"Home at last..................!" or "Attack of the Ants!!"

OMG!!! I am soooo glad to be home!

DO NOT take your 1 year old camping - at least not in Texas where everything bites back! From fire ants, to mesquite, to stickers, to cactus, to scorpions, to mosquitoes, to rattle snakes, to chile pequins.... Danger was everywhere! So my poor son pretty much spent most of his time sitting in the tent with me and/or Daddy all day and night. And napping in the tent in 90 something degree weather - oh let me tell you - October isn't fall in Texas till the sun goes down and the temps plummet. Freeze all night and sweat all day! Whee what fun - NOT!

We bought a nice big new tent for this trip... the evil fire ants squeezed through the seams in the bottom of the tent at 3am the first night, swarmed the air matress my son and I slept on and attacked us. We were sent scurrying to sleep cramped in the back of the car the rest of the night. My son was quite comfy as he slept on top of me. I however.... anyway...

The next day we sprayed all kinds of stuff on the tent seams and treated the mounds and even put duct tape over all the seams. We thought we were safe... and for one night we were. Apparently they had only paused to plot their revenge - and this time with reinforcements! Because on the third night they chewed through the tarp, through the tent, and through the duct tape to once again swarm our bed and attack us!! Once again we scurried into the back of the car... this time with less bedding as too much of it was covered in ants. So Mommy was a bit colder... to make things worse - when Daddy shut us in by closing the back hatch - he apparently didn't slam it hard enough. After 20 minutes the auto-locking mechanism apparently kicked in... because every time my foot pressed against the hatch - the car alarm went off and disabled my car - I am NOT kidding!! Its 3am, I'm freezing, sleeping with my knees up and a baby on my chest, barely covered by a blanket, with all kinds of uncomfortable things poking me in the back... and a fracking car alarm going off... my son and husband sleep happily through it - repeatedly! And the car keys are nowhere to be found... Finally at 7 am my son woke up all happy and refreshed, LOL! I popped the lock and set off the car alarm one more time - which absolutely seemed histerical to my son thank goodness, LOL! My dear husband meanwhile slept the rest of the night peacefully on his cot in the middle of the tent unbothered by the evil ants. I however didn't bring a cot because it hurts my back and my son might fall off, LOL! Considering how we ended up.... hmmm... maybe next time I'll bring a cot as a back up! But that next time will be a while!

We dragged ourselves out of there late last night and just stayed at a hotel to recover enough to make the drive home. My poor husband had to do all the set up and tear down himself since I had to basically carry my son continuously to protect him from everything around him. He was soooo exhausted by the time we finally made it home. And we had to drive both cars to fit all the gear... I am happy to say that we had plenty of cloth diapers to make the whole trip, LOL! So at least there was a silver lining! Running out would have only made everything that much worse!!

Site changes!

I am thinking of getting a stand alone site, but in the meantime I thought I'd work on the current one. I made a few changes - I'd love to hear what you think :)

New Colorways Coming!

I haven't set my next stocking date since recovering from a vacation can be unpredictable ;) I will finish up the month's customs and then set the date. When I get back you can look forward to seeing my new series of Princess Bride inspired colorways at the next stocking - Fire Swamp, Buttercup, Wesley, Inigo, Fezzik, Vizzini... lots of fun!

We're going camping!!

Family Pendragon is going camping! We'll be gone the 17th through the 22nd and will pull any stock before we go so that no confusion happens ;) Right now Sweater Stones are the only thing in stock and there is Free Shipping with code THANKS at checkout. Only a few left, although I will be ordering more in the future. In the meantime I will be working on my custom orders for the month! Current custom is Laceys - a local Hyena to me - Hi Lacey!!

Stocking

Stocking Saturday the 29th at 4PM!! Last custom slot lottery, new and old colorways - Cool stuff - come check it out :)

New colorway and collabs

Stephanie won the custom colorway auction and inspired a gorgeous (if I do say so myself, LOL!) new colorway called Kentucky Sundown which will be appearing in future stockings. She got the first though and all 9.2 oz are headed her way. Can't wait to see what she makes with it!

More news... I will be collaborating with Kristen of This Chick Knits
She will be premiering some new colorways ("Sabrina" and "Leo") as custom slots in her store as well as showcasing some familiar colorways. She has also been kind enough to work a trade with me so my sweet son will get a gorgeous new pair of longies in exchange for some of Mommy's yarn :) How is it we never have time to make enough goodies for our own kids? Also look for some collabs on my site where you'll be able to not only purchase yarn, but have the option of purchasing one of her custom slots with it! WAHMy fun - gotta love it!

And so that I can bring you proper swatches in the future (hopefully) my friend Vicki's little girl is kindly teaching me how to knit - OK she's trying anyway ;) Don't worry knitters - you have no competition here in the foreseeable future, LOL!

And just to see if anyone is paying attention - I am opening for customs briefly right now to fill up the rest of the year. I will not be announcing this elsewhere. Those waiting on the list to be on the list - you will now be on the list, LOL!

ETA: OK - I now have only 1 slot left in December - it will be offered at my next stocking 9/29/07 at 4PM as a lottery for purchase!

Stocking today!

I am stocking today - don't miss out on all the goodies! I even added a "Surprise Yarn" auction :) I have also gotten to do a little more dyeing for a future stocking. And I am working on Jessica's custom. It may not sound like it but I have slowed down the last couple days as my poor son has been sick :(

Yeah - new photos!

I spent all day at my sister's and she took nice new pretty pics of everything that is stocking on Friday - Thanks sis!!

Groovy Baby! Longies

So I spent tonight finishing up this absolutely fun pair of longies I am referring to as the Groovy Baby! longies, LOL! They are made with Marr Haven organic Merino/Rambouillet in my Medee colorway and finished off with green 100 Pure Wool 3 ply trim. I had fun coming up with the lacey scalloped edges for the legs. These are Mediums and will be stocked along with the NB longies and yarn as soon as I can get to my sister's house to get decent pictures :)

Oh heck - should I just stock it anyway with my crappy pictures? I don't know... Oh - I need to go to my sis's anyway to bring her longies to her that I added a ruffle to...

ETA - I did it - I am previewing a 9/14 stocking at 1PM :) I will try to get better pics before then ;)

Stocking??

OK, I can't stand having such an empty cart! Some of my yarn has been on display at a local craft display and I think I'll go get it back and stock it along with a skein or two of my seconds and the NB longies, LOL! I wanted to wait till I got to have another big dye session - but my son is making that impossible right now - along with my customs schedule :) I'll have to figure out when is a good day to do it... I'll get back with a date when I figure it out ;)

All done!

Finished up Cynthia's longies tonight - just need to block, lanolize and get them drying tomorrow. Very happy with how they turned out! Its so much fun to use yarn I dyed myself :)

All my new dyeing stuff came in the mail and I am just desperate to try it out - but I have so many customs due I just can't get the time :( What a great problem to have though, LOL!

I have several skeins of seconds that I could stock, and the newborn longies - but I'd like to wait till I have more to offer. I was suddenly having a heck of a time with my dyes - everything kept coming out with these weird specks. After creating quite a few seconds I finally figured out that my dye particles were falling out of the stock solutions in my blue based colors. So the yarn that I dyed before that moment of enlightenment has some darker spots and some specks on it... Live and learn. I got a couple neat books and new dyes and other goodies in several days ago and have hardly so much as gotten to look in the box - LOL!

Local Hyenas!

I found out that one of my customers is local to me - how cool is that!? We may be doing some collabs in the future and trying to get together for a Hyena Party :) Still plugging away on Cynthia's gorgeous Tunisian longies. A bunch of us Hyena WAHMs worked together online today to come up with a good set of standard wool care instructions and I ordered new business cards and postcards with the instructions on them - I even got some free magnets!

My first BLOG!

OK, so you gotta have one right? LOL! Here it is :) I was surprised and kind of sad to find out that my 1st choice of names was already taken - so familypendragonshop it is !

You may have noticed that I am currently closed for customs. I have so many I am obligated to already and I don't want to take a chance of falling behind during the holidays - plus I want to have time to do some of the many instock ideas I have burning a hole in my brain right now, LOL! I will be out of town for about a week in the middle of October, so I really would like to get everything done early before I leave.

I am busily working on my customs list right now - and when I take a break I am experimenting with creating new dyeing techniques and using new products. I have a bunch of skeins dyed up right now, but will be using them for instock items rather than selling them. I am working on a couple techniques that will provide more random results than typical yarn dyeing. I am so excited about all that I have going on!

I am also working on a couple instock longies - both girlie ones as it turns out. One is a NB pair that is made from my OOAK confetti colorway. I have a couple pics


Confetti is a style of dyeing that I developed on this skein - and it will be used in various colorways in the future - but this one is the original!

The others are way cool hippie chic pants with all the mod colors in my Medee colorway. No pics yet ;)

I haven't been online too much lately as my son, Emerson is going through a big growth spurt - a bunch of teeth coming in, walking like a maniac, chattering up a storm, and having a crazy sleep schedule.