With my personal favorite color being blue, it should not come as any surprise that Spritely Goods over-floweth with yarns perfect for this month's Project Spectrum :)
Lovely, aren't they? I didn't knit them - they were knit by Vanessa (whose blog, I believe, is being revamped) out of Spritely Goods Sprite yarn in the Manzanita in Bloom Colorway.
It's Back! Project Spectrum 2.0 this time :D Starting in February and with Triads of colors for each month!
I've even thinking of my opening post, tho kicking myself because I never seem to have a camera to take the appropriate photo. *sigh* I better get to planning, eh?
How cool is this? I go knitting and I get an awesome belated christmas gift, complete with hand-decorated bag and card! It's a jar of Chocolate Chip Cookies - well, a jar with instructions :) So I can bake a bunch of chocolate chip cookies! From Luscious Gracious Lily! The jar is most welcome and treasured - and it couldn't have come at a better time - I have just run out of homemade cookie dough in the freezer (yeah, I admit it - I freeze portioned out cookie dough so I can have fresh cookies whenever I want - it also makes it harder to eat a ton of cookies since I usually just bake one or two at a time). Thank you so much Lily!
In addition to doing some dyework, I was really happy to be able to spend some serious quality time with my wheel between Christmas and the New Year.
Clapotis inspired scarf, knit from handspun yarn. 7-inches wide, 56-inches long.
And Tatiana, my Meathead that I knit for the Meathead along.
My longtime friend got hitched over the holiday weekend! Doesn't she look great? The wedding was simple, and definitely a happy affair :)
Of course, I knitted for the event.
Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! As you can see, we're plain tired out from all the excitement! Knitting content to resume shortly :D
I also received this necklace from Amy - the chain is sterling silver and it has a turquoise bead, a mother of pearl bead and an Amyville original tekkamaki :) The turquoise bead with it's different coloring reminds me of the earth!
Soas to spare mountains of knitted gifts and yarn (not necessarily a bad thing ;) ) the International Knit Circle did a "secret pal" style swap - and I knitted my first ever pair of gift socks that went to live with Jen. Click here for the details. There was much fretting on whether or not they'd fit, whether she'd like the colorway and whether she'd like the sock height or not...she appeared pleased, and she blogged about them, so I think I'm safe :) What a relief!
I was on the receiving end of Steve and the whole LG family in general - check out the mini sweater knit by Kiki, and the girls put together great games and gift bags for the evening! Anyhow, back to Steve - I have another original felted bag (it's so soft!) - it's designed to hold my sock knitting projects...
If you open it up, you'll see an original flower print and check out the dpns! I've already moved my latest sock knitting project into it, and it works great :)
In the way of other fiber gifts, I have had some time to do some special spinning - first, a birthday skein for Raquel (you know, the one that has enabled my poor feeble mind into all kinds of madness ;) ) It's a special run of Arizona Sycamore.
And for Amy, I did a custom dye & spin job to match her favorite and signature colors....mmm mmm, merino :) btw, if you click the pic of the yarn below, you'll get a closeup of it...I couldn't resist.
Less than a week in knitting, the Shetland Triangle Shawl (also by Evelyn Clark) is fresh off the blocking wires!Yes, there is Knitting Content in this post....but hardly any, and it's at the very end...So Scroll Way Down if you want to skip past the Race Report and the *sigh* numerous photos of me in pink and a Tiara.
For a review on what's up with all the pink:
I decided if I was going to start running, I'd run for a good cause! I wound up raising money for the Ulman Cancer Fund. An original target of $500 was set to get me into a pink head-to-toe outfit, and once that goal was met, a stretch goal of $750 was created for the addition of a tiara. With that goal met, I stopped raising the bar in fear of having to do something like running in a pink Tutu or some other ridiculousness. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of my supporters, a total of $800 was raised.
When we last heard from our little Pink Running Princess (that would be Me), I had just finished a super fantastic last training run (that was the Wednesday before the Saturday Race). I "tapered" by not running on Thursday or Friday. Oddly enough, for even a relatively short race (5k or 3.1 miles for non-metric friendly folk), I apparently got what is affectionately known as "taper crazies". I started feeling slightly sore, yet oddly hyper and energized. It was a very very strange feeling indeed. Anyhow, Saturday finally arrived, with the weather cool (40 F / 4 C) and just a touch windy before the sun managed to get up higher. I got up, and had a light breakfast and tried to prehydrate with a quart or so of water. I then dashed upstairs to get dressed. This was the first time I actually had the *entire* race ensemble on at the same time (I wore bits and pieces of it while training to make sure there were no chafing or other fit/performance issues). Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed by the Pinkness.
Here I am, in my Pink Glory - note, I'm about as pink as possible from head to toe - I'm wearing a Pink Tank, Pink GymGirl Skirt and Pink Socks, all from SkirtSports - The accessories include the sparkly princess tiara and specially handknit cuffs - in pink of course. The watch, I'm afraid, is blue, but I wasn't about to go buy another watch just for this :P The shoes conveniently matched - bonus!
For those wondering, the bib number would have matched as well (pink) except with my special status as a over $500 fundraiser (thanks again to all who donated!) my bib was specially colored Yellow. One of the nice touches of this race was the personalized race bibs, though unfortunately they somehow misprinted mine - luckily I picked up my race packet early, and was able to remedy the situation - I didn't quite manage to match the yellow, but the font face and type size were matched perfectly ;)
Pre-race preparation involved waiting in the lines for the Port-a-Potties, and then ditching the jacket to bounce around near the starting line waiting for the start. As start time approached, I positioned myself towards the middle-rear of the pack, along the side after consulting with my dear Photographer :) Just before the "gun" (I never heard the crack of a starting pistol...but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't one), the crowd packed into the chute.
Once the official start happened, there was much shuffling to the official starting line, at which point most everyone broke into a trot. There was a fair bit of navigating around slower runners and walkers at first - it seemed it took almost a full mile to me to settle into a group that was paced similarly to myself. (mile one split: 11:08 - oops, out the gate a little faster than anticipated)
Running in a pack of people was certainly different - even though I told myself to "start slow" I think my innate claustrophobia and competitiveness made me head out to try to get into some "free space". The course was practically flat, and on pavement or packed dirt the entire way. A few small "hills" were encountered as we came close to "on ramps" to the various bridges - a surprising number of individuals slowed to a walk on these portions.
Not far after the mile one marker was the first aid station offering water and Gatorade - I attempted to see if I could successfully get a sip in, but re-discovered the reason why I much prefer to hike with a hydration reservoir rather than bottles - I haven't the ability to drink and move at the same time. Thankfully I didn't wind up wearing any of my experimental drink. Around this time, I had settled into what I thought was a reasonable groove after having adjusted my pace - though I honestly will admit that I missed the company of Artemis, my happy pink iPod.
Mile two came and went with a pace that was more in line with what I was expecting (11:21). So far, so good, and the tiara was staying put remarkably well! I felt I fit in with the people staffing Aid Station #2 as they all had tiaras on :) Well into the homeward stretch, it was interesting running across the Mill Avenue bridge with glimpses of the finish line below - as I was rounding the final stretch, I kicked in with all the energy I had (probably not the smartest thing to do as I was probably at a full tilt sprint while crossing the finish line).
The photos of the finish cracked me up - somehow my foot strikes matched exactly with those of the young lady right next to me. With ages ranging from 6-68 the field was absolutely remarkable. My poor Photographer felt out of place - there just weren't a whole lot of men around!
All finishers of the race receive a very nice finisher's medal - which matched nicely with my outfit ;)
Final statistics:
My personal goals for this race were 1) have a good time of it (yes, I did - I think I'm hooked) , 2) to run the entire thing (done :D) and 3) complete the race with a sub 35 minute finish (in that order)
Of course, like a true noob, I forgot to press stop on my watch until after I had cleared the finishing chute and turned in my chip. Here's where the official race results step in :)
Gun Time: 35:19 - but remember, I placed myself fairly far back in the starting pack...
Chip Time: 34:18 (wahoo!) with a pace of 11:03 - so I must have picked things back up again in mile three. This trimmed 24 seconds off my best training pace - not bad - hooray for adrenaline.
Out of a field of 638, I placed ~292 - about as expected, I didn't expect to place near the top as the early finishers were coming in with 6.5 minute miles - and with this being a run/walk, I figured I wouldn't come in at the back of the pack - more importantly I did hit my personal goal.
In my age group with a field of 88 contenders, I placed 48th according to gun time, but was 45th according to chip time ;)
Would I do it again? Yes :) as a matter of fact, I've eyeballed my next races (oh yes, it's races - plural!), and I'm still training.
If you'd like to give it a try, I do recommend the Couch to 5k training plan from Cool Running. It was an easy program that took me from walking to running 30 minutes at a time. I then started training by adding distance to eventually get myself to cover the 5k distance, since am still not yet running 10 minute miles. I also recommend RunningAhead.com if you're a nerd like me and take great pleasure in seeing your training graphed up all nice and prettily.
Now then. The knitting :) Guess what I finished? And in less than a week!
It's on blocking wires now - I should have thrown something in there for scale, it looks ridiculously small freshly bound off. Preliminary measurements have it staked out to about 70 inches across the top and 28 inches down to the lower point.
And a closeup for good measure. Stay tuned...the finished object post will be done soon :)
No, this isn't the official race report. I'm waiting for the official results to be posted - and I have some holiday baking I'm supposed to be doing.
I'm so excited, Spritely Goods made it into the Lime & Violet Holiday Gift guide! (you can download it from this entry on their blog)
So why my fascination? Well, the Swallow Tail is done :) See?
Luckily for me, Bzz Agent was looking for Coffee-holics to try some Storyville Coffee :)
...see? Scarfage. Lots and lots of Scarves. Well, not lots and lots, but a respectable number of them (seventeen) knit since the very end of October and my last Craft Fair. They were all knit as product for a Craft Fair next month. While I would love for all the world to be full of fiber folk, I've concluded (based on the last craft fair) that I need to have finished objects in my booth to lure people ine - thus the scarves and all those flower pins. More details on that craft fair as we get closer, but if you're local and would like to save the date, it's on Saturday December 9th :)
Anyhow, I never thought I'd find myself launched into a position where I would be on the "caring" end of Black Friday - as I have historically celebrated the Friday following Thanksgiving as Buy Nothing Day...This year, I find myself torn. I will not be cruising the local big retail shops - since becoming a "retailer" myself, I have become much more focused on supporting small local businesses and other indie-merchants. I urge you to do the same :)
I am very thankful to each of you who have touched my life in one way or another - from people who read and comment on my blog, to those whose blogs I read and lurk for inspiration and balance, to the various people I've only "met" online and of course my fabulous customers - you all keep me going. For those of you who celebrate this holiday, I hope its a great one :)
Normally at this time of year, with the holidays fast approaching, and especially this year with my preparations for not just my own personal holiday gift knitting but also hopes for healthy holiday sales at a local craft fair or two as well as via my shop, I would not endeavor to add more to my knitting platter (which over floweth quite spectacularly)...
I've been in crazy-mad preparation mode for one more craft fair...this time focusing on original finished objects to appeal to the not so crafty crowd...interspersed with my knitting, I've taken up the needles (of the sewing and felting variety) and the crochet hooks to make up a bunch of flower pins for accessories! I'm still trying to decide if I want to make finished goods an addition to the shop - any comments either way?
Last on the product updates, I've got the new Limited Edition Fragrance SOAK in the store...it's my own personal favorite - overtaking the Aquae and Citrus scents hands down. Lets just say Soak - it's not just for your wool anymore ;)
I've been happily (and in some cases not so happily) knitting away on some items and I needed a break from all the novelty bits for some nice squashy wool....
