birthday booty

My birthday was yesterday and I got some awesome knitting-related presents!  

I got the knitpicks options needles, a Yarn Harlot book, an Amy Butler knitting bag, and some handspun alpaca yarn.

The bag is beautiful and has TONS of room inside, with nice compartments and zippered pockets.

The yarn was spun by my friend Storm from one of her own alpacas (who I have met and who are adorable).

Birthday activities included going to see the WALL-E movie (awesome), eating too much popcorn and sour-patch kids (tummyache), having a cake and ice cream party at my house, and playing a couple games of croquet (got my butt kicked).  It was a pretty good day.

Scootin' around

I met up with the knitting girls for coffee at Latitude 59 this morning for our weekly stitch n bitch session.  Cheryl, Betsy, and Barbi are working on our group KAL gathered pullover sweater, and Lynda is working on her February Lady Sweater.  Betsy also finished two more beautiful fair isle hats this week, but I forgot to get a picture.  

I'm still working on my sweater too, but I brought my farmer's market bag to work on this morning.  I wanted to finish it so I could use it at the market today, and I did! 

After knitting I tucked my brand new bag into one of the compartments of my BRAND NEW SCOOTER!  Yes, it finally came in this week and I'm learning how to drive it.  

Look at me!  I'm a biker chick!

I rode my scooter to knitting today, and then out to the farmer's market.  I'm pretty much the coolest girl around now.  I didn't look quite so cool when I fell over at an intersection when I was practicing driving it the other day, but we will just pretend that didn't happen!

Shrinky Sunday

This Sunday I had the knitting girls come over to my house to share in my new obsession - making shrinky dink stitch markers.  I had not played with shrinky dinks since I was a little kid, and had forgotten how cool they are.  They popped back into my consciousness this past winter when I was visiting a friend in Portland and was shopping for fun jewelry.  We found several different shops that had collections of shrinky dink earings and pendants.  I thought, "Heeey, I can make that!"  So I brought home some shrinky dink plastic from the toystore a couple weeks ago and started experimenting.  That's when I figured out that they would also make really cool stitch markers, and knitters always need more of those, right?  

Now, I can't draw to save my life, so I figured out that you can use stamps on the plastic and just make it look like you have artistic ability.  So we broke out all the stamps, inks, colored pencils, hole punches, and scissors, and went to town!  

Check out how cool this stuff is - here is a shot of a cookie sheet full of cut-out pieces before going into the oven...

...and a shot of the same cookie sheet four minutes later!  It's magic!  We were all huddled around the oven door watching through the window going "Oh! Oh!  There're curling up!  Now there're flattening out again!  There're little - it worked!"  We were all completely amazed by a children's toy that has been around for years and years.  We're dorks.

Then all you have to do is add jump rings in a good size for the knitting needles you want to use, and TaDah!  Stitch markers!  

We all plan on making so many of these that we will have more than we will ever need.  It's kind of addictive.

Soapy Saturday

I've fallen behind in posting the activities of my knitting/crafting group on here.  The Saturday before last we decided to forgo the usual coffee shop knitting meeting and go over to Cheryl's house so Betsy could show us how to make our own soap.  I should have taken notes about exactly what went into this soap, because it came out really well.  I'm sure someone else there was more diligent than I was.  I do know that there is yummy stuff like olive oil and coconut oil being weighed out in that bowl.

She added a mix of several different essential oils, including lavender and patchouli - it smells awesome!

The mix was then poured into this nifty mold Betsy's husband made to set overnight.  Cheryl and I cut them into bars the next day and set them out to cure.  Just a few more weeks until we get to use it!

We did bring our knitting with us so we could get a little work done while the soap cooled.  This is a shot of us showing off a couple of our projects.  Lynda is modeling a beautiful fair isle hat that Betsy just finished, and I'm holding my work-in-progress gathered pullover. 

Plurkette Hencircle Intro

My friend Lori got me to sign up for Plurk a couple weeks ago, and it turns out that there are a bunch of knitters chatting on there ALL the time.  It's quite the time-suck, really.  Miss Violet, of the LimenViolet podcast has decided to create a group blog for those of us on Plurk that are interested in crafts and the "farmgirl" lifestyle - the Plurkette Hencirle.  The group will be a good source of motivation for tackling projects like knitting, sewing, cooking, and gardening, and I thought it looked like fun.

Our first project assignment was to post an introduction for ourselves on our blogs.  This will probably be the hardest assignment for me, because I am the world's worst writer in the whole wide world.  I'll just keep this pretty basic.  

My name is Marian.  I live in small-town Homer, Alaska where I work for the Department of Fish and Game.  I like lots of different crafts, but my current devotion is knitting.  I'm a beginner at sewing, but I have made aprons, and actually wear one at times.  I'm not very good at gardening (when I was little my mom would make me go out and weed the garden, and I would never know which ones were the weeds, and I would get yelled at for pulling up her baby plants).  I made jam for the first time last summer (raspberry - from my neighbor's patch).  I've tried making my own soap, and my own candles.  I think that I'm a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself.  Oh, and I didn't have indoor toilets in my house until I was in high school.  Does that count as a "farmgirl" lifestyle?

I'm hoping that this group will be a fun way to try new things and share the successes, and hilarious disasters with a bunch of cool ladies!

Starbucks & Yarn Swap

Now that I have a blog, I can actually join in on some of these fun yarn swaps that everyone else is talking about.  So, here are my questionnaire answers for my swap buddy:

1. Full Name: Marian Pfeil 

2. Ravelry ID: marian

3. Email address:  marianpfeil@gmail.com

4. Blog address:  shescomeunspun.blogspot.com

5. Handmade item you desire in the swap:  bag or mug cozy

6. Starbucks item you desire:  beans

7. Favorite Starbucks beverage:  Mocha

8. Favorite snack food:  chocolate 

9. Favorite colors:  blues, greens, purples, brown

10. Favorite fragrance: spicy scents like cinnamon or chai 

11. What types of things do you like to knit:  This is a tough one.  I don't have a favorite "type" of thing to knit, other than "things that aren't too hard or scary looking for me to tackle."  I'm guessing that this question is for determining what kind of yarn I would like to receive, but I'm cool with anything other than acrylic.  Probably not cotton either - I live in Alaska.

12. Do you spin:  No

13. Do you dye your own yarn:  No

14. Favorite yarns:  Another tough one.  I gravitate towards the pretty handpaint style yarns like lambs pride, cherry tree hill, and blue moon fiber arts.  I also like manos del uruguay and koigu, and tons of other things I can't think of right now.

15. Favorite needles: addi turbos

16. Do you have any allergies:  No

17. Would you be willing to prepare an angel kit if necessary:  Yes

18. Do you have any special requests:  Nope.  This is my first swap, so it will all be new to me.

19. Do you have any pets: 2 cats

20. Is your home smoking or nonsmoking:  nonsmoking