Sea Anemone Knits

The cat needs a bath. In the interest of forgoing extensive bloodloss for as long as possible, I’m going to cram a whole bunch of stuff into this one. heh. Stick around for the ride and I’ll make it worth your while.

First of all, I had a really great Christmas. My family and I tied Jet to the roof of the car and hid her in Galveston. No, really though, we adopted her cause well, we like her. It was fun too. Lots of knitting time, some cooking and a rather interesting game of monopoly. She tells the story really well. Go check it out. (But either finish here first, or make sure you come back.) I got a beautiful wool coat from my Mom. Funny enough, this is a particularly WARM winter. *wrinkles nose* I also received, amongst other things, a couple of movies and my standard Get Fuzzy desk calendar. woo! I feel like I made out like a bandit really.

So, before Christmas, I promised you photos of my stash. Heh. In an effort to be truly honest, and I’ll have you know, it’s not been easy, I’ve photographed EVERYTHING, almost. (I need to photograph the sweater amounts sitting on the bookshelf and the two or three odd skeins that escaped the apt. round up.) Not individually of course, because I realize now that that would take about the next year and a half to photograph.

So without further ado, welcome to my yarn stash!

So, This is (mostly) my stash. On to the "Fun For You" things.

I’m having a contest. Thats right! A contest. Woohoo! Leave me a comment.

Take a little gander through the photos. Pick a yarn, any yarn. Give me a pattern suggestion or other idea of what I can do with it. Ideally, this would be a pattern/idea that fits the yarn. For example: A super bulky yarn with a teensy guage pattern ain’t gonna fly. If I like the idea enough to commit the yarn to its making, I will put your name in a hat and out of all the little slippies, I’ll have my mom or someone draw a name and they will get a yarn-y prize. OK?

Sound like fun? I think so! I’m gonna leave the contest open from tonight, Dec. 29th through January 8th. Have fun! I can’t wait to hear your ideas!

As the more astute may have noticed, I have decided to go along with the blogdom thing called "Knit from Your Stash 2007"

(You, there! Quit laughing! I’m serious.)

I’m thinking about perhaps, maybe doing a leetle contest to go along with this. I’m not sure about this yet, but I’ll work out the particulars over Christmas and let y’all know in the near future.

Just so that y’all will fully appreciate what I’m up against, I’ll post the rules:

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through September 30, 2007 — a period of nine months.

yeah, I’m not gonna make it nine months. Lets call this the "Jan 1 - July 1 (6 months) Knit from your Stash a thon"

2. We will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

    2.a. Sock yarn does not count. What? You think we are made of stone?

    2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that we really and truly do not have the yarn for, we may buy yarn to knit that gift. (We will tell them to wait)

    2.c. If we are knitting something and run out of yarn, we may purchase enough to complete the project.

    2.d. We each get one "Get Out of Jail Free" card — we are each allowed to fall off the wagon one time.

3. We are allowed to receive gifts of yarn.

4. Spinning fiber of any sort is exempt.

Not in my case. I’ve got spinning fiber but it’s been a while since I’ve spun any, so no fibers for me!

And in the interest of full disclosure, I shall photograph my stash for y’all by this weekend and then y’all can laugh at me even more because I’ve got a disgustingly huge rather normal sized stash. (Yes, I am here for your amusement. Make use of this one opportunity because you have to quit laughing at the end of this post.)

Ok, in the next day or two, pictures of the stash. Promise!

I know, I know, I owe you all a post. Kinda forgot about that somewhere along the way. As the more observant readers might have noticed, I updated my progress bars to include an eff-oh. So to celebrate, I present you with a finished Hourglass Sweater. How long has she been done, you ask? Oh, somewhere in the time span of eh, since November 28. Yup. Certifiable slacker.

Not the best shot, but out of all the ones taken, I didn’t mind this one. To give you a better idea of how she looks,

And now with the artsy fartsy neckline shot (my personal favorite, perhaps because it’s rather well taken, in my humble opinion…)

Pattern: Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts

Yarn: Classic Elite Renaissance

Needles: KP Options 9various lengths) #7 & 16" Addi Turbo #7

Time: July 29, 2006 - November 28, 2006

This sweater fell in the 17-18 weeks 8-10 hour category of the book. Yeeeah, ok, whatever they want to say about that section, or whatever the authors want to think, thats cool, cause I’ve scratched out the 8-10 hours part of the book and rewritten in the 17-18 week time frame instead. Much more reasonable I think.

I love her. I’ve worn this sweater now more often than I wear my Somewhat Cowl. So, yea!! New Sweater for winter! Woo!

Ok, moving on.

I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science this past weekend. The last exhibit I saw was the Smith Gem Vault. Now, as long as I can remember, every time I went to the science museum with my parents when I was younger, my visits included a tour through the Cullen Hall of Gems & Minerals. Now, I wouldn’t suggest going right now, because the place is torn to crap. There are NO labels, pieces are currently traveling, etc. If you didn’t grow up around these things, you’ll probably have no clue what they are except pretty. So, I wandered through, looking at everything and reveling the the sheer beauty of the colors that nature seems to magically produce.

I went through the Smith Vault (new and stunning! go. see. it.) and dropped my jaw on the floor in front of this stunner of a necklace. I love this.

I want jewelry in these colors. Hell, I want my eyes to be that color (yes, I am aware of the wishful dreaming in that statement.)

And, I will leave you with Princess Leia.

Jet got ahold of Staci’s yarn and lo and behold, a blissful pairing!

And because it’s now almost 11pm, I’m going to go knit on a project that is beginning to suck my will to live. (I’m having to reknit two whole stockings… ARG!!!)