I’ve been a bit MIA recently, and I feel like I owe an explanation for that.

Over the past five months, we have gone through the ringer trying to qualify for a mortgage.  Our previous apartment complex tried to screw us for a good sum of money we didn’t feel we owed and in the end succeeded.  At the end of this long battle we were lighter in the pockets, but finally qualified for the mortgage we wanted.

After about three weeks of searching, we found a house!  We made some sacrifices (only one bathroom, not two), but in the end we got the best of all the worlds we could have asked for.  I would post pictures, but we don’t close for six days (so close!).

I also knit up a cute top for a friend’s baby girl, but I haven’t had much time to photograph it – lots of packing going on.

Stanley, the five month old German Shepard we adopted, is growing like a weed!  He is the sweetest boy and we love him dearly.

Hopefully, I will have some pictures to share after we move in and get settled – not to mention more knitting!

Catch y’all on the flip side!

When I’m not knitting, I run a full service design business and work full-time in Association Management.  At my management job, we do a lot of printing for the different events that we organize.  This includes signage, rack card, pamphlets, booklets….you name it.  We do much of this in house, but when it came down to our October event, we had a special need we could not meet for ourselves in-house.  We set out to find a printer that could accomodate our needs for a good price and with a fast turn around.  Google saved us.  We stumbled upon this great site called www.48hourprint.com.

This company is fantastic for the person who does not have much experience in the publishing world.  They are kind enough to provide you with a Microsoft Publisher template that you can use to build your publication.  In our case, we needed a small booklet printed.  This template was invaluable for providing dimensions, “safe zones” for text and explaining “bleed”  – a concept I knew nothing about.

When it came time to upload the file to get published, they give you step-by-step instructions for formatting the file and uploading it to their site.  You can view and approve your proofs online with their easy system.  Once they are approved, the time to print is literally 2 days!

The quality of the finished product is excellent – we could not have been happier.  We will definitely be using them again at work and I will be using them to get my business cards printed as well!  What an excellent find!

Well, it dawned on my I haven’t posted since May and I figured I would update all of my readers as to the state of affairs in the knitting/sewing/personal world.

Well, for starters, as I was getting some bitchin’ progress done on a crocheted scarf (I didn’t know I could crochet, but I can!!) and ready to post some awesome pics, we were robbed in June.  That’s right.  Someone kicked in our door and stole everything in our living room – including my laptop.  This means that I had no way to blog or do much else.

Well, as a result of this wonderful burglary, I have yet to get all my pictures off my iPhone (luckily hubby put ALL my pictures on my new phone right before my computer was stolen).  So, I will keep this post brief as there are no pretty pictures to share.

After that, knitting fell to the wayside and I haven’t knit a stitch since.  I’ve been reading a lot, but that’s about all.

We are looking to buy a house since our landlord was pretty ambivalent about the robbery.

Other than that, as soon as I get my pictures off of my phone, I will write a real post.

I’ve been reading the Yarn Harlot’s blog, as well as Wendy Knits and watching them knit all of these wonderful socks made me want to try it again.  If you have been a follower of this blog, you may recall my first attempt at knitting  a sock.  That ended in horrible failure.  Not because I did it badly, but I wasn’t ready to knit in that small of a gauge yet.  Also, I hated the yarn I chose and the pattern (cuff down with a heel with a gussett).

This time around, I wanted to try toe up socks.  I downloaded this free pattern from Ravelry and decided to give it a try.  Well, the wrap and turns for the short rows were throwing me.  I watched more than one YouTube video and just could not wrap my simple head around it.  I then stumbled upon a great demo for doing short rows with no yarn overs or wrap and turns.  It is FANTASTIC!  So I embarked on improving my first toe up socks.  I cast on 24 stitches using a crocheted provisional cast on and set about knitting the toe of my sock.

(Just after I finished the short rows and began undoing my prov. cast on)

So the toe was a resounding success for not using a pattern and literally just guessing.  I also decided that around the 1″ mark (after the toe) that I would switch to magic loop – so cool!  I never tried it before and I loved it!  So much easier than all those DPNs.   After continuing to knit, I decided that I hate this yarn.  I bought it from Hobby Lobby and it’s just nasty.  Believe it or not, though, prettiest sock yarn in the whole damn store.  Go figure.  Anyway, I also came to the realization that because I did not like this yarn, kntting a large sock (I have big feet) to actually wear was useless.  So, I took it to work and made my boss with size 5 feet try it on so I could gauge where to start the heel turn.

(As you can see, NOWHERE near the heel on my big feet)

So after a tad more knitting on the body of the sock, I began the heel turn.   Using the same strategy/method I used for the toe, I began knitting back and forth on half the stiches for the heel.  I like the look and feel of a mitered heel (while I do also recognize that different types of heels are good for different things), so this method really appealed to me.  Unfortunately, I began knitting the heel while commiserating with my father and brother.  This meant my attention was divided and I went a bit too far with the mitering.

(Too many things wrong to list)

So, not only is the heel only good if  you have a square foot, some how I managed to leave some odd holes (probably from not paying attention, again, go figure).  I got a little carried away with the mitering.  It’s just a lot of bad in this photo.  However, I managed to get past the nasty heel and finish the sock:

Did some 2×2 ribbing to finish the cuff and there ya go!  A finished, horrible sock!  I will knit socks again, but next time they will definitely be on 2 circulars, and 2 at a time.  I want to get Cat Bordhi’s book to learn how to do it.

I hope this post gives some great resources for people wanting to try toe up socks.

Okay, so I really will update soon. I have been crazy busy with stuff and blogging is the thing that has fallen to the wayside.

I have some great pics of my MacGyver’d ball of yarn, my fat loot from Knit Picks, the beginnings of my Debbie Bliss Bolero, and much more.

Stay tuned as I have a to do list this week and a proper blog post is on it!

So, hopefully over the next few weeks (possibly sooner) I plan to redesign the site.  In addition to redesigning the site, my plan is to make a foray into podcasting.  That’s right folks, you can listen to me speak on whatever topics I deem interesting relating to knitting, sewing, crafting, or finance.

In other news, I’m working on designing a logo.  It’s something that has been going on passively for quite a while, but I’ve recently felt a new urgency for it.  If anyone has any ideas for designing logos, please comment and share.  I’m pretty stumped with the whole process.  I’ve done lots of research, but perhaps that has made the cloudy mind worse….ugh!

I cannot wait to get my yarn!  Russell got it on the right track, but unfortunately it was too late for the shoes.  I emailed the company about his error (I cannot believe he did it with BOTH shipments), but they said I have to return the shoes to get a refund.  How am I supposed to track down shoes that got delivered to whoever lives in our old apartment?  Someone got some free $70 shoes out of this…but it wasn’t me!

My birthday was fun.  I got some neat stuff…mainly Barbies.  My mom and dad decided it was a good year to enhance my collection…and who am I to complain.  If I have a daughter, I plan to take my dear friend Holly’s advice and pass one on to her every year for special holidays.

Here are some cute pics of the baby playing around on my birthday.

He’s so cute.  He’s turning into such a great little boy.

Anyways, that’s all for today.

Since my last post, we have uncovered the mystery of the missing yarn/Sperry’s – clerical error.  My DH (bless his heart) put in our old address as the shipping address (quite frankly I’m schocked his debit card was approved).  Knit Picks, being all wonderful, contacted him by email to let him know that the package was returned.

So far, he’s managed to get them on the right track.   Can’t wait to get my yarn!!!

So, right now Knit Picks and another online merchant are on my poop list.  Two WEEKS ago, DH ordered some yarn for me for our anniversary…about $100 worth for two different projects (major score, I know!).  Well, I was notified it was shipped about a week and a half ago.  WHERE IS MY YARN???

DH also ordered some new Sperry TopSiders for me (my old ones looked like crap after three winters and tons of rain).  Those also shipped over a week and a half ago – NO SHOES!!  I’m sending those back pronto…if they ever arrive…because I found some for much cheaper than those I originally thought were a bargain.

Other than that, DH’s birthday was yesterday and I got him a new spinner wedding band – he’s wanted one for quite some time.  This one is awesome and engraved inside.

I’ll post picks of my loot if it ever arrives….UGH!