On the Needles

I'm finding it a bit harder these days to find a moment to knit, but I do have something on the needles! These are a second pair of blueberry waffle socks, although since they're sort of orange, I think they should be called pumpkin waffle socks. I love this pattern, it's easy without being tedious and makes such a comfy fabric for house socks. I'm using 2 skeins of Berroco's Comfort DK in filbert and I really like this yarn, very soft and not at all splitty.



And don't you just love my Ms. Pacman stitch marker! I know I talked about it before on the blog, but for those who missed it I bought it from Scary Merry on Etsy, she has so many cute stitch markers! And as you can also see from the pic, I do actually use bags like those I sell in my Etsy shop, perfect for socks :) Anyway, I have one sock done and I'm a bit less than halfway down the cuff on the second one, my goal is to have them done this week, we'll see how that goes. The other pair I made in purple was for my mom, but these babies are mine!





-Kala

A humble FO

Two actually:

While watching tv last night I whipped out a couple of super simple dishcloths! I've never even used a handmade dishcloth, but I have 3 skeins of Pakucho (88 yards of organic cotton) that I've been dying to try out so there you go. No pattern, I just chained about 18 and then half double crocheted until I thought it was tall enough, very low stress :) And the yarn, oh the yarn was amazing to work with! I'm not usually too much of a fan of 100% cotton, but this stuff is so soft and the subtle color variations are so lovely. And as I mentioned before, it's organic and the color is all natural, no chemical or dyes. We'll see how they work for actually cleaning dishes though, my husband says he's scared to use them because he doesn't want to mess up something I made :) Do any of you use knit or crocheted cloths for dishes or cleaning? Any great patterns to recommend?

-Kala

Wedding Music

I really had no intention of blogging tonight but it's too early for me to sleep so here I am! My husband has a cold (no worries, it's just a little cold, no icky flu here) so he's sound asleep. Since we have a such a wee apartment, there isn't much I can do and not wake him up so I'm settling for sitting in the living room with the laptop and ipod :)


Here's me in my wedding dress! And yes, I wore my glasses!




But back to the point of the post! While listening to random stuff on my ipod I came across the playlist of music we played at our wedding. For those who don't know, Shane and I got married in June of 2008, we had a small ceremony at home with only our closest peeps. My best friends are brother and sister, two people I've known for well over 20 years. Anyway, the day of the wedding the brother, Ted, asked what music I'd be playing and I just sort of looked at him, panicked. Music? Oh crap I never picked music, how did that happen? I didn't do the whole walk down the aisle thing (I don't think I could have gotten through that with a straight face) so we didn't have to worry about music for that, we were mostly concerned about what to play after the ceremony while people were stuffing their faces with food. So of course, ipod and my ever so fabulous Ted to the rescue! I picked most of the songs but he definitely had some input and choices to throw in (Scissor Sisters anyone?) and I thought it would be fun to share the playlist here :)

-Funny Little Frog - Belle and Sebastian

-Bohemian Like You - The Dandy Warhols

-Head On - The Jesus and Mary Chain

-I Gotta Move - The Kinks

-Bucky Done Gun - M.I.A

-The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get - Morrissey

-Heartbreak Stroll - The Raveonettes

-Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley

-So Alive - Ryan Adams

-Ask - The Smiths

-Damn This Foolish Heart - Stellastarr*

-You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) - The White Stripes

-Spread Your Love - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

-Last Day of Magic - The Kills

-The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song - The Flaming Lips

-Lovers in the Backseat - Scissor Sisters


Ok, so maybe it's not what most people play at their wedding, but it was very us. Well, really, it was very me. Yeah, Shane didn't actually pick anything to play, he left that to me and Ted :) Which is fine because I had some songs that HAD to be played, like the Morrissey song (the only man whose name I would ever have tattooed on my body) and the Smiths song, which is pretty much my theme song. So what songs have special meaning to you?

-Kala

Vegan Craft Samples!

Have you guys heard about the really cool project called Vegan Craft Samples? It's organized by Heather from Holistically Heather and it's a great way to try out all sorts of fun vegan goodies! Plus, 100% of the profit goes to Peaceful Prairie Animal Sanctuary, gotta love that :) I was happy to donate some pins and coupons to the project so some of the bags will have some Vegancraftastic goodies in them. This is the perfect time of the year for this too, any of the goodies you'll receive would make perfect stocking stuffers if you don't keep them for yourself :) Here's a link to the contributors section so you can see some of the cool stuff you could get in your bag.

-Kala

Happy Halloween!!!

Yay, Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone is having a spooktacular day, my Halloween has been awesome so far. This morning, Shane and I ran the Monster Dash 5K in Minneapolis, so much fun! If you're a regular reader, you know that my husband and I did the Couch to 5K program to train for this race, what better goal than a fun costumed race on Halloween? Since this is Minnesota it was pretty cold but I warmed up pretty quickly once we started running. It was great seeing everyone's costumes, there were a lot of creative people out today! I went as a black cat (and yes, there were tons of other black cats in the race) and my husband went as a ninja (although his ninja mask came off a few minutes into the race :)



Overall, the race was awesome and I'd totally do it again! Oh, and the scariest part of the whole thing? Port-o-potties!!!

Have an awesome Halloween everyone :)!!!!!!

-Kala

Try Handmade

If you're following me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook then you've already heard this :) But I'm excited so I'm sharing here too! My Skull Pins are on the front page of Try Handmade right now! If you haven't heard of Try Handmade, it's a site that showcases handmade goods and hopes to encourage people to spend their money on handmade items rather than mass produced stuff. Cool, eh? It's an idea that I love, I'm trying to make a switch to buying handmade whenever possible and Etsy is great for that, to me there's nothing better than supporting people like me who are working hard to support themselves and their families with their creative talent.

So here's a question for you dear readers, what's the last handmade thing you've bought. One of the latest things I purchased on Etsy is this awesome Zombie Knitting bookmark - love it!

-Kala

Contest!!!

I'm thrilled to have my shop featured on Joy De Vivre's blog and as part of that feature, there is a contest to win ANY one item from my Etsy shop! Just go to this post on her blog to enter :) Please spread the word!