Blog has moved

I have just moved the blog to wordpress and just wanted to let everybody know that I wouldn't be posting on this page anymore. The blog will now be located here. It will be all the same stuff just at a differant web address. I had been looking into moving the blog because I dont' neccesarilly like blogger that much and have decided to use wordpress from now on. You will still be able to comment the only difference is that if you have 2 or more links in a comment it will have to be approved before it is posted on the site.

Friday Favorites

Well I am going to start sharing one of my favorites from Etsy every Friday. I will show a picture of a single item from my favorites (with permission from the shop owner to use the photograph as I don't want to be stealing photos) and I will talk a little bit about the shop that it is from. This will be the first week of it so let me know how you like it also if any of you have etsy shops that you would like me to take a look at for possible options for Friday Favorites you can convo me on Etsy where my ID is knittingpanda87 (I may or may not get to showing everyones shops that convos me as I have lots of other favorites already and will probably only be doing one favorite a week).

So for this week I am showing the a bag/purse from thirdfloor.

This bag is called the Annie in Salmon and Pink and I just love it. I would use it as a knitting bag probably as you can never have enough of those and it is the perfect size for one. I love the colors and the dots on it are so cute. The shop also has a number of other styles of bags as well as the same bag but in black. The shop also sells wraps, jewelry, and some clothing. Go check it out.

Knitting Progress

Well I have a little bit of knitting progress to post but not a whole lot. First off I have some progress on my second Monkey sock. I just turned the heel and am about to do the gusset.

I have kind of been putting off finishing this pair of socks because I didn't have any more sock yarn to start new socks and can't afford to buy any at the moment. This problem however was fixed by winning yet another contest the other day where I won some sock yarn and a sock bag from the Baa Baa Blacksheep blog. She has a great blog which you should go check out. She also has a awesome Etsy shop where she sells handdyed yarn and knitting bags (the link over the word Etsy is to her shop). I hope you will all check it out because both her yarn and bags are beautiful.

I also have pictures of my slowly progressing Honeybee Stole which is made out of the lace yarn from the last contest that I won. I have finished one 20 row repeat in the first section and I am loving how it is turning out. I can't wait to see it as a FO but that is a long way off seeing as how long it is taking me to knit just one repeat of the pattern.

I also wanted to run a idea by all my readers. I am thinking about posting about different books that I have read or am reading once a week on the blog and just wanted to know how you all feel about that. I have been trying to come up with some ideas for weekly blog posts for a couple days a week so if any of you have any ideas it would me much appreciated. One other thing that I have though about doing weekly is posting each week about an Etsy shop I have found. Most of them I probably won't have bought anything from as I am fairly new to Etsy but I thought that would be kind of fun to do so that my readers could see some of the other things I am interested in other than knitting and yarn.

Ravelry

Well I have nothing as far as knitting progress goes to post about so I am going to discuss my love for Ravelry. I just love searching for patterns on Ravelry. A lot of the time when I find myself looking for something to do and don't feel like knitting I go on to Ravelry and just look at patterns. This however has turned into a slight problem because I had so many things in my queue that I had to move all but a few of them into favorites a while ago and the ones in my favorites are just basically patterns that I like and may possibly make one day. I have over 400 there at the moment because whenever I like something I just add it to my favorites and then end up looking at all the other patterns by that designer and then end up adding a bunch of those to my favorites. I will probably never get to most of these but I just find it fun and relaxing to look at patterns when my mind just isn't up for knitting. I almost like doing this more than posting and reading the forums. I am at the point where I am thinking about going through my favorites and thinking about which ones I may actually make in the future and which ones I won't so that I delete the ones I don't think that I will make. This is something that I am somewhat dreading doing and may not end up doing at all because I love them all and really probably won't know whether I will knit them until I decide to knit them. I have a fear that I will delete them and then decide I want to knit them later and won't be able to find them because I won't remember the name or the designer's name. I know that sounds crazy but I just like to keep my options open and like to know where I can find them if I want them. Anyways I would love to hear what you guys all love about Ravelry and whether anyone else does the same thing. Hopefully I will have some knitting to post later this week we will see.

A New Book

Well I went to the bookstore to pick up my copy of More Big Girl Knits that I ordered this evening and was looking through it to see if I wanted to buy it and didn't end up buying it. I just really wasn't as impressed with it as I was with the original one. I liked less than half of the patterns whereas I liked almost every single pattern in the first one. I might buy it later when money isn't so tight but there were a couple other books that I like most of the patterns in and felt like buying one of them was a better investment at this point than that book. So I ended up buying Knitting Nature: 39 Designs Inspired by Patterns in Nature (ravelry link). All of the patterns in it are written by Norah Gaughan and all of them are amazing, there are only a few in the entire book that I wouldn't consider knitting. A couple of my favorites are the Hex Coat, the Ram's Horn Jacket, and the Turbulence U-Neck Pullover (all Ravelry links). I can't wait to knit these but right now I have so much on the needles that I need to finish some of it before starting anything new.

go check this out

Well I have entered another contest. All you have to do is go to this post on the Modest Purls blog and leave a comment telling her your favorite color combination and you will be entered to win a $25 Gift Certificate to The Loopy Ewe.

Lace Yarn and FO's

Well the lace yarn that I won arrived last week and I just got around to photographing it. I already started making the Honeybee Stole with it and I have pictures of the start of that as well.

Here is the Misty Blue Lace weight Alpaca. It is from EnchantedFibers on Etsy. It is beautiful and soft and I just love it.

This is the start of the project I am doing with it. I am making the Honeybee Stole (ravelry link). This was my first time doing a provisional cast on and it took a little getting used to. I love this pattern however and it is very well written. I haven't had any trouble so far and am just enjoying knitting it. I definitely think that I have caught the lace knitting bug.

Here is my finished Calorimetry which was a really quick knit. I finished all the knitting in about one day but I kept putting off sewing the button on which just got done last night. I can't wait till it is cold enough to wear this again because it is just the cutest winter accessory I have ever seen.

Here is the finished Cable Eyelet Scarf. I know I promised pictures of me wearing these two items but my husband has just been running around like crazy and hasn't had the time to take photos of me wearing them so that will have to wait.

7 Deadly Sins of Knitting

This is from a contest on the blog Handmade by Jennifer for her 777th post. If you head on over there you can read her 7 Deadly Sins of Knitting and enter as well.

1.)Pride: When I was knitting my first project from a pattern and was about half way through the pattern and hadn't made a mistake so far and I was so proud of myself that I started to rely on memory alone for the pattern even though I sort of knew that I didn't have it completely memorized and so I ended up moving the entire stitch pattern over by a like 3 stitches and I didn't know how to fix it.
2.)Envy: I am always in envy of people who can afford to have a stash full of yarn and people who can afford to knit with luxury yarns like cashmere.
3.)Gluttony: I bought enough yarn to make an afghan started the afghan and am not even halfway through and am already bored with it. I knew I would be bored with it way before finishing it but wanted the yarn and homemade afghan so bad that I just bought it.
4.)Lust:I won a gift certificate to a yarn shop on Etsy and I saw this beautiful lace weight yarn and had to have it so I picked out a pattern for it and used the gift certificate on the yarn. I haven't started the project yet but I have a feeling that it is going to be to hard. It is not an easy project but I absolutely love it so I will try and probably fail.
5.)Anger: My sisters Sterling Cloche really made me angry because I just hated the yarn. It had all these little loops all over it that kept catching on my needles when I was knitting and to top it all off I had to double the yarn up which made it even worse.
6.)Greed: I love to buy knitting books. I have like 20 of them and have only knit things out of like two of them.
7.)Sloth: I started a scarf in January 2008 and it was almost finished by the end of that month I only had like 6 rows to go but I was so bored with it that I put it down and didn't finish it until the end of March 2008.
Those are my 7 Deadly Knitting Sins. Let Jennifer know what yours are so that you can be entered to win the contest as well.

Calorimetry and contest

I am almost finished with the Calorimetry I just have to find a button to sew onto it to finish it off and I will have pictures as soon as that is done. I will also have pictures of me wearing the scarf as well when I post them.
On another note I have entered yet another contest and would like to send you all that way. It is on the Baa Baa Blacksheep blog and the post can be found here http://bea-blacksheep.blogspot.com/2008/03/313-and-contest.html . If any of you go over and enter be sure to let her know that I sent you so that I can get an extra entry.

Finshed Scarf

Well I finished my scarf finally. I ended up leaving half a ball of the yarn so that I can make Calorimetry which you can find on in Knitty Winter 2006. I am about to cast it on now and hopefully will have pictures of the scarf being worn soon.