Etsy Weekends - Writing

As much as I love knitting, I love to write nearly as much. There is a wonderful sense of release when you can pour forth all of your emotions onto a page. Granted, being back in school affords me little time to do any fun writing - but before I went back to school I wasn't really writing at all, unless the mood struck me so suddenly that I couldn't do anything but write. Someday I would like to pen a novel or two, and as my favorite cat lady (Crazy Aunt Purl) says, you need to write every day if you want to be good at it. I don't know that blog posts truly count, but I'm going to count it :) Either way, here are some items I've come across on Etsy that would make writing that much easier to do....

Fountain Pen from Gecko WoodWorking

Journal from Ann Enchanted

Twig Pencils from Trees 4 the Wood

Come visit us next weekend when I share more Etsy finds!

Etsy Weekends - National Parks

I only have one item to share with you this weekend, but it is very cool...thus worthy of its very own post! A little background first: Matt and I love to travel. Over the last few years we've been a bit silly about it, moving instead of visiting...but it's been an exciting and interesting adventure! We have big travel plans for our future when we have real jobs and vacation time and all that. For now, our plans are a little smaller. We live in South Western Montana, and have easy (well easy enough!) access to several National Parks. So far we've only visited Yellowstone, and haven't really been able to explore it in as great of depth as we would like. Also, living on this side of the country it will be much easier to road trip to National Parks in California, and the Pacific Northwest. While we're waiting for the financial stability to travel the world, we figure we'll travel this immense country first! The item I found on Etsy that I'm sharing today will help us track our travels...and it is perfect for us!

National Parks Checklist Map from ElloThere

We hope you've enjoyed this installment of Etsy Weekends, and hope to see you back next weekend!

Merry Christmas!

Today we will enjoy our holiday with family, the way Christmas should be celebrated!

We hope all of you are able to enjoy the holiday as well, and hope you have cookies as good as ours :)

 

Yarn Porn - BlackBerry Ridge Lace Weight

I want to talk yarn again today! You can read my original post (where I drone on about my love of yarn) by clicking here. Otherwise, stick around and see what I've got to say about another Lace Weight wool...yes...I will probably talk about Lace Weight again in the future...it is my favorite!

Today I actually have pictures of things I've knit with this specific yarn, 100% Wool Lace Weight by BlackBerry Ridge Woolen Mill. (That's the place we get some of our wool spun into yarn...they do an amazing job!!) The first time we visited, they had all kinds of patterns that Mom and I drooled over. We eventually picked out a pattern and yarn for the two of us, we would make matching lace scarves! Mine in black (oh so sensible black) and hers in a beautiful dark purple. The pattern was actually a collection of seven lace patterns - A Week in the Life of a Knitter's Cat and we could easily choose our favorite pattern, this way we'd have matching, but different scarves.

Lace Weight 100% Wool

I think we bought the yarn and the pattern sometime before 2005, but I can't quite remember when. I ended up with the yarn in my stash, and in 2009 finally knit up Mom's scarf. This yarn knit up beautifully, the yarn itself was a dream to knit with! As I said, this Mill does most of our wool to yarn/roving conversion, and there is a reason we have continued to take our business there: they do a great job! If you have wool that you'd like turned into yarn or roving, I suggest you take a look at their website, or if you just want some gorgeous wool that has been spun into yarn in an old Wisconsin Woolen Mill!

Here is the finished scarf: