Why yes, I am still alive. I know it was hard to tell from the random, horribly advertised updates and the sporadic podcasts. So yes, this is another update post because I figured it was about time to fill you in on my goings on and sadly there hasn't been a lot of knitting. I've lost the itch and am having a hard time relaxing with knitting because I should/could be working.

First off, I've switched locations at EB and the one I'm at now may have more hours but it's in flux. We're waiting for an employee to become assistant manager and when that happens we can have a standard schedule. If the assistant manager comes from a different store or out of company then it goes back into flux. Hopefully in the next few weeks the schedule can become a bit more standard and we can have regular VKN's again.

I've started seeing someone and that's taken up a bit of time, like new relationships do. But work and yarn are taking over because I have plans for the future and need to save up.

I had an awesome yarn event at True North Yarn Co. in Barrie, Ontario. I was on the news and met a lot of great people and sold some squishy yarn. They'd like me to come back in October for I Love Yarn Day and I can't wait as this event was great exposure and they are an amazing bunch of people to work with. They've officially become the first store to carry my yarns and they will have a mix of colourways and a few exclusive self striping colourways but will carry mostly tonal and some variegated.

I'm just kind of generally stressed and overworked and really cannot wait to have a regular schedule so I can plan weekends and have a rest for myself. I really miss a schedule and could also really use a maid for a weekend... and a pedicure and a massage, maybe a nice bottle of wine and a movie night. Or maybe, just maybe, to be bitten by the knitting bug again. Winter is coming and I should have my summer tank top finished before then, and maybe a sweater too.

Look for some delayed ipsy bag reviews, news on VKNs, and regular updates coming soon!


P.S. I also have blue hair :)

At what point does something become "not worth it"? How many hours,trials, errors and frustration must be wasted on a thing to make it worth abandoning? I'm not talking about knitting now or even my business, but my photography. I'm not going to stop taking pictures or anything either.

I've been fighting with my light box for about a year and a half now, maybe almost two. For one it's rather large and cumbersome. It does fold down into a kind of briefcase thing but that means the backdrop gets folded as well and it's kind of cheap and creases horribly. I don't particularly enjoy getting out the large ironing board and iron to fix that so I kind of leave it sitting in the corner taking up space and gathering fiber and dust.

And the lights, they're horrible! They keep falling over, casting horrible shadows, the bulbs fall out of the sockets and they burn holes in the light box! My dad and I tried to come up with a solution with different lights, new set ups, ect, but they all seemed more cumbersome than the original light box. We fought with directing the light, different bulbs, and a variety of placements but to no avail.

After so much time and effort, I've deemed the old box insufficient and it's not costing me money because it's so messed up I have been unable to properly photograph my new yarns and Jordana Paige bags I'm looking to sell. I went ahead and bit the bullet and purchased a fancy new light box with three proper lights that come with diffusers so I can also use them for lighting my podcast! Hopefully, for the first time in three years I won't have to complain about bad lighting on my podcast.

It should be here within the next week or so, along with a large shipment of yarn! This week's update might be delayed because of this though, but I'll do my absolute best. If there isn't much new arriving, I'll be sure to have a sale or a surprise for you.

I've been trying to be more active on social media but it's hard to not show favoritism to one medium. I would say it's like picking a favorite child, but it's really not because some are clearly better than others (unlike children.. clearly, because they're all equal, or so my mom tells me.) And it's a problem of finding a balance on what to share on facebook, twitter, instagram, ravelry, this blog, and my podcast. I'm pretty sure you would lose interest if I told you the same thing 5 ways in the same day or even the same week. I want to avoid being a broken record.

So how will I manage this? Well, if you know me at all then you clearly know that Instagram is my favoured media. I'll post a pick of a new yarn, my dog, food, stuff, yarn and things. Whatever tickles my fancy and feels like it's worth sharing. I'll also post announcements on instagram and I'll have that share to twitter, which links to my facebook so all three get the important news for sure. And Sometimes I'll post an article or other things to facebook.

The real challenge is the blog and the podcast. I think I'll try to keep the blog more lifestyle, so things going on with me, Miles, big shop developments, just things I want to write about but don't necessarily fit into the podcast. And the podcast I'll focus non my knitting, announcements, Ravelry group notes and contests, shop info, and shop yarn porn.

Inevitably, there will still be some overlap because I'll be excited about some yarn thing and have to post it here to talk about and really get into the subject or technique or opinions. I try to keep the podcast light and entertaining, but the blog is more my outlet.

Since I haven't podcasted yet and shown this off, I'm going to add it to this post. I've finally picked up my Arenaria tank top and I'm almost done the body of it! After the plain body bit, the tricky bit happens with the binding off, patterned neck, dividing stitches and all of those terrifying things I haven't done before! This is going to be my first real piece of knitted clothing I'll complete and I can feel the anxiety growing with each stitch closer I get to the horrible dividing of the stitches.



I know I have instructions, and I know I'm good at following them and I can handle myself, but it's still daunting! What it I mess up? What if it doesn't fit? I think this tank is so pivotal to me because if I can finish this, then I can knit a sweater. I currently have two sweaters cast on, and a third, the Ginny Cardigan (which will be my second finished clothing item) ready to go and a fourth (the terrifying Vivian) already planned out.

Ginny Cardigan

I'm hoping to finish Arenaria in the next week or so (in time for spring/summer too) and I'll order the Amy Herzog book to go with my class and do my best to have Ginny finished by October so I can have a warm sweater for the winter. I also have plans to knit an Evenstar from my Adelie lace, the baby alpaca/cashmere/silk lovely and then gradient dye the finish shawl, which will probably be more nerve wracking than the finishing of Arenaria.

I've been trying to write this post as for a while now as it's difficult to choose what to share. The internet is a big, wide open place and it can be difficult to balance what the world sees. It's too easy to focus on the good and only share the best moments because who really wants to show others their bad side? But I feel that it's important to  have a bit of balance and share some of the bad, but not all of the personal details.

Over the past five or so months, I've been hiding from the internet. There was so much bad in my life that it was just too much effort to fake happy or to even smother and tuck all of the bad under the rug. It just kept oozing out and into every aspect of my life. And you may have noticed that I have more of a presence now, and that I'm much closer to being my old self again, if not better. But it has taken a lot of courage, strength and fight to get me to where I am.

I'm choosing to share this with you because my hardship had effected my business and my clubs were shipping later and later, and I wasn't able to have regular updates. I had no inspiration or motivation left. I felt so guilty because I wasn't able to supply my club members with the dedication, timeliness and service that they deserved. When I filled them in on the situation, I was overwhelmed by thier response of love, kindness and support. Instead of messaging me and asking why their package was late, I was receiving messages of support asking if I was alright and offering encouragement. I really do have the best fans ever and that support has really helped me through this time in my life.

I recently/ am kind of currently going through a divorce. It was a drastic situation and I had to uproot my whole life and leave the city I had called home for the past six years within a week to move back to my dads. I had to pack, make travel arrangements, and try to survive with no money for that week as our joint bank account was closed. The transition to living with my parents again was difficult as I had been on my own for almost eight years. I had to clean out space for my room and my office, find a job and find myself again.

It has been a long five months and I can finally see the light. Soon the whole ordeal will be past me and I'll be able to move on and be better than ever. Thank you for your continued concern and your continued support.

After two weeks of strife, sickness, and complications, it finally seems like I have things in order!
The first nice change is that I've found Wave Accounting and I've set myself up there. I've connected my Paypal account and I can also take a picture of and upload receipts. I'm sure my accountant will be much happier dealing with my 2014 expenses than my paper logged 2013 expenses. I feel kind of bad about them but I was still really new at this.

I've also gotten my ballbands updated. They look modern and clean with a logo whith white bachground on the front and QR code and e-mail and website above. I've gotten some printable sticky labels so I can type up the colourway, yarn info, and if it's a club shipment. It looks great, except the placement of the QR code is a bit off and it's gets hidden by the label. I've only got 50 or so to get through before I can reprint though.

The most important changes are the ones to my school life. I've switched a few classes around and only have classes Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Thursdays classes are a bit later than I'd anticipated. I'm thinking about recording Monday, VKN on Wednesday, and updates Fridays but I haven't committed to it yet. But there's a big chance that is what's going to happen.

I'm hoping to fit in a bit more knitting time in there somewhere, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

One of my new years resolutions for this year was to knit a sweater, as well as some other lofty goals that I'll touch on a bit in this post. (I do plan to do a goal review post soon.) This year I managed to cast on and knit a few inches of a crazy cabled sweater. That for me is a bit of a success but I got scared off by the waist shaping.

Being a big chicken, I ran to the Amy Herzog craftsy class. I decided I would watch the videos and then work on the Ginny cardigan. Once I finished an easier sweater I could go finish my cabled one. Good plan, but I only got half way through the videos. Well there's always next year.

Another one of my goals was to do a colourwork piece. My friend, Elly, hat just designed a colourwork sock pattern and has asked me to test knit it for her (it's also in a knit purl version but I thought it was time to face my fears). So here I sit, 5 days until Christmas and 12 days until the new year (my birthday, yay!) and I have a cm of the ribbing done. I will not finish before the year is over but I want to ask you... Does this count? I started them in 2013 but will not finish until 2014. Which year do they count for in your books?




Also, what do you think of the new layout?

Coming January I'm going to get my act together! I have made a tentative schedule based on my tentative class schedule and what I would like my weeks to look like. I don't have Ji's class schedule so that could affect some things like planned dinner and homework times. I also need to figure out if I'll be driving, biking, or bussing so that could mess up a few things as well. And I might change my classes during the first week of classes.

So far it looks like this:















I'm hoping Ji's classes don't run over my scheduled dinner time 5-7 which is time to make, cook and eat dinner as well have a bit of relaxing time. I'm planning to do at least 2 hours of homework every night as well.

This getting up at 7 and going to bed at 10 thing might be the hardest part of my whole plan. I'm a night hawk so getting up early and eating and showering and getting right to work is going to be weird for me. Also making myself to go bed at 10 will be weird since I've been staying up until midnight and occasionally 3am and that isn't going to fly when I have classes to attend.

So what does this crazy busy schedule mean for you? It means that VKN's will chance to every Thursday alternating from 3 and 7 depending on the week. It means that I will record Tuesday mornings and try to get the show up Tuesday evening for you. It also means that I can attempt to have regular updates on Fridays. I will get the listing ready on Thursday and then just update it between classes on Friday. It also means that I will try to blog ever Monday and Thursday. It also means I will have very little time with my husband except for dinner and evenings but that's ok, it's almost like a real job that way but that has nothing to do with you. Oh, and free weekends! Unless I'm behind with schoolwork or dyeing.

The first shop update of the year will be January 10th at 2:00pm CST.

The first Monthly Unclub skein will be available for pre-order January 1- January 7th. The theme for that is The Hobbit with the first week's colourway being Gollum and comes with this cute little fishie from The Cotswold Knitter.





















A sneak peak of the Gollum colours to come, but here's a hint: It's all in the striping pattern.

In non-knitting related news, Ji put my penguin outside for me! I love him so much and am so happy to have him outside finally.
And even better, Google made it snow on him!



















How cool is that?!


Until next time,


P.S. I'll be making a few changes to the layout of the blog and if it's down or a bit wonky for a few days, that's why. Not to worry, it should hopefully be ok before the shownotes need to go up.

I've done a lot of thinking (since yesterday) and I think there are a few a lot of changes that need to come into play in the new year.

The first change will be to this blog. I believe a new template is in order (and I think I've found one). The current one is starting to get a bit stale and while all of the picture and slider options are nice, my camera just doesn't cut it. The quality of the photos is bringing the blog down, so that needs to be done away with.

The second change will be in preparation for yet another. After this blog is looking great, I'll go over to wordpress and work on implementing a pretty blog over there and then importing blogger to wordpress. Once this massive undertaking is over, I can then look into upgrading to a premium account and/or getting a server to host my blog and podcast myself. These last changes will most likely happen much later in the year or maybe even the next year.

My ballbands will be redesigned with special club specific ball bands. There will be special holiday balbands to go with holiday themed yarns.

I will be looking into a few more fun details like a personalized stamp, buttons, stitch markers, maybe new stickers. Pretty much a packaging facelift as well.

Lots of new plans in motion, I just have to find the time to get to them!

The Christmas season is upon us and I haven't listed any of my Christmas colourways in the shop. I'm really very late with that. I'm also late with listing the Hunger Games colourways and with advertising for the Quarterly Club sign up that's coming up soon.

I also promised to start blogging regularly starting in September, then October and then as soon as I was settled. Well, apparently, I never really got settled. Ever since school started and the house hunt started everything else has been put on hold. My shop updates stopped, my VKN's stopped, I became really distant and formal on Ravelry and my blogging never picked up again.

I will no apologize (again) because you don't need to hear it, and well, I'm not super sorry. I am sorry that I misled you and myself into believing that things would get better or things would become easy. Well, being a full time student, running a home business, and trying to podcast and keep up a relationship with your husband is really a lot of work. I had no idea how much work it was really.

These past few months have been me just trying to keep afloat. I had planned to hand in assignments a week early, blog, podcast, vkn, and do updates weekly as well. That's a laugh! When I started getting overwhelmed, I just stopped. I cutout everything (including school for a bit) and just tried to regain myself. When that happened, I added in school again. It is getting easier now.

I have big plans for the new year. I will start Quarterly Clubs and Monthly Un-clubs. I will also plan podcasts and blogs and schedule vkns. I know this sounds like a whole lot, but if I start treating my job as an actual job, then things should change.

My plan is to schedule my time much better than I was before. PenguinSoup is my job and I need to treat is as thus.

Heres hoping to a more organized new year and thanks for sticking with me,

I'm moving on Saturday, and while I'm not nearly finished packing, and my homework assignments aren't done haven't been started, I'm not in a panic. Well, I was yesterday, but that's was yesterday and today is today.

I have finally gotten my personal filofax and I have utilized the space and immediately came up with a system that works for me. I have used it to plot out homework assignments, birthdays, podcasts, blogs, vkns, shop udates, and most recently, my room packing schedule. I've been waiting for this for well over a month now and I can already see immediate improvement.

I'm sorry I was so unorganized before, with random vkns, shop uptdates, podcasts, and blogs. I was trying to find a system that worked for me while trying to manage about a billion things with a new business and going back to school and work. I've finally found something that works, and I can't wait to have a routine schedule.

I wanted to say thank you to those of you who sent me messages of encouragement. Those who were ok to wait a little longer for their order, or those who were fine waiting a few extra days, or a week, to post another podcast. A big thank you to those of you who told me not to worry about anything and to focus on school and the move, and those of you who told me it was ok, and I should relax. I'm finally taking your advice and trying not to stress out. This, along with finally being organized, has brought me a sense of peace. (Although, I'm sure I'll be panicking Friday and Saturday) But I now know that I'll make it through. It will probably be unorganized and a huge mess, but it will still happen and everything will be ok.




Thank you,

Beings a student for most of my life, it feels to me as though September is the beginning of a new year, and not January 1st. (My birthday if you didn't know) September brings about so many changes that I don't understand how it's not the official start of a new year. (I studied this once and should know why)

September marks the official beginning of Autumn, and in Canada that's a big deal. It's the official end of summer. (I know you know this) The end of the warm days, carefree times, and occasionally the lack of schedule and the loss of track of time. It's also the beginning of  colder and darker days. Days where it's -40 (celsius and farenheit, same thing) and that's without windchill. In those temperatures your exposed skin will freeze in a matter of minutes. Days where 6 hours of daylight is a blessing and seeing the sun is akin to a miracle. (Remind me why I live here again!) Autumn is like the last huzzah, a time to enjoy and relish to fortify your soul against the onslaught of winter. Both a beginning and an end.

This last year I was not a student. I took some time to "find myself" as dumb as it sounds and I'm glad I did. I have done a great many things that I probably would not have done while in school. I started my podcast and started blogging (occasionally) again. And I've started my home business dyeing hand painted (and now a few striping) yarns. I've done other things but lets keep this crafty. And while I've done all of these things, I've noticed that I haven't taken the time to organize myself and make a plan. And a plan is exactly what's about to happen.

I've brought out the trusty 4 month wall calendar and have set to planning out everything. And I mean everything. Classes, exams, homework schedules are the first to go up, then recording dates, podcast uploads, shop updates, even blog posts and a dyeing schedule. I'm going to have to get and stay really organized if I'm going to make this work out.

I've got a great deal of new things to release in the shop and if I'm going to do regular updates, plus these new things while in school I'm going to have to schedule just about everything I do. You might be thinking "who would want such a busy life?" and that would be me. And why? Because I love whatI do and want to continue doing it for as long as I can.

And yes, very big things to be released very soon in the shop. Stay tuned!

P.S. Regular blogging is not scheduled to start until September, so don't expect a whole lot until then. Sorry, but I need to spend my time preparing my schedule before it can take effect.

Ji and I have been feeling a bit under the weather for the past few days so nothing has gotten done. I haven't even gotten much of my yarny work done, which is pretty lazy on my part. I have had a bit of time for knitting though which is a nice change to the past few weeks. I started on and got a good inch and a half done on my Arenaria tank. For the size I'm making, the bottom hem is supposed to be about 35" around. I didn't measure, but I "tried it on" and I'm pretty sure it was closer to 45 or 50" around. It was massive! I even did a gauge swatch and blocked it and the swatch said I would be half a stitch too small! I'll try not to get into my rage about gauge swatches, but I'll have to do another one.

I pulled out my Wild Child Fair from KirbyWirby yarns and set to designing. I tried a bunch of different stitch patterns and found what I like. I'm pretty sure I've knit a whole sock once, but it's been all ripped out so I have nothing to show for it. Well, not nothing exactly. I do have a rough pattern written up. I just need to type it up and make it look pretty and get some lovely people to test my design out for me while I knit up my version for photos. This is my goal for this week.






















Today was the first day Ji and I were feeling a bit better so we went to see R.I.P.D. it was pretty ridiculous but I had a few good hours of movie theatre knitting time. I ended up stopping about 30 minutes form the end because I thought I had dropped a stitch. It's a good thing I did because it turns out I had dropped a stitch about an inch below. I now have a tight vertical row up my sock from where I picked up the stitch but it doesn't really bother me. I might try to even it out later or just hope it loosens up a bit with blocking.





















I realized this post is very here and there and random, but the title was a warning.

Also, these arrived :D
























Moo,

Today, July 15th is the double whammy of birthdays. My grandmother, Nana, is fortunate enough to be born right smack in the middle of summer and it makes me slightly jealous. (January 1st doesn't bode well for sandal lovers)

I have fond memories of spending lots of time during those hot, sunny days either on the front deck so we could be cooled by a breeze, or on the back patio if the breeze was too strong. I always loved Nana's birthday because it usually meant a sunny day outside playing with my cousins or grandpa, Pese, bbq, or chips from the local diner, going for a drive or walk to see the boats, playing at the playground, and ice cream. There was most certainly ice cream involved.

The past few years I have been living away from home and haven't been able to visit Nana for her birthday. I always try to call and send a card or something, but it just isn't the same as my fondest memories of her birthday is spending time with her.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful grandmother. I am so lucky to have you in my life. You've always been there for me wether I needed a ride, saving, a place to stay, or just to talk. I am so fortunate to have a Nana like you and hope you have a wonderful birthday even though I can't be there.


____________________________________________________________________________

Over the past five year there has been another person to share the same birthday as my wonderful Nana. My husband, Ji is also born on the same day. The first few birthday's of his we shared together were over shadowed by Nana's birthday, but I've been working hard to correct this.

I think this year will be a real winner. For one, I got him to best, coolest, most thoughtful gifts I could think of. They are portal, mario and pac man, zelda, and whiskey related. All awesome, and manly things.You can't go wrong with those gifts.

Secondly, I am not making his cake this year. The past few years I've tried to make his cake from scratch and either the cake was too dry or the icing was too hard. And apparently, I do not possess the necessary skills to properly ice a cake so it comes out as a mangles, crumbly mess that is neither appetizing, delicious. I'm taking the extra safe route and going with a dairy queen cake! This can't be a surprise since I don't drive (yet) and it's much too hot to take an ice cream cake on the bus.

There will be a meal at home, and then I'm taking him somewhere special that I can't mention incase he reads this (but I doubt he will) But it's something he's wanted to try for a long time.

Happy birthday to my handsome, hairy husband. I love you and hope to spend many more birthdays with you and make them more and more awesome each year.

I'm sorry I've been kind of away for the past few weeks. Things have gotten busy and a lot of tiny details needed work. Here's a quick list of what's going on.

1. The blog (if you haven't noticed) now has a subdomain. You can find it at blog.penguin-soup.com. This is because I want my store known as my main site since you can get blog links there.

2. My shop is up! penguin-soup.com (ish) I am still working on it so it is very rough and I'll be working on it throughout the next week or so. I wanted it up so it could get some traffic and you can check out the new digs. I have the first five skeins I've dyed listed as "coming soon". There is some information on the store site that I wanted you to see though. Such as:

3. Such as my Newsletter promo! Now on the blog in the upper left hand corner there is a place to put in your e-mail address and sign up for the newsletter. I'll talk about shop updates, give previews, and release special, newsletter only coupon codes so sign up!

4. I now have an info@penguin-soup.com e-mail address. If you want a quick way to contact me this is how. (Or ravelry) There is a "contact" spot on the store that you can click and fill out if you have any questions, store related or not.

5. My photography sucks

6. Yes, this is late, but I'm not using etsy for my store. Sorry. You can check out through paypal with the new one.

7. I'm still waiting on my logo. This is why the banner in the shop now is stock and the pictures in the slider looks really lame. Also, my photography sucks.

8. I was fighting with the domains all morning and this means the show won't be recorded until tomorrow morning, and then hopefully uploaded that evening.

9. No, I haven't started spinning yet. Maybe I'll have time this week. We'll see.

10. Special guest on the podcast next week!!

I was finally getting back to work on my dyeing after doing about a billion other things that have to do with the shop. (That's a whole other blog post) when my ball winder broke! I just heard a very loud grinding and cracking sound and it stopped working! I'm flabbergasted. I didn't expect so many thing and issues to arise while opening this shop. I was supposed to dye some yarn and people would buy it and everything would be right in the world. I was duped!

Now, with the ball winder death I'll need to replace that, and probably my swift as well since the swift has been giving me a hassle since I got it. I'm going to see if the nice people at KnitPicks will replace the ball winder (I really don't have any problems with it) and maybe refund my swift like was previously offered. If I get that refund I'm going to look into buying a vertical swift so it takes up less space and puts less strain on my poor cheap ball winder (I know cheap could be the issue but it worked fine the last year!).

What this all means is that my production has stopped and that really makes me sad because I was looking forward to having everything ready to go asap. Plus, dyeing is amazing amounts of fun and I love getting to play with yarn and calling it "work". I guess this is ok since I'll be away for the weekend enjoying Canada Day at the cabin. No internet and very little 3g means I'll get to knit and play on my 3DS for a bit and possibly go boating if the weather is nice.

If you haven't heard yet, there's a lot going on in the Penguin Soup household. There are a lot of new things in the works, things to prepare for, and regular life to go on with as well. I'll try to keep it short and hit all of the high points since I know most of you who read this blog also know me on instagram, ravelry, and have watched the podcast, and the cat's out of the bag there!

I'm working on a commissioned pair of socks and I have a shawl to knit for Cherie of KirbyWirby Yarns. My first paid projects is kind of exciting and is teaching me quite a few lessons about knitting for money. It kind of takes the fun out of it (the shawl has less deadlines and is for yarn so I'm not minding so bad because it feels like gift knitting.

I have received my Penguin Soup colourway from KirbyWirby yarns and need to design a sock pattern for it so we can ave a kit and a knit-along! There are also two other sock pattern ideas I have and would like to execute, and I would love to design a shawl sometime soon. I'll put an announcement looking for test knitters when I'm ready.

I am starting a home business dyeing yarn, and maybe eventually roving as well. I have bought all the materials needed and I have so many ideas in my head. I can't wait for my supplied to arrive so I can get started. I have a new logo in the works, the blog may change. The blog might get a make over, might move to another host, who knows what needs to be done as of right now.

I think that's about it for now. More bloggings and updates to come.

I'm slowly getting over my sickness and am starting to get back into my knitting. I've turned my heel on my PB&W socks and am trying to get those finished up asap. There are about a billion other projects breathing down my neck and whispering in my ear while I'm sleeping in an attempts to get cast on. So many yarns and so many new patterns coming out. It feels like the spring/summer season is one of the busiest for pattern releases and new yarns to come out. It is because they are trying to get us to keep knitting during the summer?

In an attempts to get myself more organized for the upcoming events, cast ons, projects, and even new podcast episodes, I'm making a real effort to get my craft room fully cleaned up and in use. I would like to eventually have access to my sewing machine because I would like to, eventually, make myself a few project bags and maybe a dpn case or something. I've cleaned the closet and sort of organized the cubicles. Now I need to clean off my table, sewing table and the corners that are full of mostly empty boxes. A clean craft room leads to a happy crafter.

There are about a million things coming up. In June and July Just One More Row, The Knitabulls, and the Penguin Soup Podcast are having a self striping KAL! Break out your needles and Kirby Wirby (or other self striping dyer) and get ready to cast on! You can triple dip with this!

At the end of June there is the Tour de Fleece, which runs alongside the Tour de France. You're supposed to hop on your spinning wheel (or grab your spindle) and spin alongside the riders. You spin on the days they ride and rest when they rest. On their long days you're supposed to spin more than you usually do as well. There are a lot of different ways you can participate as you set your own goals. Some people try to spin a certain weight or yardage, others try to spin up a whole fleece. I'm going to try to spin every day they are riding since I haven't been spinning a lot lately. I might need to get a few new rovings to help motivate myself. I'm going to be putting together a Penguin Soup groups as well.

There is also camp loopy. I believe it has already started but you can still join in. There are different challenges to complete each month with prizes, discounts, and other stuff to be had from The Loopy Ewe.

There are always swaps where you craft and buy items and trade them with other people. There are a bunch of groups that have swaps and some ravelry groups are even specifically just for swaps.

I'm sure there will be a bunch of other KALs and events to keep you busy throughout the summer. I'm going to be working on a few patterns to release and maybe some other stuff. And if you get bored, there's always Christmas knitting.

I don't have a lot to say today. I'm sick and my brain is slowly turning to mush. Ji is sick too so we spent the day on the couch watching movies together. I got some time to knit so I worked on my PB&W socks. I think Miles knew we were sick because he was super cuddly today. That or he was just tired of my knitting.





















Until next time,