I figured it was time for a new look

I changed the title of my site and the template. I should probably make my own some day...

Its been a while ...

As you can tell I haven't been around... mostly because it has been nice outside. We are planting a garden this year. We have a section of our yard that is not shady so we are going to grow lots of fun stuff. Carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, beans, lettuce, squash, peas, water melons, and cucumbers. I have all the herbs on the deck in boxes so they don't spread rapidly.

I have also been baking bread for my husband and I and purchasing our food at the west side market because it is like 3/4 the price than a grocery store. It is totally worth the drive currently.

This past weekend we finished ripping up one section of ground ivy in the front yard. This is very exciting but we still have half the yard left. We will be replacing it with hostas, ferns and other shady plants.

I will post some pictures of my recently finished projects as well as my current sweater. I am working on the flutter sleeve cardigan and I am about 3/4th up the back. I do plan on wearing it this summer/spring so I have been pretty monogamous with it.

Bitty Kitty Fibers is Opened for Business

Please patron my store.  there is a lot of great yarn there and more to come.  

oh and look at what I have spun 

I am currently making the cat ear hat from kitty knits

Bitty Kitty Fibers is on its way

I am currently working on 7-10 different hand dyed color ways in many different yarns.
I currently have 5 developed and am working on more visually appealing yarns.

I will be offering wool blends to start and will eventually have hand dyed spinning batts and non wool yarns.

Stay tuned for more updates and previews and go to Bitty Kitty Fibers @ etsy

Blizzard of 2008

Last weekend we got a lot of snow and it is still melting away. 18 inches all together. Here is an action shot of my husband snow blowing. We had to do the drive way 3 times to keep up. Go Matt go! The cats were super bored and kept blaming us for the weather. The would look at us and look outside and then look back up at us like, "Well, make it stop" I wish I was that all powerful but I have yet to figure out weather manipulation.

The cool thing about having a snow blower is it cuts a nice even edge of snow so you can measure the depth. This is the snow about half way through the storm.

winding down on the clapotis

It feels like the Clapotis just won't end but as of right now I am on repeat 5 of the decreasing section. The middle straight section that is has been my arch nemesis for a few months now but that is over. I only recently have decided that it must be finished so when I want to knit that is what I work on. It is becoming done and I feel I am making progress. It is a beautiful creation, all in bamboo, bright red, orange and yellow. I feel very confident in this project. I will never make a "normal sized" clapotis again because of the pure monotony. However the bamboo works so well with the pattern it warrants another go maybe in blue and maybe in a skinny scarf. My MIL loves the yarn so much that this is what will be giving for Christmas. Time to plan ahead. My only problem now is that I ran out of yarn so I need one more ball in order to finish. I am getting it tomorrow so for now I get to spend energy on my sweaters that need attention... hmm maybe my purple alpaca lacy v sweater that is 75% away.

Presents from the postlady

This weekend I went down to Pittsburgh, PA with 4 other ladies from the SnB of NE Ohio for the 4th annual Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival held indoors at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The whole conference area was taken up by about 35 different vendors, and lot of lots of yarn, fiber, and accessories. I forgot my camera so there will be no pictures of the actual trip BUT I will take pictures of the great items that I purchased. Believe it or not I didn't purchase any yarn, but I did buy some spinning and dyeing material.
2 oz of silk top
8 oz of Louet hand dyed pencil roving in Piccasso
1 jar of turquoise acid dye
1 felted kitty toy
1 circular knitting needle case (my needles were all shoved in a drawer)

Over all the trip was very successful. I had a lot of fun but need to save up my money for the next excursion that I go on now that I know what prices will be like.

In other news... Online purchases. Lets see...
Loop on Etsy package came over the weekend I bought 2 3oz 100% bamboo drum carded batts
colors ways include "Sweet Nothings" and "Chocolate Liqueur". So soft and gorgeous.

CrazyYarnLady on Ebay had a great price on a birch wood yarn swift. So I finally got one and man does that help with the yarn wrapping for dyeing.

I have been purchasing a lot of fiber on Ebay because of the prices there. I got a whole pound of soysilk and 8 oz of tencel top. These will be used for blending with the alpaca to give it more of a sheen. The same with the 2 oz of silk. (These 2 items have not arrived yet)

Knitpicks finally arrived today. I purchased a 11 different skeins for dyeing all fingering weight so we will see how they look. I will wrap them this week and plan a dyeing time this coming weekend. I also got some 40" circulars in size 1, 2, and 3 to learn the 2-at-a-time socks, a wpi tool for hand spun estimating and a color card for Palette for picking colors for an Alice Starmore sweater that I will eventually make.

I have been spinning a lot so here is a great alpaca hank that I made and finally plied and washed.