Picture pages

Well, here we are, middle of the week. I bring you a little visual montage of my week so far. (Since the sweater still just looks like a big yellow/green blob)

First: It runs in the family showing off your FO’s (or near FOs) on the cat:

After that, poor little Wickie would only snuggle with his Nikki (and her sweater) :

Someone at home must’ve used his “cat-dar” to find out that I was letting cute little old cats sleep on my sweaters:

All of which leads us up to the little problem I had with being solely monogamous to my sweater:

It seems that a friend of mine at work was having a bit of a rough patch and what cheers people up better than knitting?!? So I made her a little face cloth and gave her some home made soap I had bought from a friend and was hoarding for myself (don’t fear. I have more and can get more!)

FO time!

Woo hoo! I have a Finished Object to share with you and a couple horribly embarrassing pictures of the cats for you. (and honestly, it’s only embarrassing for them, not for me!)

The other night I started and finished a little Petal Baby Bib for my nephew. I know he doesn’t really need it right now but it’s so cute. It does need to be blocked but that didn’t stop me from searching for victims models:

Bartholamew “agreed” to only wear it if he could pretend it was a cape instead of a bib: 

They love me so…  

WOW!

Wow! That’s about all I have to say. OK, it’s not really but it sums it up pretty good! Talk about feelin’ the love! 42 comments! That’s a lot. Thank you all.

I wanted to respond to each of you personally but there was a glitch in the emailing of the comments and other things (that we’ll get into in a minute) and I just couldn’t. I’ll try to answer the main question here: I don’t know what kind of plant it is! When I moved into my newest office at work, I got a very wonderful window that gets strong afternoon sun. I’m not the best at remembering to water my plants so I went to the local neighborhood Wal-mart and bought me a cactus. A non-prickly kind so I wouldn’t hurt myself and so no one else would get hurt either. Thanks to Dad, I now know the little sprout is called a pup (in case you didn’t read the other comments – it’s OK, I don’t always read the comments on blogs I read).  

Now, the other reason I’m just not able to respond to everyone is I’m a little squished for time. My step-Mom (who’s the best step-Mom in the world and I really hate calling her my “step-Mom” just because it has such negative connotations with it)’s father passed away. It’s a little hectic and I promise to pick a winner when things settle down – probably this Saturday.

So please, if you haven’t already, go on back to Jan 19ths post and comment away until midnight Thursday 1/24.

And because so many of you came from Chris’s Chaos and Mayhems I bring you my two heathens:

  

 

2007

I know, everyone’s doing year end recaps so here’s mine:

2007 wasn’t all bad but it certainly wasn’t all good either. Quite truthfully, I’m glad in few hours it’ll be gone.  I learned to spin and how to make lucet cords (which I need to do some more of since it’s so fun). I hope to keep increasing my spinning knowledge too. There’s so much out there to learn, to try… 

I knit a lot. A LOT, I mean look at that list on the sidebar. Wow. I learned how to do new knitting techniques. I’d like to keep learning those too. 

On a personal level, I made some great friends and plan on keeping on meeting new people and spending time with my friends and family. I lost my uncle and have a cousin that’s in pretty bad shape. I have friends who lost loved ones and with my remaining grandparents as old as they are and in the shape that they’re in, I know it won’t be but so much longer before I lose them. I know, it may not be this year but I certainly won’t have them another… (hmm… almost told you how old I am ) so many years… 

But on a lighter note, my nephew was born and he’s so beautiful and I can’t wait to see what kind of person he becomes. 

My goals for 2008 – besides what I’ve already said?. Well, I do have some I’m not really planning on sharing but I’m going to cut back on my consumption of goods. Yes, this means yarn and fiber too. I’m not going all out I’m still in my fiber club and will still buy yarn and all but for at least a few months I’m going to spin what I’ve got and knit what’s in the stash. I bought that yarn for a purpose and it wasn’t to sit all closed up in a box. 

Oh, and since she’s showing an interest, I thought I’d teach Pepper to spin: 

Which is good, I’ll need more yarn because apparently Bartholamew has finally seen the light and is all about enjoying fine hand knits:

You’ll have to look under his head and feet to that is my Noro scarf there keeping his Highness warm and providing a soft place for him to take a nap. 

Be safe, y’all. Have a good 2008 filled with joy, love, and enough fibery goodness to get you through the rough spots!

thanks for reading…

Merry Christmas! (or he’s a rebel and never be any good)

First off let me say I hope each and every one of you had a very Merry Christmas filled with joy and light (and maybe some knitting related gifts and fun relatives…)

Yesterday, Mom, my sister and I went out to lunch. They kept telling me about all the great deals at this local store. 50% off type great deals. Needless to say, we went back. I got new sheets and a new duvet cover. In this house, changing the sheets is an ordeal! To the four legged heathens, it’s the most fun since cat nip anything… and for me. Well, it’s trying. To be polite because, well, it’s Christmas.

Bartholamew is the master of all. Especially the sheets. 

Yes. I bought green sheets with purple ladybugs on them. The duvet cover is about that shade of green too. All for 50% off! 

I did a little “Christmas” knitting. (so called “Christmas” knitting because they were knit on Christmas Eve. Not because they were presents. Although two did go to live with people other than me)

I found out about them here. Jane found the pattern here. I would highly recommend stocking up on your wine corks now. They’re great fun and a very quick knit.

Beware though, because they are quite mischievous too:

Lastly, I finished super secretive knitting project #1. I can’t wait to show it to you but it will have to wait til #2’s done. Which will be longer than normal because I got distracted. 

Dianne sent me some very lovely worsted weight peace fleece for Christmas. I had to start knitting on it almost instantly. With Marianne’s help, it became mittens. Or A mitten. The 2nd mitten is on the needles now and will probably have life before the end of the week (would be sooner but the job doesn’t tend to approve of me knitting on the clock).

But I can knit on it now and do hear it calling my name…

Welcome Home!

My new wheel. It’s a Lendrum Folding Wheel. I have 3 different flyers for it – the regular flyer, the fast flyer and the plying head (that’s what they call it…). The plying head does have it’s own mother of all and drive band and the bobbin holds 2 full regular bobbins. (insert happy sigh here) The fast flyer fortunately takes the same bobbins as the regular flyer. I also have a tensioned kate. I need to read up on how they work differently than a lazy kate but I’m quite sure I have that information in a book.

I’m also needing some information on ratios. I think I have the basics down but really want some good information on this. If anyone can point me in the right direction I’d appreciate it.

As you may remember I fell in love with the Lendrum at SAFF. I sold my Ashford Traditional and a couple of other things sitting around collecting dust and saved up my pennies and bought the wheel from a lovely dealer in Suffolk. Why Suffolk you ask? Well, not only were they were quite friendly and helpful at SAFF, but my aunt Judy (who I made the socks for) lives in Norfolk. Not quite an hour away… darn, have to go visit the family.

I love going to visit my aunt. We have a ton of fun no matter what we do. We get up whenever and eat breakfast and sit at the table for hours in our pjs talking about everything before we change clothes and do whatever it is we had planned to do – that is if we had anything planned. So add that into the mix and of course I went to Suffolk.

Saturday morning we left with plenty of time to find the dealer’s studio. However, we did not realize that Suffolk’s Christmas parade was Dec 1. We saw some of the Christmas parade as it was headed right down Main Street in the exact direction we wanted to do. After digging out the good ol’ map we found away around the parade only to run into it again (it was quite a long parade…). We forged on but found ourselves on a road that wasn’t on the map. We stopped to ask one of the very nice police officers how to get to where we needed to be. He politely told us that we were on the street we needed to be on. So on we went.

On the way back from picking up the wheel, we got re-routed by an accident. We saw an awful lot of Suffolk yesterday and enjoyed the whole trip. She did take the first pictures of me spinning on my wheel but (not surprisingly) we got to talking and she forgot to take some with my camera too so when I get them from her I’ll share.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have some wool calling my name…

Monday, Again?

Well, It’s Monday, I last posted Saturday so I’m posting again.

Nothing fiber related today. I’m still knitting away on my bag and socks. I did finally lengthen my first sweater. Much happier with it now. Truthfully, Mom helped me rip it out. It wasn’t the actual ripping I needed help with, it was the mental aspect of ripping the ribbing out of my sweater. We had a drink after it was all ripped out and the stitches picked back up. I was the one who needed it, Mom just was being supportive.

Speaking of Mom, as a few of you may know, Mom is a vegetarian. So being a good daughter, I bought her a tofurkey roast. We roasted it with onions, carrots and potatoes as recommended. We basted it. We made vegetarian gravy. Luke really enjoyed the tofurkey. Mom and I thought the onions, carrots and potatoes turned out well. But the gravy wasn’t all bad. So all was not lost.

We also baked bread. One in the bread machine (sourdough… mmmmm) and one from a mix it was wheat beer bread. Both were most yummy.

I have a new feature on my sidebar. It’s a wish list. It’s not the kind of wish list where I really expect y’all to buy me things from it but it’s a fun place to list things I want for my memory as much as anything else. Plus I was having probably too much fun naming everything. But ya know, if you win the lotto or something and feel like you want to buy me presents, then, please, feel free to purchase anything on the list for me.

Roanoke’s NoSo Knit

Today was Roanoke’s 10th Annual NoSo Knit. I heard about it too late last year (or way early this year?) and didn’t go but this year I was going. I even talked Mom into going. I have very few pictures because my camera battery was on the verge of death. I however did get a picture of our table.

We have Laura (who I’m going to SAFF with):

Christy:

Nancy:

and from left to right Knit Nana and Pam:

Oh, and me and my Mom:

Mom won some lovely blue yarn who’s brand I’ve promptly forgotten:

I won some Berroco Tutu which must be hiding in Mom’s car because I don’t have it with me now and I know it made it TO the car so click the link to what it looks like. It’s the black one.

Other prizes at our table included 2 pattern books, a handmade cosmetic case, a legwarmer kit and some other wool. Yes, I did pay attention but that was a long time ago. We did a lot of talking and laughing and window shopping and some not window shopping and I just don’t remember who all got exactly what, ok?

Speaking of shopping, I did very well. I only bought 3 things:

Orchid lace weight Malabrigo:

This WILL be knit into a scarf or some such for me but oh, my. It’s so lovely I could just pet it all day long. (BTW, this purchase is all Christy’s fault. She was looking at the Malabrigo and said that I should definitely knit some lace…)

A green skein of Cotton Classic for a baby bib (for my nephew who will be born ANY day now!):

and a Fiber Trends Raindrop Lace sock pattern.

That’s it. Mom got some sock yarn of unknown origin. Well, SHE knows what brands they are but as I said before, we did a lot and all I know is one was a blue tweedy color and the other what looks like will be a nice blend of browns/grays.

Oh and I almost forgot, amongst our goodie bags (needles, patterns, coupons, various knitterly goodies) was this:

Sportweight Claudia Handpaint… mmmm…

All in all, we had a really good day.

A long trip home

I went to visit my sister this weekend (we had a lovely time) and spent a little over an hour in this on the way home:

So, except when we were at a very very slow roll, I did this:

Does sitting in your truck all alone in the middle of a traffic jam (standstill?) still count as Knitting in Public?

Dad’s 3rd Hat

Hmm, OK, just this year alone, I’ve knit Dad 3 hats. In all fairness the first one didn’t fit (hey, it was my second hat and mine didn’t fit me either!) and this one is out of (drum roll please) my own handspun.

Catie gave me some fleece named Brother when I got my wheel. I preservered and spun enough of Brother to knit a hat (plus some. I could probably get another hat out of what’s left). I think Brother is a beautiful gray. Catie kept fussing at me to throw it away.

I finally knit some of my own handspun. I think this is my most favoritist hat I’ve ever knit. Ever. It’s certainly the most beautiful hat I’ve knit. And yes, I realized I’m biased. But if I didn’t make this specifically for Dad (cuz he asked for it) I don’t think I’d give it away. I love it.

Now, after all that hype:

I showed it to Catie… she was glad I didn’t throw it away and was inspired to maybe even spin some of Brother herself.

(See, I finished this last week or so and have been holding out on you so I could give you some more blogging…)