Resilient Knitter: November 2015

Small Business Saturday

Just wanted to pop in to let you know that we're having a Small Business Saturday sale in our shop!

Take 20% off your entire order using coupon code: saturday

Thank you so much for supporting small businesses this holiday season.

p.s. Thanks to our customer Lisa for sharing a photo of your Jack Pine Trees.

I'm making a vest for Luke. This yarn has quite the history. It was some that I dyed years ago for a garter stitch sweater I designed for Luke. A one piece kimono style sweater that turned out to be far too much garter stitch with too much bulk and weight. Anyway, I digress. The yarn. I dyed what I thought would be enough, not knowing at the time how much extra yarn you need for garter stitch and alternating skeins to avoid pooling. I ran out. So I dyed another skein, painstakingly matching colors as best I could. Pure agony, I tell you. I ran out again. One more skein dyed. Long story short, the sweater was done and worn and loved and put into the box of woolens when it was outgrown. Luke recently found it when we were going through things for the winter. He desperately wanted to wear the sweater, but it was about four inches too short in every direction and he didn't seem to care. I finally convinced him to take it off when I suggested we frog the sweater and make something new with the yarn. A vest. I'm using the pattern Basic Vest for Children which I found at the thrift store last week. So far so good. I think it will be finished tomorrow and with maybe enough yarn left over for a pair of mittens.

What's on your needles right now? Any holiday knitting? I'm joining Ginny for Yarn Along this week, too.

herbs , homesteading , preserving food

Herbs

The herb spiral is put to bed for the winter. It performed the best of everything we planted this year, yet somehow I managed to not get any pictures of it in full bloom. Mint, Oregano, Thyme, Sage and Basil were the one's we preserved for winter. After processing, we decided to store them in these cotton muslin bags vs canning jars. They'll hang from hooks in the loft rafters and save precious shelf space. I'm so happy to have garden fresh herbs for our soups, teas and soap.

knitting , knitting books , thrift store

Thrift Store Finds

Tiny rural thrift stores are the best and in our neck of the woods, we have many. One in particular, is our favorite and routinely has "fill a grocery bag for $5 day". Let me tell you, I've gotten pretty good at making use of every square inch of that space. I guess I'm pretty good at that in general, now.

This week was the ultimate score.

A whole shelf full of knitting books. Dozens of them. Most were books for novelty yarn, but a few were must haves...

Domino Knitting

Knitting Around

Knitter's Almanac

Sweater Design in Plain English

99 Yarns and Counting

Knitting New Mittens and Gloves

Knit 2 Together

Knitting Workbook

Twinkle's Town and Country Knits

Weekend Knitting