JessaLu Knits (and Spins!)

Yep, I jumped on again. It seems to be a habit for me - I like to play the cool aloof knitter but the ‘pattern of the moment’ always seems to make its way onto my needles.

Anyway, I promised to show you what’s in the bag:

The Spring Forward socks [raveled] seem to go almost as quickly as the Monkey socks, it has somewhat the same amount of rows in the pattern repeat (20 for SF only 10 are one way and 10 are reversed…does that make sense?) so you’ll be going along and think, “well, I can finish the last five rows of this repeat” and then you get there and you think, “well, I can do the next 10 rows since the last 5 went so quickly” and before you know it, you’re at the heel.

Which, on this pair of socks, I’ve knit two times so far since I hated the first one so much I couldn’t live with it. The first heel was a regular slip-stitch flap heel (with no give) and the second is a modified partial-flap short-row sherman heel (with no holes and lots of give for my fat ankles - yes, cookie, I said they’re fat. shut up. ;op) which makes me *way* happier than the original heel. It also uses way less yarn so hopefully I won’t run out before I hit the toe… ;o)

Also, thank you all for your nice comments on my bags - wonky and otherwise - they are very much appreciated!  I’ve had a couple of people ask if I’ll be selling them and while it’s something I’ve considered doing, I’d have to make a significant upgrade regarding what I use to sew them together, which isn’t going to happen anytime soon.  You see, for my regular ‘everyday’ sewing, I use a c1938 Singer model 15-91 which doesn’t do zig zag stitch easily (it does go backwards, thank the GSD, unlike my other antique Singer which only knows forward stitching) and from what I’ve gathered, I need to be able to use a serger or zig zag stitching on the inside corner seams in order to have a nice clean bag on the inside.  I just don’t feel comfortable selling something that isn’t 100% up to my own standards so for now, the bags will have to stay on the sidelines.  However, If you know anyone who has the zig zag attachment for an antique Singer drop me an email…we’ll talk.  ;o)

In other knitting news, how about I share what I purchased from the Loopy Ewe for my birthday.  I used the two gift certificates gifted to me by my ‘rents and my sister:

As usual, click to see the ‘magic’! ;o)

Another birthday gift I received?  Four of these:

Not as fuzzy, but hopefully they’ll help with the lovely swaying sensation I experience while the camper is being towed.  I’ll do anything to keep from puking (vomit free since ‘03!), even spending yarn $$ on tires.

I also received the new Civ IV for the DS from Dobby and Whipping Boy and a new computer mouse from RR that has the cool new micro receiver thingy and a table for my laptop.  The mouse?  Love. it.  The man knows the second best way to my heart - technology.  ;o)

ETA: It appears to be working again so just ignore my babbling about changing feeds…sorry. If you already switched, don’t worry you’ll still see my content and your feed will get redirected on my end so you don’t need to do anything. Again, I’m sorry for the confusion. Regular knitting and spinning content coming soon! ;o)

…bloglines and feedburner seem to not get along anymore so, after multiple attempts to get bloglines to listen, and trying to fix it by redirects, etc., I decided to say goodbye to feedburner for the time being. This completely sucks because I just lost 3 years of stats but I’d rather my posts show up in bloglines than keep the stats so…buh bye feedburner.

This means that those of you who are interested in hanging around at this particular party will need to resubscribe to my feeds ETA: since the feedburner feed will no longer exist in two weeks. I’m *really* sorry to have to do this since the reason why I had feedburner in the first place was so that I wouldn’t have to ask people to move whenever I had the urge to mess with stuff.

The new feed is located at http://www.jessaluknits.com/feed/ you can click on that link to subscribe or, if you use Google Reader or Newsgator, you can click on the button over there —> OR if you have a bookmark to subscribe to your favorite reader, you can do that too. Oh, you can also cut and paste the new feed address into your current subscription - if you click on ‘edit feed’ in your reader, that option should come up. ;o)

Thank you for your patience during this transition, I’m sorry to have to do this but having my feed ignored by bloglines for two weeks was just too much. (bloglines sucks, in case you didn’t already know my feelings on that point and yes, that’s my freedback in case there’s a lacky somewhere at bloglines still searching for that word) ;o)

For those who read all the way through this lovely boring post about feeds, etc. you get a pretty picture:

For those who decide to stick with me - thanks for sticking with me!! For those who don’t, I’m sorry you’re moving on but it was good while it lasted…hopefully we can still be friends. ;o))

ETA: I’ve added a Bloglines button to the sidebar to make the transition easier for those who will still be using Bloglines.

…sometimes. ;o)

Somewhat unconsciously, I have been on a yarn diet since January. For one reason or another, I just haven’t felt the urge, you know? Besides, it’s hard to justify a new yarn purchase when you have almost an entire room devoted to your fiber habit. I was also working on my CPH so I didn’t care about working on anything else until that was done - or at least wearable since it still has no buttons so I guess it’s not officially ‘done’. Last week I started looking for a project that would be fast, pretty, and make me happy - because Lord knows I needed happy at that point. I decided on a project and started hunting for the perfect yarn. (btw, have I mentioned how much I love Ravelry?!? Seriously. Love it.) The perfect yarn in this instance would be Dream in Color Classy in the Good Luck Jade colorway which, unfortunately, was almost out of stock at The Loopy Ewe. I could only order two skeins there but thankfully I found two more at the Yarn and Fiber Company. I was thinking that since it’s hand painted, the colors won’t be too terribly different if ordered from two different companies. Thankfully, I was right.

On the left are the skeins from Y&F, on the right are the Loopy skeins. I’ll still alternate rows with two different balls, but they’re pretty close. There’s only one skein that seems a bit darker than the rest. I cast on last night while we got caught up on Law & Order (I CANNOT believe that Ed left! WTF?! This new guy better not suck.) and as of bedtime I had an inch or so completed. I would have had more except I started with size 8 needles and found that I wasn’t getting gauge. I went up to a size 9 and that’s working out perfectly so far:

Can I just tell you that I’m loving this yarn? Squooshy!!! The pattern? Fun!! Yay! Now if we could just get some rain so I can justify sitting inside and not working on the veggie patch. ;o)

Oh and some Fleece Artist Sea Wool may have fallen into my cart when I wasn’t looking…

…and some bees…

…now I must go dig. Yay.