Meliabella Knits

I have to say a huge thank you to all of you who have donated to Relay for Life. Every dollar counts and it means so much to me and my family to know you’re helped all of us in coming closer to finding a cure. To those who have or intend to donate to our fund, thank you. We will be walking through out the night representing you and your thoughtfulness. I am currently at $335.00, which is $35 over my goal for this year. Thank you so much!

Working on the edging of the Shetland Triangle as we speak… Hope to block that this evening, though I do have to go to bed early since I have three college fairs in the morning…

The lovely Sara taged me for a meme, so I thought I’d play along.
The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Getting reading for my final performance in the music department and finishing up my senior year of high school (Thank goodness).

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
Go to work, knit, pack for travel (I have three college fairs tomorrow), have dinner with my family, play with Gracie so that she sleeps though the night (poor Hubby has romp-a-room on his side of the bed last night).

3) Snacks I Enjoy:
Corn chips and spinish dip, strawberries filled with low-fat cream cheese, Dutch pretzels.

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Build my parents’ dream homes (Mom gets her log cabin up north and her beach house on the Jupiter Inlet and Paula gets her one floor ranch), purchase family members green transportation, move out of our condo and into a green home (with curbside recycling) and donate to the local public schools libraries and music departments.

5) Places I have lived:
Franklin County and Hampshire County.

6) Jobs I have had: (This got cut somewhere after Romi so I tracked #6 down!)
Retail (Starbucks, Abercrombie & Fitch, WEBS), Security (UMass), High School English & theater teacher, Emergency Dispatcher, Mother, Assistant Director of Admission at a major university.

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:
Sarahlou
Bellamoden
MJ
Sheri
Cheryl

There are 26 days left until our family participates in our second annual Relay for Life! I am $5 under my reserved goal of $300. This year, with returning to work full-time and the yarn buisness taking off I’ve not had the time to hold bake sales and lobster drawings as I did last year as a stay at home mom. This makes me so sad. Relay for Life means so much to us as a family. We’ve lost so many family members and friends to cancer and any one of us could be next. We must find a cure. Won’t you help?

To those of you who have donated, thank you so very much. It means the world to us. <3

Man has it been a busy couple of days! We finally got the washer and dryer picked-up, installed and running!

A huge thanks goes out to Hubby, my Dad and my BiL Scott. The three of them literally shimmied the 300 lb, 26.8 inch washer through a 27 inch doorway that was stripped down to its studs. Then they lifted the dryer and used the stacking kit to level and stabelize the set. Now, for the record, this is not an apartment sized washer and dryer set. These are full sized Whirlpool Duet front loaders. And we live in a condo. So we had a utility closet for these appliances and nothing else (Well, I suppose we could have placed them into our master bedroom…). It was heaven to get up on Sunday morning and do laundry at home where I could multi-task and get all of my housework done before noon. Amazing.

We also added a new family member into the mix Saturday afternoon. You all saw Miss Gracie Pearl in yesterday’s posting. She is such a sweet girl! We’re smitten with her.

She loves to play with Peanut. The two of them “go fishing” by playing with a stuffed fish on a string. And we’ve even caught Peanut trying to pick poor Gracie up by her feet more than once.

You’d think that’d make her run for the hills, but no! She runs right back after him for more. Oy.

Last night I finally made it to WEBS for the monthly Tuesday Night Spinning. These ladies meet the first Tuesday of the month from 7pm-9pm and are so friendly and fun! Deb and Mary Alice made the trip up, so it was extra fun!


I had a great time and finished the first bobbin for my Huma BFL from Funky Carolina. I have to admit though that I have not been spinning much lately and found my hand to be soar enough to stop spinning after around and hour and a half and decided to finish the night by knitting. I think this is a huge sign that I need to try and spin at least and hour a day. I am going to try and do that for the rest of the month. We’ll see what happens!

I am coming along on the Shetland Triangle Shawl for the KAL on Ravelry! I am in love with this yarn and the pattern! It’s super easy and very fun!

This is a horrible picture, but I needed something to document progress. The yarn is Claudia’s Hand Painted in Blue Fields. I am already on repeat 6 and this is still the first skein. I am hoping to go up to 10-12 repeats and have 3 skeins total, so we’ll see!

“i can has wollmeise? K bye.”

The Gentleman’s Sock with Lozenge Pattern suggested by Jaya! Thank you all for the lovely suggestions! Jaya please email me at keeganlaneyarns AT yahoo DOT com so that I can get your address and the color way of your choice for your prize skein! The yarn for Matt’s socks will remain a surprise until it’s in Jaya’s hands!

And… For those of you interested in joining the new KLY mailing list for information and update hints please also email keeganlaneyarns AT yahoo DOT com!

Win One!

After we recruited and checked into the hotel Bryn and I had a crazy random idea. Why not check to see if there were any bleacher seats for the Red Sox vs. Blue Jays game? Well, we were offered better than bleachers ladies and gentlemen…

Welcome to our seats in the grandstand, row 2, right behind home plate. It was awesome. It was amazing. It was a great game!!! Dice-K pitching. Okajima pitching. Paplebon pitching (swoon!). Watching V-tek behind the plate all night and then hitting the walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th. ::sigh:: It was such a great night!

We took the T back to our hotel and only found a Mexican restaurant open at that late hour (how the heck did it get to be 11:45 anyway?!) and had the best taco salad of my life. It was a winner of a night!

Today we had another fair and then after hit up a yarn shop down the road. A Good Yarn is located in Brookline Village, right off the C-train T stop. There is plenty of on street metered parking.

The shop was run today by two lovely and very helpful ladies. We were greeted and I felt at home right away. This shop would be my LYS of choice if I were in the greater Boston area!

I squished some Tillie Thomas luxury yarns, caressed some Sunshine Yarns, rolled around in some Manos Silk and drooled (not really!) all over the huge selection of Claudia Hand Painted and Collinet Jitterbug.

There was a great selection of yarns in all gauges, fibers and colors. There was a wall of notions, shelves full of books and tons of super cute bags. I loved the table surrounded on all sizes for customers to sit and knit. So inspiring!

The icing on the cake, however, was the beautiful Shetland Triangle Shawl hanging in the front window. I am participating in the STS KAL on Ravelry and was so excited to see the shawl in real life! I choose a beautiful yarn for my shawl, 3 skeins of Claudia Hand Dyed in Blue Fields. After seeing the shawl I am super excited to retrieve my book from the library! I’m off to spin a bit. Hubby is on a buisness trip today, but should be home soon, thank goodness. Tomorrow our washer & dryer arrive! Hurray! No more laundromat!!!!

Tomorrow I am off on my first travel date for work. I have been paired up with the lovely Bryn and we will be headed out to Greater Boston to hit one college fair tomorrow early afternoon and then another Thursday morning. We have big plans to go to the Pru for dinner Wednesday night and do some shopping. I am very excited. After the college fair on Thursday we’ll grab lunch and stop in to A Good Yarn before we head back to the office. I have two knitting projects packed, my Wicked Cardigan and my Jackie O. on Vaycay socks… I am fighting the urge to bring the swallowtail… Who am I kidding? It will end up going too as an emergency project.

Over the weekend we met up with Seth and Nicole to go and see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, The Yarn Harlot, at the Calvin.

I met up with some Ravelry and The Loopy Ewe knitters and some blog friends… (Meliabella, Mostlyselftaught, somebunnyslove, and Guyknits?)

We were first in line at the Calvin, but decided lunch was way more important!

She was super funny, as always and Hubby laughed a lot!

He totally got the jokes and even thanked me for inviting him along!

I purchased some Kauni in EH for a shawl.

Another highlight of the day was when Seth and Nicole gave me my birthday present from Loop!

It is from Loop: Alpaca and Silk bats carded into fluffy, bright, yummy goodness. If this isn’t incentive to finish the roving on my bobbins, I don’t know what is!

Here is the progress on the Wicked Cardi. I hope to have way more done when I return!

The shop update was amazing! Thank you to everyone who stopped by and an extra thanks to all of you who purchased! You were like ravenous wolves! I will be shipping your packages out Friday morning. The yarn is still a bit damp thanks to the two straight days of rain here. We’re planning for another sneak-up really soon so keep your eyes peeled!

Dear Readers,
I come to you today with a plea from a co-worker. I submit to you exhibit A:

These are my co-worker, Matt’s, feet. As you can see he is in desperate need for some hand knit love! He is sporting a dark suit, shirt and tie but on his feet are mismatched, store bought socks. We need to remidy this STAT! This evening I will be dyeing yarn for a pair of socks for Mr. Matt. In the comment section please submit your recommendations for a men’s dress sock pattern. The winner will receive the yarn to knit Mr. Matt a pair of socks (How is that a prize you ask? Wait there’s more!) as well as a hank of my hand-dyed Big Footies Toasty Sock (450yards) in a color way of thier choice! All entries are due via the comments on this post only by May 1st at 10 pm EST!

The amazing girls at Zepher Style have done it again. A wonderful, error free pattern. It was easy and fun and I will be casting on for the cardigan version as soon as I’m done writing this post!

Just want to make a quick thank you to Sheri for her mention of Power Socks on her blog! Membership has jumped to 74 members in the last 4 days. Won’t you join us too?
A package arrived from Sheri yesterday with my order and some goodies!

If you have yet to try Numma Numma sock yarn, consider this your heads up to go and get some A.S.A.P! The yarn is so soft, squishy and dyed with deep, rich color. I am in love! I want to knit this yarn now. The Loopy Groupie gift for April is a beautiful Lacy Pillars Sock pattern by Debbie O’Neill and a cute Loopy stitch marker from Zepher Style! Hurray!

Ok… Off to start the Wicked Cardi on the patio with some yummy lemonade! Keep your eyes on the shop… Yarn is a comin’

Just finishing up the Wicked sweater! Just the hem and then to finish the sleeves, which I plan to keep short. Then I’ll start the Wicked Cardi!

I was assigned two travel dates for May and I am very excited. My over-night travel buddy is Bryn, who is a sweetie. We’ll have a great time. Her dad is an avid knitter and she wants to delve deeper into the fiber world. I think I can get her started.

Very excited for this weekend and next. We’re going out to Spoleto’s for dinner with Hubby’s family on Saturday night. Before hand we’re also going to get out rings cleaned, which is good cause they’re in dire need. Next weekend Hubby and I are going to see the Harlot at the Calvin and then out to lunch. We’ll be going with hubby’s brother Seth (his company Darkside Designs is our go-to company for our ads) and his gf Nicole and it should be a nice time. We even have a Loopy Groupie meet up planned.

Keep your eyes out for a shop update in the next week or so!

Next post: A finished Wicked!