Episode 6: A Darn Good Mail Week

Hello, all! It’s been a week (well, it was when I recorded, haha) and while not all of it has been good, I had an AWESOME mail week. I wax poetic about Highland Handmades and Fibernymph Dye Works, show off the MadTosh, and show the adventures in spinning (which haven’t all been bad). There hasn’t been a whole lot of production this week, due to work and migraines sidelining me, but what has been worked on has gotten a lot of love! There are a couple of jumps in the recording – the first one was because I went off on some tangent that made no sense whatsoever and the second was due to George deciding that he needed to love on the laptop/tell me to get my butt to bed.

Current Roster 

• Owls sweater by Kate Davies. Tons of progress was made this past week – I am past the Owls chart and am ready to begin the second set of yoke decreases. And here I sit. I realized, as I was knitting on this, that I am going to run out of yarn and soon. 😦 So, this will be put aside until I can get a skein in a Rav destash. I’ve found someone who was selling 2 skeins, but those were sold quickly, and I’ve found .25 of a skein, but I think I’m going to need at least half of a skein to finish. sigh. My goal for this week is to get what I have photographed and the project up on Rav to remind myself to finish it!
• Simple, Stripey Socks. Not much progress was made, maybe 3 more rows, all while getting a pedicure on Sunday. The people at my nail salon are always interested in what I’m knitting, which is nice. Since I’m going away this week, I think it’ll get some more work on it, since it’s a simple stockinette stitch sock that can’t really be screwed up! 🙂

Scouting Report – Upcoming Patterns 

• Célia by Ariane Caron-Lacoste (fallingstitches on Rav). 

Scouting Report – Stash Enhancement 

It’s been a damn good mail week. At one point, my mother suggested that perhaps I may have gone a little overboard in my spending, but to be fair, I only made three purchases that month of the items that arrived…

• Magnolia Society – 1st package: 8 skeins of Madeline Tosh DK Twist in Tart. I believe that this will be used for Célia, I’m winding a skein up today and swatching for it during tonight’s webinar. 
• Highland Handmades Small Business Saturday Sale: 1 skein of Sugar Maple Sock in the Prospecting colorway (75% SW Merino/25% Nylon); 1 skein of Black Cherry Lace in the Frost colorway; and a top whorl spindle. Heather also included some sample fiber in my package so I wouldn’t have to break into my stash. Love.
• Fibernymph Dye Works Small Business Saturday update: 1 skein of Heavenly in the Marmaris SS colorway (80/10/10 MCN); 1 skein of Sunshine in the Colors of Venice (Sept. 2012 Unclub) colorway; and 1 braid of BFL in the Colors of Venice colorway.
• Rav destash from usedtobe35: 2 braids of Three Irish Girls Springvale Roving in the Sandpiper and Three Mile Bay colorways.
• Woolgirl Once Upon a Time yarn club: I’d forgotten about this one! 1 skein of Becoming Art’s Theia in Peter Pan, a handmade soap, patterns, stitch marker, notions case, key chain/bag fob, and a project bag! Woot!

Spinning 

I need a good name for this section and better placement in the podcast. Thoughts?

• I started by using my Ashford spindle (heavy) and a braid of fiber from SweetGeorgia. I love the colors, the fiber is easy to handle once I predraft it, and I don’t hate the singles. It’s not pretty, but it’s mine. 🙂
• I used my new spindle from Highland Handmades and the sample fiber she sent to see what the difference is… I love the lighter spindle, I feel like I have more control. I’m still parking and drafting, but I don’t mind.

What’s Making Me Happy

• If you are in or around the Columbus area, you know of this. Hell, if you’ve just traveled there, you know of this, but if not… Jeni’s Ice Cream. LOVE. I was just asked to visit the local Whole Paycheck and bring a couple pints down with me tomorrow – you don’t say no to a pregnant woman. Not when it comes to ice cream. Haven’t tried it? You must. Yes, it’s expensive, but worth EVERY penny. The flavor combinations are odd and perfect.
• Travelling! I’m heading southward tomorrow to see my best friend and other friends for a weekend of fun and stupidity. I. CANNOT. WAIT.
• Spending quality time with loved ones. I’ve been spending lots of time with my parents and a few friends lately and it’s done my heart good. I can’t wait for more of that this weekend.
• Teaching. Love, love, love. I love seeing when someone gets that moment of clarity while learning and gets excited about understanding what’s going on. There are few things that make me happier.

Have a great week, everyone! If you haven’t already, join the Rav group and share what’s going on and what you think about the episodes, because I love feedback.

I’ll see you next week!

xo, Holly

Episode 5: The Doctor Helps Me Knit

Hi everyone! So, this week’s episode is up a little late due to a scheduled day off (I recorded much earlier) and technical issues. Sorry for the delay! I got a few messages last week about the high-pitched buzzing and as I listened to this week’s episode, there’s some in there as well, though not as much (I don’t think, at least). I tried to lessen the buzzing as much as I could, even going to cutting some of the long pauses out when it was at its worst, so there are some jumpy cuts in there – all I cut out was pausing and a couple of “um”s. Lots of knitting was accomplished this week – hooray! – and, as you can tell by the title, a lot of it was done with help from the Doctor.

Current Roster 

• Owls sweater by Kate Davies. Lots of progress has been made – I’ve joined both sleeves to the body and have started the first row of the owls chart. Hooray! How did I get this far? Lots of watching of the good Doctor. I finished Season Two Saturday night after completing one project (more on that later) and one sleeve. I’m still a little nervous about the amount of yarn… while I show that I really should have enough, it would be just enough.
• Simple Stripey Socks. I’ve made some more progress on these with lots of podcast watching and nighttime knitting. I’m two stripes away from inserting the yarn for my afterthought heel, which should be done in the next day or so, depending on if I get knitting time.

Alumni Roster 

• Franken-Buckingham-Hat. Woot!! This got finished, finally! I made up the decreases as I went along – I’m not sure if I like ’em, but we’ll see. They work, and that’s a good thing. This will probably still be too big for my guy’s head, but whatever. It’s done and I’m happy. If I could sort out those decreases and make them look better, I wonder if the world needs a K13, P3 hat? Still thinking about this one.

Scouting Report 

• Book review of knitbot essentials. All in all, I’m not a fan. Mostly because the patterns are all available on Ravelry individually and they mostly are written for the very small. Most of the patterns go up to a 50″ bust, but in most cases it’s a case of “just ’cause you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

What’s Making Me Happy 

• Date nights with my closest friends – especially when they involve musical theatre! One of my friends and I saw “Dreamgirls” at Signature Theatre here in town. AMAZING! If you’re ever in the DC area and want to see some wonderful theater, you must visit here.
• I ❤ my Tivo something fierce. Having lived without it for over a year, I’m so looking forward to hooking it up again and being able to watch Netflix on my TV instead of my computer screen. It’ll be even better when I can use it for my cable box too…
• Thank you for all the kind words and all the hellos I got at fibre space’s Black Friday sale! I had so much fun keeping the line “managed” (because, really, there wasn’t too much to manage – most people were in really great moods and pretty relaxed) and giving away prizes!

Have a great week, everyone! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, if you celebrated. 🙂 Don’t forget to join the Rav group, if you haven’t already. I’ll see you all next week!

xo, Holly

Episode 4: Chatty, Chatty, Chatty

This week wasn’t a great week for me in general, but I did get some knitting done! It’s amazing what just letting yourself zone out through Doctor Who will do…

Current Roster 

• Owls Sweater by Kate Davies. (No, I still haven’t made a project page in Ravelry yet, bad me!) Lots of progress has been made this week, thanks to watching podcasts and Doctor Who! The first sleeve has taken the majority of a skein of yarn, which means the second will take the same… which leaves me with a skein and a half to do the yoke and owls. Eek! Plucky Knitter is having an update today, but I don’t get paid until Friday. Boo. Ah well, if I need to, I’ll hit up a Rav destash.
• Buckingham Hat by Blue Sky Alpacas. It’s at almost the same place it was last week – because there was ripping that had to be done. There’s a weird rib pattern that if it didn’t leave a weird broken rib (broken by an inch or so of stockinette stitch), would have been great. However, since I didn’t want to have to figure out how to fix it, I ripped back to the second rib and will extend that up the rest of the hat. It’s living in my Yarn Pop Gadgety bag. (At least, I think that’s what it is…)
• Simple Stripey Socks. I’m only a few more stripes along, but that’s mostly because Owls has taken all of my spare time. A few people have asked what bag I’m keeping them in and here you go: the Piddly bag from Piddleloop. Love their stuff!!

Alumni Roster 

Nothing new to add here… not yet, at least. Soon…

Scouting Report 

I’ve got a crazy idea to join in the KAL for the Beatnik sweater. It’s a KAL hosted by Emily of the Whatcha Swatchin’ podcast and Allison of the Hollywood Knitter podcast. It starts on Thanksgiving and ends in January… Crazypants idea, right? Who knows…

What’s Making Me Happy 

• Thanksgiving! I get to make my super-delicious turkey (thanks, Nigella Lawson!).
• Short work weeks!
• LOVE, love, love my new glasses! Super fast shipping can’t be beat!
• Furry co-host interruptions… You finally get to meet George. Yeah, I’m a crazy cat mom. 🙂 He’s my boy, though, and he picked me – I can’t ever forget that.
• I’ll be helping out at fibre space on Black Friday! If you’re shopping in Old Town, stop by!

Have a great week, everyone! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US!

Let me know what you think! Email me at sheepishpodcast AT gmail DOT com; my Twitter handle is @sheepishpodcast; my Plurk handle is sheepishpodcast; and I can be reached on Ravelry as knitgirl.

Have a great week!

xo, Holly

Episode 2: Awww, Thanks!

Okay, so it seems that I really have no sense of time and while it seemed like it was a shorter episode, I just can’t shut up! 😉 (Perhaps I should be glad that I can keep it under an hour, huh?) It looks like there are some lighting issues and a sound issue where I develop a lovely tenor and the sound doesn’t match up with the recording. Unfortunately, that was in the original and I don’t know if I can recreate the quiet. Sorry! 😦

Welcome! 

Welcome to all the people who have joined the group on Ravelry! I’ve gotten a lot of love and advice from you… Also, welcome to all the Plurkers out there who welcomed me with open arms this past week. Y’all know how to make a girl feel special!

Current Roster/WIPs 

No changes this week. 😦

• Hermione’s Everyday Socks – Socktober FAIL. I so wanted to finish these by the 31st, but life got in the way. These were the only things I worked on while in PA this past week, though. I’ve only got an inch or so more to knit before starting the toe. These WILL be finished by next week, if it kills me!
• Owls sweater – despite the ripping back and reknitting, no further progress was made on this over the week. I’m hoping to get back to it next week.

Alumni Roster/FOs 

Nothing to show. Next week, there will be!

Scouting Reports/New to the Queue and Stash 

I visited the Yarn Garden in Carlisle, PA on my way home this weekend and had a lovely conversation about spinning with the person there… and perhaps did some damage.

• Madeline Tosh Pashmina in Smokey Orchid… mmmm, soft!
• Pagewood Farms Denali in Army Girl
• Blue Sky Alpaca Buckingham Hat kit in Antique Black
• Blue Sky Alpaca Countess Mitts kit in Pewter

Upon getting home, I saw that I had a package waiting for me from Yarn vs Zombies (I love international packages!).

• Ominous (50% Superwash/50% Silk) in Mermaid Nightmares
• Haunted (80% Merino/20% Nylon) in Lady Grantham
• Haunted (80% Merino/20% Nylon) in Wallaby Dreaming

… And another package was waiting inside from Unwind:

• Handdyed Polwarth roving in Driving to SAFF
• Twinkle sock yarn in Aurora Borealis
• Journey sock in Ghoulish Halloween 2012

I love good stash enhancement weeks.

Scouting Report/Book & Magazine Review 

Interweave Knits Jane Austen Knits Fall 2012. Love, love, love. (I’ve linked to the digital version.)

What’s Making Me Happy 

• I’m on iTunes – and subscribable! WOOT!!
• Plurkers – y’all are so great! Thank you for welcoming me with open arms – so, so happy!
• Gingercrack is back at Starbucks. ‘Nuff said. OMG, so good.
• My guy and I went to see Aimee Mann in York, PA on Friday. The concert was AWESOME. I’m still on a high from that night. 🙂

Rest of the Week 

It’s been a roller coaster of a week. If you were in the path of Hurricane Sandy, I hope that you are safe and with your family. You are in my thoughts.

If you’d like more information about Three Irish Girls’ upcoming move and fundraising, click here.

Let me know what you think! Email me at sheepishpodcast AT gmail DOT com; my Twitter handle is @sheepishpodcast; my Plurk handle is sheepishpodcast; and I can be reached on Ravelry as knitgirl.

Have a great week!

xo, Holly

I hate it when things go pear-shaped

Unless you watched the podcast sometime today, this might not look familiar… and even if you did, you might not be able to see what went wrong.

I was on a webinar tonight at work and was knitting happily on the body of my Owls sweater and was getting to the last set of decreases when I realized the math wasn’t going to work. Ummmm… I re-read the pattern and realized that I had only been doing two decreases on the back instead of four. Damn. I tried dropping down and seeing what would happen, but that didn’t work, obviously. The stitches were way too loose in that area.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to rip back, so I spent the last half hour of the webinar ripping back and getting the stitches back on the huge US10.5 needles. It’s back on the needles and happy again – with the correct number of decreases in the one decrease row so far. That’s what I get about being cocky about knitting a sweater in a bulky weight yarn. I am confident, however, that I’ll be at least on the sleeve by the next time I record. (Setting expectations low, heh.)

About recording, I still haven’t decided when I’m going to record next week. I’m headed up to PA in the second half of the week to spend some time with a friend and see a concert. Wednesday will probably work best, but if I’m too busy running around getting things done, I might try to record up there. If not, I’ll record on Sunday when I get home. Either way, I’ll tweet and plurk about it before I record.

Okay, procrastination time over. Must get back to work and knit up what I ripped out. 🙂