I LOVE my new earrings.

Some of you may know of my undying love for etsy.com. If you haven't already shopped around on there, you will thank me later for introducing you to it. It's where I spend a bulk of my disposable income. If you don't already know, it's a place where artisans can sell their handmade items and it's an awesome place to find one of a kind gifts for yourself, er, I mean other people.

While browsing around there a few months ago looking for earrings, I found these cool little ditties from Dream Spiral Art. They're enamel on copper and my new favorite (and for a girl who has about a hundred pairs of earrings, that's saying a lot!).

And then a few weeks ago I got an email from Ann Drewing, the creative force behind Dream Spiral Art. She was letting all of her customers know that she had made the decision to quit her day job and put all her efforts into her jewelry. Because I think she is incredibly brave (and because I'm secretly jealous of her decision!), I decided to support her and have her do some custom order earrings for me.

While I adore the first pair of earrings I got from her, I'm also a fan of BIG earrings. So I decided to have her make me the same thing (the enamel on copper discs), only larger and in a different color. The results are amazing!

Thanks so much to Ann for inspiring me AND creating me some gorgeous earrings!

Maplewing Shawl

So, I've been in a bit of a knitting funk lately. I have a bunch of design ideas bouncing around in my head, but I'm so A.D.D. right now that I'm having trouble getting them down on paper and even more trouble creating them in yarn form. I think I'm just putting too much pressure on myself, trying to get some designs done for various deadlines coming up.


Finally the other day I made myself put all my UFOs in my knitting basket and put down my knitting for a few days. I think it helped somewhat, as I don't feel quite so frustrated when I pick up my needles.


With the knitting hiatus, I don't have a whole lot to show for my efforts lately. I have, however, been knitting on my Maplewing Shawl. I haven't gotten a whole lot done though...only completed to row 14 out of a few hundred...gulp! I just can't seem to focus, but I'm hoping with some upcoming travel over the next few weeks that I'll break out of my rut and get back into my knitting groove!


Here's my progress so far...of course it looks like nothing more than a jumbled ruffle all crammed on that circular needle, but I assure you that it's turning out beautifully. I love the stitch definition of the Malabrigo Sock and it's so soft and squishy. I'm hoping to have the shawl done by Christmas, but with all the other things I want to get done by then and my current knitting state of mind, we'll see...

I got my own headline!

So, I'm finally getting around to blogging about something that happened over two months ago...yeah, it's been a crazy busy summer.

I once again entered a few things into the SE Alaska State Fair. Of course, every year I vow to plan ahead and have some really cool stuff entered. And then life totally overwhelms me and I end up scrambling at the very last minute to pull things together. Luckily, I had some decent FOs on hand to show off.

This year was apparently my year at the fair. And I even have a headline to show for it! Yep, that's right. You're following the blog of a local celebrity. ;)

Here's a close-up of what the article says:

Remember Lina? Well, the judges just loved that little sweater and I can't say that I blame them! Here it is being completely blotted out by all the ribbons...for those of you counting, that's a first place, class champ and judge's choice ribbon!

Next up is the Granny's A Square Afghan. It received first place and best in class!

And I don't have a picture of the final project, which won class champ, division champ and judge's choice. It's a felted purse that is a precursor (and, thus, sort of similar) to a design that I am currently submitting to a publication. Even though it's not the exact design, I just don't feel right posting it on here, just in case. But the judge did say that it was so great that it should be published, which was very encouraging!

It's such a beautiful autumn day here...blue bird sky, crisp air and a quiet calm that has not been felt since last winter. I love the stillness that comes with the mass exodus of summer people. All of us locals now have our town back! And what better way to celebrate the fall than with a little...okay, a lot....of knitting! So I'm going to wrap up in my granny afghan, gather up a project and knit my little heart out. With a view like this from my front window, one can't help but be happy!

What a beautiful day...

So, as promised, here are some shots of my drive to Whitehorse today. This morning it was a little bit rainy and cloudy, but still amazing...the fall colors were out in force. Yukon Territory turns bright yellow in the fall, with some various shades of red thrown in when the fireweed turns.

I had a lovely lunch with friends, braved the Canadian Superstore (never a fun place, always a panic attack), and by the time I drove home this afternoon, the day had turned from beautiful to absolutely stunning. It was my favorite kind of day: fall colors, crisp cool air, and big puffy cottonball clouds.

This is the view looking south over Mine Mountain from Emerald Lake.
Coming south out of Carcross, nearing Bove Island.

I love the way the clouds play up the contrast between the light and dark.
Look at all the gold! Driving south along the Klondike Highway almost to Carcross.

Here is the only shot that I took while actually pulled off to the side of the road. (The rest of them I took while driving. Sorry, Mom.) An amazing view over Bove Island and Tagish Lake.

Okay, so, thanks for sticking around through the non-knitting posts. I'm excited to get back to knitting this weekend. AND I just got a bunch of packages in the mail today, so be on the lookout for a post on the contents of those!

Only three more weeks...

...until I get to meet this little monster!

This is my nephew, Jackson, who was born in December and I haven't gotten to meet him yet. He's the most important reason that living all the way up here is so darn difficult sometimes.

I'll be flying into Cincinnati late the night of October 9th and instead of driving to my parents house (about an hour and 45 minutes away from the airport), I'm making my mom take me directly to Indiana (two and a half hours away) so I can meet Jackson as soon as possible. I don't care that we'll be driving until almost 3 in the morning. I can't wait any longer!

I'll be hopefully posting some knitting-related things soon...I'm fried and it's my Friday so a cute picture of my nephew was all I could muster today. But, I'll have some knitting time this weekend so I'll get some shots of what I've been up to.

Plus, I'll hopefully have some great scenery shots of my drive to Whitehorse, Yukon, tomorrow. The fall colors are out in force and there's snow on the peaks...my favorite combination!

One of the many many UFOs in my knitting corner.

A while back (goddess only knows how long), I began a crochet shawl. I was basing it on a shawl I saw on Ravelry, only I wanted mine to be much much larger. So, I set out with no real pattern in mind, only that I want it to be large. All I'm doing is 4dc clusters across and reducing the number of clusters by 2 each row, so that eventually it will have a fairly triangle shape.

However, this project has been put on the back burner because, although 4 dc clusters are great tv watching mindless crocheting, it also get VERY tedious so I put it down for awhile. But it's been put on my UFO list of projects I want to get done by the end of the year.

I'm using Trekking XXL sock yarn in color 185, which is various shades of teal. It's going to be great when it's finished, but I'm afraid I'll turn 40 before that happens. FYI - I'm 30 now. But maybe I'll surprise myself and get it finished this fall when I'll have much more time to think and do what I want to do.

Only 5 more ship days to go!

Finally...a fast internet connection...and Simple Shawl!

So, a couple weeks ago our internet was taken away at work. Well, not all internet sites. Only social networking (Ravelry--the horror!), personal storage sites (Flickr, Snapfish, etc.), any streaming media sites...you get the idea. Now, this really didn't bother me much, as I'm much too busy at work in the summers to pay much attention. However, this put a serious kink in my blogging routine, as I used our fast internet connection at work to upload my photos after I was done working for the day and then I'd write the blog posts when I got home. (If I tried to upload even one photo from home on our crappy connection, the photo uploader would time out, frustrating me to no end.) So, right or wrong, I used my work resources to make my blogging life easier. Anyway, we had awful dial-up forever here at home, because after being so connected at work all day, I don't like to be on the internet that much while at home and Jeff only used the internet for fantasy football stuff. So dial-up has served it's purpose over the last couple years.

Well, that time has come and gone. Today I felt like a grown up when I called and signed up for DSL. And now that I'm all connected, I don't know why I didn't do it sooner. DSL is SOOOOOOO much faster it's not even funny. Now, it's not lower-48 kind of fast, but it definitely makes my life so much easier.

So, this means that my blogging is back! And I've got a few photos to share of my newly completed (as of last week) Simple Shawl, with a few minor adustments.

As previously blogged, I used Misti Alpaca Handpaint Sock in the Birds of Paradise colorway, which now apparently seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Or maybe it's just been discontinued. Either way, that final skein was harder to find than a woolly mammoth egg. Thanks again to yaanluvah for selling me her partial skein. Without it, this shawl would not have been complete!

I ended up using nearly three full skeins of the Misti and I knitted the entire shawl on 40" KnitPicks Harmony Wood size 5 needles.

My modifications to Laura Chau's original pattern were minimal: I threw in a row of (yo, k2tog) every seventh garter ridge. And I crocheted a 3dc shell edging to finish it off, which I'm still not sold on, but we'll see.

I'm also still not sold on the colors. Originally I thought I really liked the colors, but the more I look at it, the more I'm not so sure. One minute I really really like it and love the fact that the colors are not the usual shades that I'm normally drawn to. And then the next minute I feel like it looks like a clown threw up Skittles all over my shawl. It's that bright and loud. But, I'm sure it will grow on me. And I've already worn it out several times and have gotten many compliments on it. Maybe it's not so bad after all. Or maybe they're just being nice. Hmmmm...

A Well Deserved Sigh of Relief

*big sigh*

It's September. And anyone who lives in my tiny Alaska town knows what that means. No more tourists!

Well, almost no more tourists. We've got about two weeks left and it couldn't come soon enough. I've reached my limit of rude, clueless, and annoying tourists. I don't want to have to tell one more person that Alaska is apart of the US and they don't have to change their money into Alaskan dollars. (You'd think that the whole Sarah Palin thing would have given Alaska enough exposure that people would know that we are indeed the 49th state, but, alas, that is not so.)

But, of course, for every bad experience there are good ones as well. It's always nice to come into contact with people who are truly thankful to be experiencing Alaska and who make me remember why I choose to do what I do. The people who have literally scrimped and saved up their entire lives to come ride the White Pass train and see the scenery that I take for granted every day. Those are the people that make it all worthwhile. Working for weeks on end with no day off; dealing with train delays and angry people; keeping up with the hectic pace of the office; digging myself out from under a mountain of emails. All of it is worth it in the end.

But what is most exciting about the fall is that I will now have a LOT more time to do what I really love: knitting!

I've been trying my darndest to finish some of the projects that have been taking up my knitting corner for far too long, namely the simple shawl and Hemlock Ring Blanket (yes, it's STILL lingering).

Just tonight I finished the shawl FINALLY! I cast off the final knit stitch last night and then this evening I added a crochet border, because it ended up being just a little too plain without it.

I'll be taking some photos within the next couple days and posting them soon. Then it's on the that insufferable and never-ending, er, I mean wonderful Hemock Ring Blanket. That project will officially be finished this weekend, or I'll poke out my right eye. And after that, various stealth projects that need to get done for some deadlines coming up.

Ah, I can feel the fall in the air and I love it!