Tons of Pictures (and a LONG post!)

1. Sock Blank Dyeing- My friend Kelsey is amazing and owns her own business. She spins and dyes the coolest yarn, and I am incredibly envious of her job. Check out her stuff here and her blog here. Anyway. She invited us (Leah and I) over to dye sock blanks. Sock blanks are pieces of already knitted fabric that you can dye and then knit straight from. Pretty exciting. So here is what mine looks like:

It has a lot more white than Leah's and Kelsey's, but I'm still thinking that it will look pretty cool as a pair of socks. I have to finish a knitting project before I cast another one on, so it may be a bit before I get to these.
2. Phat Fiber Box- OMG. Pictures GALORE coming up. Leah, Kelsey, and I all got our Phat Fiber boxes on Friday so we headed to Kelsey's to have an opening party. It was amazing. Everyone got so many different things and they were all so wonderful! We each also got on pretty big thing, which was cool. It was TOTALLY worth the $33 and I will get up at anytime to order one again! I wish there was a way to subscribe to the box so I would be guaranteed to get one every month...Oh well. Here come the pictures.

This is what I have in my box. (Minus all of the roving which I left with Kelsey to have spun into yarn. There was a lot of that too!) The box came much better packaged than this. It had very cute tissue paper with kisses on it (the theme this month was "Romance and Chocolate" and everything was nice and organized.

This is the yarn that Leah traded to me for some bamboo roving that I had in my box. The blue/green is one of the samples that Kelsey sent in. I was SUPER excited that one of us got her sample because that was kind of why I ordered one. :)

This was my "big" item. It is one of 20 copies of the first ever published knitter's comic book. I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, but it looks like it is going to be exciting. Leah got a very nice project bag and Kelsey got an awesome needle gage. I actually am probably going to see if I can purchase one of the needle gages online because it was super cute.

These are all of the little patterns that I got. They are pretty neat because a lot of them are postcards or notecards that I can mail to other knitting friends.

This was my favorite sample. It has a sample of lace weight silk and a stitch marker. The sample is from "Twice Sheared Sheep" and it is RECYCLED yarn! Amazing. I haven't gotten a chance to check out the rest of what they offer, but I just thought it was really cool that they have recycled yarn.

These are stitch markers made by "Wine makers sister" and I love them. They are beautiful and we all know I love wine! I also can't wait to check out the rest of their items.

These are the rest of the yarn samples that I received in my box. Beautiful. I need to spend some time on ravelry looking up what to do with my itty-bitty yarn samples.
3. Painting- We are hoping to paint the inside of the house this week or weekend. We chose 'Farmhouse Blue' for the kitchen and 'Frozen Pond' for the rest of the living area/hallway. The wall at the end of the hallway will be the same color of the kitchen to tie all of the house together. The bathroom is going to be 'Seagrass' or something. It is going to be quite an adventure to paint. I never realized how many decisions and random items you need to paint. It's a good thing Weston is in charge of things like this, or I may have just come home with a can of paint and a brush.
4. New sewing machine- I have recently purchased a more portable sewing machine. It is a Janome Jem Platinum and only weighs 12 lbs. It also works great. I love being able to carry all of my quilting stuff in one trip without being concerned that I am going to hurt myself or my machine. It is a bit out of control that I have two sewing machines, but I still use them and make wonderful things!
5. Rhino sweater progress- I have the neck on the sweater now and the last thing to do are the sleeves.

I think it will be very cute when it is done. I'm really happy with the way the shoulder seams turned out. I tried to get a picture of them, but they didn't turn well enough to post.
6. Last up-hat- My friend Seth recently got back from a 6 month internship in Nepal. I was really glad that he was home and able to make it to Josh's going away party on Friday. (Josh went to the Trooper Academy and won't be back until June 4th) He brought back a ton of hats and let us all pick our own. This is mine:

It is lined with fleece and super warm. Sure, a 8-year-old probably knitted it, but it is amazing.

Whew! I think that is all I've got. Back to work tomorrow. Only 9 school days with students until spring break!