Got Crepes?

When a cute lil' 8-year-old proudly says she'd like to cook tonight from the cookbook she checked out of her school library, how can you say no?  The requirement was that as long as we had the ingredients at home, we could do it.

So crepes it was.  Someone fell in love with crepes at her summer camp this year!



She was so proud!  She read all the directions and did each step herself (well, I helped a bit with the egg cracking).



Quite a yummy dessert!  We were pretty creative with the fillings too.  Pa loved the peanut butter and jelly one.  Snowboarder went with peanut butter and bananas, and lil' snowboarder chose ice cream and sprinkle-filled. Yeap. On a school night.  Have to reinforce the little cook, right?

In other news, I just have to say how much I'm enjoying reading all of your comments on the contest post (not too late to enter!).  Looks like everyone has some great things to look forward to!  Me...it is almost Friday and a 3-day weekend!!! And my sister says thank you so much for the engagement wishes!!  She has been quite funny the past week or two....she goes back and forth between glowy happy and overwhelmed I can't think about planning a wedding!  So any wedding planning on a budget blogs that you guys love...please let us know!

Happy happy!!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Time for some FUN!

Whoa.  So that relaxed, recharged feeling I talked about last week.  Well, thank goodness I felt that way at the start of the week because this was a crazy, hectic week.  Pretty eventful here.  Let's just say that last Sunday, I had knit one of the baby socks, and that second sock there, well that was all of the knitting that happened since until late last night.



Just pitiful, right?  And that cute Uncle Frank hat...pattern should be easy peasy to write-up, but that hasn't happened either.

To catch  you guys up, here are a few of the highlights from the week.....

1.  First, happy happy news for my sister!!!  She got engaged last Sunday!!



Look at these two silly kids!  This is one of my fave pictures of them from last Christmas.

2.  School started this week....which means the problems, reports, school meetings, and such started rolling in at work.  I always know it is the first week of school when my email practically doubles overnight.  Fun fun.

3.  My mom had a bit of a scare this week with an emergency appendectomy surgery on Tuesday, which led to 3 days in the hospital.  She's starting to feel better now that she is home from the hospital.

4.  My sister's fiancee graduated from the police academy, which means party time!! And brownies of course!



And although there has been little knitting, hopes for a sweater seemed a bit closer when these gorgeous skeins arrived this week!



Hoping to turn them into a Sprossling!

Other fun mail included the Knitpicks Catalog which featured my Merrily Socks!  So cool to see them featured :)



Another cool designing thing....my designer page on Deep South Fibers is looking awesome! I am so excited that they are distributing my designs to Local Yarn Stores!!

So now it is Sunday night and I'm glad to put last week to bed.  Here's to a fresh week ahead....September, one of my favorite times of year, is coming right up!  And a 3-day weekend!  It is going to be a good week. 

Just to be sure though, let's have a contest AND a sale!!  Time for some FUN!!

Sale details.....I've always loved this time of year...back to school shopping (even though I'm a grown-up!), football season, autumn coming.... so what better way to celebrate than to give you guys a deal on that back-to-school knitting!!  Receive 25% off of any of my patterns available through my ravelry store between now and Monday, Sept. 5 when you enter the coupon code: backtoschool

Now for the contest fun....just leave a comment telling me what you are looking forward to, whether it be a new project, new book, end of summer vacation plans, anything.....,  on this post and one lucky winner will win a fabulous IGK tote bag filled with yarn, patterns, and goodies!!!  Leave your comment by Friday, Sept. 2 by 12pm PST.

I know I'm definitely looking forward to a week with a little less excitement, Notre Dame football next Saturday, knitting, and watching The Pioneer Woman's new Food Network show that I recorded yesterday!  Can't wait to read what you guys are looking forward to!

Happy Knitting!!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Recharged. Relaxed. Refreshed.

I wish sometimes you could bottle up a feeling and save it for a rainy day.  In my case, I would bottle up this past weekend.



Good friends, a perfect view, yummy food and drinks, movies, and knitting.  What more could a girl ask for?




I think I've finally got the Uncle Frank hat worked out!  That is after frogging a good four inches on Friday evening.  Fortunately I had already had some sangria, so it made the frogging easier to deal with.



Now I just need to write up the pattern and get it out to test knitters!

In the time it took me to knit, frog, and reknit the hat, SnBLeslie practically had her Just Enough Ruffles in BMFA LSS done! So pretty!



And the wee baby frank socks are just about done!



I didn't get to start my next project, but these gorgeous skeins of Plucky Primo Worsted are ready to be cast on.  Hopefully they captured a bit of the fabulous weekend too and will remind me of this refreshed feeling I feel tonight.



So, are you refreshed on this Sunday evening or early Monday morning?  How was your weekend?
Happy New Week ahead!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

{this moment}

My view for the weekend. Just add knitting and good friends!

Happy Friday!
Xoxo irishgirlieknits

On the needles tonight

Another hat in Plucky Knitter Primo, with a lucky clover stitch marker from Knitifacts. And a good movie to knit to.

Night night.

Happy Knitting!
Xoxo irishgirlieknits

Happy Birthday!

Lil' Snowboarder turns 8 today!!  She had a blast at her birthday party this past weekend!!  Happy happy birthday princess!!

Happy Birthday!

xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Sunday, Already?

Seriously.  How does the weekend just fly by so quickly? 

I am almost, almost recovered from Sock Summit and A Verb for Keeping Warm fun, but I still feel like I'm trying to play a bit of catch-up from the month or two of non-stop knitting that was happening before Sock Summit.  For example, my room is a complete disaster and when I tried to clean it a bit today (well, really I was looking for some needles, so figured I'd put some stuff away in an attempt to find them), I was a bit overwhelmed by how messy the knitting area had become.  Needles everywhere. Yarn everywhere.  Swatches everywhere.  Oh boy.

Gradually I'm trying to find room for all those Sock Summit goodies.  Here's a few I haven't shown you.



The Signature Needles!  I actually got two pairs because one was part of the teacher swag bag!  We received a coupon to pick out any set of needles we wanted! Thank you Signature Needles.  I love the few pairs of Signatures that I have, but they are with the older cable.  I'll be interested to see how I like the new cable.

I also bought a skein of Hazel Knits Entice, a new to me yarn purchase.  I love Hazel Knits, but haven't tried this yarn yet!  I was proud that I was able to resist all of her other lovely colors.  I also just had to have Miss Babs new colorway Jane Austen.  Isn't it lovely in those pinks and soft browns....love!!   That gorgeous blue, colorway Shark Island, is a mini-skein of Creating from A Verb for Keeping Warm.  I actually purchased a few more pretty yarns from Verb last weekend.  I can't wait to knit them up!  And lastly, that gorgeous brown is Anzula Yarns Cricket. 



I wish I could describe just how soft and squishy this gorgeous yarn is!  I first discovered Anzula's yarns when Snowboarder brought me two skeins of Squishy back from Purl Soho last year.  And I finally cast on with one of those skeins for another Summer Wind.  Here, a progress picture for you:



I knit quite a bit on this last weekend, especially Saturday evening, hanging out with Stephen, Debbi, and Anne.  Such a lovely evening with friends :)  Of course, I haven't touched it all week.

But there has been some knitting.  I'm on a bit of a hat/Plucky/Primo/no deadline knittting kick lately!  More details to come on these soon, but I think I'm finally almost ready to have Uncle Frank's Hat and Dear Baby Francis' hat and baby socks set test knit soon!  Just took a year or so??!?!!  Then I need to find a cute baby for the photo shoot?!



I'll warn you now....there will be lots of Plucky on my needles for the next month or two!

Oh, and exciting news to share with you guys!  My pattern line is now going to be distributed for wholesale through Deep South Fibers! Check out their new products!  Hopefully this will make it a bit easier for you to find my patterns in your local yarn store!!

I am so excited to be included with the many other amazing designers that they represent!  Be sure to let your favorite LYS know you'd like to see IGK patterns there :)

So, how was your weekend?  Can you believe summer is almost over?  What do you have planned for these last few weeks?  Or are you ready for fall? 

Although I don't want summer to be over....just 19 days left until Notre Dame's championship season begins!!  Hey, a girl can dream :)

Happy Knitting!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Got Plucky?

I certainly have plenty of The Plucky Knitter's fabulous yarns, but do you?  Honestly, as my last post suggested, I don't quite have enough.  But I did remedy that and ordered enough Plucky Primo for a sweater!!!!

But really, I ask about how much Plucky you have because she is having two updates this weekend AND you can finally get your hands on a Dancette Kit!



I think this pattern works so well because of the colors Sarah paired together and I can't wait to see what colors she pairs up for the kits.

I loved the pairing she did for Daphne, who did a fabulous job on a practically no-time-to-actually-knit deadline with the sample knit for Sock Summit!  Thank you Daphne!!



I wish I had taken a better picture of it in the Sock Summit booth, but trust me, gorgeous!  And TheKnottyMommy already finished her Dancette that she bought at Sock Summit.  Go check it out...wow!! Love the colors!

So the details on the updates from Sarah...

Please note: Friday, August 12th – the update will be a sneak-up. Meaning I will be listing things through the day (starting approximately 7:00 a.m. Eastern) and will keep you posted on beginning, end and breaks in-between on Facebook/Twitter and Ravelry.

The update on Sunday, August 14th will be at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

And if you can't make the updates this weekend, Sarah promises to have a few more updates with Dancette this month!

Happy Plucky Shopping!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Did you know?

Did you know that when I said I would catch up this weekend, I hadn't yet heard that I was able to move off the waitlist for Anne Hanson's Sweater Fitness class at A Verb for Keeping Warm on Saturday? More on that, but essentially, I didn't catch up. Oops.  I'm going to attempt to catch up a bit with this post.  Here goes...

Did you know that there were sheepies at Sock Summit?





And super-fast knitters? The wonderful Deb Barnhill won (she's on the right next to Stephanie).



And lots of friends that I wish I had had more time to hang out with. Note, these pictures were all taken after the market closed on Sunday. How we all survived I just don't know?











Did you know that inside this voodoo donut guy is raspberry jelly....hehehhe?



Did you know about these two, new-to-me, awesome indie dyers?


Little Red Bicycle Penny Farthing Sock, in colorway Ethereal.  Isn't it just gorgeous?  I had wanted to make sure to stop by this lovely booth because Didi, the super nice dyer behind Little Red Bicycle, lives just about 30 minutes away from me.  Uh-oh!


This is a gorgeous skein of Alpha B Yarn Luxe B.  It is one of the yarns that Debbi knit her gorgeous new pattern Lucy with.

Did you know that Anne Hanson and Cookie A. are pretty awesome?  I know, I know.  You knew.  I knew too, but it was so nice to hear them speak about their design process on Friday evening.  Plus I was able to catch up a bit more with Katharine, another fabulous teacher from Sock Summit.






Did you know that I have never knit an adult sweater that is not knit from the top-down in one piece?  But after Anne's fabulous class and looking through her gorgeous sample knits...





Well...



I think I'm ready to take the plunge!! Sprossling here I come! Now I just need to find some Plucky Primo for it! Yeah, so should have figured this out before Sock Summit as I don't have a sweaters worth of Primo in my stash! But I think I can change that!

I hope you all have had an awesome weekend! I know I have!!

Happy Knitting!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits

Sweater Fitness!

So excited to start class with Anne Hanson at A Verb for Keeping Warm!!

Sweater fitness here I come!

Xoxo Irishgirlieknits

More Sock Summit Fun!

I still don't quite know how I survived Sock Summit, because to be honest, I've been exhausted all week this week. I've needed a nap everyday after work. How did I do those long, fun-filled days last week?!  So my apologies in the delay in getting you guys an update!  Hopefully you've been checking out other fabulous Sock Summit recaps, like the ones here and here.

It was such an amazing weekend that I don't quite know where to start.  And I seem to have forgotten to take a lot of pictures.  But I did get some great ones of the people I met at the meet and greets on Friday and Saturday. 

Starting with these fabulous ladies!! I was so looking forward to hanging out more with Ceylan, Sarah, Chris, Jen, and Thayer!! Still wish I saw more of them, but it was so great to hang out with them!



The girls stopped by to say hi at Knitted Wit's booth. It was so nice to hang out with Lorajean, the awesome dyer behind Knitted Wit.





Michelle and I also got to catch up. I just love her Zen Rain Shawl design too!

I also spent a lot of time in The Plucky Knitter booth with Sarah and her sister Haley.



Just wait til you see all the yarn.....I made a little purchase everyday!! Sarah did an incredible job with all the gorgeous new colors for Sock Summit!!



On Saturday, there was a booklet signing for Coffee Break Knits, from Kollage Yarns. It was so nice to meet friends from my Irishgirlieknits group on Ravelry in person!

Lillian even brought her IGK bag :)


Marsha brought her Summer Wind to show me. I love it in that blue!


Dianne stopped by to say hi too! We've been friends since Sock Camp!



It was so nice to hangout with the other designers too.  Here we all are: Sandi Rosner, Jen Hansen, Thayer Preece (yes, my gorgeous model is also an awesome designer!), and Anne Hanson.  I was pretty excited to be in their company!


If you weren't at Sock Summit but will still like to get a copy of Coffee Break Knits, you can get a copy here.

Okay, and now for some yarn.  I have to say, for the first time in forever, and I have been to lots of knitting events, I had to ship yarn home!  Partly because I was nursing a bum knee at sock summit and didn't want to carry lots of it around, and also because little did I know, there was teacher Swag Bags!!!

So here are just a few of the goodies....

This gorgeous skein of Solstice Luna Sock Yarn was one of the highlights from my teacher swag bag.  So so pretty!!



Mini-skeins of indigodragonfly were also in our swag bag. I hadn't seen her yarns before and when Debbi and I ventured to her booth, well, I bought a few things for my sister.



Check out the name on this one! Definitely for my sister. I, of course, would never stake Edward. hehe



And this gorgeous red!

Don't worry, more pretty yarns to share later! Have you guys recovered from Sock Summit? If you didn't go, what have you been up to? I promise to catch up a bit more this weekend!

Happy Knitting!!
xoxo Irishgirlieknits