Yoga kicked my ass...

I'm taking a break from skating. I don't want to, but it's killing my knees and my hip. Last week I barely did anything during my lesson (no jumping, almost no spinning or footwork- just walking through my program) and my knees hurt for 3 days.

So this week, instead of my lesson, I took a hot yoga class. I tried hot yoga last year and really loved it. But it was expensive, so I only did one week and didn't go back. I found cheaper yoga alternatives, but the weren't as enjoyable to me.

Well, tonight's class totally kicked my ass. First off- it was on the schedule as a 75 min class but ended up being 90 min. Ninety minutes is a LONG time. (During that time my hair puffed out about 5 times it's normal size- hitting Jessi in middle school levels. The room is very humid). But things that are relatively simple postures were killing me. I didn't feel like it was too hot (one of the previous classes it felt like my skin was burning- it wasn't like that) but my heart would just begin racing with even the smallest movement.

I took breaks and tried my best to calm my heart with good breathing. The instructor was encouraging, would walk by and ask if I was still doing okay. At one point I almost left the room- I felt like I was about to die, but instead I just sat down then (the rest of the time I tried to stay close to the position of everyone else, while resting). But I stayed.

And I'm glad I did. The floor series at the end was fantastic- really good stretching, and these "poses" I'm very good at, so it was nice to end on the high note with the instructor not thinking I'm completely horrible and should go back to beginner classes.

I'll definitely go back- I feel way energized now, last year I remember feeling exhausted and tired. Only weird thing- the instructor taught in what is essentially a yoga speedo. That's weird. The other men in the class were in similar things, but maybe a little more coverage. Most women had on full length pants and typical yoga tops (I wore capris). How are these women not ridiculously hot? And the men are practically bare...

The one gross thing about this class is my clothes feel like I've been in a swimming pool afterwards. Still, as tough as it was, and as much as I only did 3/4 of the class, I really like hot yoga.

A momentus occasion

Tonight I finished the knitting on the Daffodil Design.

But it's still on the needles, because I have to crochet the border- this is going to be a huge hurdle.

But the knitting. The knitting is FINALLY done.

Weekend Warmies

Here are the handknit ones! Super quick- just a few hours today and most of yesterday.
(So to save $12, should I send an itemizd bill? Yarn $4, Knitting 10 hours @ $10 per hour- legwarmers $104?)

Want to make some too? Just knit a tube with ribbing on the other end :)
Need more direction than that? Here's what I did?
(I didn't measure the gauge but it will be between 8-9 st/in based on other use of that yarn with this size needle)

The yarn is Knitpicks Stroll Multi, (less than 1 ball, and a ball is 50 grams- this is a small project- but any sock yarn should do- check out the new Stroll Tonals WOW!) I used US size 1.5 and US size 2 DPNs. I knit with only 4 DPNs, but you could use 5, or a circular small-circumference knitting method.


With size US1.5 needles CO 44 stitches.

K1, P1 for 12 rows. (approx 1 in)

Switch to size US2 needles, knit 74 rows (approx 7 in)

Switch to size US1.5 needles, K1, P1, for 12 rows (approx 1 in)

C/O using JSSBO.

-These seem so small, but I could get them onto my arm, so they should work…

Want to knit it? You can add yours to Ravelry here. (Yeah, I know it's a silly pattern to offer- but it's my first ever!)

Bedroom.

Isn't it so pretty! The paint is a very light purple and the curtains are ones we picked up at Target- they are blackout curtains, so I don't have to kill another sewing machine attaching blackout lining! Why are curtains so hard to find? These are actually kid's curtains (They are called "Bailey" the ones Kevin wanted were "Miley" but the length we needed was out of stock. Those were more lavendar, but I like the dark purple.) I'm not sure what makes them a kids curtain... I need to make tie backs for them, as they don't like to stay open on their own, but right now headbands are working fine.

The floor is just gorgeous. Kevin did such a nice job. We are still looking for some sort of area rug for the side of the bed, but we don't really need it. I think it will just be nice in the winter. (We did find an area rug for the living room!) We still need to hang up some art work in the room. The wall by the bedside table gets a picture of a Texas beach that was given to us at our wedding, and I'm not sure what will go above the dresser now, as the art we had doesn't match the purple... more shopping to do I guess.

The tile in the living room looks fantastic- I think he will grout it tonight, and he is about 1/3 done with the laminate, with plans to finish the room today. The stairs and the landings are all that's left, but that might be awhile.

Baby Legs

My sister emailed me yesterday to see if I could make her some Baby Legs type legwarmers for the boys. Baby Legs are apparently a great way to keep lower legs warm when wearing shorts, if it's not quite warm enough for pants, and can easily be whipped off if the temperatures get higher, and also fantastic for when not wearing pants at all- making diaper changes much easier.

The actual baby legs seem to be a very high quality product- made for all ages, they are big on your infant, and scrunch up a bit (which looks adorable), fit the full leg of a toddler, the lower leg of a young kid, and can even be arm warmers for teens and adults. Very cool. The problem- they cost $12 each. Which seems like a fair price for the product, but when you have twins, and need a new pair every day or so, or even a few times a day- that's way too much.

So a bit of googling, and it seems a DIY solution is possible, and easy. Just cut women's socks above and below the heel, cut off the toe, fold over the foot of the sock and use it to form a cuff on the top.

Because the twins are very tiny babies (Courtney estimated their legs as the size of the index finger to the joint of the thumb- I can't fathom that small of a baby!) I decided to get ribbed socks, because it pulls in more. As they grow, the ribbing can stretch, so hopefully the width of the sock will last awhile, though maybe the length won't? (I'm not sure how much leg needs to be covered- ankle to mid-thigh, or more? How long are babies legs anyway?) So I did that process with the blue and green sock. They kind of look like bell bottoms because of the ribbing, and I worried they were too short. So that's where the blue/white sock comes in.

That's actually one of my old socks (if she likes it, I have a black/white one, but I didn't want to cut up a sock if she didn't like it.) These look less weird because they don't pull in at the ribbing, but if the babies are as small as she says, then I think it will be too loose. But they are longer, so she can hang onto them, and they can grow into them.

Okay- so I need smaller width, but maybe long length? That's where I got the idea for the dual color ones. These don't have the cuff from the foot (I saved the feet of the socks to dust with...) instead, I just sewed two cuffs together. They are longer than using the foot, but take 2 socks to make. I can make them solid colored if she wants.

Each of these took only a few minutes.

And last, if what she really needs is smaller than a women's sock, I hand knit one (still working on the pair). That actually stretches enough to just barely fit onto my lower arm, so it shouldn't be too small (though maybe too short? No idea what length I need...). I'm only making one pair until I hear back from her. If it's what she wants, I'll get working on knitting more. (That was a 1 day project, so no big deal... though I did have to put off my Cauchy socks which are part of a March KAL, and probably won't get done in time now- but twins are way more important.)

In other news- Kevin did the tile at the upstairs door. Only 2 more areas to tile, and lots more laminate to do. Also we go curtains for the bedroom. They are dark purple. Pictures eventually.

So Linda will stop asking for pictures...

Here is a picture of the doors.

They have blind-in windows that look much nicer than our older "after market" ones, but the mechanism to open them is one-to-one so it's more of a pain then the older one which was just a short slider. The handle is also on the inside now (which confused Elsa because the door opened the wrong way- she's figured it out) so the locks turn in different direction! The deadbolt turns towards the outside door and the knob lock turns away from it. At least they are both "up and down" when they are locked!

The contractor said we were the first people he's installed these doors for who got screens. They are neat double screens, so they usually sit behind the right hand door. They can be easily removed if we ever wanted it completely open. Guess we can get giant furniture now.

Notice the floor is a disaster. We are tiling in front of the doors to prevent water damage to the laminate (also to catch Elsa's muddy paws before she is all the way in, so we have to do that before we can put anymore laminate down.)

Oh goodness...

So as you all known we are laying laminate flooring (and tile soon). Last night the stairnose things came, so we can start the living room (he couldn't start until he saw how wide they were). Last night we ripped the carpet off the stairs, and my job is to take out the 200 million staples that were holding the carpet pad to the stairs. (And the ones that weren't holding anything, but were probably from the older carpet pad- apparently our disgusting living room carpet was actually a replacement from the builder grade carpet in the bedrooms. It wasn't quite as ugly, but was more worn.)

Anyhow- Kevin tells me not to worry too much about the staples anymore, because the stairs are cupping (falling in in the middle) and he's going to have to do some work on them before he can lay the floor, so getting the staples out is no longer a concern.

Then he tells me. "If you go downstairs, watch the first step."

I go to look at the first step. Um- there is nothing to watch. He took the step off. He's planning on completely rebuilding the staircase.

(Taken from the top of the staircase. Like the white walls? No more orange.

The story of Spring Forward

Look what I did this weekend! That's a lot of knitting right. Can someone pull the string hanging off the sock on the left? That one is all going to disappear...

With Daylight Savings time requiring the clocks to Spring Forward, I decided to revisit the first patterned sock I ever made: Spring Forward.

Now, the first time I made spring forward I used Lion Brand Sock Ease in Lemon Candy and started with size 3 needles. Size 3 needles, were too big, the socks were too big, and after 1 complete sock, I ripped it out and started again. Then, I made the sock with size 2 needles. Size 2 needles produced an excellent sized sock, but I realized there was a problem. The yarn looked like crap. Not only did the striping make it look terrible, but you also just can't see the pattern at all. For evidence, see exhibit A.

Exhibit A from 12/2008: (you'll also notice the toe is a bit tight- hey, I was new at this

Now, as my first patterned sock (3rd socks), I was actually quite proud of these, but they did look like crap. They are still awaiting "frogging". I just need to decide what to use the yarn for instead.

Re-reading my Ravelry notes (see them here for the full story) I see that even as a novice sock knitter, these socks went really fast- just 4 days for a single sock (granted, a sock I had to rip out). And yep, second time around, they still went really fast.

Actually it went even faster. Here's the story of the next spring forwardss.

I started Friday night. I used size 2 needles, my typical sock needles and got started on the twisted ribbing. Man, twisted ribbing is slow, but I finished it Friday night. Saturday I did the first pattern repeat, and tried them on- uh, oh, this seems really big, no big deal, we'll call it the top of the calf, and change to size 1.5 needles for the rest of the leg, continue on. Uh-oh, still too big. Okay, so from the other end of the ball, I'll start a new sock, this time with size 2.5 needles, but only 55 stitches, instead of 66. I did the ribbing and the first half of the repeat- okay, this seems like it will work.

Today (Sunday) I did the rest of the leg, and figured out how the heel and instep pattern will work with only 55 stitches, a bit of play and it mostly works. The only thing I don't like is that there is only one wiggle down the middle of the foot- it doesn't have quite the same look.

The 55 stitches are a little bit tight, I think I'd want it just a bit looser- the lace probably opens too much, but it works. (So weird how first they are too loose and now they are too tight. Taking out 11 stitches is A LOT, but I also went up needle sizes, so I hoped it would work out. It mostly works out... they fit a lot like my potomatuses do- tight on the leg, but loose on the foot.)

So it looks like even revisiting them after I've mastered sock knitting, I'll never get perfect Spring Forwards- but hey, at least they are super fast!

(This yarn, Risata, is the first time I've knit socks with cotton. It's an interesting cotton/wool/elastic blend. I don't notice the elastic at all, but hopefully it will keep them from falling down. The cotton-well yep, my wrists hurt from the knitting...)

Bath Product Review...

A long long time ago I ordered from Praireland Herbs and posted about it here. Then, I used two of the shampoo bars and posted about those here. Well the things are so gosh darn long lasting, that I was never able to use the last bar. I've finally run out of the first two bars (let's see- I ordered mid August, and it's now mid March and I've used two bars... hmm- seems long lasting to me! I wash my hair everyday now that it's short.) So, I just recently tried the Aloe Fresh shampoo. I put this off until last, becasue it doesn't have a pretty smell and just seemed so boring. This was a mistake: the Aloe Vera is AMAZING. SO much lather- TONS of lather, and a great clean feeling without that kind of sticky feeling the peppermint one sometimes left. While I didn't always need a conditioner with the peppermint or the rosemary shampoo, I often felt like I wanted one. With the Aloe Vera, conditioner is completely unnecessary. I still have about 2/3 of the bar left (I shared 1/3 with a friend)- so this is going to last me awhile. I do wish it had a smell though. A pretty smell is a huge reason to love bath produts.

When I went to New Jersey in January I bought some LUSH products. (And talked about them here.) I'm sad to say, these were not long lasting at all. Most seemed to disappear very quickly in the shower, even though I take great care to keep my soaps out of the stream of the water. An intro to the products I bought is here. So here are my LUSH product reviews.




Jungle Conditioner
I love the smell of this! (Notice my initial impression was that I did not like the smell. But I love it!) But I'm not sure it's a product I need. I switched to it from using regular conditioner every other shampoo, and used it every other shampoo, but now I use it just once a week. Honestly, I don't notice any difference. Maybe that's a good thing- and it works as well as regular conditioner, but maybe it means it just doesn't do anything other than smell great. It's a bit ackward to use- you break a piece off in your hand (being careful not to get the rest wet, as it has no preservatives and will harbour gross growth- I broke a medium size piece off and leave the rest outside of the bathroom) and then add water in it making a sort of paste, then I do my best to get it to different parts of my hair and try to rub it in. I'm not sure how affective I am at actually distributing it through my hair, so I try to put it in 3 different parts of my head each time, and changing those everytime. I think I'm going to try to "whip" some of it up and do a leave on conditioner like some websites have suggested. My biggest disappointment is that this has SLS in it. Getting rid of my SLS use has made my head so much less itchy, and adding this back in I haven't noticed that itchy scalp coming back, but I only use it about once a week now, so maybe it just isn't enough. I'm not "scared" of SLS like some extremist websites are, but when I cut it I noticed a difference. I don't really want to add it back in too much.





Karma Soap


An amazing scent! Kind of smells like a flowery hippie. The shape of this made it tough to cut for multiple uses (like I said- these soaps all melt so fast in the shower, even keeping them out of the water. So I cut them up, so as not to expose them to too much water). 1/3 of the chunk I bought lasts about a week. That's just way too fast for me to buy it again even though I really loved it. Whats nice about this one is the scent kind of stays on your skin and you can smell it throughout the day. Soaps are usually "wash away" and only provide scent in the shower. Plus it leaves my skin nice and moisturized.

Angel Delight Soap (not on the website as it's a holiday thing)


I have to admit, I bought this because of the pretty. It was so lovely. The scent was hard to make out. But in the bathtub, I decided I didn't really like it. Another review called it "flintstones kids vitamins" that seems about right to me. Kevin says it smells like green tea. Maybe, but I don't like green tea either... This one 1/3 of the chunk lasts about a week and a half. The chunks are larger than the Karma, so I don't think it's necessarily any more long lasting. With this one though I'd be okay if it just melted away, but it's too expensive not to use. The good news here is that this one is a wash-away soap, I don't smell it out of the shower, and though I don't like the smell it leaves my skin feeling nice, and not too dry.

Honey I washed the Kids Soap

They say caramel and honey scented, I think it's toffee and honey- either way the scent is light, but very very nice. This is definetly my favorite bar. The honey come on top was too rough for me, so I removed it, but this bar produced a very very light lather (all of the lush soaps were very low lather- almost in a "did I get it on me" sort of way) but an incredible result. Super soft skin. Kevin quickly stole this one from me, as he has super dry skin. The bar I had lasted only about 2 weeks, which was very disappointing, Like I said, I take great care to keep my bars on draining soap racks out of the stream of the water, and these just melted away. This is one of the best soaps I've ever used, but just way too expensive for that use rate.

Wiccy Magic Muscle Massage Bar
I have mixed feelings on this one. First- I love the idea. The melt against your skin softness of the massage bar was excellent. It was the perfect amount of moisture to get a great massage going, without being drippy like oil. And it was really moisturing to the skin, so it acted as a lotion too. The thing I didn't feel happened was anything promised by the LUSH advertising. They almost make it sound like an alternative to icy-hot ("Cinnamon will warm things up, peppermint will stimulate sore bits and the aduki beans will massage in like little finger tips to loosen knots. Once you get used to the minty tingling")- there was no warming, no tingling, and the beans are really too small to do anything at all for the rubbing. (Also, they fall out and get everywhere). Last, the smell, especially as it was rubbed in was completely overpowering, and kind of sickening. Way too much cinnamon, not enough peppermint. I think I'd like to try other massage bars, just not this one.

Overall, I'm not as in love with LUSH as I thought I would be just looking at their products. Not a bad thing, since that stuff is expensive! (I am very glad I caught a sale on the soap. Otherwise I think I'd have a pretty negative impression overall)

I think I'm addicted to soap.

A final review of the products I've ordered in the past will be posted soon. I had combined them, but well it made for a very very long post...

I'm not quite out of what I've already ordered yet, but that didn't stop me from stocking up for the future (I think I might have a problem. At least this one encourages good hygiene).

Although I was super happy with Praireland Herbs, I wanted to branch out and try a new place.

This time, I went with Chagrin Valley. I didn't order from them the first time, because their website is incredibly confusing, and it was nearly impossible to figure out shipping charges. (This time around, the website was slighlty less confusing- because I spent more time on it, but shipping charges are still a mystery. They have lots of different shipping methods, but only flat rate is affordable. They say if something won't fit in flat rate, they just remove it from your order, no contact about changing shipping or removing something else. This chart is really important for figuring that out. Once again, finding that chart took me way more time than it probably should have. I had actually already ordered, hoping for the best, before I found it and confirmed my order was okay) Once I had it figured out, shipping was $5.70 and I ordered Monday and got these Friday

So, Chagrin Valley Soap and Craft has TONS of different products, soaps, shampoos, lotions, and lots of other bath and body products. Google them, and there are tons of great reviews, I was eager to try them.


Look at the adorable packaging- no plastics here! Just good for the environment paper bags. (Which was a little nerve wracking since this came in the pouring rain. It didn't seemed to have affected the product though the outside package was a little wet.)

After much deliberation, I got 3 soaps and 3 shampoo samples. Let's talk about the soaps first. They are all priced differently, likely based on ingredients and popularity.
I got: Honey Butter, Chocolate and Almond, and Peppermint Twist. (Also in the picture, shampoo samples, and solid lotion)

Honey Butter- $7.15
The Honey Butter is for Kevin's dry skin (though with winter almost over, it might not be an issue). He stole my LUSH "Honey I washed the kids" and I was hoping this would give him similar results, LUSH is just too expensive. The ingredients show lots of rich skin softeners. All of the soaps have "filtered rainwater" as one of their ingredientsl I just love that. Sadly, palm oil is in all of them, but no chemical ingredients.

There is not much of a scent at all (though my dog seems to think there is, she has been trying to eat this one in particular since it got into the house!) However, since I bought this one with Kevin in mind, I think that’s a good thing. The Old Spice commercials tell me that I prefer a gajillion to one for my man to smell like the guy riding the horse backwards and not like a girl; I’m confident this soap won’t make him smell like a girl. (Also- weirdest commercials ever.) This soap is labeled 6.5-7.5 oz Handcut Wt, and weighed 7.1 ounces when I weighed it. I think it’s not fully cured though, because when I cut it for a slice for the shower, it was a) very easy to cut and b) a totally different inside color than outside color. I’m a bit disappointed by this, because soft soaps that aren’t fully cured will melt faster, and also lose weight by the curing process.

Chocolate Almond- $7
This soap I bought just because it is BEAUTIFUL. So pretty. I think handmade soap should look like this. It has a very very strong Almond Oil smell, not really chocolately at all, it reminds me of baking cookies (which is weird because I don't make almond cookies). I’m really excited about this one, and it went into the shower first. The weight on this one was 6.6 ounces.

Peppermint Twist- $7
This one I bought because I am a peppermint nut. It’s such an invigorating scent for a morning shower. And well, it smells just like peppermint. Not sure what the twist is :) Looking at the ingredients, the twist must be the bits of rosemary. Kind of funny because when my older rosemary shampoo almost ran out I combined the pieces with my older peppermint ones. It was like a peppermint pizza! This doesn’t smell like that at all. (The Rosemary nettle soap always made me think of pizza). The weight of this was 6.6 oz

Slight Disappointment
I know I’m crazy for weighing all my soaps. The website makes huge claims about how big their soaps are (and they are! Most places sell 3 or 4 ounces soaps) Of course, because they are hand cut, they aren’t exact. The website and packaging says they will be between 6.5-7.5 ounces, and of course, they all are. However, I’m a bit disappointed because they are all on the low end. I know they didn’t cheat me at all, but I wish they were higher on the range. Because of the ease of cutting, and the two color issue of the one soap, I don’t think these are fully cured yet- so they are going to lose more weight. Still, the price was good, and I am very happy overall.

Shampoo Samples.
I got 3 shampoo samples. Those are the smaller bars in the picture. Café Moreno (2.0 oz of a coffee/cinnamon smell- it’s supposed to help darken hair), Babassu & Marsh Mallow (2.1 oz and I can’t even describe this one… it was the marshmallow that sold me), and Extra Honey Beer & Eggs (1.4 oz of a sweet smell, described as their most popular). These samples are a great value $2.60 each, and I imagine they’ll last a LONG time based on the life of the other bars I’ve used. (These are about half the size of those- so at least a month each…)

And more
I also ordered a solid lotion $5.50. It comes in a tin and smells of sweet sweet mango. (Which it should! It’s called Hemp Mango Mint) This is smaller than I thought it would be, but I love the smell. I got this because I loved the LUSH massage bar, but not so much the smell. I’m not sure if this will be a good substitute or not.

Reviews to come when I actually use the products!!!

Vote!

It's your civic duty. You must vote. I have quite a few candidates, but I'm letting you vote for both the ones you like and the ones you don't like, whichever you'd prefer. (I often feel it would be a better use of my vote to vote against someone then for someone else. ) Some I've shown the block and a few examples of what it might look like; consider that you are voting on the block, and I'll later ask which design I should do :) Others you see the whole quilt. These are in no particular order.

Number 1: Simple blocks with a sashing. I'd probably do most of this as strips, not individual blocks as the lines show.


Number 2: I like this one for it's simplicity. It wouldn't have as many blocks as the lines show. Ignore the lines (from here on out, that's just a good idea...)

Number 3: Made of two more complicated blocks.
Number 4: Very similar to one above but no sashing.
Number 5: This could be arranged other ways, just an idea...
Number 6: Lots of ways to arrange this one.

Number 7: Note this also uses the yellow, the others would just be backed in yellow.
Number 8: This one looks like it uses the yellow, but that's actually green.
Number 9: I'm a little worried this block is too hard for me...





I have allergies/sinus issues right now and it sucks. So having you all choose my quilt will make me very happy.

Also- what size do you make for a baby? I can't remember what I did last time. Is a 40" square big enough for a lay-upon blanket? Too big?

Quilt for Baby...

My SIL is pregnant with her second, and it's time for me to make another baby quilt. Kevin and I were at Joann's looking for home decor fabric for curtains (it was 60% off- but we couldn't find anything that we liked...) and I picked out some gorgeous fabrics for a quilt.

I probably should have picked a design first!

I'm have 4 colors for the front: pink, purple, blue, and green and the backing will be yellow. Kevin picked the yellow, but I thought it was just a bit too bright.

I need to figure out a design- anyone have any 4 color ideas? I was thinking about just making a basic 9 patches using pink-blue, pink-green, and blue-green and using the purple as a border for them all. The purple kind of has a different value then the rest (that is- when I take my contacts out, I can still see the pattern... the others it fades away) so I thought it might be too busy to mix in with the rest.

This weekend I'll scan the fabric into the computer and play with a photo editor to come up with some ideas. If I actually do that- maybe I'll post them to vote!

See some other fabrics too? The pink and black are for a purse for me. The fat quarter- just because it was the prettiest fabric ever. But they didn't have it in yardage. :(

Firework socks

I had posted about these socks quite awhile ago, but for some reason, they never got a photoshoot. (Perhaps because I never wove the ends in...)
This yarn is Wild Funnies from Dibadu. The colorway is Feuerwerk (or something like that...) and I am 99.9% sure that means "Firework", and the colors definetly say that. Wild Funnies is a yarn designed to pool, so these socks are just plain stockinette that way the pooling colors can be the main feature of the sock.

I love pooling, and I love the way these pooled! What's so weird is that the first sock I made pooled in a giant column, showing the gorgeous colors in an amazing way, and then when I switched needles for the foot (I do the feet at a tighter gauge, for durability and because my feet are tiny and my calves are not)- they switched to spiral pooling. Cool! Then, I did the second sock, and it began spiral pooling right away. I figured when I switched for the foot, the pooling pattern would change again- nope, it didn't! The feet of the two socks are almost identical. Weird.

When I saw how the column pooling was working, I spent a bit of time thinking about how I wanted that oriented on my leg. I decided it should go on the sides, so I attached the heel so that the front of the sock is mostly black and pink. (I love black and pink...) Chances are, no one will ever see this detail- so everyone marvel at it now... The only thing I don't like about this sock is the heel, with the colors all seperated by black, they don't work together well, like they do when they are put next to each other. The first time I used this yarn, it did that on the leg- it looked so bad. So I pulled it out and set the yarn aside. When using pooling yarns, gauge is a big deal, and the make or break it between ugly and lovely.

And here's the best news of all. Dibadu.de is now translated into English! (I think you still will need to email about shipping to the USA, it doesn't seem to be "set"- also, log in an account- the VAT disappears and the prices go way down...) When I bought this yarn, the site was all in German- I just guessed where everything might be (a shop is a shop right? Language will not get into the way of yarn aquisiton) and then emailed the owner to make sure she could ship to the USA, and it all worked out.

After knitpicks releases their spring yarns, if I don't spend too much money, I want more Dibadu yarns. What is it about German sock yarns? Wollmeise, Dibadu, Opal, ONline? I just can't get enough!

What am I working on now? The other sock for my Dad, and finishing up our "remodel". It will be a LONG time before we get pictures of that though...