Craft.Rock.Love,
Vickie

I've got the hat pattern printed out and will grab my needles and a bucket of worsted yarn. It sounds like fun and a good cause to boot.

Work in progress (or not)

• Fat quarter project bag-found a pattern for one of the boxy style bags. It didn't work out. I'm waiting for a new idea to arrive.
  
• Socks-do not want to knit socks right now. There's one completed Cookie sock and another, from a different pattern, with about 1/2" of ribbing done. I'm not going to force myself to work on them.
  
• Sweater-I'm making a sweater out of Peaches and Creme. You got a problem with that? I could've bought fancy cotton yarn for it and spent 5 or 10 times the $18 this cost. My budget can handle that.
  
• Tam-When I reached Sock Burnout, I picked up my drop spindle and finished the bag of gray alpaca. I'm making a lace tam out of it. I did some Ravelry pattern searches to find an appropriate pattern. I was very amused to find patterns called River Tam and Simon Tam.
  
• Shop Hops-the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop will occur on the same week as my birthday. I've decided that I'll participate this year. I've been busy with Mapquest and Driving Route Planner, trying to decide the most practical way of hitting all 10 shops. That was fun. It'll be done on two days.
  
• Cat toys-everything will be going on the back burner until I finish a big order of cat toys. Maybe a after a few dozen the socks will start calling out to me.
  

Another thing I didn't need to know

I think I knew that you could buy yarn via Amazon, but I put the idea out of my head. I heard about Misti Alpaca sock yarn, so I Googled it. I was just curious to see what it looked like and how much it cost. I don't need any new sock yarn. Guess where you can buy it. Yeah, Amazon. Paradise Fibers is the source. Their business card is on the wall behind me, so you know I'm familiar with them. Three of the colors were just okay, but then I saw Marino. My inner child is kicking and screaming for it, but I'm being strong. I don't need any more sock yarn. In fact, I'm about to start some socks with a somewhat similar color from mmmmMalabrigo. I'll go pet that yarn until the inner kid calms down.

slippers

slippers
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

No, the camera wasn't out of focus. These really are that fluffy. I got the pattern from Craftzine. The knitting's easy. You knit six squares in a row, kind of like a stripey scarf. The final two squares go on in a different direction so you end up with an L shape. Sewing it together's a little crazy, but they've got a video that's supposed to help. I was too stubborn to go and look at it and was able to figure it out. Eventually.

No excuses

rovingballs
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

This is a half pound of wool roving from Hidden Haven Farm. I had no idea that it would be this much. The balls are each about as big as my head.

The paint's dry on my Kiwi spinning wheel. It didn't come out the way I wanted it to, but it still looks better than the plain MDF did. The wheel's ready to be used and I have lots of fiber. I have no excuses to keep from spinning. I do have two new projects that I want to do before I start, though.


I learned one thing from trying to design a project bag that uses two fat quarters: a boxy shape is necessary to use up most of the fabric. I wanted to avoid zippers, but those box-shaped project bags kept calling to me. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I found the Cutesie Box Bag Tutorial. I've got those shiny African fabrics I got at Stitches South that would make a cute bag. Watch this space.

I wanted a good Hello Kitty amigurumi pattern, and found one in an Etsy shop that's gone out of business. I want to make one in a Jayne hat, one that looks like a good luck cat, and a devil kitty. So many projects, so little sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz