Progress on Tanja!

Remember Tanja? It's been almost a year since she was started... and almost a year since there was any progress. But the season of gift knitting is over (well, um, almost... still one UFO), so I'm back on the selfish knitting wagon - woo hoo!! It's pretty chilly here in DC (and particularly on my floor at work), so a nice wool sweater will be just the ticket! In case you can't tell from the picture above, there's now a second sleeve joined to the body and first sleeve, thus making a sweater for a two-armed person! I'm a few rows into the yoke, but haven't hit the decreases yet. I can't wait for that - rounds will go so much quicker then!

A word on WIP photos... there don't seem to be many on my blog. In fact, I often hold off on posting my progress in order to wait to make more progress. It seems like I put projects into categories of why I can't take a progress photo:
1) Just cast on; not enough progress has been made yet; boring
2) Have made progress, but not enough since the last picture; just a mass of parts; embarrasing
3) Am close to the end; would rather post a FO picture than a WIP; don't want to spoil the suprise or the "grand reveal" of the FO

And thus the stages of a project chez Snargle. Maybe I'll make that my New Year's resolution - more photos of Works in Progress!

Merry Christmas!

A very merry Christmas to all! Hope all of your holiday wishes came true.

Craftfair Re-Cap

So, the craft fair went well. Really well. Better than I had expected. If you'll scroll down a bit, you'll see my wares - many fizzy novelty scarves and several felted bags. I now have considerably fewer of them, and a bit more cash. The picture is from the end of the day, showing what was left. Towards the beginning the drying rack was covered in scarves.

Actually, I only have 2 scarves left, and 3 bags. I'm not bummed about the bags, either - I priced them a bit high because the truth is I wasn't sure that I wanted to get rid of them. If they'd sold, I would have been OK with the price, but since they didn't, I'm OK having bags.

We priced the scarves from $20-$30, and the bags from $30-$50. Our booth also had cards, which sold well (and sold out), wine charms (which did OK), and glass votive candle holders (which pretty much didn't sell at all, but did give me Christmas presents for my co-workers, so it's a win-win situation). The craft fair was generally fairly poorly attended (probably a publicity, venue and timing issue), so I think our booth did well.

We're thinking about looking into craft fairs later on (spring/summer)... I guess it's hard to stop!

My Secret Pal (3) Rocks!

And here's why...

A little over a week ago now, I arrived home from work on one of my long training days, sick and depressed, only to find a fabulous package on my doorstep, all the way from Japan! Linus helped me look inside

and then we started taking things out to see what all was there! I got a little preview because there was a customs label on the outside. It said that the box contained snacks, yarn and magazines. And that's exactly what I found!

First up were snacks:

Yummy yummy pocky yummy yummy yum. There are were three kinds of pocky: strawberry (sadly, no longer with us), chocolate, and chocolate-covered-strawberry. Plus some strawberry chocolate mints. AND some great flavored coffees (creme brulee, maple, tiramisu, etc.), that come in cool packages that are a built-in one-cup coffee maker (when I use them I'll have to take a picture - it's quintessentially Japanese).

Then came the yarn:

Three skeins of mohair and three of a Diadomina wool blend, both in beautiful blue and brown heathered shades. I forsee some beautiful mohair lace scarves in my future.

And finally the magazines:

The one on the left is a knitting magazine; the one on the right is an "Inspiration comes of Working" (really? I thought that fatigue and ennui came of working... I guess it must be my job. Just kidding. Kinda.) folder to hold printed patterns and ball bands and whatnot. Organization is one of my top priorities for the new year, so this will work well. The magazine is awesome. Not too many things struck me as "must haves" right away, but I'll let it sit for a while. This one was one of my favorites - I know the picture isn't the best, but what I really like about it is the ribbon gathering in the top, which was just done with some yarnover eyelets and a piece of ribbon. There are a few other things that I can see making, with possibly some modifications.

Thanks again Molly! I've really enjoyed everything I got. Both of my secret pals turned out really well. Hooray!

P.S. I'm feeling a little better - still coughing, but a bit less and the drugs are helping break stuff up (and helping me sleep at night). Thanks everyone for your well wishes!

Sick, sick, sick

Hello! I'm still alive, but barely. Remember that cough I was talking about? It kept going. And then it got worse. And I finally broke down and went to the doctor.

Now I'm on drugs to try and kick the little bugs that have set up shop in my lungs. My cough even has its own scary-sounding name now - walking pneumonia and acute bronchitis. [That website contains the coolest parenthetical: "(Apart from being a pain, mycoplasmas are kind of cool. They are the smallest self-replicating biologic systems known.)"]

So think healthy thoughts at me, because I don't get to rest this week - work-mandated training every day.

Crafty posts to resume again soon, including details of the craft fair, my secret pal's excellent box, and so much more...

Secret Pal and More

My secret pal was the fabulous Molly - an American living in Japan. I can't wait to see the goodies in my final package... I'm trying to be patient (like waiting for Christmas).

I'm currently watching The Amazing Race (hooray for wireless internet!), and I'm loving all of the prissy American girls who are freaking out in Senegal (ew! yucky!)

One more scarf on the needles to finsh by Friday... wish me luck! And send good health vibes while you're at it... I have a cough that won't go away.

Scarves and Bags and More, Oh My!

Where has the time gone? Am I stuck in a vortex where the time-space continuum has sped up without warning? Oh no, it's just the holidays. I guess this happens every year.

Not that I'm the most diligent blogger, but sheesh - three weeks! It doesn't feel like that long, I swear!

I have been knitting in the meantime, and I have pictures to prove it! Remember that craft fair I was prattling on about earlier? Well, if not, the short version is that it's at my office and it's this Friday (Dec. 10th). I've been busy knitting Inventory with a capital I, and here are the fruits of my labor:

Scarves.

Felted Bags.

Somehow it doesn't seem like much, laid out like that. But it's been an awful lot of time and effort. You're knitters, you understand. I'm hoping I can get another scarf done between now and then. Lest you think that this will be the sparsest booth ever, I should let you know that this is a group effort. There's at least twice that many scarves, crocheted snowflake ornaments/coasters, votive candle holders, wine charms, and handmade cards. I'm sure our table will look fabulous. I only hope we sell things. I'm suffering from pricing uncertainty. If you've done a craft fair lately with novelty scarves and felted bags, would you mind sending me an e-mail (or leave a comment) and letting me know what you charged and how well the price went over? I'd truly appreciate it.

That's not all that's been going on in my knitterly world. I also went to a lecture/book-signing by the very cool Debbie Stoller (author of Stitch N'Bitch Nation). Met up with Natalie, which was fun. The best part for me was the show and tell from Stich N' Bitch, when Debbie modeled my Alien Illusion Scarf for everyone to ooh and aah (which they actually did - kinda weird). Other people had the To Dye For sweater, a Go-Everywhere cardigan, and even a Princess Snowball cat bed. One neat thing was just people-watching - seeing the cross-section of "today's knitters." Old and young, punk and traditional, predominately female. Pretty cool.

It was also a trunk show, which meant that we all got to touch some of the sample garments from the book. Which was very, very cool and led me to consider a purchase that I wouldn't have normally made. On Saturday, Christmas shopping found me at Aylin's Woolgatherer (and not just shopping for me, I swear!). But after feeling the angora scarf from the SnB book, and then finding it on sale in the Sale Nook, I broke down and bought this. That's 200 yds (100 grams) of 100% fluffy bunny fur. For what it cost, I'm considering buying a bunny and spinning my own. We'll see. There's also a very cool yarn that's a nylon shell around a cottony core - kind of like when you stuff pantyhose to make crafty dolls or animals or whatever. It's really soft, and there's a sweater's worth for about $14. Can't beat that!

I still have some more craft fair knitting to do, then it's the final push to Christmas. Unfortunately, I won't really be able to show pictures of the presents because all of the recipients read this blog... maybe I'll do little sneak peeks.

Oh, and go say hi to my Secret Pal from Secret Pal 3 (the one I sent things too) - Rachelle. She's really cool, and her daughters are extremely sweet. I'm not sure who my pal is yet, I'll post when I know!