Kindle fire!

I had my kindle fire preordered since sept 22. That's a long time to wait! Thankfully amazon took mercy on me and shipped it a day early. So I got mine on nov 16th. It's really something! I've been a kindle fan since the very first kindle where everyone who I tried to tell how amazing the kindle was scoffed at me for not reading a "real" book. Well 3 kindles and an iPad later...who's laughing now?! Anyway the kindle fire is a great device, especially for the price. That's what I have to keep reminding myself of. Being that I have had an iPad, which I sold because I felt it was an overpriced big iPhone, I'm a little judgmental in the fact that I keep comparing it to the iPad, which is wrong. The kindle fire is not a tablet really. It's a reading device able to deliver colored content such as the ability to read magazines, has web access which you an use to read blogs etc, and has access to some apps from the android store. The apps that are kindle ready are mainly small ones meant to give the device some access to popular games such as angry birds, and some utilities such as note pads, flashlight apps, and other apps that really aren't what you am call "heavy". I didn't miss my iPad until I had the kindle fire. The only reason for this was the apps I am missing and the ability for the iPad to sync info with my phone. But for 650$ good riddance to the brick. Especially without the ability for flash player. I do miss how developers default to the iTunes app store so the amount of well thought out useful apps at my disposal and access to podcasts was plentiful. For example, vogue knitting magazine has it's magazine available through an app on the iPad but not on the fire. I'm hoping this is temporary. There are also a multitude of knitting apps on the iPhone/ iPad and this is where I have to remind myself that the fire is not a tablet/iPad. And it didn't cost me my left arm. It was highly affordable and gives me a closer connection to amazon, who I love. and now I can read colored magazines. I just hope more become available. Zinio, the magazine app does have access to interweaves magazines so that is getting me by so far. I love my kindle fire and I hope people realize that it is a great platform to add their content to. As far as tech specs go, it's a little heavy. I wish it was the size of the iPad so the magazine pages would be bigger and my clumsy fingers would be able to type on, but it's smaller size makes it easier to carry around and easier to hold in one hand. You can't read it in the sun which I already knew so I won't be getting rid of my kindle 3. The battery lasts a pretty darn long time. 7 hrs with the wifi on so I do have to charge it every night if I use it all day but that's fine. Right now the battery is doing much better than my stupid iPhone 4S so there you go. It's the first kindle fire so it's quite good for that. I'm sure the next ones will be amazing because amazon listens to its customers and grants their wishes so I expect the kindle fire 2 to be incredible. And since this one only cost me $200, I won't cry when I want to buy the new one. This one will make a nice hand-me-down or a quick cheap sale on Craigslist. For now, *come on baby light my fire* couldn't help myself

Went to the yarn store...again

I'm pretty sure I'm a yarn addict but I'm not willing to admit it yet. I was reading the yarn harlot's book "knitting rules" and she made me feel better about my problem by telling me I don't have a problem! Yay! More yarn! So I picked up some addi turbo crochet hooks I've been waiting on to arrive. I don't crochet much but when I do, I like these needles the best. I got a Pom Pom maker because my first attempt on the Pom on Brenna's hat was a disaster but I didnt have enough yarn to fix it. I also bought a ball of pink cascade 220 because I picked up verypinkknits pattern to knit worsted weight socks on dpn's with her video tutorial and I am going to knit socks! I mean it! For 8$ for the pattern I better. Then I also picked up some cascade 220 in heathered grey to knit some "man" scarves. I also picked up a beautiful skein of cascade soft spun in a heathered teal. Just because I liked it. I found some baby alpaca Handpainted balls that were blur and purple I had to have as well. See, I don't have a problem...

Craft show

Somewhere between all my ravelry swaps (its an addiction) I had to find time to prepare for the craft show we're having on Saturday. It's fairly big with about 3000 people that come through. I had lots of plans to carry a bunch of different items-then I ran out of time. In the end here's what I have. A few soap saver scrubbies, a couple of hand painted skeins of yarn, some stitch markers, and a couple knitting abacus bracelets. Oh and soap. Lots of soap. Over 300 bars of soap that I have been slaving heavily over the past couple of weeks to make and package. I never want to make soap again! But I will. I haven't done a craft show yet so my initial order of soap supplies left me with only about 50 bars. Then I ordered more supplies which took me down to the wire to complete them. I just finished last night. I'm going to try to crochet more scrubbies but I won't have anywhere near what I had hoped to have. I also have about 300$ of yarn that was supposed to be made into pretties to sell. Now it will sit until after I finish my Christmas knitting which, need I say, I'm running out of time for that to? So what do I want for Christmas? Time...or a babysitter so I can knit in my happy place lol hopefully I will sell every bar of soap and it will all be worth it. One can dream, right?

New App

So I did get the new iPhone 4s. I couldn't resist. I buy them all. That's besides the point though. Amidst upgrading to ios5 I realized a horrible thing happened. My vogue knitting app that I live and die by, crashed repeatedly and refuses to work. I use that app for everything! It has a full inventory of all my needles as well as project notes on everything I knit. This caused me to search for a new solution. Luckily, necessity led me to find this amazing new app called jknit. This app goes above and beyond what vogue did and does it better. It has a learning curve so don't expect to jump right into the app and start using it. First you must go to the website jknit-portal.net and make a free account. Then watch the tutorial videos and join the ravelry group. The support in the rav group is amazing. Anyway, you input your pattern piece by piece, row by row, and when you use the row counters to progress, the app tells you what you should be doing that row. This way if you have to rip back, you know what you should be doing, everything is planned ahead of time making up for what would be a headache later. I will gladly spend the time setting up the pattern for the ease of what I'm gaining in return. You could use the app on your iPhone to put in the pattern but I think it's quicker to do it on the computer and then import it to your phone. No more carrying around paper. The pattern is with you, letting you know where you left off. I'm so glad I found it

Look what I found!

I haven't been able to post much with my beautiful rambunctious baby needing all of my time but I wanted a way to read blogs on my phone. Finally I thought to look up an app and here it is! So I'm posting from my blogger app. Hopefully it works well. I'm really excited I found if. I haven't had much time to knit but I have been doing tons of swaps that center more around buying yarn and making small items. I'm doing 11 swaps in October alone! I should be working on my stuff for the craft fair November 5th. I'm going to be seriously behind. I did just finish knitting a rainbow scarf for a friend using chunky mochi in intense rainbow and a free pattern off ravelry. It came out great. She loved it and it was a quick knit.

Handpainting Yarn

Well, I've been trying my hand at handpainting yarn. I'm learning and getting better every time. Since I love multicolored yarns, this is a ton of fun. After scouring the internet for tutorial, I finally found a good one on MJayknits blog. These are all up for sale on my etsy https://www.thevintagerose1.etsy.com

where has all my time gone?

So i haven't gotten nearly enough done being my child never sleeps! But here it is regardless. The first is an altered frame I made for a swap on alilscrapofheaven. I used iamroses flowers and my beloved Close to My Heart stamps.

 This bracelet is actually an abacus to count rows when you're knitting or crocheting.

 These stitch markers I made for my etsy shop. They are twilight inspired! You throw them on your knitting needles to help you count any number of stitches.

This is something I said I'd never do...crochet! I wanted to learn to make amigurumi dolls and i decided to try to crochet a soap saver. Turns out its so much quicker than knitting them and I actually like the way this looks better. Who knew?