Doggies

Most of the knitting blogs I've seen include lots of pictures of the bloggers pet (usually a cat), so I thought I'd post the obligatory dog pictures today.



That's Fiona.



And this is Finbar.

They are Shetland Sheepdogs. I'm a bit of a dog nut.

I had a question from Ellen about the beads I used on my charm bracelet. The photo is perhaps not 100% true to color. The square beads are a true purple color. They were available loose at "Beadbury" in Osseo, MN for 25 cents a piece. They're just regular plastic/acrylic beads - not so sparkly as glass or crystal ones. I liked that they were square also - I like to combine different shapes in my beaded jewelry. I mostly liked the color, though - it's hard to find a true purple bead, other than seed beads.

Ellen commented on how lucky I am to have beading stores close to me. And she's right. Here in the Twin Cities, we are extremely lucky in all crafts. There are over a dozen yarn stores, over two dozen bead stores, tons of rubberstamping/scrapbooking stores and a lot of quilting stores. Plus you have the usual big box craft stores - Michael's, JoAnn's, Walmart, etc. So, we are very, very lucky here.

Of course, the Twin Cities is a big place, so they're not all super convenient to get to. The stores I went to Saturday are about 40 minutes away from my house, so I'm not likely to just pop in to see what they have. However, there are stores that are close by that I can pop in if I need some needles or want to buy some beads or something like that. That's part of the reason I love living here. It certainly adds to my quality of living!

Amazing Threads

Here are my purchases from the AK trip to Amazing Threads on Saturday:



2 Skeins of Plymouth Encore for the Alien Illusion scarf in "Stitch n Bitch". I've wanted to knit that scarf for a while, but I knit too many scarves last winter. You definitely need scarves in MN, but you can only wear one at a time...



4 Skeins of Noro Kureyon for the Lily Bag from Black Sheep Bags. I made a Booga Bag last winter and really like it, so I decided to make another bag that is just a little bit different. I got the pattern in the Great Stash Redistribution Project.



4 Skeins of K1C2 Tartelette. Amazing Threads had a garter stitch shawl hanging in the shop as their Project of the Month. I loved this yarn and have never knit with it before, so I thought I'd try it out. It's very similar to Berroco Zen, which I did make a sweater out of. I think this feels a lot smoother and more pliable than the Zen, though. It's closer to what I thought Zen was going to feel like.

That's it! Some good stuff, huh? Now if I can only find time to start knitting them up!

Here it finally is - a Good Yarn!

No, this is not the yarn I bought at Amazing Threads. This is some yarn I got today, which I bought off eBay. It's one of my all time favorite yarns, Berella Muskoka. Unfortuantely, this yarn has been discontinued, so I've been buying what I can off eBay. I love this bright pink color! Muskoka is 100% Merino Wool. It's superwash, so it's very soft and machine washable, so it's ideal for kids stuff. I like it for most anything though. I'm looking for more in the natural color because I'm using it to knit the Great American Aran Afghan, so if you have some, let me know.

A Charmed Life

On Saturday, I went to Amazing Threads in Osseo to see the trunk show for "Style at Large" with some fellow Twin Cities AK Listers. The sweaters were so much prettier in person and I loved the store - very helpful and kind clerks without being too pushy. I wish it wasn't so far away from my house - but maybe that's a good thing. More on what I bought there later.

Across the parking lot, however, was a bead store and a scrapbooking store. They're called "Beadbury" and "We're Stampin Mad". Here's what I made last night from the beads I bought there:



The charms are all reflections of my favorite things in the world (except there's no food charm on there).

Paper Craft

I also do scrapbooking and card making. This is the card a that I made and am sending to my step-mom for her birthday.

Photo

I'm trying to figure out how to add pictures. Here's my last completed project. It's a beaded bag that I did as part of a knitalong on the Beaded Knitting Club:

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Inaugural

Here's the first post. Don't have a lot to say, but I wanted to get started. I guess this is primarily a knitting blog, but I may add other crafty stuff, as well.