Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I am blushing....

I blog just for myself - even though I know that others read this occasionally, I write what I think, and hit the post button. I read several blogs regularly - I was very touched that Aim left me a comment that she has awarded me this:

So now - Here are the rules:
Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about Blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times!

This has lead to several days of pondering.... but I think have narrowed it down, and so I humbly give you my list:

1. Lisa - who has awesome patterns and I love the pictures of Brodie!

2. Jennifer - who I love to be tempted by with her cooking and enjoy reading the ideas, although I think I gain a few oz or lbs every time I look at her blog...

3. Holly - a great knitter who even with her busy life manages to keep on knitting- and ohhh what knitting she does!

4. Aim - Who inspires me with her knitting and whose dog I am secretly coveting. :-)

5. Tric - who never fails to make me want to buy a farm in Canada - where they get real snow!

I also have to mention Opal ( but I promised not to give her this award - due to her already having recieved it several times....hehe -but she is really a good blog to follow!) - who never fails to help me when I am frustrated with some knitting and encourages me to finish what I start.


Hope that everyone keeps warm as the winter weather comes back!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Getting back to normal...

Time to get things back to normal, but unfortunatly I am still struggling with the strange things my body likes to do to me. Notice my left hand - see the spot on my ring finger? That is what is left of the cold sore I developed under my wedding rings. Yeah - a cold sore- can you believe it? I had never heard it before - but now I know. Leave it to me to get something strange. Hard part for me is not having the rings on - I feel naked! I am trying to be patient - I really want to put them back on but not yet.
So I have been working on my knitting - as promised a a picture of the ribbed collared cardigan:
I have 6 inches done so far on the ribbing - almost up to starting the main part.
I also have been working on designing a baby sweater - so far I have the back and part of the front done. Hoping to have it done by Friday.
I do like the lace pattern and the scallop at the bottom, its going to be very feminine.

Monday, January 21, 2008

The 6 of Us....

Last week seemed to go on forever. It was really nice to have all my Sibs in for the surgery, so of course we needed to get some pictures: From left: Mary, Janet, Me, Karen, Bill and Anna.

This was taken a few minutes before everyone started to head out. Anna flew home last night- what a trooper she is - heading back to Frankfurt Germany so she can go to work today(she did take the new socks with her). Karen and Mary headed home, Janet will be back today sometime as she has off, and Bill is in for the week (his wife and kids are the greatest!) to help out.
We are hoping Dad will be home today, but we will leave it up to the doctors to decide.

I decided that for some reason all the great lace patterns are probably not good to be working on right now, and for some reason I am burned out on socks for a day or two. So after trolling several magazines - I found a great sweater to work on that is simple enough to be brainless ( no comments lol) - yet just enough patterning to be interesting.
So I give you the Ribbed Collar Sweater from Creative Knitting March 2008:Sorry about the bad picture- but the wind chill outside is -7 and for some reason much as I love to get good pictures- well I don't love it that much. For some reason the Hospital gift shop had this magazine - yet it is not on their site. So I really had to get a picture of the pattern.
I am using Kraemer Summit Hill yarn in Adventurine (green) colorway. So far I am really enjoying this pattern. I do think I will make the sleeves longer - as I am not that happy with 3/4 sleeves, but we will see.
I started this last night during the Championship Football games, I have to say they were both good games, but I had to bury under the blankets. I do enjoy Football, but I don't think I would enjoy it at -23 wind chills. But that is me.
Its to warm up today some - so I will try to venture out to snap a picture of the sweater in progress later today. Until then - stay warm and keep knitting!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Stress Knitting

Well I have accomplished my New Years Resolutions so far - actually I am ahead of it at moment.
First pair I have done are these:
A fun sock in On Your Toes Sock Yarn. I finished the pair on Monday of this week while at Hospital waiting during Dad's heart cath procedure. Unfortunately there was bad news so on Monday night I cast on a 2nd sock as Thurs I was again at hosp to wait for Dad's bypass surgery.

Thursday night I had that one done - and Dad has 5 new veins in his heart. Today I finished the 2nd one too - this pattern went fast - its little shell socks done in Socks that Rock colorway - Rocktober.These are going to be flying to Germany tomorrow on my sister Anna's feet. So far everything is going well with my Dad, and I am about a sock ahead on my resolution.
I have a feeling I will have more socks done soon as I will be helping and doing alot of knitting to de-stress here.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Etsy shop up- and why I need directions for things....

I am not mechanically inclined.
I can do small projects.....but more than a few steps - or really good directions (usually pictures are required) are needed to get the job done.
So Yesterday I decided that the Kromski Symphony needed a good cleaning. Better yet- Maybe I should even clean that wonderful device that I abuse -no I mean - love more than most people should....the Woolee Winder.
Now - I had gotten everything needed - the required instruction packet (with the cute little bag holding the special tools attached) :
and a household screw driver.
I also assembled several added items that I normally need when doing this- a few paper towels, several q-tips, and of course the light weight oil.
Satisfied I could do this - I began to disassemble the woolee winder.
2 hours and several reassembly's latter - it is functioning correctly. Now many of you would think -wow- what a shame it took that long.
Not really - I just learned 8 ways that a woolee winder will not work ( okay so I am taking a line from Thomas Edison - thanks National Treasure!) when put together by myself.
I am hoping that I will remember how to do it the next time I need to clean it.
Oh yeah - I might want to make a note - about the fact that cleaning the woolee winder while wearing a white shirt - is probably not recommended. Make that definitely.

On the knitting front I have finished the first sock of the year - and am on my goal so far of one sock a week for this year.
The Lace Moebius is finished and blocked - as you can see from the picture here:

I am also working on the consignment gloves too - here is the progress on those:(please excuse the bad picture - it is raining outside!)
After much encouragement by Opal - I finally put things up in my Etsy Shop too. I even have some Tadpoles For Ewe yarn up at the moment.
My only request is - if your local shop carries this yarn (there are 3 shops that do so far- Victoria's House of Needlearts, Carol's Needleworks, and Y2Knit) Please purchase from them - I want you to support your local shops first!
That being said- If you buy some of Tadpoles For Ewe Pedicures
or the Shimmer
(coming to the web site soon) - and your shop does not carry it right now- please show it to your LYSO and encourage them to look into it.
If you are a LYSO and want to know more about Tadpoles For Ewe - please contact us - Tadpolesforewe (at) yahoo (dat) com ( just remove the words and put in the proper things there .

Resolutions - at last.

I am proud of myself! Last night I finished the first project of the year - the Lace Moebius scarf. This morning I got up early and blocked it too. It will be in the shop tomorrow for everyone to see as I am giving a class on it starting next month.
After much thought about the whole New Year Resolution deal - it finally hit me what I should do for this year.
Resolution #1 -Knit a sock a week.
This means that at the end of the year - I will have 26 pairs done. 26. That seems like a incredible amount of knitting - but one sock a week. Yeah that is reasonable! By doing this I will also be able to get some of the pesky Christmas gifts for next year out of the way early too- and that will be a great thing.
So right now I have this sock cast on:
It is down to about a 1 inch of knitting before toe decreases. Should be done tomorrow and have 2nd cast on easily.
So - since I have the Moebius done - I have now returned to the consignment gloves I am knitting. Hope to have them up to the fingers tonight.
This weekend was a busy one- Roy and I spent most of Saturday working on some oranges. We juiced them, then cleaned out the pith from the peels and candied the peels up. After getting that far - some more Stollen was called for being made. This has got to be my favorite breakfast yet! A slice of this - topped with butter.....yummmmmmm.
As I was in the domestic mood - I also went to can up the rest of the Pork and Sauerkraut , and even made a huge batch of beef and potato soup to be canned too. Everything was going well - until the silly seal on my canner decided not to work any more. Poor thing - it gave up the ghost. So today I got a new seal (thankfully - it was the last one on the shelf!) and the canner is happily working as I type.
That leads me to my 2nd and 3 resolutions for the year:
Resolution #2 Stop waste as much as possible- I am going to try to be more environment friendly. I will also can up and preserve as much as I can too.
and Resolution #3 Do not wait till November 30 to start knitting for Christmas. I know - this is a lofty goal for me. After all - I have been finishing something every year on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember.
Hopefully I will blog more often this year too - maybe once a week to show you the progress on my resolutions.
Hope the New Year treats you all well.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!
Hope things will be great for everyone in 2008!

May you have a wonderful day filled with family and friends --Enjoy the New Year!