5elementknitr: M is for Magic

Have I shown y'all my Magic Swatch?

It's Trendsetter Kashmir (74% cashmere, 25% silk) in a lovely Garnet color. I got 5 skeins at 50% off at an LYS and, later, another 6 skeins (at the same LYS) at 75% off! It's supposed to get 16sts = 4" on US 9. I can't make it work! My swatch goes from a US 9, to 8, to 7, to 10, to 10.5. I've had 3 different people measure it and the 9,

and 10.5

measure almost exactly the same! And it measure to 19sts = 4". sigh. I even washed/blocked the damn thing! I have a very specific sweater in mind for this and I thought I would just go up a size and go for it - even bought 3 more skeins off Ravelry for it. But I don't think I'll have enough and I just have to try to figure out how to get proper gauge.

I'm going to pull out the swatch and try again and see if I can't loosen up my stitching and start with a 10.5. It's very sad.

In happier news...

Another bit of Magic in my life lately....

Someone, somewhere in the Universe seems to have a pushed a button that said, "Hey, look over there - what's that?" I say this because in the past 2 weeks, I've had 7 new LYS's make wholesale inquires and subsequent orders for my Stitch Savers. SEVEN!! So, to whoever (whomever?) pushed that button - Thanks!

I have also been selected as a vendor for the upcoming Sock Summit! In order to raise money for the trip and the amount of Stitch Savers I'm planning on making/taking, I'm having a sale in my Etsy store! Buy 4 or more Stitch Savers and you get free shipping. Buy 5 or more and you get free shipping and a free Customized one! And if you're going to be at the Sock Summit, be sure to say hi!

And, in the interest of raising Sock Summit money, I have finally organized my DeStash page on Ravelry! It's here. If the page won't load for you, hit the search button (the one with the wee binocular graphic). The yarn won't be alphabetized but you'll be able to see all the pic's. My computer and the computers of others have had problems with this. Seems my stash page loads, but only through the letter K yarns. It's really weird because my regular stash page loads just fine and it has twice as many yarns! My spiel for my destash is this: Buy 5 skeins or more (mix/match) and you'll get free shipping (in the Continental US). Buy 10 skeins or more (mix/match) and you'll get a free Basic Stitch Saver! Happy shopping!

M is also for Mountains. We took a mini-vacation this week to Breckenridge. We had a great time! There was a lake-of-puke incident that actually turned out quite funny.

It was our first night there (Monday night) and at about 11p, D2 hollered for me. I thought he woke up and didn't know where he was. I went out to the living room to comfort him and when I turned on the light, I just sighed. He and T were sharing the hide-a-bed and between them was a lake of puke. The funny thing was that T didn't even wake up! He was all snuggled up to the puke and didn't even stir! Dave was trying to pull him out of the bed and he was trying to roll away from Dave and go back to sleep. So he was trying to roll into the puke! We were doing laundry at midnight and laughing about it! (Thankfully the suite had a washer/dryer and 2 free tiny boxes of detergent!)

Dave went snowboarding for the first time since our honeymoon 9 years ago! He used to snowboard quite a lot before we got married. And don't blame me, I would tell him to go with his buddy like he used to but he'd always say we didn't have the money for it - not true! He had a great time as did our friends Donna and Darren who met us up there. We had great food and great times. On Wednesday, our last day, we took the kids to a sledding area and went sledding for two hours. It was such a blast!!

I also got a Magical package from the Cocoa Swap I was in!

I'm not a fan of purple, yellow or orange and the yarn my swap partner sent me has all three. It's lovely! I love it! It's like a sunset in a skein. And it's Malabrigo sock yarn - splee!