August

August has always been a busy month for my family. Growing up we had five birthdays in August then when I married Glenn we had more August birthdays. This year it's my birthday, wedding anniversary, blogiversary and we're going away on vacation to the country. With no internet or television. Did you hear me? NO INTERNET I SAID! Yes I was yelling hence the caps. I may try to find some free wifi but don't count on it. I'll be too busy relaxing and knitting. Knitting and relaxing. I'll have my laptop just in case though.
One of the blogs I read, Knit-a-While, had a contest for a really cool book, Knitting 24/7. I entered the contest and lo and behold I done won!



I got the book on Monday and I really like quite a few of the patterns! I've really been into smaller projects and they have a few mitten and sock patterns that will definitely go into the queue for future projects. Thank you for a great contest, Ida!
Summer of socks continues. I'm still working on the Zigzag socks just finishing up the first sock. Really enjoying The Plucky Knitter's yarn. Hope to have the second one finished before we leave for vacation. I'm going to pack up The Big Book of Socks which has about 75 patterns plus three or four skeins of sock yarn. If I run short, there's a lovely shop nearby to get a quick yarn fix so four skeins of yarn will be fine. Or five. We'll see.

What A Week!

We had such a fun filled week.
As I said earlier, we went up to Massachusetts to visit with Megan and her family. It was the first time I got to meet everyone and they were just wonderful. All the kids had a blast and the husbands really enjoyed each others company. Megan's parents even took all five of our kids to a Red Sox game! How fun is that?
Megan came home with us to do some New Yawk stuff. We hit some restaurants she'd been wanting to try, like Petite Abielle and S'Mac, did some shopping in Soho, went to the movies to see, don't laugh, Eclipse and generally had a really fun time being together.
Yesterday Glenn and I went to the beach and I got to take a couple of photos.
Here are the River Rapid socks I made for myself:





They came out lovely but I had a little problem with the kitchener stitch. For some reason it left little bumps along the top and I don't know why. I'll have to watch the video at Knitting Help again to see what I'm doing wrong.
While at the beach I began another pair of socks.



I know, I know...another pair of blue socks? I probably purchased a lot of blue because there are a lot of boys around me. This is a gorgeous blue called Saturday Jeans by The Plucky Knitter. I picked a pattern from the Vogue Ultimate Sock book. It's a cute cabled sock with a "star" toe. I'd never done one of those so I decided to do this sock...only to find that the stitch pattern for the leg is exactly the same as the River Rapids Sock! I guess I do have a type in so far as sock patterns are concerned! Well these are going to be a gift for someone so I don't mind knitting this pattern. For the third time. In a row. Ok maybe I mind a little but I'll get over it.
We'll be going on vacation soon and I've decided I'll be packing only sock yarn so I can complete my summer of socks. The pair I'm currently working on is my fifth pair so far this summer. While upstate with no internet or television, I'm sure I'll find time to complete another couple of pairs of socks. Which means I'll need pattern books since I won't have access to Ravelry. Man I gotta get packing. I'm gonna need more than I thought!

Busy busy busy!

It's been a week all full of busy so I haven't been doing much blogging or knitting. We went up to Massachusetts to visit with Megan, my sistah from another mistah, who is in from New Mexico. You'd think I'd have gotten a lot of knitting done on a four and a half hour drive but I can't knit it the car because it makes me car sick. We did some sightseeing and Megan gave me this lovely Plymouth Yarn Oh My! yarn so I can knit a blanket for Maddie. She's really the best friend ever. I did manage to finish my second pair of River Rapid socks but haven't gotten around to photographing them yet. Megan's here for the rest of the week so we've been out and about in NYC, including the new Purl Soho! I'll write about it soon I promise. I gotta get going though because we're going to see Eclipse and then go out to lunch at S'Mac. Like I said, busy busy busy! Should have a nice, long, photo filled post soon.

Namaste Everday

The other day I was on the Namaste Love board on Ravelry and I saw mention of a bag I'd never seen before so, of course, I had to check out the bag. It's called the Everyday Bag and it's adorable. It's no longer in production but was available on Ebay for a very decent price. There were several bags from the same seller but I chose the pink. And when I say pink I mean PINK!

This is the bag empty:



This is the bag open and full:



This is the bag closed and full:



It reminds me of the old fashioned doctor's bags. It opens wide and has a lot of room inside with a zippered section and has two outside pockets one of which has a clasp to close. It has 2 handles for carrying plus a shoulder strap.
This is filled with what I usually bring out with me everyday - glasses in case, sunglasses, 2 knitting projects, small notebook, reusable shopping bag, big wallet, camera, keys, 2 knitting accessory cases, phone and I think that's about it. Needless to say it holds a lot. Oh and I only paid $24 dollars for this bag. That was just a price I couldn't pass up!
I really do love Namaste products. They never fail on quality and the bags I've purchased have been perfect for my needs. And if you go to the Ravelry group, Namaste sells "seconds" which are bags that were returned for one reason or another. They're inexpensive and the Namaste Girls tell you what the problem is with each bag. There are also other people selling their bags for a good price in that group. It's a good place to shop if you wanna give a bag a try and the budget is a little tight.

Duffy

I've always been obsessed with garden gnomes. Living in an apartment all my life I was never lucky enough to have even a garden fuggedabout a gnome.
When we bought our country house a few years ago, one of the first things I insisted on was a gnome. We scoured most of Sullivan County in search of just the right one. It finally got to the point that any old one would do because we couldn't find a damn thing. Turns out there was a store just a few minutes from our house that had them. We went and bought two of them, one for me and one for my sister, Annie. We named ours Duffy and he sits on the front deck keeping everything safe when we're not around. He's quite a talented little fellow. So talented, in fact, that he's taken up knitting.






He's knitting the River Rapids Socks for me. Isn't that nice of him? I liked the ones that I made for Joyce so much that I decided I wanted a pair. Since I have Fred Flintstone feet, as my brother in law calls them, I just went up to a size three needle. Errr...rather Duffy used a size 3 needle. Hope to finish them soon!
The Summer of Socks continues. This is my fourth pair so far.

She's Here!

Here she is! My niece, Joyce, had her baby on Friday! Her name is Madelyne Virginia and she's 8 lbs 9.5 ozs and 21.5 inches. Isn't she gorgeous? Just like her Mama.
We got to visit with her for a bit on the day she was born and it was wonderful. The boys really loved holding & kissing her which is surprising considering they're teen boys. We can't wait to see her again.
I couldn't resist showing off but next post will have knitting. And gnomes. Don't ask.

Rockin'!

Hello my name is Susie and I'm a yarnaholic.
These are my most recent yarn purchases. I got these from the Ravelry Destash Group. All of these are Blue Moon Fiber Arts except the gorgeous one on the right which is from The Plucky Knitter on Etsy. Warning: Join at your own risk. There are a lot of great deals to be had in this group. Don't come back here crying to me that you spent your sneaky pete money, up in the cookie jar, on yarn!
We're going away on vacation later this summer and I'm already deciding on what knitting I'll bring with me. I think three sock yarns and the shawl I'm test knitting for Al. That should keep me busy for a while. If not, there's a great yarn shop in Monticello I can rely on for a quick fix.
Hope you're all enjoying your summer so far!

Pattern Copyright

I've been giving this subject a lot of thought lately. Well both pattern and recipe copyright. Let's look at recipes and cooking blogs first.
I go to a lot of cooking blogs, I suck at cooking and I'm always looking for something new to make, and I'll scroll through them to see what other blogs or sites the author of each site may contribute to. Some bloggers have their blog and they also write for Paula Deen or Craft Magazine or one of dozens of others and get paid handsomely for doing so. Then I'll look at their recipes and notice there's not an original recipe in their blog. Pages and pages of "adapted" recipes. I think ok they can adapt but let's take a lookie loo at the original to see what they've adapted. When I think "adapted" I think they're adding to the recipe to make it better but that's not usually the case. They'll change a teaspoon of salt to half a teaspoon of salt. They will change curly parsley to flat parsley. The changes made are so minimal that these aren't adaptations, this is outright recipe theft because they are getting paid for these recipes which can be found on Rachael Ray's site or the Food Network site. From what I understand, though, there is no copyright for a recipe. This chaps my ass. It's one thing if you do your own blog of unoriginal copied recipes and expect recognition for a cooking blog which is bs too in my opinion, but it's another thing to take Rachael's recipes and get paid for copying it over at Paula Deen's site.
This brings me to pattern copyright. I understand there is no copyright on patterns. Some people adapt (again that damn word) patterns and sell them as if they created it themselves. Is there a set of rules that should be followed? Is there a percentage of stitches that have to be different to qualify as being an original pattern? I've seen this discussed on several blogs and forums but there seems to be nothing set in stone about this. I understand sometimes two patterns could be written by two people and be somewhat similar, that happens. But for a person to deliberately take another person's pattern, change a few stitches, put their name on it then sell it? Is it theft? Is it creative control? Also what about taking a pattern, making said object and selling it? Should the pattern writer be given credit or even a percentage of the profit made?
Personally, I think it's a breach of ethics. If you haven't written a pattern from scratch from beginning to end, it's theft. But that's just me. And what the heck do I know, I'm just a knoobie. But an ethical one.

Socks On The Beach

Okay it's really only one sock but it sounded too much like sex on the beach for me to be able to resist.





This is the Lacy Mock Cable Sock in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Koi Koi and the photo was taken on Coney Island on July 4th. Yes we were crazy enough to go to the home of the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on July 4th. We got there at about 7am and they were already set up for the contest. It was actually chilly when we got there but quickly warmed up. We left by about 10am before the mayhem began. It was a nice few hours of knitting on the beach while Glenn did some detecting and Patrick caught some rays.



Every two minutes he jumped up to check out how tan he had gotten. For some reason his skin seems to resist tanning. He spends all summer outdoors and barely darkens 2 shades.
I have decided this will be the summer of socks. I hope to finish this pair this week then will be on the hunt for a new pattern for my third pair so far. If anyone has any suggestions for a beginner/intermediate knitter, leave me links!
Hope you're all enjoying your summer as much as I am!