I am a knitter, honest!

I keep starting every post with an apology and a promise to start posting more after I finished the craft show.


The craft fair went really well. I sold out of the adult sized felted hats by mid-day on Saturday. They were so popular. I will be working really hard to get more of those done for next year. I will also be including a few accessories for them as well to make them more appealing. (I took one and pinned a broach on it so it looked like a cloche from the 20's. It was very cute!)


I received a couple of custom orders as well, so I've been scurrying to finish those up. The first hat I finished up already and when I called the person who ordered it, she canceled. I hate it when people are flaky like that. I put a lot of effort into getting it done quickly and then I get nothing for it. (Well, not nothing, since I can put into inventory for next year. But, still, it is pretty rude if you ask me.)

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I have an announcement.


Brace yourselves.


I have finished a pair of socks.

Not just any socks.

The socks that sucked the soul from me.

I have finished the Pomatomus socks.







I started these last summer. But I had a few problems with the yarn. It was knotted in at least 4 places and when I went to return it to the store, the hours on the card that I picked up when I purchased the yarn that week were wrong. Then the clerk was rude to me and said that I couldn't possibly have gotten the card there recently. She didn't even have the class to apologize when proven wrong either. (It was the last time I shopped there.)

Then, Eric got so sick and life fell apart. I knit on these while he was in the hospital and ever since they have left a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach.


Then, when I decided that it was not fair to the yarn to let it languish in my WIP basket forever, I found this. I finally screwed up the courage to try and fix them this weekend. I decided to reknit the 2 rows that were damaged and just run a strand through all of the remaining loose stitches. I think it came out pretty well, all things considered.


Honestly, it is as if I was not supposed to knit these socks.

Yarn, anyone?

Looking forward to the end of the craft fair season, I am proposing another contest. Let's think of it as an on-line scavenger hunt.

There are craft fairs out there that are great with lots of beautiful hand-made items of high quality. However, we all know of the other type of crap craft fair. This is the type that interests me.

Ways to enter:

1. Find a link to the fugliest handmade item you can find online. (Nothing from Go Fug Yourself or The 4th Knitter of the Apocalypse - these need to be items you find.) They do not have to be knitted. Leave a comment with the link on this post - one link entry per person. Be kind however - do not trash the item in your comments - someone tried (we hope) to make something.

2. Post the contest on your blog and earn another entry. Leave a link to the post in the comments as well.

3. If you find this contest listed on someone else's blog, let me know where you found it and that person will earn another entry to the contest.

4. This one will run for a while. Entries will be accepted until midnight on Sunday November 18th, the last day of the fair. Once I recover, I will use a random number generator to determine a winner.

Fini

So, the big craft fair starts on Friday. I'm working it on Saturday and Sunday and am really looking forward to it. For me, a huge perk will be seeing my friend, Nicole, who recently moved back from Germany. But, I am hoping to get some solid information on what styles of hats and bags sell well. This will really help me determine what types of materials to purchase for the coming year.

I've started the application process for fairs in the spring and summer and a lot of them require photographs of booth displays. This will also give me the opportunity to snap some pictures of my stuff all set up. When I sold bags at the Granary in October, the owner took a birch branch and wound white Christmas lights through the twigs. She is kindly letting me use the same display for the show and I am hoping that she might let me keep the branch. If not, I will try to go for a hike at my parents and get another.

I have just a few more items to finish up. One hat still needs felting. Over the weekend, I did a felted bag that I need to attach the handles and line. If this sells, I am thinking of adding it to my website. They are not cheap because of all of the time that goes into it, but using the knitting machine makes it much easier.

Once the show is over, I am planning a complete revamp of the website. Hopefully, there will be enough sales at the show to pay back all of my personal money that has been invested as well as purchasing a new digital camera.


I have been working on Ribbi Cardy, which has been a welcome relief. The back is done up to the beginning of the arm hole shaping. I have both fronts on the same circ and they are about half way to the beginning of the shaping. I fully intend to have it done before Christmas.

I will try to snap a few pictures and post my progress on the cardi.

Giant Time Suck

Yes indeed, I have fallen fully into the Ravelry black hole of time suckage. Even though I had not intended to do so, I spent last night photographing the majority of my stash and putting it up on Ravelry notebook. I realized that a very large portion of my stash is sock yarn. How this escaped my notice before is evidence that I live in the State of Denial. I know that not all of my yarn is up there, but what is there is what I consider my active stash (that is, stuff that I will actually knit up). I didn't put up all of the odds and ends that I have or the yarn that is currently residing next to the couch, ostensibly the WIP or queued projects.

I fully intent to take a picture of my WIP and get them posted both here and on Ravelry. Soon, I will do this soon.

Just as soon as a FO isn't a felted hat.

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This weekend is the 1 year anniversary of when Eric got really sick last year. I feel so out of sorts about it all. In a way, I just want the next week or so over so that the reminder is behind us and we can face the second year. Halloween leaves a bad feeling in our household, but we don't want to transmit that to Caleb. Personally, I would prefer to wallow in my misery for a couple of day to get it out of my system, but as a parent it just isn't possible.

Coming up for air

This week has been so busy. I finished off 4 purses and 2 felted hats (which currently just need felting). I have been knitting the hats in the flat up to the decreases so that I can use my knitting machine to do the long stockinette portion of the hats. It does leave a seam but it seems to come out okay once it is felted.

I am loving these new bags. I had originally purchased the striped fabric as an exterior, but never really felt the love. It seems to be working perfectly as the lining for these suede-like bags (which, honestly, are too boring otherwise)

I'm really happy with how well the stripes line up on the slip pocket!

So far so good

I stopped to check out the sale at the Grainery this weekend and as of noonish on Saturday I had sold four bags from the main building. I’m not sure what sold from the other buildings because it wasn’t tied to their computer inventory. My sister had sold some aprons and my mom sold a Flying Geese pattern quilt for $250.00. Not to bad considering that there had only been a day and a half of sales. There are still 4 more days, so I am hoping to get at least $500.00 gross sales. I am being very good and resisting the urge to call up every hour to see if anything else has sold! I am guessing that this would be in very bad form and that she might not invite me back next year.

I also took a bunch of stuff up to LaCrosse for the Holiday Fair Sale in November. I had 18 hats ready and over 35 wash cloths. The woman who runs the Grainery should have some hand made soaps left over from the sale and she is willing to let me have them at cost. I think it would be a great pairing to have the cloths and the soaps in an old-fashioned washbasin. I think my mom even has an antique washboard… hmm. I am also planning on hanging a rope and pinning sample cloths to it. Now I am on the home stretch of finishing off some more bags and just a couple more hats.

I am officially declaring Bloglines Amnesty. If something momentous has happened and I haven’t commented, please accept my sincere apologies. In a generic, blanket statement, congrats on all FO, new babies (which I guess is the ultimate FO), pregnancies and birthdays. My condolences for all tinking and frogging that may have occurred as well as any illnesses.

Melancholy

Have you ever had the experience of having to go through something truly awful to get to something worth having?

One of my dearest friends is going through one of the stickiest things I can image; yet, I know that she will come out the other side happier than she has been in 10 years. I am so torn that she has this bad situation, but am relieved that she will be at peace again. I wish I could take a portion of her burden from her and make the upcoming weeks and months less painful. I am elated for her on one hand because the end result will be so positive, but my heart aches for the current moment she is in.

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I dropped off my bags this weekend for the sale that will be running for the next three weekends. Keep your fingers crossed for me!