Dyed in the Wool Handmade

Monika has made my day in a couple of ways. First I want to brag about the beautiful shawl she knit for a friend who could really use some comfort. She commissioned me to dye yarn for her in a colourway reminiscent of certain blue-green crystals and semi-precious stones and she sent me some images to work from. I came up with this yarn. Monika turned the yarn into a truly genius piece of knitting.

Monika also gave me a little award! I’m ridiculously pleased to receive it. Thanks, Monika! I’m supposed to pass it forward to blogs that make my day but there are so many (check my sidebar links!) so I’ll pare it way down and direct you to the blogs of my real-life SNB buds:

Chez Chelle – Chelle
Dreams of Yarn – Shannon
Kimbelina – Kimberly
Needles, Yarn and a Big Chunk of Chocolate – Michelle
Yosemite’s Knitting Addiction – Rochelle

These are Anne Hanson’s Snow on Cedars mitts. They’re the only gift I knitted for Christmas this year, for my sister. The yarn is my Seasocks yarn (70/30 merino/seacell). I dyed it specifically for the mitts, which I wanted to go nicely with Natalie’s brown coat and have a silvery, wintry quality to them.

The pattern is amazingly well-written and the mitts are lovely. They fit my sister perfectly, but they are way, WAY too small for me (we’ve already discussed my delicate manhands – see the comments) and as I said in the manhands post, I think I can make a pair that fits using a DK weight yarn. My hands are 8″ around my knuckles and 10.5″ around the base of my hand, where it swells above the wrist and my thumb begins. I am also pretty tall with long arms, so please don’t worry about me walking around with giant hands…I promise I’m not scary.

This weekend, me and my giant hands will be walking drunkenly around Debbie’s living room in New Jersey. Apparently they can’t have a party without me over there, so I’m obliging. We’re driving down very early on Friday and spending the evening with her family, then Saturday is the party and Sunday is marathon Rock of Love II that Debbie has been Tivo-ing for me because the only way to nurse a hangover is by eating a pork roll sandwich while watching women craze themselves over Brett Michaels. We’ll be back on Monday night.

This means that anything ordered from the shop before noon today will get shipped today, and anything ordered afterward will be shipped on Tuesday morning, Jan. 29.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Remember our unwanted pets? Well, after a brief hiatus the sounds coming from the attic came back, bigger and louder than before. The scratching sounds have migrated from above the kitchen to the centre of our house, where I can hear them taunting me no matter which room I’m in. It’s gotten very cold recently (eye-watering, snow-crunchingly cold) and the squirrels are visiting us way more often.

We called another wildlife guy and he came today. I went outside with him and showed him where I last saw the squirrels playing in our carport and where I see them run, and he climbed up on our roof and sure enough found where he thinks they’re entering. He installed a one-way door and a bunch of screening to prevent them from getting back in, but he didn’t have enough. Apparently there is an additional gap that the squirrels will be able to chew through and enlarge, so he has to come back with some more screening (and to take our money) tomorrow morning.

The shop is stocked with coopworth, falklands, shetland, tussah and 80/20 merino/silk. Photos of everything are here.