I’ve moved!! Come check me out! esotericknitter.com

Hey, gosh it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve posted something. Well, turns out, I’m moving to an actual hosting service. I wanted to have more control with the image and page. So I’ve been working on stuff that I have no idea what I’m doing. The site is somewhat driving me crazy because I’m pretty darn clueless. Anyways, I’m fixing up the site now. Come check me out whenever you have a chance: esotericknitter.com Hopefully I wont have too many kinks.

This past week, Spring Break, I picked up some new hobbies. I’m actually a bit obsessed with them. I somehow stumbled onto lucky star origami while in search for good luck charms as a present for a coworker down on her luck. I am crazily making these cute little stars and can’t seem to stop. I’ve already ordered some special paper to make them and have been practicing with magazine pages and such. Well, this then led to my intrigue with making origami gift boxes because in my search for directions on how to make these lucky stars I stumbled onto beautiful origami gift boxes. Now I have some origami books on box making in my cart at amazon.com but hmmm I’m letting them simmer until I get my head straight and thinking. I want to be sure this is something I am willing to stick with.

My other itch of an obsession are stitch markers. I am dying to try them out. I’ve seen some really pretty one on etsy and was thinking wouldn’t it be fun to make my own. So I picked up some beads and whatnots at Hobby Lobby but held out on tools because I had a 50% coupon (MARA750, expires 3/31/07) for joanns.com and recently became a free shipping member so I ended up with a good deal on a nice tool set and free shipping, hehe, can’t beat that. Plus while I was shopping I just added some more nifty items for my future to be stitch markers. Why not, right? The package should get here sometime Friday. Can’t wait to start.

For some reason I am in such a crafty mood. I’m usually not interested in making things other than my knitting. But as I read people’s blogs and see their creations I am so inspired.

On a knitting note, I hope to finally finish my scarf I started last month for my coworker tonight. Hurray! I’m really buckling down and making myself finish all or most of my projects currently on the needles that have been specifically made for people. That way I can eventually start on socks for me again and use the nice yarns I’ve recently accumulated.

I’ll post some pics of what I’ve been up to when I get home. The lucky stars are just too cute. Now I need to find cute jars or bottles to hold them in so I can give them away to boost people’s spirits, I know they put a smile on my face when I see them.

ETA…pics…

I made the pastel box and stars are made from origami paper. The shiny stars are made from left over gift wrap paper. And the colorful stars are made from the packaging paper that came from my other origami paper set. Now that I have pics of them, they seem to be so very few in number and they took quite a bit a time to construct. Hmmm.

Finally the coworker scarf. Just so close to being done. The color isn’t how it really looks since it’s night time and I had to use the flash :(, so it’s a bit off. By the time it’s all knit up and done, it will measure just under 7 feet. Ekk, that’s long! But my friend is a a lot taller than me so its gonna work out just fine.

A few months back my coworker and I had a rough night. It seemed that just about all the patients were going crazy on us. It was just very overwhelming. The situation made me rethink the whole idea of going into health care and pursuing my masters in nursing. Anyways, I a few days back my coworker surprised me with this really nice crochet blanket. I really like the colors. She had said that she was working on a blanket for me but I thought she was kidding this whole time. Lol. silly me.

I didn’t really know how to take a nice picture of it, but I thought this one turned out okay.

And here’s a nice close up of how its actually a wavy look.

I finally have pics to show off. Just three colors from Sweet Georgia. All I could get my hands on before things were taken out of my cart at The Loopy Ewe since people were already checking out and buying it all up.

From Left to Right: Omakase 4, Omakase 2, Omakase 7

More pics of the colors by themselves and what-nots…

Omakase 7

Omakase 4 : This one is one of my faves. The pic just really isn’t that good. I kinda kicked myself in the bottay when I received my order because I only purchased one.

Omakase 2 : I really like the one on the left in the first pic which is also the one on the bottom in the second pic. I liek the more saturated look. They are both the same colorway but obviously there is a slight color difference in them. If I plan to make socks with this color I will have to alternated between them. I understand that this is all hand dyed so it’s all good. I may just make footies, who knows.

No plans to work on these anytime in the future. They are gonna be sitting in the stash until a pattern jumps at me.

I just saw 300 and can I just say, this movie ROCKS!!!! I normally do not like fighting movies with lots of blood and action but this movies was just beautiful. I could not take my eyes off the screen. The imagery was amazing. This was produced by Frank Miller, you might remember him from Frank Miller’s Sin City. This movie is similar in style where the images are a mix between normal and a bit of comic blur. I don’t know if I can even explain it properly, so all I can say is, I loved it. Plus, there are tons of gorgeous sculpted half naked men throughout the whole movie. yummmy. Oh and one of my fav actors Gerard Butler in it too so that was just icing on the cake. Delicious!

I’ve been so busy with school and work that I’ve not had much time to do any knitting or posting. Oh the little joys in my life. I am so tired right now, but I really want to post some tid-bits. So lets start with Saturday Sock yarn.

I was lucky enough to win some Schaefer Anne sock yarn on eBay. I think I only ended up paying $17 total with shipping already included. Not a bad deal. The colors are really pretty. I’ve never touched this stuff before but just really wanted some, like always. The eBay seller was really great. The yarn was shipped as promised, but for some reason took a week to get to me, I think that was a postal thing.

Yarn Info: 60% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Mohair, %15 Nylon

Here’s a close up so you can see the Mohair.

It’s really fuzzy looking. I’m not use to sock yarn looking like this.

So, I really like this yarn, the look, and the color. I don’t have any plans for it as of yet. It’s gonna be living in the yarn stash for some time. I purchased the yarn from mcporter114 on eBay. The seller has pretty darn good feedback and some nice yarns.

On a happy note, I finally took some pics of my socks I knitted using my Interlacements Las Vegas Lights yarn. I don’t know if I blogged about how awesome it was to knit with this yarn. But yeah, it was amazing. So soft and just flew through my fingers. I am in love with this yarn right now. Well, seeing as how it was my first fancy yarn I worked with, I love it. I still have yet to work on my other fancy yarns so I really don’t have much to compare it with. But for now, I love it. And I want more, oh so much more. Plus, one skein/hank, was just enough for me to make a pair of footies and have quite a bit left over.

As you can see, there is a bit of fuzz going on at the bottom of the feet. These socks are really soft and I did not think much of it until it was too late. The instructions on the yarn said the yarn was machine washable so I threw them into the laundry after the first wear and they came out a bit fuzzy. So now I just hand wash them with Soak and block them with my ghetto fab wire blockers. This has helped with the fuzzing a bit and I hope the keep these babies around for some time. Oh and Interlacements are a really saturated yarn. Even after 5 or more washings I still get some color running in the water. So, I don’t know if its just me or if its a normal thing.

Oh by the way, my order from came in on Friday and I fondled the sweetness of Sweet Georgia all the way to work. It’s very pretty stuff, but this is just a teaser, I’ll post more about it when I get pictures of it. Off to bed…

I just about had a massive attack. Sheri at had an update tonight and knowing that Sweet Georgia was going to be for sale I had to stalk the site until it was up. I’ve never worked with the yarn but I just had to have some because the amazing woman behind Sweet Georgia is taking a long break so no more sweetness for awhile. I think the yarn went on sale at 8:15pm Central time, I stalked the site at 7:45pm just refreshing until it was available. Oh my goodness it was such a race to the finish. As I tried to check out my first time around one of the yarns I had in the cart was already sold out. AHHHHH!! So bright idea, just pick whatever –> put in cart and check out. I ended up with 3 colorways, I think. I’ll just have to wait and see when I get it, and keep ya’ll posted. All the yarns in that line sold out in practically less than 30 mins. geezzz. Oh, and bills yeah, I’m horrible, I say no yarn until they are paid off, and what do i do? Buy more. Ehh, okay, unless another awesome indie dyer decides to take some time off, I should be good. *crossing my fingers*

Ps…yeah I know, plug plug, I keep plugging the loopy ewe, it’s just Sheri totally rocks as a seller and I’m sure many who’ve purchased from her feels the same way.

I know, another post so soon after my rant about roses. But that’s just me ranting, this is what it’s all about…Socks!! I thought since I was washing my socks I’d take pics of them after they were nice and dried. All of these socks went through a normal washing in the washer and then off to regular drying cycle. They came out mushed like thing tend to out of an over stuffed dryer, but I used my ghetto fab wire blockers to prop them for pictures. As you can not see…no wires…I used my handy-dandy photoshop to get them out so some of the images may look a bit odd.

This was my first pair of hand knit socks. I bought the yarn from Knit Picks sometime last year in May 2006. Knit Picks no longer carries this line of sock yarn which is sad because these socks have held up quite well. I used Silver’s sock tutorial to knit these. They turned out pretty darn good for a first timer. I was really excited so off to my local yarn store to get some nicer sock yarn and I picked up the Lana Grossa pictured below…

I had actually started the cuff in June 2006, but somewhere from July till November I had fallen off the knitting wagon. But then one night, I couldn’t sleep and it hit me, I should knit and finish up the projects I had started. I frogged the cuff and recasted (is that even a word?) thinking I would make the BF some socks. Turns out I’m a big newbie and did not cast on enough because I thought it was all the same since the ribbing would stretch. Well, it did, just not enough for his ogre feet. hehe. So I was like, hmm I’ll just make them for me. At first i did not like the feel because I could feel the bumps, but after the first machine washing, they soften up a lot. I think the more I wash them the softer they get.

Ahhh, the first footies. I had a lot of extra yarn from the first pair that I thought, what the heck, lets make some footies. When working with these I did a few adjustments with going down a needles size smaller. I think I used a US 1 and only cast on 60 while with the above I used a US 2 and cast on 64. These are a more snug fit which I prefer.

My first time working with Trekking XXL, hmm what can I say, I liked it. Not as fuzzy as Lana Grossa which is a plus because I could see more stitch definition. But not so soft to the touch at first. But oh my goodness, they are really soft now. Softer than my Lana Grossa’s. Oh and I have tons left to make more socks with. I can go with another pair of footies or some with a longer cuff. Eh who know…

As you can see I have a thing for my socks matching. I’m a freak, what can I say. But I know when I start working with the fancy stuff, matching will pretty much be out of the question. Oh the agony. j/k…

I posted a few weeks back about receiving fancy roses for v-day. Well it turned out that the company had sent me the wrong order. Sweet BF was like what the heck? Those aren’t the roses I ordered. So he sent the company an e-mail saying that they had sent out the wrong flowers, and they told him they’ll send the right order for another day of his choosing. BF didn’t tell me when or anything and the roses came on the first of March. Yeah I know why am I posting this now many days later, I wanted to that day but I had lent out my camera to my brother and it took him till now to get it back to me…

So more pretty flowers for me at not extra charge, hehehe. They actually got me thinking that I really like fresh flowers and that maybe I’ll start buying fresh flowers just because.

You can see some wilting going on. Oh well, still pretty for a few more day.