Talkin' 'bout my girl...(and yarn. Always yarn)

I'm squeezing in post between activities and e-mails and orders -- aren't you happy? Stay tuned for the fibery goodness, but first you must suffer through the cuteness of the kiddos...mwoohaha! Yesterday was one of the happiest of all happy days...my little girl's birthday. sigh. I love that kid. She turned nine, and a lovely little nine year old she is. As luck would have it, it is spirit week at her school and yesterday was "Hollywood Day" so my little star got to dress up as, what else? A Cheetah Girl. The before picture, attempting to convince her silken bone-stright hair to do something else...

and the next morn, resplendent in all her Cheetah-licious glory...


(Little brother is sporting a quickly sewn/thrown together Luke Skywalker, Jedi, costume.) She fairly squeed when I produced eye shadow for her to wear. She's such a girl! This weekend, after her first-but-certainly-not-last play performance, she'll have her family party along with her little cousin, and then next weekend, the house will be invaded by 4 other lovely little girls for a slumber party. Wish me luck!
On the fiber front, I have resurrected the Hip in Hemp skirt, and am enjoying it this time around, and it is now the main project of choice.

I have found that the length will be a bit lacking for the size 8 (hmmm...she is nine now...ooops) but she is quite thin, so I am just adding repeats to match the size ten in length. I do hope I have enough yarn. Blogless DonnaD had suggested I switch to Addi lace needles as the M1 left and right stitches, and knitting through the back loops were driving me crazy with this yarn (lovely stuff, but not forgiving like wool). What a difference! I have to say a miss a bit of the slickness of the regular Addi's as the yarn does really stick to the lace needle finish, but it was likewise slipping off too readily with the regular turbos, and the points FAR outweigh the stickiness issue. I wonder if Knit Picks Options would be the perfect choice for this project? One of these days, I will get a set and find out. I am even considering knitting another one of these skirts out of a skein of Kauni EQ (the rainbow colorway) that I have in the stash for the Girl for the winter, and the best part with that will be NO ENDS. I am going to have quite a few ends to weave in at this point.
I've been dyeing quite a bit for upcoming wholesale orders and took the opportunity to try out a new base yarn I think I will be carrying -- a 60% seacell, 40% silk lace/lt.fingering weight yarn (700yrds to 4 oz. -- what do you think? lace? fingering? hmmm) I was skeptical as to how it would take the acid dyes, but I am rather pleased so far! It does take color less deepy than wool (esp. superwash) as I expected, but there is no fading and bleeding and it DID TAKE. I stuck a little bitty skein (less than an ounce) in with a pot of Black Pearl, and then knit it up into a little Perdita Bluebell bracelet. The grays and blacks came out lovely, but the blue in the colorway doesn't show up well, but that could just be where it was in the pot. (I have another skeinlet that I hand-painted today, so I'll see how those colors take. ETA -- it is drying but looks great! no bleeding, not a bit of color in the rinse -- yay!) To knit with though, this yarn is just lovely and so soft when blocked! I can certainly see making a full shawl of this. I will order some to have dyed and ready for Revival this summer. Really, really great stuff. (Horrible, horrible picture). I used swarovski crystals for my Perdita instead of seed beads. Love those crystals.

Lastly, I frogged the RPM cuffs of the Eye of Jupiter socks and instead started Bellatrix (designed by the late and very, very great MommaMonkey, Gigi Silva).

And I screwed them up. I didn't knit enough plain rows between pattern rows and the resulting sock will be all loose and bunchy at the ankles. So, they will be frogged again. I do like how the drop stitch pattern plays with the colors, tho, so I may continue with this stitch, but perhaps put 4 knit rows between pattern rows instead of the called for 3. I'll do the dirty deed tonight, I think, if I don't make it to knit night. (Another Brownie meeting. We've been so darn busy lately that I just haven't had the energy to go back out once I've gotten home.) Unless, of course, I do go and Laurin is there...I just might have to let her pull out a few rows. She really, really loves frogs. lol