We had our first Virtual Knit Night today and it was pretty fun. TheRovingLampman and knitinsanity showed up and we had ourselves a grand time. Therovinglampman is working on a really pretty shawl that began looking like a napkin because it was on such small needles and knitinsanity is working on some Catching Butterfly mits by Tiny Ow Knits and she just started her first toe up pair of socks. I also found an awesome Lord of the Rings esque book of sock patterns that I need to buy. I moved my So Square socks onto my Karbonz needles and really loved them once I got used to the density of them. (I'll do a review once I finished the sock)

I would really love for this to be a weekly or bi-weekly event. Maybe a weekday and a weekend event would be nice. My new job is scheduling me some pretty random shifts right now so I won't be able to make a definite schedule but I would love to schedule it in whenever it would work.

Right now, I'm working on felting my Hopsalots bunny slippers. I really hope (and doubt) that they will dry before Easter, but we shall see. I'm hopinh to finish Clarus and get some work on one of my pairs of socks this weekend, but I doubt it since Easter is a busy family time for me.























I got some new gold stitch markers from Knit Picks when I ordered the yarn. There's a lot, they're super small and light and thin so having the 30 or so there are on the shawl isn't weighing it down at all. I think I'll save these for my next shawl pattern.

I hope everyone has a good Easter Holiday. I'll try to blog during the weekend, but if not, see you Monday!

e05 from PenguinSoup on Vimeo.

Wips:
My large Clarus Shawl isn't finished. The pattern is by Laura Nelkin and I've taken the Craftsy class for it.
Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the Canopy Colourway
Correction: Actually size 4.0mm needles, not 5.0mm, Knit picks harmony wood interchangeable

Monkey socks by Cookie A.
Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the Make Believe colourway
Knit Picks 2.5mm nickel plated needles

Portulaca sweater by Carol Feller via Craftsy class
Patons Classic in the Jade Heather colourway
Knit Picks interchangeable 5.0mm needle

Hopsalots by Tiny Owl Knits aka Stephanie Dosen
Cascade 220

FOs
Spinning 
What's Next
Laura Nelkins MKAL

Review Something!

Cool Stuff
Knit Picks is replacing my swift after it being broke for two years! It hasn't worked properly since I got it. I called because of the "quality swift" add on their site and they offered to replace it or even give me a refund or credit.

I changed my ravelry name to PenguinSoup!

Laura Nelkin is having a Mystery Knit-Along! I've set up a thread in the Penguin Soup group for those who want to join and possibly win prizes. If you finish your shawl on time and post the finished product in the group, you'll be entered for a chance to win a shawl pattern of your choice!

**Event Alert** Thursday, March 28 @ 12:00 CST I'm hosting a virtual knit night (more like an afternoon) on google+ hangout. Look me up at penguinsouppodcast@gmail.com or Ginny PenguinSoup as my name.

I was mentioned by knittenwolf in her Wolfe Farms Group. Episode 86: Talk About Soup!

Enabling
Storybook Yarn & Fiber Co. Luxury Sock yarn in the Mist colourway.
She's a Manitoba dyer that has quality yarn. Hurrah for supporting local dyers.

Knitter's Pride Karbonz needles. Review coming soon!

Contests
We've gotten to 50 in the Ravelry Group so I've drawn for two sets of five owl stitch markers. The winners are:
1. Number 2: BunniPhish
2. Number 25: raspberrycattgirl













We have our first sponsored giveaway! Jstlaurent has offered a Terdis through the ages sock sized project bag up for grabs.
Rules:
1. Must be a member in the Ravelry Group
2. Go to her site and post in the thread which bag you like best or which fabrics you would like to see her use in the future.
**FREE SHIPPING CODE: trekinthedark**

So apparently I was a really good girl today because hubby got me a new yarn! It's Storybook Art & Fibre's Luxury Sock in the Mist colourway. It looks a little summin summin like this:



















It is dyed locally (ish) in Teulon, Manitoba and all of her colourways remind me of Manitoba in some way. I've used this yarn before but in her sunset colourway for a pair of socks before. The yarn really does make me think of a Manitoban sunset. This Mist colourway makes me think of a misty Manitoban morning when the sun hits the mist that's hanging low upon the wheat crops. And yes, I have been up that early, and yes, it was terrible!!

Anyways, I talked hubby into this yarn because I'm joining Laura Nelkin's new mystery knit-along! I've decided to use this colour combo:



















The solid colour is Dream in Colour Smooshy in the Bermuda Teal colourway and some Malabrigo Sock in the Rayon Vert colourway. I won the Malabrigo sock in a Sock Bunny giveaway about a year and a half to two years ago. I've been saving it for something special for myself but it was the only colourway that I had that worked with my solid yarn for the mkal. I was so sad to use the special yarn that I needed to replace it with a new special yarn, hence the Storybook yarn.

I'm having amkal knit-along (yes, kind of redundant) in my Penguin Soup ravelry group. Those who finish on schedule and post a picture are entered to win a shawl  pattern of their choice. Go sign up!


Also, those are some sa-weet Knitter's Pride Karbonz needles!! I'm pretty excited to try them out since they're supposed to be flexible and warm and pointy and just slippery but in a good way and all those things a good set of needles should be. (Run on sentence, I know. Ignore it.) I've heard that they're super awesome needles and have a good price point. I would love to some day try Signature needles but at $50 a pop for a set of 5, I don't think that's happening anytime soon. Although, if they would like to send a pair for me to review, I would like the 2.5mm needles, thank you!!!

I realize that this is a bit of a badly written blog post. Sorry about that. I've got sweater calculations on the brain and a puppy trying to get his face as close to mine as possible.



















Kind of like he is doing to my Cloudlover fibre as I was trying to photograph it.


See you Monday!

Humans, as a species, are inherently against change. I finally got my blog looking how I want it, my podcast is working (ish, still trying to get better quality) and things are fine. I'm just worried that I may run out of space sooner rather than later with hipcast and then have to make a change in blog hosts after I already have a good following and number of posts here. And that would make the change a lot harder.

My other alternative is to switch to a wordpress blog and use videopress. The issue with this is that I would run out of space after about a year or so and have to upgrade every year after that. It's a huge pain. Another downside is that I would have to pay the lump sum up front and I'm more comfortable with the monthly thing for now. The biggest downside is I don't like how the wordpress blogs look. And you can't leave a comment unless you have an account and that's a pain in the rear.

I really wish that blogger would make it easier for podcasters by enabling us to put our videos into our posts ourselves then we can do the feedburner thing and go from there. Grr. Maybe I'll try a new program and see if I can shrink my video. But I'm sure blogger has a space capacity too.

Podcasting is hard!

UPDATES:
* I am having a Juego knit along group with prizes! It's a Laura Nelkin Mystery Knit-Along that Starts April 12. Check the Ravelry group for more info.

* Thursday, March 28 at 12 CST I'm having a google hangout virtual knit night! penguinsouppodcast@gmail.com is the e-mail address or you can find me at Ginny PenguinSoup. Add me and we can have a cup of tea, chat, and knit together.

*Only a few more days to get the group to 50 members for the two sets of stitch markers to be drawn during Monday's show. I'll also be announcing our first sponsored giveaway then!

That's about it,
Happy Crafting!

I know you already know this (because you are smart knitter), and that I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but it must be brought up again. The importance of swatching and how it always always lies to you! That's right, I swatched for my large Clarus shawl (at least I think I did), and I did it my proper cheating way. I even ran all my yarn through my yard counter thingy and it said I had about 5-10 yards more than the project called for. It was going to be close, but I should be able to finish it.

Well, last night the unthinkable happened. I ran out of yarn on the 13th row out of 26 for the boarder of my shawl. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I purposely made sure that wouldn't happen. I was so confident in my swatching and counting abilities that I never ever checked how much yarn was left until it fell out of the bag while I was recording Episode 4. Either I was destined to fail, or I failed because I did see the amount of yarn left and started to doubt myself. I'm choosing to believe it was because of the ladder.

Hubby is being nice and breaking my yarn fast so I can get the yarn I nee to finish this damn thing. I think he feels sorry for me since I've been working on this thing forever May 18, 2012. And this past week and a half I've been talking about how awesome it will be to have it finished. And last night I get to the end of the row and let out an exacerbated f***.

Here's a picture of it stretched out as far as my cable will let me.

And no, at this point I don't care if the dye lot doesn't match. It's the border so no one will notice, right?

Show Notes:
Wips:
Clarus (large) by Laura Nelkin
Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in the Canopy Colourway
Knit Picks Interchangeable nickel 5.0mm needle

So Square Socks by Anne Hanson
Malabrigo Sock in the Alucauil colourway
Knit Picks Harmony wood 2.5mm dpn

FOs:
Orchids & Fairy Lights by Tiny Owl Knits (a.k.a. Stephanie Dosen)
South West Trading Company Luxury Llama (two skeins)
Knitters Pride 5.0mm 16" circular

Spinning:
Cloudlover February club shipment: Poison Apple

Review Something!
Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2013 issue
*Rebecca Danger Interview
*Tubular cast on and off
*Black and white garments
*Spring and lacy tops

Cool Stuff:
Spinning Bunny Spinner's Gague
Gifted Sock Blockers!
Shout out from LemKnitCrochet

Giveaway!
When the Penguin Soup Ravelry group has 30 members I will give away a set of 5 owl stitch markers. If we get to 50, I'll give away two sets.
*Must me a member of the group
*Must post a comment describing the Penguin Soup Podcast in one word.

*I have a really really super awesome sponsored giveaway for you to be announced next week!!!

It's been a rough few days. I started my trip out snowboarding and tried to go up a hill before my lessons. I then had a panic attack and was made fun of and rode the lift of shame back down. With my confidence shattered, I attended my first lesson in a terrible mood. I did ok though, they said I was a level two or three out of six.