Yard Sales, CSM Success and *almost* Finished Objects!

My my, how time flies - we're already in the 3rd month of 2008 - I can't believe it! This weekend was incredibly busy for me; we started by having a crazy yard sale on Saturday - we had lots of friends and neighbors come over to help out and to visit - and to buy our junk - a pretty good turnout, all in all - not the largest sale we have ever had, but go down our street and ask anyone; they'll tell you that our yard sales are a community event - one lady a few doors down always comes over to help -she's an amazing sales person - we don't tell her about the sale; but set out some stuff and put up some signs, she's there working hard and helping us out! We got rid of all kinds of stuff and we're happy to claim a little more space in the garage!

Saturday afternoon, I met a wonderful angel - her name is Kelli and she offered to help me clean up my circular sock knitting machine and get it going. (note that link isn't my machine; but it is similar)... Anyway, we met around 2 and in an hour or so it was cranking away - she was amazing - drove out to my house, brought her machine and all her tools, and was ready to dive in head first scrubbing and restoring my machine - she offered all kinds of advice and information - and we were both happy to discover that my machine was (is) clean enough to just start working! I still need to come up with a stand of some kind - but the machine works! we bent a few needles getting it going, but I'm beyond happy! We went to a yarn shop not too far away that specializes in cone yarn and fibers for spinning - I bought some cotton yarn (green) and we even turned a heel! it's not perfect, and I have LOTS to learn - but I am very inspired and so excited about my new toy! I will try to take some photos of it in action this coming weekend when I meet up with other circular sock knitting machine folk in Anaheim at Newton's in Anaheim on March 8th. I hope to learn lots from the folks there - it'll be amazing to be able to use my machine and make a pair of socks in 2 hours or so!

here's my first "heel" - my machine has been brought back to life! (Thanks, Kelli!)

In other knitting news, I continue to work on the Lucci scarf - 1x1 rib- I'm not in LOVE with this yarn, but with colors this strange, I can't imagine it being anything but a scarf - so I continue to knit it... I'm learning to like it more and more as time goes by.. it is soft... :)

On Sunday, I went to Simply Knitting and knit with my friend Terri - I didn't want to work on the snowflake sweater, and had some incentive (sale, returns, gift certificates) to buy buy buy... so, I bought 3 balls of yarn and tackled the striped beanie hat from Knitting for Him - it's an easy knit - I copied the page out of my book and just made notes on it as I go. I'm sad that I have so much yarn left over- I might try to make another one but with mostly blue... we'll see... I have yet to seam it up, but it's really pretty... I like the way it looks inside too!

I also bought 15 balls of Elsebeth Lavold yarn at the 30% off sale - I had some yarn left over from a project that I was able to return for credit, and I had a $50 gift certificate I had won from one of Simply Knitting's drawings - so with all things considered, the yarn for the hat AND all the yarn for this project, AND a set of circular needles ended up costing me under $30! I have a simple top down sweater pattern that I want to make designed by Diane Soucy - the neck down pullover #991. I have yet to try top down, so thought that it'd be interesting to work. I love this rusty color - at first, I didn't know if I liked it, but the more that I look at it, the more I love it! (sorry that the photo isn't quite the right color; I took it at night with a flash)

So, that's what happened this weekend - I'm pleased with the accomplishments. my goals for the week are to get the parts for my CSM that I need (or should have), to try to source a table for it to go on, and to finish the hat (should be done tonight), the scarf, and possibly make one more hat from the leftover yarn of hat #1.

:)