Do You Like Music?

I do.
I also enjoy listening to music that is similar to my favorite groups or songs. Ever think it would be cool to be able to press "play" and have new music just pop up?
Meet cool. It's Pandora Internet Radio. You can decide by group or song what you'd like to hear that is similar. You have options to say "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to a variety of offerings. You can fast forward through a few songs, but not too many.

Give it a try.

Do you like socks?
I got a neat letter offering to get me some socks (not hand knit) by simply passing details to 5 people. I guess it's like a "chain letter" but only that you send one person a pair of socks and add your name to the bottom of the list. Apparently, the math works out to getting 36 pairs of socks with sending one. That's if everyone does it. I got this letter a month ago and I'm behind. I'm wondering if anyone out there in blog reading land would be interested in participating. I thought it would be great to get a few letters out of Ohio. Not hand knit socks. Just fun socks. Interested? let me know at knittingbrow (aT) g (no space here)mail(dot)com
Thought I would ask.

It's Back!

FiberCast Podcast is back up and casting.

I enjoyed this podcast when it first started. Good information about all sorts of fiber, knitting and fiber events. Give it a listen!

Stash Maintenance

Maintenance of one's stash can be a bit of a challenge.

I'm listening to a podcast for me called Stash and Burn. Have you heard it? These two ladies are trying to knit from their stash in 2007. Wendy also started to work on knitting from her stash in 2007. Her post got lots of people to think about knitting from their stash including rules that she and a friend decided on. Heck, even two ladies from my LYS tried to do this for a few months. Aunt Gerry won. Sock Princess lost.

I'm listening to the podcast and one of these ladies has put all of her stash into a spreadsheet so she knows exactly how much yarn she had in yards. Wow. I would imagine that she can also see how much she has of each yarn weight and color.

How do you monitor your stash?

• Have you created a great spreadsheet?
  
• Have a database set up?
  
• Throw everything into a bag and keep it in the closet?
  
• Do you even have a stash?
  

Do tell. Are you willing to share your document with me so I can put my own information in it? LOL

MS&W

Maryland Sheep and Wool.
I'm going.
Matty's driving.
Knitsb also going. (he needs a knitting blog!)
Yarmando in the car too!
All staying at Micah's. How cool is this?

Hey, It's a Sunday Update!

Exciting times are happening in the knittingbrow household! Knitsb has most of his stuff in the house! Saturday evening we spent time moving stuff around and getting clothing into places it can hang properly. Happy stuff going on!

The scary stuff was that I am in the process of relocating my stash. The piano will go in it's place. I've got lots and lots of yarn and I took advantage to revisit my yarn. I've got some yarn that I don't know how I got. How did I get some of the cotton sock yarns and acrylic "mohair"? I don't want it and don't think I'll be knitting with it but I'm not ready to spend the time sorting. So, spring cleaning will be involved in April and I'll try and empty out some stash. I'm not sure what or how much, but I'll let you know.

Was it just me or did the time change really mess me up? I always have some difficulty with the spring and fall equinox and my diabetes. This is the first year that the time change came almost three weeks early. This season knocked me out of sorts. I'm better. Thank you.

I've been working on Matty's sock so I can get them off the needles and on to his feet! That moving stash around really does bring light some great projects that were planned. Several nice sweaters, a few hats and many socks. I have a lot of sock yarn, a lot. It bit scary, really.

Knitsb and I went through my patterns and resources documents and books. I separated out the patterns by style and such. I will need another full book case to make organization easier.

My internet access at home is not working properly so I'm going to try and reset my modem and the wireless router so I can get some work finished!

Favorite Socks

Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave arrived today! I am very impressed. Out of the 25 socks included in the book, I would knit no less than 20 of them! I would include a few of the lace ones too!

I'm a big fan of knitting socks for their portability, immediate gratification and reduced expense. It's easier to pay $20 for a skein of good yarn and get a pair of socks that are the envy of your friends and neighbors than trying to cough up $200 for enough yarn for a sweater. I've done both and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Almost all of the socks are knit top down. I sometimes worry about running out of yarn when completing the socks top down. I manage and am learning to cope with just buying one skein instead of panicking. There is one pattern that can be knit toe-up or top down. How fun is that?

I'm not casting on for the month of March. I'm getting stuff off the needles!

Inspiration

So, I'm reading a few blogs and I stumbled over chaos. I see the link to a "search for inspiration" from Just a Knit Wit.
I posted just a bit of this. This is why I knit:

I began to knit because I enjoyed talking and spending time with my friend who taught me to knit. I commented how meditative it was watching her as we talked about the next color yarn she was using.

• I knit because I thrive on color. I enjoy the tactile mixing of colors in a project created by my own hands. I am an artist. Instead of my art hanging on a wall, it moves through the town, being noticed by keen eyes that see beauty all around them.
• I knit because it is beautiful to knit.
• I knit because I am part of a community.
• I knit because my creation balances the destruction that goes on around the world.
• I knit because people need to be warm.
• I knit because I am grateful.

Why do you knit? I encourage you to share why you knit with those around you. Especially Just a Knit Wit.

Wednesday Knitting

was quiet.
Don was working a fair isle hat from Cider Moon.
KnitSB was in the knitting zone and quickly knit about 7 rows of 240 sts. He is at his 7 months of knitting. He's turning into quite a nice knitter.
KnitMer worked on an alpaca scarf and discovered affirmed that she cannot knit and talk at the same time. While she thinks this is true, it's not. I did help turn a few P sts into K sts and vice versa. Amazing what a crochet hook can do for knitting, isn't it?
Matty continues working on his sweater, making enough progress to have only 1/2 a color band before he approaches the sleeves.

We told bad jokes and the other regular Wednesday people who visit cup0joe weren't offended.

I did work on Matty's second sock. I've only been working on this pair of socks for, like, 4 months. I've completed other projects, of course.

BTW: If you listen to It's a Purl, Man, go fill out his survey.

Monsoon S0cks that R0ck

That's right! I got my first shipment of StR. This is my first year joining. I got a binder, pattern, planning sheet and a nice note from creators. That's 5.5 oz. or 380 yards of superwash merino wool.

The colorway is called Monsoon and has nice green and grays. See? The pattern is called "inside out" and is a toe up sock pattern. I'm concerned that I won't have enough yarn to complete a pair of these cabled socks but have confidence that I can turn the heel and then start the other sock and then knit from both sides of the skein. Of course, I could do this from the beginning and then not worry about it, right?

I'll just need to read the pattern closely before I begin.

It seems I don't post much anymore?

why is that?
peanut gallery?

I have knit two pair of mittens.
See? Both used Noro Kureyon (about 1 1/2 skeins.) Don't you love *love* my towel behind the mitten?

The pattern is from The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by the Amazing Ann Budd. Have you ever used this book? It's great. Gauge swatch and go! That simple.


Podcast coming soon. It's time. I've been knitting 5 years in about 1 week. Cool, ain't it?