Connie's Quilt-Knit Blog

Miss me?

2011-12-31T23:20:00.001-05:00

Did you notice I was gone? I won't make excuses for the absence - I've been a lazy blogger. I have been crafting, though.

Ethan's Star pattern, from Quiltmaker magazine

First up, I made this quilt for my friend Dawn who's expecting twins any day now. Jenny, standing behind Dawn, is holding the matching burp cloths that I didn't get a picture of. They're cloth diapers with fabric that matches the quilts sewn down the center.

Wait, did I say quilts, plural? Well, of course. Two babies, two quilts. My friend Michelle made this one.

We found out later that she was going to have monkeys in the babies' room


I think it's upside down, but whatever....

Next, I made this little shrug to go with a dress I bought, but I didn't get a picture the one time I wore them together. So I took it to the farm and had Andrea take a picture for me.

At the beginning of December, there was a Christmas party with the knitters. My friend Pretty Knitty Jewelry is a better blogger than I am, so you can check out her blog post about the party here. She and I are the ones with matching socks in the big sock picture. She couldn't show you the stocking stuffers in her post, but I can.


Lots of wonderful goodies!

Ooooo, shiny!

I made these as my stocking stuffers. They're etched glass ornaments stuffed with wool roving mixed with a little angelina fiber for sparkle. I used six different snowflake stencils for the etching and made several different colors. I tried to match the color to the recipient and these were the ones I had left over.

A crappy picture in general, but you can see the snowflake.

I whipped up about a dozen of these little pocket pack tissue holders for the doctors and staff at the vet's office. They all had different dog and cat fabrics, all from my stash.

These two are mine.

There has been knitting, of course. After I finished the Christmas socks, I cast on these:

Plain sock in Destination Yarn's in Vancouver 2010 Five Rings

When I finished these...

Spring Fern Socks in Knit Picks Stroll Tonals, Springtime

...I started these for my Mom. Not much to show, yet, I know. But they should go pretty fast. I hope.

Stepping Stones in Sensations Bamboo and Ewe

Falling Leaves in Knit Picks Stroll Tonals in Foliage

Earlier today, I went to the farm again and cast on these as a new knit-along with my friends, Julie and Ann. I had to rip mine out because I didn't knitting the first couple of rounds tight enough. I plan to start over as soon as I post this.

While we were together, we took a picture of our last knit-along. Look familiar? That yarn is pretty popular this year, I guess.

Plain sock pattern, Wisdom Marathon North Pole yarn in Merry Merry

Well, that about wraps up my year. I'm off to cast on those socks and drink a toast to the new year. Here's to a happy and healthy 2012.

Blue and Emma say....

Happy New Year!

Dyeing for a party

2011-10-31T22:15:00.001-04:00

Yes, that has an 'e' in it. The weekend before last some of my knitting friends got together for a yarn dyeing party. With this group, that included good food, lots of laughs and some knitting thrown in. I didn't take any pictures at the party, but here's what I came home with.

First up, a pre-knit, two-strand sock blank that started out a cream/natural color. I dyed it using Easter egg dye (2 tablets each of orange, red and yellow). I mixed the dye in a Pyrex dish, put the damp blank into the dye all at once and microwaved it to heat set it. My original plan was to go back and add black stripes for some cool Halloween socks. But I love the orange so much, I can't bring myself to add the black, in case I screw it up.

Before and after

Next I had a couple of balls of Red Heart's Heart and Sole sock yarn, also in a cream/natural colorway. I was having trouble deciding what color to dye it, then Tina had some extra Jacquard Acid Dye in the Chestnut colorway mixed in a squirt bottle that she was just going to throw out.

Rather than let it go to waste, I put the damp yarn in the dish, squeezed the dye on one side, turned it over and squirted the other side. Then I added some water and poked it around with my (gloved) fingers. I added some extra in the places that looked light and nuked it to set the dye. It looked kind of purple while I was dyeing it, and it still has some purple shades to it.

I hadn't intended to make Cleveland Browns colors, it just kind of worked out that way.

And in keeping with all the stores, just in time for Halloween - CHRISTMAS! socks. A couple of my friends and I ordered this yarn and started the socks in February. Julie finished hers first, I'm second, and Ann's in the home stretch. We'll all wear them for our holiday gathering this year.

They just scream CHRISTMAS!, don't they?

I've made progress on a couple of my other sock projects.

Mystery Socks by Antje Gillingham

Spring Fern by Susan Lutsky - These are farther along now.

And finally, I bought a hank of merino/angora (rabbit) yarn at a fiber event this summer. Every time Max finds it in the sewing room, this happens.

"I think I'm in love"

Where to begin?

2011-10-15T21:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, I've been MIA for quite a while now, so I'm not really sure where to start. I guess I'll start with the house. You saw the new chimney mortar back in August. After that, the mason came back and built a step by the side door.

Now people won't feel like they're falling out of my house. I just hope the plow guy doesn't destroy it this winter. I'm thinking of getting some kind of pot or statue or something to put in front of it as a marker, but I have no idea what. Thoughts?

Then I got a new, non-leaking roof on the house, along with new gutters.

The last house thing was some painting.

Wrought iron railings on the front porch.

Garage doors and trim.

My friend Beth did most of the garage painting.I just did the trim around the side windows and the 2nd coat of trim on and around the doors.
At the beginning of September, I got ready for quilt camp. This crappy old pillowcase was the carrier for my sewing machine extension table for a loooong time. It also carried any long rulers I wanted to take to camp.

Sort of functional but not very interesting.

So before camp this time around, I dove into the stash and made this:

The outside is a home dec remnant, and the lining (not shown) was a piece of fabric from my neighbor's garage sale - fill a grocery bag for a buck. I had to buy the blue strapping. In hindsight, I should either have had a longer piece of strapping, and/or put the straps closer together. It's a little awkward to carry the way it is. But I wasn't about to take it back apart, since I use it maybe 3 times a year. The brown strip covers the seam in the strapping.

I made it big enough to hold my 18" x 24" cutting mat and 20-1/2" square ruler

While I was at quilt camp, I worked on a couple of quilt tops that I didn't take pictures of, as well as my Dear Jane.

BR-7

D-4

G-11

When I got back from camp, I took this stuff:

Comfy plush fabric, flannel and assorted ribbons and trims

and made three of these little tabbed baby blankets

Cute, isn't it?

Two of them have solid orange backs, but I had to piece one of them.

There has been knitting. Some of it is stealth knitting, but I don't have good pictures of any of it, yet, so more on that later.

The cats have been busy bird watching.

Some of them anyway. Max was napping.

More later....

Bag lady 2011

2011-09-04T21:35:00.011-04:00

Those of you who've been reading this for a while might have noticed that I occasionally become fixated on a certain kind of projects. There was the Dear Jane phase that started the blog, followed by the baby blanket phase of '08 , several beading jags, and the ever-present socks. The current obsession is bags. Again.

I got some free fabric at quilt camp in May, so I used a couple of pieces to make this little bag.

A larger version of the Straight Sided Triangular Cosmetic Bag

I adjusted the size to make the most of the cherry print fabric. If I make another one of these, I'll either put the handle on the other end of the zipper, or add another smaller loop on that side to make it easier to close. Here's the inside:

I was going for instant gratification, so no inside pockets

You might recall that I started assembling the outer panels of this bag at quilt camp in May. I finally finished it.

Charlottesville Courthouse Bag, by Jean Bailey of Wildcat Studio

The pattern isn't available online, but I can put you in contact with Jean, if you're interested. This puppy is BIG - 18" long, 13" tall and 8" deep, give or take a fraction. All of the fabrics are by Jinny Beyer, mostly her Rosewood Collection. You can't see them in the pictures, but it has 5/8" oak dowels for handles (Jean sells the finished handles, too) and metal feet that weren't called for on the pattern..

Inside there are a couple of small open pockets, also not in the pattern.

And a big zippered pocket, which is in the pattern.

The zipper pocket was easier than I expected. I used this technique, which is very clever, and less fiddly than the one in the actual pattern. I used a piece of foam core board in the bottom to give it a little structure without adding much weight. I really love this bag.

A couple of months ago, I spent several evenings and most of a Sunday afternooon cutting out and fusing this stack of pieces-parts.

Most of them became these.

Four standard and one large size Two Hour Tulip Purses

I love these bags, even though the name is a little deceiving. You can easily sew one together in two hours, but it takes at least that long to cut and fuse all the pieces.

Here are the insides:

Standard size red. I tried to get all the horizontal lines to match, but the fabric was kind of wonky.

Blue paisley - more Jinny Beyer fabric on the outside of these. Not sure about the lining.

The large size red bag has a patch pocket and a pleated one on the inside.

There's one more bag that isn't finished yet, but you'll see it eventually. I have a fairly large stack of fabric and several other bag patterns waiting for me. No, I don't know what I'll do with them when I'm done, but that's never stopped me from making things before. I can always give them away as gifts.

Of course, Emma supervised the construction.

"I'm pressing these pieces for you, Mama."

And Max tested the finished tote for me. This might give you a sense of the size of the bag, since he's a pretty average sized cat.

"ZZZZZZzzzzzzz........"

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

2011-08-05T20:52:00.007-04:00

Or, the latest chapter in Connie vs. Water.

In our last episode, we learned that the Evil Chimney Monster was shooting mortar onto the roof.

Notice the hole on the left side.

Mister Mason Man came to the rescue on Wednesday and put the Chimney Monster in it's place.

Take that, Chimney Monster!

Undeterred, Water retaliated on Thursday morning by installing a water feature in the tree lawn. Apparently there were several water main breaks in the area on Thursday. Weird.

Wow, my yard looks horrible.

A couple of hours later, Spike showed up and started attacking the street.

Die, three-year-old road, die!

An hour or so after that, there was a very large hole where the fountain used to be.

At one point, one of the guys was standing in the hole with the backhoe digging right next to him. Brave? Stupid? Both?

The men left a huge hole filled with gravel, which is still there, despite them telling me that they'd come and blacktop over it today. Hopefully early next week....

In other news, I've been doing some sewing lately. I veered away from my usual genre and made clothing this time. Behold the reversible wrap skirt.

First rule of modeling - don't look directly at the camera

I used the tutorials here and here to draft the pattern and sew it up. I scoffed when it said you needed 3-3.5 yards of fabric, but because of the shape of the pattern pieces, they really mean it. Because of that, instead of having 2 pieces on each side, I had to have 3. Live and learn. And if/when I make this again, I'm going to draft a new pattern - a little smaller and with a better curve to the waist. You use the waist curve to get the hem curve and my hem's a little wonky in the back.

A glimpse of the other side of the skirt

And a close-up of the hem.

Oooo.... beads!

No, I didn't string all of those little dangles by hand. I bought a big hank of beaded tape at the Sewing and Quilt Expo several years ago and finally found a use for it. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Many thanks to PrettyKnittyJewelry for playing photographer for me.

It's been pretty hot and humid here lately, but Max has been chillin':

"Thanks for the virtual fig leaf, Mama. I'm really very modest."

I do have more sewing and knitting to show off, but that's for another day.

How I spent my summer vacation

2011-07-30T19:43:00.005-04:00

I've been on vacation this past week and it's been a potentially expensive one. It started last Friday night when I, by chance, found a leak in the roof. I had a roofer come out to look at it, and there are some problems with it. There is hail and wind damage, plus a lot of "nail pops", where the nails are popping up out of the roof. Oh, and the chimney is leaking and has been shooting mortar onto the roof. While I'm replacing the roof, I figure I might as well get new gutters, which I've been thinking about doing for a while anyway. The only good news is that since part of the problem is storm damage, my homeowner's insurance might cover at least part of the $7k bill.

In addition to that, I had to have some minor air conditioning maintenance done and a couple of lights replaced on my car. Yippee.

However, it hasn't been all bad. My friends from opposite coasts were in town at the same time. We haven't all been together in 10 years, when we took this picture:

Wednesday, we went to the Akron Art Museum to see the Paula Nadelstern exhibit, then went out to dinner in Kent, where we took this picture.

We haven't changed a bit, right? :)

Yes, the second picture is missing one husband, who wasn't driving in till Friday and one teenager who was off doing other things. It was really nice to have (almost) everyone in the same place at the same time. We're talking about renting a house on the Oregon coast next summer. That would be very cool.

Since my last post, there's been food, made from the yummy CSA produce:

Blanched green beans with zucchini, yellow squash and grape tomatoes, in Ken's Light Northern Italian dressing.

A FOUR pound cabbage that became freezer slaw and regular coleslaw

Blueberry zucchini bread

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Katie had her baby shower. My friend Lisa and I made this for her:

Red, white and black because we don't know if it's girl bump or a boy bump

We put paw print fleece on the back.

Check out the awesome job Lisa did on the binding

We also made some matching burp cloths.

It's a diaper with fabric sewn down the middle

There has been other sewing and knitting, but this is long enough already. I'll leave you with this for now.

Blue likes yogurt

The shawl...

2011-07-04T09:51:00.007-04:00

You might remember that last year I made this shawl.

Splendid Triangle Shawl in black Lionbrand Homespun

It's big, simple and made out of yarn that I didn't particularly like knitting. It comes in beautiful colors, but it's kind of splitty and snaggy. If I didn't knit as tightly as I do, it would probably be fine.

Fast forward to May and this lovely swatch:

Madeline Tosh Merino Light, Tart colorway

I wouldn't have bothered swatching for a shawl, but I was adding beads that aren't in the pattern as written and I wanted to make sure I liked where I put them. I think it turned out pretty well.

When I finished and took it off the needles last weekend, it looked like this.

Where's the beads?

Since I took the time to put all those beads in, I want you to see them.

Here's the beads.

I gave it a nice cool bath, then put it on the rack.

I love whoever thought up blocking wires. So much easier than a blue million pins.

Again with the not seeing the beads. Here:

Better

After it dried, I took it out to lounge in the back yard.

"Aaahhhhhh.... this is nice"

Ready for it's close-up:

I'm pretty happy with it. Except for the two beads towards the bottom along the spine. They bugged me, so I took a hammer to them yesterday and they're gone. Ruthless, yes, but I'm much happier now.

Wendy's Summer Mystery Shawlette

Max tried to help with the blocking.

"I think I look lovely on this, Mama."

The end of June, already?

2011-06-27T08:53:00.005-04:00

How did that happen? I've been busy trying to get things done lately and haven't had time to blog. I probably have 3 entries' worth of stuff so you'll have that to look forward to.

This year I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) at That'll Do Farm [check out the farm blog -it's a good one]. One of my knitting buddies co-owns the farm with her step sister. Another friend of mine was in a different CSA the last couple of years, but it was kind of pricey and I was the only one who'd eat most of the stuff, so it didn't seem worth it. This year, though, I was able to get a half-share and support my favorite farmer to boot, so I jumped right in.

Friday was the first delivery:

Mmmmm.....

We got fresh eggs, a zucchini, onions, garlic scapes, lettuce, dill, little carrot-shaped chocolates and goat cheese from a local dairy [for those of you in the Cleveland area, I highly recommend the chevre strawberry rhubarb ice cream at Mitchell's, which is made with cheese from the same dairy]. I came home and used my zuke and onions to make zucchini boats. They were delicious.

Saturday was knitting at the farm (there will be a blog post on the farm blog at some point). We got to see the new crias, feed clover to the goats and let Joey the llama blow in our ears before we settled in to knit. Ahh... farm life. :) And to make the day even better, I scored some free yarn:

Some superwash wool yarn I've never heard of, that appears to be discontinued anyway

Apparently I'm not the only one who jumps in with both feet for a new hobby. Only this person kept the stash for 15 years or so and then decided to give it up. This is only half of the yarn in that color. There was also a bunch in navy blue. I assume she planned to make an afghan with it. Someone else took some purple tweed yarn. Four of us went home with a sweater's worth of yarn, and that just what was leftover after a bunch was given to charity.

In other news, I've made two sets of fingerless mitts since the last post. First up, for my new co-worker, Lin, who's been supplying me with Chinese candies and teas:

Fetching, in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

They're very soft, and I have enough yarn left to make a pair for me.

The second pair is for Lin's 16-year-old daughter, who had some pretty serious surgery last week and needed something bright.

Chunky Cabled Fingerless Mitts, in Bernat Softee Chunky, Tangerine Twists

They were quick, definitely bright and she likes them

Now for something completely different. I found these at the grocery store last week. This is what happens when you leave a bagel and a soft pretzel alone together. :)

YUM!!

I usually have a cat picture in my posts, but since I was at the farm this weekend you get this instead.

Funny Face, new alpaca mama

Quilt Camp 2011 - take two

2011-05-29T14:50:00.004-04:00

If it's May, I must have gone to quilt camp. Which I did, last weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love quilt camp? I love quilt camp. A whole weekend of uninterrupted sewing time - heaven!

Of course, quilt camp doesn't negate the fact that I'm an idiot. I remembered my clothes, my towels, my bedding and my sewing machine. I forgot my main project bag. I spent an evening packing it, then left it sitting on my sewing room table. Grrr....

However, a couple of the"regulars" were supposed to come down Saturday morning, so I called one of them to beg her to go to my house and get it for me. Thank goodness I'm a long-term idiot and installed a locked key box on the house. I gave her the code and she picked up my bag Friday night. She brought it down Saturday morning, but she didn't stay. That's right, she was sick and instead of telling me "I'm sick and not coming down" on Friday, as she could have done, she delivered my bag to me and went back home. I had no idea she was sick or I wouldn't have even called her. Anyway, thanks to Margaret, I have some things to show you.

I did take an extra project bag with me, so on Friday night, I was able to put this together.

It was a pre-pieced panel that I got on clearance at JoAnn Fabrics last year. I just sewed it to a piece of fleece, turned it right side out and stitched around it along the outside row of blocks.

After that, I was out of sewing projects, so I played with yarn and beads. You might recall that I started a mystery shawl KAL (knit-along) last month. I never got past the first clue, and after watching the posts on Ravelry about it, I decided it wasn't for me. So I frogged it and started a new mystery shawl KAL. I knew I wanted to add beads to my shawl, so I took all the potential beads with me, along with the yarn, and strung all the different beads on the yarn to see how they would look. When I had chosen some, I knit up a little swatch of the first clue with the beads where I wanted them.

Wendy D. Johnson's Summer Mystery Shawlette in Madeline Tosh Merino Light in the Tart colorway.

That's actually one repeat of clues 1 and 2. I like the way swatch came out, so I started knitting the actual shawl. I got 4 rows in (plus the 3 setup rows) and decided I didn't like the way I'd done my double decreases in the center. I tried to just drop the offending stitches and fix them, but that didn't work well at all. So I ripped it all out and started over. I'm almost done with the first clue, which ends with first row that only has one bead in it. I want to at least finish that before I post pictures, though. The beads add just a bit of sparkle to the edge without standing out too much.

Anyway, back to quilt camp. Saturday morning, after I got my stuff, I put together a few blocks for my guild's community service group. Then I put this quilt top together.

The blocks were community service kits that I'd made a year or so ago and finally got around to putting together. I'll most likely return the top to the committee to get completed.

Once that was done, I spent the rest of the weekend putting these together.

Fabrics from the Jinny Beyer Rosewood collection

That's a front and side panel of a bag I was kind of hoping to finish. I got the pattern last February and have taken it to quilt camp a few times but never got around to working on it. I did all four pieces - the back and the other side panels look just like these. They take a long time to put together because you have to sew all those lines each time you add a piece, quilting as you go. I also quilted the handle pieces (4 of them). Now I just have to trim these to size, get the bottom finished, put zipper pockets in the lining, and put it all together. Piece of cake, right?

All in all, it was a pretty good quilt camp. When I got home, Max was happy to see me.

"Top of the world, Mama!"

Yes, he's on top of the entertainment center. No, I didn't put him up there.

Once he got down from there, he and Blue camped out on the couch with me.

"We're glad Mama's home."

Hey, for any of you in the Akron area, we went to see the M.C. Escher exhibit at the Akron Art Museum yesterday. It was fabulous! This was supposed to be the last weekend for it, but they extended it for another week. I highly recommend checking it out, his work is truly amazing. I'll have to dig up the picture of the Escher lizard quilt my friends and I made for a baby in the group for next time.

Knitting time!

Projects

2011-05-08T21:58:00.006-04:00

As I might have mentioned in the last post, I went to a knitting retreat last weekend. :) A 9-hour trip (each way) and two whole days of knitting. Heaven! I've shared the goodies I brought back with me, now I'll tell you about the knitting I did.

On the way down, I spent a few hours working on these:

Spring Fern Socks in Knit Picks Stroll Tonal, Springtime

I posted a picture of these on Facebook and got some interesting comments. One friend said it looked like the socks have piercings, and another friend's boyfriend thought they were a bikini top.

When we got to Blowing Rock, we checked into the hotel, then went to dinner at the Six Pence Pub. The food was good, and we each got a free glass of champagne in honor of the Royal Wedding. We went back to the hotel and got our goodie bags and I worked on homework for one of my classes.

Saturday morning I took a Beads and Cables class with Antje Gillingham. She wrote the books I use for knitting two socks at a time on two circular needles, so I was very excited to take the class. I'm sorry to say that the class project is already frogged. It was a headband, and I don't really wear headbands, but mostly the yarn I got in class wasn't speaking to me. I took a picture of it before I ripped it out.

See what I mean? Who put these colors together?

Colorblind yarn designers aside, I enjoyed the class. I learned a new provisional cast-on that is a lot easier than trying to knit into the bump on the back of a crochet chain. I also just really liked Antje. She was a lot of fun.

She signed my books for me

She also designed the mystery socks I've been working on, so I took them with me for show and tell. I only had the beads and cables part done with I got there, but I since I got back, I added the first repeat of the latest clue.

Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Golden Glow

After a delicious lunch, I had an entrelac class with Miss Babs and started this little hat for a friend who has a baby due in September. I worked on it on the trip home and finished it Thursday. Can you tell my friend's DH is an Ohio State fan?

Simplified Ashlar Cap in Miss Babs sport wt, Sandi's Red and Luna Granite

Sunday morning's class was Fair Isle with Nancy Shroyer. I was a little nervous about this one, because it required holding one yarn in my right hand as usual, and another yarn in my left hand. I had tried holding my yarn in my left hand before and failed miserably. This time, it worked!! I started this headband, which I finished on Tuesday. I'm still not much of a headband wearer, but this one I decided to keep, even if I don't wear it.

Pattern by Nancy Shroyer, Mission Falls DK superwash yarn

When I wasn't working on class projects, and when my brain needed some rest, I worked on my CHRISTMAS! socks.

They scream Christmas, don't they?

In keeping with my lucky streak this year, I won the Pamper Me basket at work on Friday! This is just a sampling of what was in it.

Wow!

There were also two more pairs of flip-flops, four washcloths, more Mary Kay products, a book, a bamboo beach mat, and probably some other things I've forgotten. I shared the spoils with my coworkers and gave the Satin Hands kit to my mom for Mother's Day.

Friday evening I did some shopping after work. While I was in the store there was a torrential downpour, so bad I couldn't see the cars in the parking lot. When I got out to my car, I found this:

Yep, hail

Emma says:

"I'm glad I was safe inside. Princesses don't like water."

Thanks, I needed that

2011-05-04T21:26:00.005-04:00

The weather here has been really crappy lately. Lots of gray, rainy weather. I had water from the storm sewer back up into my basement (nothing damaged), and a week ago we had 67 mph wind gusts overnight. I swear I thought either my roof was going to blow off, or the tree in my back yard was going to come through it. Neither happened, thankfully.

So Friday morning, three of us hopped in my friend's car and drove here:

The Meadowbrook Inn, Blowing Rock, NC

As you can see the weather was MUCH better there.

No gray skies or rain here

And there were lots of ducks - none of which were swimming in my basement.

We went there for the Unwind Getaway and had a great time! We each took a three classes, which I'll get to next time. This post is all about the loot.

Everyone got a goodie bag on Friday when we checked in.

Yarn, patterns, Addi circular needle, coupons and a mug from a local potter

Everyone got a door prize, and I got an extra one for being one of the newest knitters.

More yarn and a Port-A-Pocket bag

A long-distance member of our knitting group lives in NC, so she and a friend of hers drove over on Sunday afternoon for some shopping and dinner. There were yarn, pattern and tool purchases, both from the teachers at the getaway (Miss Babs, Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, Fairie Knits, Nancy's Knit Knacks and Antje Gillingham) and the local yarn shop.

There might be another sweater's worth on the way from Kitchen Sink Dyeworks

Boy, I have a lot of knitting to do....

We also supported the local non-fiber-y businesses.

Traditions Pottery, local preserves, and a pair of earrings

Here's a closer look at the earrings. I got them at a local gallery and we all thought they kind of looked liked knitting needles and yarn, in an abstract kind of way. :)

I LOVE these!

When we weren't in class, shopping or eating, we were knitting and listening to programs about knitting. There was also a fashion show on Sunday night. Did I mention we had a great time? You might be able to tell from this:

Photo shamelessly stolen from C since I didn't take any

We drove home Monday, back to cold, rainy weather. On the plus side, the yarn I won last month was waiting for me when I got home.

Miss Babs sport weight in Luna Granite colorway

Also waiting for me? Some of my favorite furry people [this is an old picture - I was too lazy to take a new one].

"Miss Ali took excellent care of us while you were gone, Mama!"

Next time, class details and other knitting progress.

Progress

2011-04-25T20:52:00.004-04:00

You know what's great? Hiring someone to clean your house. Not only do you not have to actually vacuum, mop or dust, but you also have a really good reason to de-clutter your house. I've been an organizing demon. I bought new shelves for the basement, cleaned off the workbench and organized all the stuff that used to be on it. The cleaning lady isn't going to clean the basement, but it freed up space for other stuff. I cleaned out my bathroom cabinets, and got rid of a bunch of stuff. I cleaned out both of the desks in my computer room and moved some stuff that didn't need to be in there to the basement shelves. I still have some work to do in the closet and put in some shelves to store my quilts, but I've made a lot of progress. It's very refreshing.

When I haven't been shuffling stuff around my house, I've been knitting. I'm caught up on my Mystery Socks:

KnitPicks Stroll Tonal yarn in Golden Glow

I forgot to cross a cable above the last bead and didn't notice it till I'd already done the next cable round and the increase round. I had to drop those stitches down 8 or so rows, cross the cable, add the bead, cross another cable and re-do the increase on them. It was a very scary prospect, let me tell you. BUT, I did it and I can't remember which cable column I had to fix. Success!

I started another KAL (Knit ALong), but I'm behind on that one already. Here's Clue #1.

Madeline Tosh Merino Light, Tart colorway

The pattern is based on the movie Roxanne, but whenever I hear that name, all I think about is Eddie Murphy singing the Police song at the beginning of 48 Hours. It was kind of a problem when I had a sister-in-law named Roxanne.... Anyway, I finished Clue #1 on the start date, and haven't touched it since. Clue #2 came out last Thursday, but I'm still trying to decide if I want to modify Clue #1 like a friend of mine did. I can't decide. I need to look at it closely. I know I did my pfb (purl front and back) stitches wrong, thanks to an online video. If I go back and modify it, I might be able to avoid those crazy stitches. Decisions, decisions.

I finally got back to my Spring Fern Socks and got a few pattern repeats done.

KnitPicks Stroll Tonal in Springtime

I've done more on my Christmas socks, too, but I don't have any pictures of them. I kind of think I made them too wide but I really don't want to rip out 1.5 inches on two socks to narrow them down by 4 stitches. They fit, but they aren't very snug. I might put in a decrease when I get past the widest part of my foot, but we'll see.

I got the scarf from my bookmark scarf exchange partner.

All folded up

Cable/lace detail.

I was a little worried when I got it, because while the knitter said it was wool/nylon yarn, it feels like cotton to me (and everyone else who's touched it). It was kind of scrunched when I got, but I soaked it really well and laid it out flat to dry. It blocked better than I expected.

One day last weekend when I got in the shower, I tossed my socks down the laundry chute, like I always do. One of them apparently missed the bin at the bottom and I had the basement door open. When I got out of the bathroom, this was waiting for me outside the door.

That would be a crumpled hand knit sock, retrieved from the basement by my faithful "puppy cat," Blue. He's so sweet. Strange, but sweet.

The middle furry children aren't impressed.

"We don't fetch like dogs. Stupid 'kitten'!"

I really should play the lottery

2011-04-12T22:49:00.005-04:00

This must be my lucky year. So far, I've won some $$ in two of the three Super Bowl pools I joined, opening night tickets for Shrek, the Musical from NewsNet5.com and now, a shawl kit from Yarn on the House. The kit is Liz Abinate's Luna's Shawl pattern (named after Luna Lovegood, of course), and enough Miss Babs yarn to make it in the lovely grey Luna Granite colorway. How cool is that??

Of course, my NCAA brackets tanked, but you can't win 'em all.

Oh, and if you're a fan of the show Bones, check out more of Liz's patterns. She has sock patterns called Temperance and Ms. Wick, a Saroyan shawl and a whole collection of Traveling Woman patterns, inspired by Angela Montenegro.

The cats are thrilled.

"Just let us know when you're done with the shawl so we can test it out."

Done and done

2011-04-10T22:13:00.008-04:00

So, I finished a couple of things.

I joined a bookmark scarf exchange back in December. The idea is you pick a bookmark pattern that was meant for very thin yarn and tiny needles, and knit it with thicker yarn on bigger needles. I chose the Triple Chevron Bookmark pattern and knit it with a worsted weight cotton/acrylic blend yarn on size 10-1/2 needles. I used the cotton blend yarn because my swap partner lives in Georgia. I kept repeating the pattern till I ran out of yarn on one skein, then did the same thing with a second skein of yarn. When that was done, I grafted the two together to get this:

And folded up:

I sent it off last week, so I can post it now.

I also finally finished my purple socks:

Plain vanilla sock, eye of partridge heel, Koigu KPPM yarn

I was worried that I was going to run out of yarn, but didn't, thankfully. Now I just have to remember that these socks are NOT machine washable.

And since I finished one pair of socks, of course I started another one (because I really need to have 4 pairs of socks on needles at once.)

This is a mystery sock knit along, by Antje Gillingham. It has cables and beads (so far). It will have another 2 two repeats of those last 4 rows - one cable row and a row of beads, with a row of ribbing after each. After that, it's a mystery. :) I'm liking them so far, though.

And this is what happens at my house when you leave your laptop open.

"This thing is warm, Mama!"

In case you're wondering, a cat on a keyboard can press enough keys to keep the bell going for about 5 minutes after he gets shooed off. Ask me how I know.

North Coast Needlers Quilt Show

2011-04-04T20:23:00.004-04:00

My guild's bi-annual quilt show was this past weekend. I forgot to bring my camera so I was left with my cell phone. And I didn't get many pictures with that. I did get a picture of my Big Blue quilt.

Or most of it, anyway.

I also entered my Christmas tree skirt.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual quilt show floor (bad blogger!), but I did get pictures of the challenge quilts. The theme of the challenge was "A River Runs Through It". The challenge quilts had to be the same size and use a common fabric as a river. The only other requirement was that the river had to touch both sides of the quilt and be 3" long. This way, they could be hung side by side, with the river edges touching, making a river run through the display. It looked awesome.

The cherry blossoms in the center panel are tiny yo-yo's with pink pearls in the centers.

I didn't make one, but they looked fantastic all put together like that. There was talk about displaying it in other places, at some point. If that happens, I'll post it here.

This was the view on my odometer when I got to work one day last week.

Six years and 106,000 miles. Still going strong.

When I cleaned up my sewing room a few weeks ago, I forgot to share this picture of my helper.

"That light bulb is warm, Mama."

And in other news, the cats still like the new tree.

They climb up the carpeted pole to get to the top.

Next time I'll share my latest finished projects and the new one I'm about to start.

Happy Spring!

2011-03-21T19:50:00.006-04:00

On Saturday, my furnace decided to stop working. A few hundred dollars and a new gas valve later, it's working again. At least I didn't have to replace the whole thing. I'm sure that's not too far in the future, though. In the meantime, Emma had to go to extreme measures to keep warm for a few hours.

"I'll suffer this, because he's warm."

After that excitement, I had the urge to dye some yarn. No, the two things really have nothing to do with each other. I dug some yarn out of my stash, along with the Easter egg dyes and went to work. The first attempt was a giant FAIL. It was acrylic yarn and wouldn't take any dye.

Notice the little pieces in front are the same color as the "finished" product.

The second try was more successful.

That's not the exact yarn I started with on the right, but it's about the same color.

I mixed a whole bunch of egg dye colors, originally going for brown. I didn't like the result, so I grabbed some Kool-Aid out of the cupboard and added it in to try for something more red. Some of the yarn didn't get the Kool-Aid and stayed the brownish of the original. This picture shows the variation in the colors. I think I like it, but I'm still deciding.

What do you think?

I've been working on a stealth project for a swap on Ravelry, but since I haven't sent it, I'm not going to post it just yet.

I can post a picture of the Koigu socks I've been working on, though.

The legs are a bit longer than normal. Hope I don't run out of yarn.

They're almost done. I'm hoping to finish them by the end of the month, when I plan to start a new pair of mystery socks for a knit-along. Then there will be a shawl knit along starting April 15.

Since yesterday was the first day of spring, some of us got together to start new spring projects. The only guideline was that the pattern should have "spring" in the name. Mine doesn't look like much, because I initially had issues reading the pattern and had to tink back a bit. I have to do an inch of this ribbing before I start the main pattern.

Spring Fern Socks in KnitPicks Stroll sock yarn, in the Springtime Tonal colorway.

I got the kitties a present today.

"Hey Max, come check this out!"

I'd been thinking of getting something like this for a while, and this one was on sale at PetsMart. I think they like it.

"Mmmm, comfy. Thanks, Mama!"

A long, strange weekend.

2011-02-28T21:14:00.009-05:00

If you don't live in northeast Ohio, you might not know just how weird our weather has been the last couple of weeks. The week before last, it was close to 50 degrees most of the week. Then we got a winter storm that Sunday night. This past Friday, I had a foot-high snowdrift in my driveway. I opted to work from home instead of driving in to work. This was the view from my lap most of the day:

"Thanks for keeping my lap here today, Mama."

Last night, we had massive thunderstorms and I woke up to a soggy basement. Not cool. I burned a personal day to mop and set up fans to dry stuff out. It's mostly dry now and nothing was damaged. I learned several years ago to put anything in the basement on plastic shelves and/or in plastic bins.

But the weekend wasn't all bad. On Friday I got a call from a local TV station saying I'd won 4 tickets to opening night of Shrek the Musical at Playhouse Square! They had a Shrek trivia contest last week and I mostly entered for the fun of taking the quiz. It was a very nice surprise to win, though.

I signed up last week for my first ever knitting retreat. A couple of my friends from my Thursday night knitting group said they were going and the woman who wrote one of my favorite sock books is teaching there. It sounded like a lot of fun, so I decided to go for it. As it stands now, I'll probably be rooming with someone I don't know, but that's okay. I usually don't spend a lot of time in the room when I go to crafting retreats anyway.

I'm using that book to knit my Christmas socks. I think I'm done with the increases and will start the foot next. They are only about a row or two off of being identical. Pretty good for me, since the first two pairs of self-patterning/striping socks were definitely fraternal twins.

Women's Basic Toe-up Socks, in shiny Christmas yarn

On Saturday, I cleaned up the snow that my plow guy left in my driveway (not very happy about that, but at least it wasn't the whole driveway), then I went to the farm to knit. I did enough rounds to finish the next pattern repeat on these:

Sinuosity sock pattern, Destination Yarn in Sea colorway

These have been snoozing for quite a while and I'm happy to be working on them again. I think I'm doing better with the cables now than a year ago when I started them.

On Sunday, I spent a lot of time in my sewing room, but don't have anything to show for it, except a cleaner sewing room. I cleaned stuff out, and reorganized what I have in there. I had lots of help, of course.

Emma, you're snoozing with "kittens"

"Mama, I think I feel a pea under here"

Today, after I mopped the basement and took a nap to make up for the sleep I missed due to the thunderstorms, I stitched out the label for Big Blue. I had typed it up in my embroidery software Saturday night.

Yeah, it was well-aged fabric....

Now I just have to finish stitching it down and get the binding finished before my guild's quilt show at the beginning of April.

In other news, Blue likes to put his favorite toys in his bed.

Yes, two of his favorite toys are pink fuzzy things, what of it?
And yes, I think I need to wash that bed cover again.

Talk to the hand

2011-02-22T20:22:00.010-05:00

I FINALLY finished my socks-turned-mitts!

That's the Karira sock pattern done with Destination Yarn in the Tuscany, Italy colorway. I posted my mods to convert the pattern from sock to mitts here (Ravelry link). I got this cool hand mannequin (handequin?) at the craft store to help show off my mitt. Without "Thing", you'd just get pictures like this:

Backs

Palms

They look better on Thing, don't they? And this shows how far I had done as a sock, and how much I had to rip back.

It was painful to rip it all back but I'm much happier with them as mitts than I was with them as socks. This way I can see all the work I did on them. And as a bonus, I have enough yarn to make a pair of (probably short) socks with contrasting heels and toes. Yay!

After I finished the mitts, I started some new socks (sorry for the crappy picture):

Toe up, two at a time, on two circular needles with sparkly Christmas yarn

It's a self-patterning yarn in red, white and green with a gold metallic strand running through it. I'm hoping they'll be nearly identical when they're done. It'll be fun to see how that goes.

I've been having lots of fun with the kitties lately. Did you know cats can have high blood pressure? They can, and Ripley does.

Look at that tiny little BP cuff!
"Mama, I can't believe you're going to post this picture."

She's on blood pressure medicine and it seems to be working. I had to get the prescription filled at my local CVS. They asked if I had insurance for it, and they didn't even look at me funny when I told them it was for my cat. Makes me wonder how often that happens.

Over the weekend, I was trying to do the hand stitching on Big Blue. The crabby girls had a different idea.

"This is pretty comfy. We approve."

I had to change the water in my aquarium, too. I left the linen cabinet door open so I could grab more towels when I needed them.

"Max was right, it's cozy in here!"

Quilt Camp, special edition

2011-02-13T19:22:00.005-05:00

Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while know that I usually go to the NEORQC Getaway in February. Unfortunately, this year the Getaway was canceled, so we went to quilt camp instead.

The trip started with some shopping:

My friend Beth and I stopped at the Fabric Peddler quilt shop in Wadsworth on the way to camp. If you recall, I've had a skunk in my yard for the last couple of years. So when I saw a sample bag made with skunk fabric, I had to have it. The bag wasn't for sale, so I had to buy the pattern and fabric. The other fabrics just jumped in my bag. I have no idea how that happened.

We stayed in a different building than we're usually in. The sleeping rooms are a little smaller, but bonus of this building is that we didn't have to go outside for meals. When it's February in Ohio, that is a very big bonus.

I love quilt camp. Three days of sewing with my friends:

Another view:

Note overflowing snack table

Friday night I put the binding on.....

Big Blue!!

I got it back from the quilter on Tuesday and I achieved my goal of getting the binding on the front of the quilt this weekend. As a bonus I was able to sleep under it. I just have to make a label and get the binding stitched to the back before the quilt show in April.

The rest of the weekend I spend working on these little beauties:

The pink and black one on the left isn't done. I have to applique the pieces in the center and corners. The one next to it has 49 pieces in it. I sewed a total of 181 pieces on my Dear Jane blocks this weekend. I was a very productive, if I do say so myself.

Before I left, I had some help with my packing.

"I'll hold this down for you, Mama!"

The thrill of victory....

2011-01-17T20:22:00.004-05:00

It's taken me 17 days, and it's about a month later than I needed it, but I finally finished something this year.

And a close-up:

This Christmas tree skirt has been sewn and basted, waiting to be quilted for at least 2 years. Probably more like 3 or 4. Want to know how long it took me to quilt it? About 4 hours, plus another couple of hours to bind it. I'm pretty sure I could have found 6 hours in 3 or 4 years to finish it. No, I don't have an explanation for it, either. Oh well, it's done now.

I had lots of help while I was quilting it.

"Mama, stop moving my quilt around!"

"And if you don't stop, I'll get you with my laser eyes!"

...and the agony of defeat.

As you know, I've been waffling about the Karira socks. I thought I'd finish them and see if they fit me. If they didn't fit me, I was going to see if they fit someone else and if that didn't work out I was going to get some nice sock blockers and hang them on the wall.

But then I was working on them last night and I decided I just couldn't finish them if I wasn't going to be able to wear them. So I took them off the needles, soaked them and put them on sock blockers to dry. I tried them on and have decided that they are just not going to work as socks. The yarn is too pretty to just hang on the wall, so I'm thinking that I'll rip them back to before the linen stitch heels (that took forever to knit) and make fingerless mitts out of them.

I think they'll look pretty good as mitts

I haven't had the nerve to actually rip them back yet. Maybe later this week.

This doesn't have anything to do with anything, but have you ever cut into a pepper and found a little one inside?

Pretty cool, huh?

And in cat news there's been quite a bit of male bonding and brotherly love going on here.

"This is a pretty cool basket Mama left out for us"

Hanging out on the chair

"I love you, little brother"

Got Egg Nog?

2011-01-02T21:49:00.005-05:00

Christmas is over and you might have a bit of leftover egg nog in your fridge. If you've had your fill of drinking it, you could use the leftovers for cookies.

You can find the recipe here. I opted to not use the icing, but added 1 cup of Craisins to the dough. They're nice and soft, and the egg nog isn't overwhelming, so if you're not really a fan of it, don't worry.

In keeping with the food theme, I made a pot of chicken soup the other day from leftover chicken and broth that was in the freezer.

No shortage of chicken here, folks.

I promised to share the knitting in this post, so I'll start with the finished objects, since they're more interesting.

First up, my Noro striped scarf. This is not new to anyone who reads knitting blogs, but I really enjoyed making it. I used two different colorways of Noro Silk Garden yarn and followed the instructions here.

I only cast on 31 stitches, since I prefer a narrower scarf, and I only used one skein of one color, and a little more than a skein of the second color so it's not terribly long. But I'm not one of those double-it-up-and-pull-it-through people, so it's fine.

The next two were made from kits I got at Studio Knit in Medina, OH.

Adorable little Santa hat - needs stuffing or something, I think

Isn't this the cutest thing EVER?

They were pretty quick knits. The hat I started and finished in one evening. The snowman took a little longer, since it was more involved. I did the accessories one evening and the body another. I liked these so much I bought some yarn to make more of them.

I'm still slogging away on the Karira socks.

They're a little farther along than this now.

They are taking forever. Probably because they are linen stitch and charted lace that I can't really memorize. And I've been knitting those other projects and sewing a couple dozen fiddly grocery bags.

Plus, my heart isn't really in them anymore. Once I got the heel turned, I tried them on and I could barely get them over my ankles. One of my friends is a designer and she said her latest pattern was pretty tight as she was knitting it, but it stretched a bit when she washed and blocked them. I have hope that I'll actually be able to wear these when I'm done. If not, I'll either find someone very sock-worthy to give them to, or get some pretty sock blockers and hang them on the wall as art. The yarn is gorgeous and they're my first lace socks. I can't bring myself to rip them back and I would never start them over, at least not as written. If I did, I'd do 1x1 ribbing on the back panel, I think. I like the way the linen stitch looks (it's on the back of the heel), but I'm not a fan of knitting it.

I also started a new project.

Warm Thoughts from Decorator Throws to Knit

This is knitting up a lot faster than the socks, and I like how it's striping. The yarn I'm using comes in 50g balls, and I'm holding it double, so it's been entertaining trying to keep the pattern repeats more or less together. I have lots of little bits and balls of various colors lying around. I'll probably make cat toys with them later. My only concern is that it isn't superwash wool, so I'm going to have to be very careful when I wash it.

I've been on vacation the last two weeks, so Emma has spent quite a bit of time on my lap. In fact, she's here now. Who cares if there's a laptop there, she just squeezes her way in. The other day, I was laying on the couch and she was using me as a kitty bed. This doesn't look comfortable at all, but it must have been, since she stayed that way for quite a while.

"Yes, my head and back feet are going different directions. What of it?"

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone! A lot of my friends had a pretty rough 2010, and I'm hoping that 2011 is kinder to them.

Update Number One

2010-12-28T17:52:00.005-05:00

Okay, I have about 6 weeks of stuff to catch up on, right? I'm going to start with the non-knitted stuff today, and I'll do the knitted stuff next time.

In the sewing department, it's mostly been about the grocery bags. You might remember that I cut out a boatload of them a while back. Well, I finished the first batch of them, but was a bad blogger and didn't take a picture of them. I gave most of them away to my family at Thanksgiving.

Then I made some more and did get a picture.

Aaaannnnnd a bunch more....

Some of these were done and have been pictured before.

I gave nearly all of these away to friends and John's family for Christmas. I'm definitely taking a break from making grocery bags for a while. I got a bunch more fabric out of my stash, though.

Sometime just after Thanksgiving, I got an unexpected package from St. Martin's Press with this inside.

That would an advance copy of Jonathan Maberry's latest Joe Ledger novel! It doesn't come out till March, but I have a copy now. I read the first two Joe Ledger books (Patient Zero and The Dragon Factory) and really enjoyed them. I went to the website and put my name on a list for a chance to get the book early, and they picked me! I currently have a couple of library books to finish (one of which is overdue), but then I'm looking forward to checking this one out. Thanks, St. Martin's Press!

Earlier this year, I joined a group that meets every Thursday night to knit. I LOVE this group. They are funny, inspirational and occasionally a bad influence on me. I have purchased a lot of yarn this year from and and because of them. But you should see the great stash I have! :) The second weekend of December, we had a Christmas party, with tons of good food and prezzies! Each of us brought food and enough stocking stuffers for everyone else. After we stuffed ourselves with the food, we opened our stockings. This was my contribution:

Tissue holders made with fabric that looks like knitting

We got some really excellent stuff! I didn't take any pictures, but Pam and Andrea both blogged about it. My foot is the one in the solid green sock in the pictures on Pam's blog. It was loads of fun. We had a pajama/Festivus party the night before Christmas Eve, with a Festivus Pole and Airing of Grievances. We skipped the Feats of Strength, but it was a good time. What a great group of people. I haven't known them long, but I love them to pieces.

Santa was very good to me. In keeping with the bag theme I've had going lately, I got some great bags for presents.

First, John gave me this:

A Namaste Newport bag in Hollywood Pink. The little knitted bag was one of my stocking stuffers. It matches well, doesn't it?

Then my friend S. in Massachusetts sent me this one, also pink:

Isn't this great? It's made from a chicken feed bag. S. and her family raise chickens, so I'm sure there's no shortage of these bags at their house. It will be perfect for carrying around my latest project, which I'll show you next time. I'm going to show it to Andrea. It might be something she could sell at the farm once they open the shop.

Yesterday I got together with some other friends for craft day and more food. Two of us knit while the third one sewed. She gave me this.

A little pouch with this inside:

The storage pouch clips to a D-ring inside the bag

How cool is that? J. and S. are going to trade each other for their bags, since S. is part of this group, but now lives in a different state. I've known these friends a lot longer than my new knitting friends, but I love them to pieces, too!

In other news, I was on vacation all of last week and this week. Today I'm catching up on all the Christmas DVDs I didn't get to watch before Christmas. It's going to be really hard going back to work on Tuesday.

The cats have enjoyed my being home during the day, too.

"We love the heated kitty bed."

Next time: Knitting!

Merry Christmas Eve!

2010-12-24T08:54:00.003-05:00

I did some baking yesterday.

M&M pretzels and sweet potato rolls.

That and a pan of fudge are the extent of my holiday baking this year. If I make it, I'll eat it, and I don't want to gain back the 10 pounds I've lost since last month.

I thought I'd share the goodness with you, though.

The pretzels are super easy. Line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper. That part is optional, but you'll thank me later. Lay out as many pretzels (I use Snyder's Snaps) as you can possibly get in there in a single layer. Place a candy melt (I used Wilton's white/vanilla, but you can use any color/flavor you like) on each pretzel. Bake at 250 degrees F for 8-10 minutes or until they are are shiny and soft the middle, but not completely melted goo. Take them out and put an M&M in the center. Let cool completely. Using the parchment helps make them faster, because you can slide one sheet off and immediately fill up the pan again. What you see in the picture is most of a 1-pound bag of pretzels, all of two 14-oz bags of candy melts and most of a bag of holiday milk chocolate M&Ms. I think the color contrast is very festive and they're very tasty. You could use dark chocolate or mint M&Ms, too.

The rolls are blatantly stolen from the 2001 Taste of Home's Quick Cooking Annual Recipes cookbook, page 172. The difference is that my bread machine bakes lousy bread, so I just use it for making dough. Here's the recipe:

Sweet Potato Bread
Recipe from Christi Ross, Mill Creek OK

1/2 c. plus 2 Tbsp warm milk (70-80 degrees)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1-1/2 tsp salt
4-1/2 Tbsp softened butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 c. chopped canned sweet potatoes, drained
1/3 c. mini marshamallows
3 c. bread flour
2-1/4 tsp active dry yeast [equiv to 1 pkg]

In bread machine pan, place all ingredients in order suggested by the manufacturer . Select basic bread setting. Choose crust color and loaf size, if available. Bake according to bread machine directions (check dough after 5 minutes of mixing; add 1-2 Tbsp of water or flour if needed). Yield: 1 loaf (about 1-1/2 pounds).

My notes/mods: I soak the uncracked egg in hot water for a few minutes to warm it up. I don't chop the sweet potatoes, I mash them into the measuring cup with a fork. Then I measure the milk into a glass measuring cup, add the butter and sweet potatoes and microwave for about a minute to warm everything up before adding it to the machine. My dough always comes out a bit sticky so I skip the extra 2 Tbsp of milk and sometimes still need to add a bit more flour; your mileage may vary.

I make the dough in the machine, then knead small handfuls of dough into roll shapes and place them on a greased cookie sheet. Cover them with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray, and let rise in a warm place for 40-45 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes or browned as you like them. I have small hands, so I get 18-24 rolls. It's not an exact measurement.

I don't have to go back to work till January but I decorated my monitor at work, anyway.

USB LED lights, from Big Lots -$4

I've been busy this week running errands, shopping, wrapping, baking, cleaning, sewing, and etc. It hasn't felt like much of a vaction yet.

I haven't done much decorating but...

"Mama loves me - she put up a tree in the living room for me to climb!"

More about my activities since mid-November later. I have to get back to my sewing room. Have a safe and Merry Christmas, everyone!

Still here

2010-11-12T19:48:00.005-05:00

It's true I haven't been feeling the blogging mojo lately. I have been working on things, though.

I finally started the heels on my Karira socks:

I have about an inch of linen stitch done and have at least another inch to go. I knit linen stitch very slowly.

I finished one scarf and a matching hat that will go to my Secret Santa kid, but I haven't taken a picture yet. Since I finished one scarf, I started another one:

Noro Striped Scarf by Jared Flood

I'm using Noro Silk Garden yarn in colorways #284 and 268. It's 1x1 rib on an odd number of stitches, alternating the two colorways every 2 rows. Since the yarns are self-striping you get the cool fading effect. The color changes keep it interesting. I'm making mine narrower than Jared's - 31 stitches instead of 39.

I also finally got around to working on some more grocery bags. I'm taking them to my uncle's for Thanksgiving, so I have to get busy. These are almost done.

They just need the 2 bottom seams and the handles sewn together at the top. I might have cut out a few more:

There are still 7 of them under the sewing table waiting to be sewn up, and I want to cut out at least one more, but I have to dig out lining fabric for it. I'm still pulling fabric out of my stash for these. You really don't want to see my fabric closet.

I don't have to have these *all* done by Turkey day, but I wanted to get a few more "manly" colors/prints sewn up, in case my male cousin wants some. I'm taking the last two weeks of the year off, so I'll have time to finish up the rest of them by Christmas. Of course if there aren't (m)any takers over the holidays, I'm going to have these things coming out my ears.

Emma's been busy, too.

"Sitting on this scrunchie, keeping your seat warm for you, Mama!"

Ugh

2010-10-16T19:21:00.006-04:00

I have a cold. I've *had* a cold for the last week. I hate colds. I took Monday off from work, but I ended up working from home part of the day since they were shorthanded in the office.

On Sunday, I took a sweater fitness class with Anne Hanson. I was really looking forward to it, but thanks to the cold, I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. I didn't take any pictures, but Anne did a great blog post about her weekend here. I did learn a few things, some bad, some good. My waist is now the same size as my hips were in college (bad). Also, you should pick a sweater size that fits your back shoulder measurement (good). Have someone measure from the top curve of one shoulder up and over to the top curve of the other shoulder. Pick a pattern that fits that measurement, then adjust the rest of it to your body. I bought a bunch of her patterns while I was there. Someday I'll get around to them.

Meanwhile, I've been working on my socks. I'm a couple of rounds farther than this picture. I have about 10 rounds to go before I start the heels.

Karira sock pattern, Destination Yarn in Tuscany colorway

There's a new baby in my extended family! My cousin had this little beauty this week:

"My name is Josie"

She'll get the quilt I made last month when I meet her at Thanksgiving. I just need to make a label for it.

In other news. I got a package in the mail this week and someone helped me open it.

Anyone want to guess who my helper was?

"What'd I do?"

Banana Pineapple Cake

2010-10-04T19:20:00.004-04:00

Here's the recipe for the cake I made the weekend before last. It's based on this recipe plus some of the comments.

Banana Pineapple Cake

3 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. granulated sugar
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 c. diced/mashed bananas
1/2 c. cooking oil
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 c. drained crushed pineapple, (reserve juice)
1/2 c. reserved pineapple juice

Sift together flour, sugars, soda, cinnamon and salt. Add remaining ingredients and pour into a greased tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until the cake tests clean. Cool 15 minutes in pan, then invert onto a serving plate. Cool completely. Glaze as follows: Mix about 1 cup of powdered sugar with enough pineapple juice to make a thick glaze. Drizzle glaze over cake.

Enjoy!

42

2010-09-29T19:14:00.005-04:00

If you're a Douglas Adams fan, you know that 42 is the answer. But what's the question? How about - "How old are you?" Yep, I'm now 42. And how did I spend the last few weeks of being 41?

Well, I made this baby quilt for my cousin's baby, who is due in a few weeks:

I use the Disappearing 9-Patch technique with a couple of charm packs plus a few extra 10-inch squares. On the back, I used a non-pill fleece print:

I still have to make a label, once baby Josie is actually born. I hope she likes it!

I worked on my socks:

Plain vanilla socks in Koigu KPPPM

And more socks [did you know it takes longer to knit lace?]

Karira socks in Destination Yarn, Tuscany colorway

And a scarf:

Garter stitch scarf in Bernat Softee Chunky yarn

I went to quilt camp, but I didn't accomplish much there. I put together the back for Big Blue, which I didn't get a picture of before I sent it to the quilter. I'll get pictures when it comes back. I also did some stealth sewing that I can't show you yet.

When I wasn't knitting or sewing, I hit a few of the shops on the 2010 Yarn Discovery Tour. I only made it to 6 of the 13 shops, but I won a prize! This is the shop prize from Soft 'n Sassy:

Namaste Binder bag, The Knitter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails (book), a pair of size 10.5 wood needles, a pack of Eucalan wipes and some project labels.

And a picture of the inside of the bag:

Now, I admit the color combination would not have been my first choice, but I think it's growing on me. Now to fill up the pockets with all my knitting goodies.... :-)

Over the weekend, I went to my friends' annual Oktoberfest party. I made a pretty good banana-pineapple bundt cake to take, which I didn't get a picture of. I'll post the recipe later this week or over the weekend, though.

Oh, and while I was in my sewing room, naturally, I had help.

"Mama, what's that out the window?"

Brick Bag Tutorial

2010-09-06T18:48:00.010-04:00

Okay this is going to be a long one. At long last I've put together a tutorial for making those small project bags. I will apologize in advance for the quality of some of the pictures. I'm crafty, but I'm a truly lousy photographer.

First, gather your supplies. You'll need a rectangular piece of quilted fabric, a zipper the length of the short size of fabric, some ribbon for a handle, matching thread and some kind of marking tool.

I scored some of the these quilted placemats on clearance at JoAnn Fabrics a couple of years ago for $0.97. It's roughly 12" by 18", give or take 1/2" or so, and I used a 12" zipper. If your zipper is longer than that, it's okay.

My finished bag is about 7" long, 5" wide and 3" tall. You can adjust the size by adjusting the size of the quilted fabric you start with. The long side should be roughly 2" longer than the desired finished height plus the width times two (5+3=8, times 2 = 16 + 2 = 18). The short side should be 2" bigger than the length plus the height (7 + 3 = 10 + 2 = 12). I think. My math might be off a bit, so hopefully you won't get your heart set on exact sizes.

If you're using pre-quilted yardage or are quilting the fabric yourself, I recommend finishing the edges with an overcast or zigzag stitch to help keep the quilting from coming apart.

Step 1: Pin the zipper to the short side of the quilted fabric, right sides together, pulling the tab down a bit to keep it out of the way.

I pinned the zipper about 1/8" from the edge of the fabric

Step 2: Stitch 1/4" from the edge of the zipper tape.

When you get close to the zipper tab, stop with the needle down, zip up the zipper, then complete the seam.

Step 3: Pin the other edge of the zipper tape to the other short side of the quilted fabric.

Step 4: Stitch 1/4" from the edge of the zipper tape, as before.

Moving the zipper tab to keep it out of the way.

Step 5: Fold the fabric back from the seam and topstitch 1/8" from the seam. This will keep the fabric from getting caught in the zipper. Do this on both sides of the zipper.

Step 6: With the tube wrong side out, center the zipper and pin, as shown.

Open the zipper a bit, so you can turn it right side out later.

Step 7: Sew the pinned edges together.

Step 8: Now here's the fiddly part. For each corner, pull the side seam up and fold it back along the side fold. Center the seam and mark the height along the edge of the ruler.

45-degree line is along the edge, the seam is 1-1/2" from the edge, 3" chalk line is along the bottom of the ruler.

Step 9: Stitch along the marked line.

Repeat steps 8 and 9 for all 4 corners.

Step 10: On the end where the zipper tab is when it's closed, take a few stitches out along the new seam line so you can insert the ribbon for the handle. You need the opening to be a bit wider than the ribbon. Do this on both sides on that end. Sorry, this is a truly horrible picture.

And this one isn't much better.

Step 11: Cut a piece of ribbon a bit longer than the side of the bag. I cut mine 8-1/2" long. Insert the end of the ribbon into the opening in the seam line on each side, making sure the ribbon isn't twisted. Pin in place.

Step 12: Stitch over the seam line to catch the ribbon.

Step 13: Using a hand needle, tack the points to the seam line on the inside.

You could use pinking shears to trim the points off, but I think they add structure to the bag.

Step 14: Turn the bag right side out and you're done.

I added a removable stitch marker.

Oh and don't forget to thank your assistants for all their hard work.

"Sleeping here, Mama...."

Twins!

2010-08-24T21:20:00.004-04:00

You might recall my friends and I made a couple of quilts for some twins last year. The babies have grown up a bit since then:

Henry and Jack

They're in town for the week and we went to the Akron Zoo today. Here they are with Mom and Dad in the train.

That's a small caboose!

They have some pretty cool pillars in garden area at the zoo:

Rumor has it they light up at night

We rode the carousel.

Marjorie and Julie

And this scene looked vaguely familiar to me.

I have no idea why.....

"Mama! There's a kitten on me! But she's kinda warm and the A/C is on...."

In crafty news, I've made progress on my two sets of twin socks.

Karira socks

Plain socks - my camera doesn't photograph purple very well

And guess what I finished?

Julie's head, Big Blue (top only) and me

Now I just have to get a backing made before my next guild meeting so I can give it to the machine quilter. Yay!!!!

Socks

2010-08-15T18:51:00.006-04:00

So since I finished a pair of socks, I started a couple of new pairs. First up, a pair of Karira socks for the Dragon Knitalong on Ravelry. The designer is a local gal, Shannon Okey, aka Knitgrrl.

Yarn: Destination Yarn in the Tuscany colorway

We're supposed to be reading the book, too, but while I have the paperback and I downloaded the audio, I haven't gotten around to starting it yet. I have a bunch of other books I've borrowed from the library that I have to finish first. Too many books/projects, too little time.

Speaking of time, in sad news, a woman in my office, Mary, passed away unexpectedly this week. I didn't know her well, but she was an avid reader, just like me. We'd talk books every now and then. I got her interested in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, but she died before she got around to starting them. I realized that life is short and I'd rather spend my time knitting things I love. So if you remember my bobble socks (aka Politically Correct) from the mystery sock class I took a couple of months ago.....

You can forget them. They are no more. I had already decided that I didn't love them enough to be full-length socks. So I knit about an inch of the pattern, did short-row heels and knit a few rounds of the foot. Then Mary died and I decided I didn't love them enough, period. Nothing against the pattern, since the class samples were cute. It just wasn't right for this yarn. Truth be told, I've never been a huge fan of the bobble anyway.

So Thursday at knit night, I ripped them back and started these.

Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, color number 3514

They don't look like much now, but they'll just be a plain sock with a little ribbing at the top. I think that will allow the beauty of the yarn to shine through.

In other news, look what I got at a local farm stand yesterday - a yellow doll watermelon.

Isn't it pretty? Pretty tasty, too.

I spent some time in my sewing room yesterday, but didn't get a picture of my project. I did get a picture of my supervisors, though.

"Whatcha doin', Mama?"

Fun with yarn

2010-07-31T11:47:00.006-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I got itching to dye some yarn again. I started with my second ball of Very Pink yarn. I wound it into a hank for dyeing and soaked it in my crockpot with some vinegar.

I wasn't kidding about the pink

I mixed a heaping 1/4 tsp of delphinium blue Wilton icing dye into a couple of cups of hot water.

Then poured it into the crock pot.

I mixed it around

Whoa, it looks pretty dark

And let it cook for an hour or so.

But it lightened up a bit

I had read that the delphinium blue was one of the Wilton colors that "breaks" when you used it to dye yarn, meaning it separates into it's component colors. You can see how some of the yarn looks a bit more pink. If you click on the picture below, you can see the pink line around the top.

Love the guy who invented crock pot liners!

After the yarn was dry and wound, it looked like this

I'm not sure how much of the pink in the yarn is from the dye breaking and how much is my inability to tie the cotton yarn loosely enough to allow the dye to get mixed evenly. It doesn't really matter, it looks pretty cool anyway. It has more of a matte look than the other yarn I overdyed, which I haven't decided if I really like yet. That's okay. I'm sure I can find someone who loves it when I'm ready to knit it up, if I don't fall in love with it by then.

In other fun with yarn, look what I finished!

Oooooo... swirly!

I wish I could take credit for the swirling colors, but it was pure luck. I think they look pretty cool, though.

They're really comfy, too.

Blue kept me company while I finished the socks

"Your socks match my eyes, Mama."

Playing catch (up)

2010-07-18T13:00:00.007-04:00

Once again, I've been lazy about blogging. I guess I just haven't been feeling it lately. So this will be a long-ish post with lots of pictures. Those are the best kind, right? ;-)

I was really busy last weekend (July 9-11). On Friday, I went to Akron to pick up my mom and headed down to St. Clairsville, OH, where my aunt Karen lives. My cousin Annette and her son, Tim, were in Ohio, visiting from Maine. They had originally planned to stop by my house, but she's highly allergic to cats and figured my five furry children would be the death of her. My hair disclaimer for the next couple of pictures is that it was a very humid/rainy day. Here's me with cousins Amy and Annette.

Me, Amy (with baby Josie, due in Oct.) and Annette

And here's the whole group, minus Annette, who's taking the picture and her son, Tim, who was crashed out upstairs.

It was really nice to see everyone, especially since I normally only get to see them every other year at Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning, Mom and I headed back to Akron, then I headed to Kent to see my friends from KSU. Sarah's hubby, Mark had driven in from MA, so the gang got together for dinner and s'mores. We neglected to get a group picture, but we did get pictures of all of The Ugly quilts!

Fronts

Backs

I think I went a little overboard on size and ugliness of the back. But Sarah has *four* Elvis-in-a-blender stars on hers, so maybe it's a draw. :-)

I've been working on some other crafty things I haven't blogged about yet. I made some bracelet and earring sets.

And a boatload of stitch markers:

No, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all of those stitch markers. Maybe I so need to open an Etsy shop.

And lest you think I've completely stopped knitting, I've made significant progress on the Laughing Matter socks:

I'm hoping to have them done by August 1, so I can start a knit-along/read-along on Ravelry. The plan is to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and knit the Karira sock. I'm going to listen to the audio book, since I picked it up at the library last week.

Also, I took another mystery sock class at River Colors Studio. This pattern is called Politically Correct, because there are lines of purl bumps on each sock, one twisting to the left, the other to the right. You can't see the twisting lines in this picture, but you can see the bobbles! I'd never made bobbles before, so now I know how.

Bobbles!!

In other news, Max would like to say that the fur on his leg is growing back nicely after his surgery last month.

"This is an old picture. It's even longer now!"

Nine years later.....

2010-07-05T22:09:00.004-04:00

Remember that picture of me and my friends from 2001? Well, here we are, nine years (almost to the day) later.

Ann, Sarah, Julie and me
(I stole this picture from Sarah, because it was better than the ones on my camera)

Shockingly, we're in front of a fabric shop again. That's Country Fabrics in Shiloh. Inexplicably, they have a palm tree out front.

Outside a quilt shop. In Ohio. Sarah's mom said it's usually inside.

Also, remember that stack of bag pieces from my last post? I finished them.

And the insides:

Clockwise from top left - Ann's, mine, Sarah's and Julie's

After shopping, we went to a quilt show in Ashland, but I didn't get any pictures there. I did run into a lady from my quilt guild there. And saw that one of my guild friends had quilted a few of the quilts in the show.

On the way home, I stopped at That'll Do Farm. I was greeted by the chickens.

Later the brown one and several of her friends were pecking at my sandals and toenails.

I also got to meet the new goats. There are five of them named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Fred. :)

Donatello

Raphael

Here's a news flash - cats can't read. I got up one day last week and found Emma nose-deep in this, which someone (probably one of the boys) had knocked off the top of the aquarium.

Bottom Feeder = Catfish = Cat food? Maybe they can read.

Bag lady

2010-06-27T19:29:00.006-04:00

I seem to be on a bag kick. You'll recall the red and brown Sweet Treat Bag I made a couple of months ago.

And the grocery bags I made at quilt camp.

Well, I also made these that I haven't shown you yet.

Those are the standard size Two Hour Tulip bags (see, there's that fabric I told you would be back on the blog soon). Here's an inside view of each of them:

I managed to assemble both of them in about two and half hours, but it took about twice that long to cut out all the pieces and fuse everything. There's fusible fleece on the wrong side of the outer fabric and fusible interfacing on the wrong side of the lining fabric. But they're so darned cute!

So I might have cut out and fused pieces for a couple (or four) more:

And in an effort to cull the fabric stash, I just might have cut out another eight or so grocery bags.

Yes, there are a dozen of them there. The four along the bottom are the ones I cut out before quilt camp but never put together. Not pictured is one I cut out after the picture was taken, from some fabric I got from a lady at my once-a-month quilt night.

In kitty news, Max had two more teeth pulled a week ago Friday. Poor little guy doesn't have many left. Doesn't keep him from eating, though.

"Why has Mama been calling me 'Gummy'?"

Princess Emma had a busy day today. First she "helped" me make the bed:

I thought throwing the sheet on her would make her move. Not so much.

Then she got busted cuddling with those "stupid, stinky kittens."

"This isn't what it looks like, Mama!"

One last odd thing. I went out to dinner a while ago on my way to knit night. As I was leaving, I asked for some more iced tea in a to-go cup so I'd have something to drink while I was knitting. They gave me this:

Seriously??

The Ugly

2010-06-14T20:56:00.008-04:00

I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting an update to this blog. All I can say is - be careful what you wish for. You have been warned. :-)

Flashback: July 2001. A group of my college friends (aka The Lunch Bunch) went on vacation together in New England.

Lunch Bunch + The Next Generation, Cambridge, MA, July 4 2001

Wow, look how little the kids were! The oldest of them only has one year of high school left now. I feel really old.....

Anyway, while we were "in the neighborhood", the four quilters of the bunch went to the Keepsake Quilting tent sale....

Ann, Sarah, Julie and me (I was younger and thinner then)

...where we spent too much money on grab bags of discounted fabric. We each went through our grab bags, pulled out the fabrics we liked and put the rest in a pile. I think we each picked through the pile and grabbed things we liked. This left a pile of fabrics that no one really wanted and didn't go together. At All. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of cutting up the fabric into 6-1/2" squares and dividing them up between the four of us. The challenge was to make quilts out of them, to be used as picnic/outdoor quilts. We wouldn't mind throwing them on the ground, because they'd already be ugly, see?

We were allowed to add fabric from our stashes and maybe buy one piece of new fabric as a neutral. I was happy to share some of my ugly stash fabrics with my friends - you know, the "what was I thinking??" and "free fat quarter w/purchase" fabrics that shops throw in because no one wants to spend money on them.

I think Sarah finished hers first. She made a bunch of half-square triangles and tied it with some pre-quilted fabric as the batting/backing. Julie was next. She made braids and put strips of some fabric that she inherited from her DH's grandma (I think) in between them and tied hers, too. That quilt is better-traveled than I am, since Julie and family like to take long, cross-country vacations. Last I heard, Ann's was partially quilted, but I can't remember what pattern she used - something with stars, I think. Maybe she'll comment with the answer.

Here is mine (I warned you):

Behold, The Ugly!

I used the Autumn Stretched Star pattern from Nickel Quilts by Pat Speth and Charlene Thode. You cut squares 1/2 the size of your main squares and sew them on the diagonal in opposite corners. I hated to waste the bonus half-square triangle units, so I made pinwheels out of them for the border.

I must say that not all the fabrics in this quilt are ugly. In fact, this is one my favorite fabrics, which you've seen in this posting from last year, and will see again soon.

These, on the other hand:

I think these are both from Julie's inherited stash. The one on the left, for sure.

I bought this one thinking it would make a good Stack & Whack quilt. I was wrong.

When I was done cutting up 6-1/2" squares, I was left with a pretty big pile of scraps that I hated to throw away. I'm sure you can guess where this is going. I pieced them all together for the back.

And you thought the *front* was ugly!

A few highlights of the back. Three leftover blocks from a guild community service project:

Julie's DH said these were ugly when I made the kits for them.

The "Elvis-in-a-blender" block. Sarah was going to make a Stack & Whack quilt out of this fabric for her mother-in-law, but couldn't stomach it. She ended up putting one block on a sweatshirt and shared a block's worth of pieces with the rest of us. Thanks, Sarah! ;-)

The pink border adds something, no? No.

Again, on the back there are the rare nice fabrics. This is a scrap of fabric that we also got on that trip. It went into the quilt for Mikey, which is seen in this post. There are bits of the dark green and cream fabrics from that quilt on the front, too.

See? Very nice.

There's an outdoor concert Wednesday night, and if some of my knitting friends decide to go to it, the quilt might get it's first official use then.

Of course, Emma says she used it first when she helped me put the binding on.

"I'm making sure it doesn't get away, Mama!"

She's such a helpful girl.

Quilt Camp

2010-05-24T22:30:00.007-04:00

Can you guess where I was this weekend?

Yep, I was at spring quilt camp at Round Lake Christian Assembly in Lakeville. I love quilt camp. It's a great bunch of ladies, all working on whatever it is they brought with them.

No one goes hungry at quilt camp!

This year we had some extra special guests on the balcony. See them?

Does this help?

A couple of robins had good sized nests on the light fixtures and there were several other nests in progress. One of the birds scared the bejeebers out of me Friday night when I was outside getting some air. It swooped right past me from behind.

On my way to quilt camp, I stopped at Calla Lily in Wooster for a yarn fix:

The thing underneath the yarn on the right is a wine bag and the tassled scrunchy closure is above the yarn. The bag of beads below the yarn is there because it's meant to be a beaded hat kit (with the wine bag doubling as a gift bag). But I don't think I'll be making a hat out of it. Not sure what I *will* make out of it, but that's never stopped me before, right? I have one of those one-skein pattern books so I'm sure I'll figure something out.

What did I work on once I got to camp, you ask? Well, I quilted this, which is a group gift for the first granchild of a guy at the office. I cut it out, Lisa pieced it, I quilted it and Katie will bind it.

But mostly, I worked on these:

It took me most of the weekend to assemble these 8 grocery bags (tutorial here), and I had them all cut out before I left. Max helped with the cutting:

"Aaahhhhhhhhh.... this is the life!"

You'll be seeing more of these bags. I have 4 more cut out already and I remembered there was some other fabric I wanted to use. I think there will be at least 5 more, so that will take some more fabric out of the stash. With the two dozen I made last year, I figure I will have used close to 70 yards of fabric for these bags. Not really making a dent in the stash, though. Sigh....

Things you don't see every day

2010-04-30T19:22:00.006-04:00

Today is a collection of things you don't see every day. I'll warn you, there are some crappy cell phone pictures included.

First up - ALPACAS!! Thursday was knit night at That'll Do Farm. They are so cute:

The girls - two of them are expecting

Mick

The as-yet-unnamed baby boy

I had a great time and many, many much-needed laughs after a pretty stressful day at work.

Next up, the DeLorean I saw at the car wash on the way to work this morning:

I have no idea what happened here, but a telephone pole down the street has been like this for a week:

Next:

Emma wanted to play Vanna

Crochet?? At my house? I took a 1-hour learn to crochet class from a lady at work on Tuesday. gotta say, I'm not hooked (yeah, couldn't help the bad pun). I had a really hard time keeping my tension even and figuring out where the stitches should go. I think I'll stick to knitting and reserve crochet for finishing/edging. And even then, only when absolutely necessary.

And what's this?

Knitting progress!! My hands finally stopped hurting (stupid arthritis) and I made it to the point where it's time to start the heel flaps on the Laughing Matter socks. Hooray!

Finally, Sleeping Princess in Cowboy Hat:

I'm not dead....

2010-04-21T23:06:00.006-04:00

...contrary to popular belief. The week after my last post was crazy busy at work and then my allergies kicked in, then my arthritis flared up, so I didn't really have any knitting progress to show. Yeah, I know -- poor me.

I did get some knitting done. Since the socks on tiny needles were making my hands hurt, I started a very plain, very boring garter stitch scarf, which I started a couple of times and have been working on during non-work meetings over the last couple of weeks.

Doesn't get much simpler than that - cast on 20 stitches, slip 1 stitch purlwise, knit to the end, repeat forever. That's some Bernat Softee Chunky in the Nature's Way colorway (I think) on size10.5 needles. Exciting, isn't it?

Since I'm not knitting much, I decided to venture into my sewing room. I had Monday off, so I started with the clean up. I think the picture is a little blurry because my hands were shaking. Wouldn't you be afraid to go in here??

Disaster Central

I'm sad to say that after spending the better part of the afternoon in there, it didn't look a whole lot different. I took a bunch of yarn down to the stash, hung the bazillion scattered rulers on the pegboard, put the knitting notions back in the knitting tote, stashed the big plastic tote of batting under the sewing table, pulled fabrics for a couple of projects and now you can mostly see the sewing table and the top of the ironing board. The cutting table in the corner is still buried and likely will be for a while. Baby steps....

I took advantage of the cleared sewing table to actually *sew* something. This little kit that I bought at the NEORQC Getaway in February:

Closed

Open

It's a pretty easy pattern using 1-1/2" strips of fabric. You can get it here. I added the magnetic closure and the beads that hold the button on from my stash. Everything else was in the kit.

Tomorrow night is craft night with the girls from work and I'm taking my beading project, but I'll probably spend most of the night cutting pieces for a group quilt project and a couple of bags for a class I'm taking early next month. Maybe I'll have something bloggable afterward, but don't count on it.

A couple of weeks ago, the moon looked really cool. The trees didn't have many buds on them and it was a little cloudy. I tried to get some pictures of it, but this is the best one of the bunch:

It looked much cooler in real life

As for wildlife, the last few pictures I've taken of the cats have come out blurry, so I'll try to get some better ones for next time. Meanwhile, I've been birdwatching over the internet this past month or so and now I can do it live. Sort of. Meet Howard (just made that up):

He and his mate are building a nest in the christmas tree shaped bush/tree/shrubbery outside my kitchen window. you can see the hole where the nest is at the bottom of that picture. I haven't actually tried to look into the hole to check out the nest, but I've seen the other bird taking nesting materials in there a few times.. Being attacked by territorial birds isn't high on my list of fun things to try.

Anyone know what kind of bird he is? The one building the nest actually looks like she's a pale blue/gray. And Howard doesn't have a crest so they definitely aren't cardinals. I'd been thinking of taking down that tree/bush/shrubbery because over the 11 years I've been in the house, it's grown to the point that it's starting to encroach on the driveway. I can't get rid of it now, obviously. I'll keep you posted if I learn anything new.

Catching up

2010-03-31T19:15:00.006-04:00

So, what's new?

Let's see, at my house, there's new jewelry.

That's a bracelet, earrings and pendant, all made from recycled aluminum knitting needles, by Sassafras Creations. Aren't they pretty? I lovelovelove them, especially the bracelet. It's so light, I don't even know I'm wearing it. It gave me an idea for a new project, but I need some help with it, so more on that next month.

I've been working on my socks. Here are the Laughing Matter socks.

I'm not quite to the heels yet, but I'm getting close. And third time's a charm with my Sinuosity by the Sea socks.

I started them with size 2, 1.5 and now size 1 needles. I sure hope they fit! I've finished the ribbing, chart A (4 rows) and two and a half rows of chart B (12 row repeat). It's hard to tell from the picture, but the pattern is starting to show a bit. It's a slow knit for me, since I can't do cables without a cable needle. Someone showed me at knit night a couple of weeks ago and it made perfect sense at the time. I haven't mastered that particular skill yet, so I'm still using a cable needle. Work is going to be extremely crazy over the next couple of weeks, so don't expect too much progress till mid-April.

Last night I went to an Uppercase Living project night again. I made another lamp like this one that I made back in December.

John took the first one for a nightlight, so I made a matching one. I also put together a set of coasters, but the embellishments were the wrong size, so there's another set on order. We did make and take projects, too. Here's mine:

It says "Create". I actually decorated the back of the thing, but that's okay. I also brought a few things home to decorate my laptop.

It's all girlie now. :)

I usually include a cat picture, but today you get a different furry creature. This little guy lives outside the cafeteria at one of my work sites.

"Can I have another peanut? Please?"

My friend and I were out there this afternoon and saw him. I think one of the guys said his name is Curly. Katie gave him a couple of peanuts and he stood on the ledge by the door looking in. When we didn't give him any more, he came down to the end of the table where she was sitting and stared in the window at her. It was pretty funny. He's an aggressive little beast, though. Another squirrel jumped up on the ledge and Curly chased it away.

Am I blue?

2010-03-19T17:47:00.006-04:00

Yes, I am. As you know, I've been working on my blue Laughing Matter socks. They're going pretty well, except for a couple of screw-ups that I've been able to fix. Tuesday night I cast on a new pair of blue socks. Sinuosity is the name of the pattern and it was designed by local designer, who just happens to be in my new Thursday night knitting group. I love the pattern and love the color. What I don't love is my choice of needles. I had a feeling I should have gone down a needle size because the pattern calls for me to cast on 70 stitches. But I didn't listen to myself and cast on with my trusty size 2 needles.

You can't really tell from this picture, but the stitches on the darker pair are kind of loose and really stretchy. So, I'll be ripping those out and starting over. It's frustrating, but at least I've only done about 10 rows. I worked on the Laughing Matter socks at knit night last night instead. Glad I took them with me! The pretty row counter was made by a new friend of mine from the Thursday night group, PrettyKnittyJewelry. It has a teapot charm on the end. How cool is that?

In other news, Sunday was craft day, and I played with my beads.

I beaded the seam lines of the last 7 seams of this block, and added a few beads on the flowers in the center. Now I just have to bead the fabric dragonflies and figure out what else to add in the border.

Also last weekend, I was in the living room and kicked off my slippers. A little while later, John asked if I was missing one of them.

Blue had picked it up and put it in his bed. I think he likes me. :)

Here's an example of how a can of cat food can really bring the "kids" together:

Unfortunately, it didn't agree with Blue's tummy, so we won't be giving him any more of it. Yuck!

And in other kitty news, Emma volunteered to help me with my socks.

"I'll finish these for you, if you'll tell that stupid kitten to stop looking over my shoulder, Mama."

They call her the Yarn Whisperer

2010-03-12T18:51:00.006-05:00

Her name is Jen and she has mad untangling skillz. Just look at her go:

In less than an evening she turned the mess that was the formerly Very Pink, now red/orange yarn into this:

A beautiful yarn cake, wound by hand. I am in awe of this. I will really hate to rewind into two balls when I'm ready to use it. I can't wait to see how the pink highlights look when it's knit up. I'm going to use the Little Pumpkins pattern with it.

The other ball of Very Pink yarn is going to be a purple semi-solid. I'll be dyeing it with some Wilton icing colors, just to try something new. Don't worry, I'll blog all about it when the time comes.

A few weeks ago, I took a mystery sock class at River Colors. It was in the middle of my Olympics knitting, so I hadn't blog about it till now. Here they are:

Shibui sock yarn in color #350 ManBlue

The pattern is called Laughing Matter and it's a mystery sock class by Michelle Hunter. I kind of like the spiraling color pattern it's making. The pattern is a pretty simple 6 stitch and 4 row repeat, which makes it good mindless knitting. I started the first sock in class on DPNs, then after I finished the Mermaid socks, I moved it to 2 circulars, cast on the second sock on the DPNs, caught up to the first one, then moved it to circs to so I can finish them at the same time.

I was working on them at knit night last night and biffed one. I highly recommend keeping a pair of DPNs (or a really long circular, if you like/can do Magic loop) with you if you're doing 2 socks at once on 2 circulars. If you screw up one of them, you can move it off the circular needles, fix the problem, and put it back on. In my opinion, it's better than tinking back both socks. Just be careful to A) pay attention to where you are in the pattern so you can catch the doctored sock back up to the other one and B) make sure you have the needles and sock oriented properly when you put it back on the needles so everything is going in the right direction.

I'll work on these this weekend, but Monday I'll be starting some Sinuosity socks for the KnittingNonStop KAL (Knit ALong). One of the things on my ToDo list for the weekend is to wind the yarn. I'll be using Destination Yarn, in the Sea colorway that was the inspiration for the pattern. Not very imaginative on my part, but the combination is just gorgeous.

And here's an example of all the help I have at home when I'm using my laptop:

"I don't know why Mama says she needs longer arms."

Dyeing for prettier yarn

2010-03-08T21:19:00.014-05:00

As you might be aware, I like buying sock yarn. Over the last couple of years, I've bought some kits and samplers that turned out to have some yarn colors that weren't exactly me. Here are a couple of examples.

KnitPicks Essential (now called Stroll) in Glacial - too pale

Okiteks Sock yarn in something Very Pink

Now, since there is no shortage of sock yarn in my stash, I *could* have given this away, but I thought I'd have a little fun with it. So I wound it into hanks and tied it with waste yarn to try to keep it from getting tangled.

Then I soaked it in some vinegar water:

It took a *long* time (like hours, no kidding) for it to get fully wet. You can still see the lighter, not quite soaked sections in that picture. That's about an hour into the soaking process. Once it was good and wet, I drained the hanks.

Next up, preparing the dye. I had picked up a couple of PAAS classic Easter egg dyeing kits. They each came with 9 color tablets in pink, red, orange, yellow, spring green, teal, blue, denim and purple.

Can you guess which is which?

I didn't really have a plan for how I was going to dye the yarn, but I figured I'd start with blue. I took a guess on which ones were the blue tablets and mixed up the dye as directed (3 Tbsp vinegar per tablet) in some condiment bottles from the dollar store. The color looked good.

I added water to the bottle, gave it a shake and put it on about half of each hank. Note, the bottles aren't exactly water tight, so be careful if you try this at home. Your mileage may vary with higher quality bottles. Oh, and wear gloves no matter what.

I thought I did a pretty good job getting the dye all the way through, but as I moved it around, I found I hadn't. So I proceeded to mix up the denim tablets. I did a better job of with that color, but I still wasn't happy. So I pulled out a couple of packets of blue raspberry lemonade Kool Aid, mixed them with about a quart of water and filled up the dish.

I microwaved it on high for 2 minutes, let it rest for 2 minutes, and repeated the cycle a few times till the water was mostly clear. When it was done, I decided there were still too many spots that were too light. So I went back to my tablets and picked the ones I thought were teal, but could have been green. I divided the dissolved tablets into two bottles this time and used the water from the dish to dilute it. I did my best to fill in the undyed areas and repeated the microwave cycles a few times.

Here's the result, having a little soak in the sink.

Not bad for a first attempt

Okay, one color down. For the pink yarn I wanted a more all-over color, so I dissolved the yellow and orange tablets in a measuring cup.

I added two packets of lemonade Kool Aid and water to make about a quart. I put about half of that in the dish, put the pink yarn on top, pushed it down, then poured the rest of the dye over top. It still looked pink to me, so I sprinkled another packet of lemonade Kool Aid on top and scrunched it in. Still wasn't happy, so I sprinkled a packet of black cherry Kool Aid on top and mixed that in a bit. I turned the yarn over and did it again.

Much better

Another round of on/off microwaving and it was done. I rinsed it, squeezed it out, rolled it in a towel and put it on a rack to dry.

Here are the final results:

That's a little bit of the original color on top

Yeah, I had 2 balls of that pink

You can still see a bit of the pink where the waste yarn wasn't as loose as it should have been. I think I'm okay with that. After I knit it up, if it bothers me, I'll mix up some black cherry and lemonade Kool Aid and spot dye those areas. A little of the pink might make a nice accent.

If I do this again, I think I'll wind the hanks around something longer. They fit nicely in the dish this way, but they didn't work so well on the swift when I was winding. I'll also add at least one more piece of waste yarn. It took me over an hour to wind the blue/green yarn because it was so tangled. I'm terrified of the orange yarn. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but it's really a mess. I think I'd divide that 100g ball into two 50g balls before I dye it, to make it more manageable, too.

So pretty.....

Overall, though, it was fun and I'm glad I did it.

"I'll untangle that yarn for you, Mama"

Better late than never

2010-03-05T21:08:00.003-05:00

I finished the Mermaid socks!

Show-Off Stranded Socks, by Anne Campbell in KnitPicks Risata, Woodland Sage colorway

I didn't make it in time for the closing Olympic ceremonies, but I finished the 2nd sock in less than 3 weeks, which is a record for me. I could have done it in the 17-day limit, if I'd even really tried. But I'm okay with my performance.

They aren't the most form-fitting socks I've made, since they're a little bunched up on the top. I think it's the cotton blend yarn.

But they're pretty, and comfy, so I'm keeping them.

Last night was Dear Jane night and I finished another (easy) block.

K-7, Rose of Sharing

I have a fun project planned for this weekend. It involves yarn, Kool Aid, Easter egg dye and my microwave. Stay tuned for more details.

In cat news, we've decided that Ripley will not have surgery at this time. At her advanced age, we think that the stress of what would be a 3-day hospital visit (with I.V. fluids the day before and after surgery) would be a bit much for her. She really doesn't seem all that bothered by her bum knee. She's still limping, but not as quite as much, and she's still able to jump up on the bed at night. If it seems to get worse, we'll reconsider, but for the time being she seems to be holding her own.

"I don't like hospitals, Mama."

NEORQC Getaway 2010

2010-02-28T18:03:00.004-05:00

This weekend was the annual NEORQC Getaway. I came home and counted my pins - I've been to twelve of these weekends away so far. Time sure flies....

This year I took the Glorious Beading class, taught by one of my fellow guild members, Jean Bailey. The idea was to learn how to embellish your projects with beads. Here are a couple of her samples.

An example of a quilted piece with beads

A close-up of the lizard which isn't attached, completely covered with beads

Jean did a lot of prep work for the class. She made us all matching nametags. Here's a blurry picture of mine:

She also probably spent days making up little packages of various beads in all different colors for us to use. There were only four students in the class and we were probably the quietest group of all. But we were just too busy concentrating on our projects to make a lot of noise. Wanna see them?

Deb's, made with a bunch of bridal fabrics. The rectangles at the top are a couple of artist trading cards Jean made for us to practice on. The one on the bottom was her sample/practice piece.

Cheryl's, with fish and lizards. I love the bubble-looking beads with the fish. She had another quilted piece that she was working on, but I forgot to get a picture of it.

Bonnie made hers like a traditional crazy quilt, with velvets, silks, satins and other fancy fabrics. I think she got the most done on her quilt blocks.

And finally, here's mine:

I'm going to add more beading along the seam lines of the top block. Also, I'm going to do more with the dragonflies and add more beads and/or dragonflies in the background. When it's done, I'll mount it on stretcher bars, possibly frame it, and hang it somewhere.

I came home with more stuff than I left with, as usual. Clockwise from the top left, a bag kit with a big button that I plan to add some beady goodness to, the beads that I got from Jean and other stuff from class, a black and white panel that I thought was cool, some beads and floss I got from Sue Spargo, one of the other teachers. and another piece of fabric that I liked.

No, I don't have any immediate plans for any of this

And here we have a pattern and handles for a bag designed by Jean, some overdyed purl cotton and, um, some sock yarn from the Knit Shop in Aurora. Well, I had to go there since it was only a mile or so down the road. I see new sock kits in my future.

The purpley-blue yarn is a blend of wool, nylon, silk and cashmere - YUMMY!

Last weekend, John put some kitty treats in an empty (and clean) pill bottle to see if the cats could get them out:

"Hey, we smell treats!!"

Emma pretty quickly lost interest.

Sock update later this week.

My hero

2010-02-18T18:59:00.003-05:00

This is my hero:

Early this morning, Ripley woke us up meowing her fool head off. Just as we were ready to throttle her, we smelled something like singed electronics. Our first thought was that the heated kitty bed had shorted out. We jumped out of bed and got her out of there. That wasn't it, which was both good and bad. After calling 911 and getting (count 'em) 3 fire trucks over here, we decided there was no fire in the walls and that something in the furnace had shorted out.

We turned off the furnace, went back to bed and called an HVAC company first thing this morning. They came right out and determined that the control module was bad. He cleaned the furnace, replaced the part and now we have heat again. I don't think we were actually in any danger, but I'm really thankful she woke us up anyway. Not sure the neighbors would say the same.

Why, you might be wondering, does my hero appear to be in a cage? Well, I'll tell you. Sometime on Tuesday while I was as work, my 17.5 year old cat (that would be about 86 to you and me) jumped or fell off something and tore the ligaments in her right back knee. I took her to vet yesterday and they did blood work. It looks like her kidney numbers are good enough to handle surgery. Now I have to decide whether or not to have it done. I need to talk to the vet again in the morning and weigh the options. I just want to do what's best for her. In the meantime, I borrowed a couple of dog crates from a friend and have one in the bedroom and one in the living room so we can keep her from jumping on anything else. She's not really happy with this arrangement.

Runt was not amused by all the cages and commotion, either. She hid behind the chair all morning and refused to eat her breakfast.

"I got over it."

Knitting olympics update: dismal. With all the excitement, I haven't felt like doing much knitting. I also have missed one lunchtime knitting session, and 2 knit nights. The sock is a little longer than the last picture, but not much. Also, that 4 hour car maintenance session might be put on on hold for a while, given the expenses of the last couple of days and the expense of the surgery, if we decide to go that route. I'm starting to get a little worried now.....

A weak start

2010-02-15T18:31:00.003-05:00

I seem to have cheated on the Knitting Olympics. It turns out I'm an idiot who can't figure out time differences, even though I have friends on the left coast and know that they are 3 hours *behind* not 3 hours *ahead* of us. So I cast on that second sock at least 6 hours earlier than I should have. But I didn't work on it much on Saturday and not at all on Sunday, so it's not like it gave me an advantage or anything. Here's it's current state:

Pathetic, isn't is?

I could say I'm pacing myself, but the truth is I'm lazy and have a touch of Second Sock Syndrome on this pair. There are 8 more lunch hours, three knit nights, a women's club meeting, a few weekend days, and at least 4 hours of car maintenance between now and closing ceremonies. I'm not worried yet. For a little extra drama, my mystery sock class is on Sunday, though, so that could tempt me away from the Mermaid.

I wasn't a complete slug over the weekend, though. I cleaned up the fabric explosion in my sewing room and made this:

That's the quilt top for my NEORQC Getaway class. It's not really a quilt top, since it's not going to be quilted. This is the base for a boatload of beading and it will be mounted on stretcher bars and put in a frame when it's done. I used fabrics from 3 other quilts so it will coordinate when I use them. I'm looking forward to the class. I just hope my hand holds out. I'll take one of my support gloves with me and if it starts bothering me, I'll take a break. I might also take some preemptive ibuprofen therapy beforehand.

Emma keeps trying to tell us that she hates the "kittens" (who are now 2 years old). It's really hard to believe her when she does this:

"Why does Princess CrabbyPants have her head in my belly??"

PS. Sock kit count now stands at 23. There are too many nice patterns out there! I'll be taking one "kit" out for class on Sunday. I wonder how many will take it's place??

Let the games begin.....

2010-02-12T22:02:00.003-05:00

I finally finished the first Mermaid sock!!

The lifeline around the toe was in case I ran out of yarn and had to go with Plan B, which would have given the sock a navy toe. The stitch marker marks the start of the heel gusset. Probably not necesary, but I'm leaving it there for now.

As you can see I had enough yarn, but it was closer than I would have liked. Here's all I had left over:

That's not much yarn, folks

Of course I had to try it on:

It's a little bunchy around the top of my foot (opposite the heel). I think it's the cotton in the yarn.

Cat not to scale

The Olympics start tonight and I joined the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. My project will be to finish the second sock before the closing ceremonies so I can move on to some of those sock kits [Note: there are 20 of them now. I think they're multiplying when I'm not looking. Might have to separate them]. Given that I started the first Mermaid sock in July, it will definitely be a challenge to finish the second one in 17 days. In my defense, I finished two other pairs of socks, a really long scarf, a shawl and some fingerless mitts during that time, not to mention starting two other shawls and doing other quilty and crafty stuff.

I did start the second sock today.

I have 3 rows done. Better get a move on....

Houston, we have a problem

2010-02-07T17:35:00.004-05:00

Actually, a couple of problems.

First, I really need to stop with the sock kits. I'm up to 18 now, plus a kit for some fingerless mitts. Actually, maybe 3 of those. I still have enough yarn left from the mitts I made for Angie for Christmas to make another pair, and I really liked them. And there should be enough of the Road to China yarn I got a couple of weeks ago for two pairs of something.

I went to Jeanne's trunk show at Soft N Sassy today. I had seen her post last week about her new Olympics-inspired colorways, and I've been obsessing about Five Rings since then. I was going see if I could meet Jeanne to pick up a hank of it (because I hate spending good yarn money on shipping), then I saw she was having a trunk show.

Which brings us to the latest four sock kits:

The top right kit is the Five Rings yarn with Jeanne's basic sock pattern. While I was there, I saw the sample sock for the kit on the top left. It was absolutely gorgeous, laying there in the sunlight, begging me to go home and re-create it. I didn't want to disappoint it, so that yarn ended up in my hand.

The pattern designer, Dawn, was there, too. She made me feel less self-conscious about my sock yarn stash (it's *way* less than her 200). They pointed me to the pattern on the bottom left, which is a free download on Ravelry (you can buy the Sinuosity pattern here). The yarn for that kit was in the stash, and I thought the cotton yarn in that muted colorway would work well for a patern call Summer Lovin'. The last kit is one I found in the stash while I was looking for the cotton yarn. I bought it (as a kit) when I was in Orlando last year.

If you want to buy some of Jeanne's yarn for yourself, her Etsy shop is here. If you're an OSU fan, the London colorway would be a good choice, btw.

Problem number two is this:

I'm making progress on the mermaid sock, but I'm starting to get very nervous about running out of yarn. Naturally, I only have 2 balls in that color, and it seems to be a seasonal colorway, because it's not on KnitPicks website right now. If I can get to the toe, I guess I could do that in a different color. The balls on the side are my options. Opinions? If I can't get to the toe, I guess I'll start emailing random people on Ravelry who have it in their stash and see if anyone's willing to part with it. Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone who has the same dye lot, too.

This is no longer a problem, thankfully. The view out my side door yesterday morning:

Note that you can see grass in the neighbor's yard, but there's a ~2 foot drift/ridge in the middle of my driveway. Thank goodness for the snow blower man!

I've made a little progress on the shawl, too.

I got those beads to go on the points on edge. I'm not 100% sure I like them, since I had something more blue/turquoise in mind. These will do if I can't find anything else,though. And maybe they'll grow on me between now and the time I actually need them. Which will surely be a while.

Thursday was Dear Jane night, and I did this:

J-ll, Twin Sisters

I updated my totals on the right. I'm only 4 blocks away from the Diamond Achievement level, so I'm kind of anxious to get those 4 blocks done. Not anxious enough for me to actually have done any work on Dear Jane this weekend, of course. I do have about half a dozen blocks re-prepped for hand work, though.

In addition to all that, I'm considering doing the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. I haven't completely decided on my project yet. If I get the first Mermaid sock done, I might make my project the second sock. It would give me some incentive to get it done. I admit I'm feeling a touch of second sock syndrome on these. I'm not sure why. It's either that A) it looks a little wide to me (even though it seems to fit) B) the worry about running out of yarn is starting to paralyze me (which is stupid) or C) I have 18 shiny new sock kits calling out to me. My money's on C). If I don't get sock #1 done, my project will be a pair of fingerless mitts. Probably Fetching in that Road to China yarn. Of course, that will put me that much farther behind on the socks.

Max was my helper when I was digging through and counting my sock kits today.

"You don't really want put those kits back in here, do you, Mama?"

Something finished, something started

2010-02-02T22:35:00.002-05:00

I finally finished that charcoal scarf that I've been working on but not taking pictures of.

That's a mistake rib pattern over I don't remember how many stitches. I used two balls of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky in the Charcoal colorway. It's very thick and pretty long. I didn't bother blocking or measuring it, since between the pattern and all the acrylic in the yarn, it wouldn't matter. John seems to like it, except for the fact that it catches on all the velcro on his coat and gloves. :(

So since I finished something, I started something else. I was going to make a scarf for myself (and I still might), but then my friend asked me to wind some yarn for her so she can start a shawl. When I asked what pattern she was going to make, she said it was the Fiber Trends Leaf Lace Shawl. Since I already have the pattern and yarn for it, I figured I'd go ahead and start one too. We each got about 10 rows done at lunch time today. Here's mine:

That's Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK in color #907, which I think was one of their potluck colors. It looks like it's kind of close to Misty Moor. The shawl doesn't look like much yet but I'm sure it'll get there. I like how the stitch markers go with the yarn. No, I didn't plan it that way. The knit and purl markers are placed so I know when I'm on an even (purl) row. Pretty clever, huh? Every little bit of idiot-proofing helps when it comes to knitting lace. I have a ball of yarn ready for adding lifelines, too.

Blue had so much fun helping me with breakfast Sunday morning that his little sister decided to help me later in the day while I was organizing my knitting and quilting patterns. Thanks, Runt....

"Helping Mama is FUN!"

Yarn

2010-01-30T21:39:00.005-05:00

WARNING: Rockin' Sock Club quasi-spoiler ahead.

I think I have a problem. Clearly I don't need anymore sock yarn, based on the fact that I made up 11 sock kits the week before last and I still have a big plastic tote in the basement full of sock yarn and an overflow bag on top of it. So I guess I should explain this:

Shibui sock yarn

And this:

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock, 3 pairs worth

I bought the Shibui for a mystery sock class that I was supposed to take at the LYS today. They didn't get enough people signed up to bring the teacher up from Columbus, so the class was rescheduled to Feb 21.

The STR is a little harder to explain. Two of those were ordered not long after I decided I didn't need any more sock yarn. In my defense, one of those two is the Doctors Without Borders colorway, so a whole $3 went to a good cause. And since I was ordering, I figured it couldn't hurt to get some Christmas-y yarn (Jingle Bell Rock). The last one is the January Rockin' Sock club yarn, which since it was already ordered before I made up the other kits, doesn't really count. Right?

After I took the picture of my sock kits, I changed one of them and added another, so I think that brings my total to an "even" baker's dozen (aka 13) sock kits in-house, with 5 more to come later this year. I'm still working, very slowly, on the Mermaid sock:

I'm almost done with the gusset increases. Then on to the heel, foot and toe. Then I get to start all over again.

Further hampering my future sock-knitting progress it the fact that the LYS is doing a February Lady sweater class. I haven't gone stash-diving yet, but I'm *sure* I have yarn for it. If I do, I'll probably go ahead and sign up. My friend said the people in her knitting group didn't like this pattern, but I never found out (or don't remember) why. The shop owner and another customer were each wearing one, so they must not have hated it. And it's knitting. Worst case, I frog the whole thing and make something else.

While I had the swift and winder out for the sock yarn, I wound this yarn that I got before Christmas:

It's made of banana fiber (from the tree, I guess). I'm not sure I'm looking forward to knitting this yarn. It had a very odd texture and did NOT wind easily. That explains why the darker one is in two pieces. The lighter one is in 3 pieces for a different reason, I think....

Last week I had the sewing room open, but I was in the living room, minding my own business. All of a sudden, one of the cats came tearing through, with a plastic bag caught around it's neck. The cat was moving so fast, I honestly don't know which one it was, and it managed to free him/herself without my help. The bag in question was the one the banana yarn was in. My guess is, the culprit has his/her head in the bag, chewing on the yarn when he/she was startled by one of the other cats, and ended up stuck in the bag.

While I was at the LYS picking out my yarn for the ill-fated class, I picked this up and it had to come home with me.

The Fibre Company's Road to China

OMG!! This is the softest yarn I've ever touched! It's 65% baby alpaca, 15% silk, 10% cashmere and 10% camel. The shop owner bought out the whole supply of discontinued colors that the sales rep. had. This is light amethyst. It's destined to be a pair of wrist warmers. Either Fetching, or these. Maybe a pair of each, since I have 2 hanks. :)

In other news, I had help in the kitchen this morning:

"I like eggs, Mama. Can I have some?"

More finished stuff

2010-01-21T18:51:00.008-05:00

News flash - I actually used my sewing machine the other night! I finished these two April Bags, which I had cut out several months ago:

Outside view

Inside view

As is frequently the case, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these. I often make things for the pleasure of creating them (see the baby blanket posts from September 2008 for proof). I bought the fabric at the NEORQC Getaway a couple of years ago for machine quilting practice and only used part of it. Since I don't drink coffee, it's kinda silly for me to use these as project bags. I do have an idea of what to do with them, but we'll see how that turns out.

I finished the Homespun shawl.

That's Lion Brand's Splendid Triangle Shawl in black Homespun yarn. It was a pretty easy knit. I apparently have issues keeping the right number of stitches, though. I kept ending up with the wrong number on one side or the other. The yarn is bumpy enough that you can't see individual stitches very well, so finding and fixing the problem wasn't very easy. I fudged instead. I can't tell where I did it, so I'm calling it fine.

Speaking of shawls, if you recall, I start a Gaia shawl before this one. This is as far as I got:

It was designed for Noro sock yarn, and you change stitch patterns when the color changes. Clearly, I'm not using Noro sock yarn here, so the pattern changes were going to be more or less random. I have a ball of Noro and no intentions of putting that stuff on my feet (makes my skin crawl thinking about it). I'm going to frog this and use the Noro for a Gaia instead. Eventually. This yarn, which is from the KnitWitch will become and Argus Shawlette instead. Eventually.

[BTW, through the end of January, Wendy of WendyKnits.net is donating 50% of her profits from Ravelry pattern sales to Doctors Without Borders. Just in case you need any patterns for anything.]

Meanwhile, I'm going get back to work on some socks. There was an entry on the Yarn Harlot's Never Not Knitting 2010 calendar a couple of weeks ago about making your own sock of the month club. The idea is that you dig through your stash, match yarn and patterns, put each project in a baggie and put all the baggies in another bag. At the beginning of the month, you pull one out and make it. Here are my 11 kits:

Why only 11, you might ask? Because I'm still working on my Mermaid socks and it's already past the middle of the month. No current picture of that, but I can tell you that I just did the first round for the gusset on sock one. I might have also joined the Rockin' Sock Club this year. And I signed up for a mystery sock class at the LYS.

Now, I'm not crazy enough to think I'll actually knit 19 pairs of socks this year. I *do* have other projects to work on and complete. But I figure I'll have at least 2 years of sock knitting ready to go. And I haven't even made a dent in the sock yarn stash. Must knit faster!!!

Crazy-eyed cat picture:

"The heat is on...."

More finished stealth projects

2010-01-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

I gave away the last of the stealth projects last Tuesday night. They were my friend Beth's Christmas presents. First, this bracelet and earring set:

I had to replace the toggle, since this one came undone twice in the hour or so that she had it on. I was afraid of that. I originally used a toggle just like it on the peppermint bracelet and it kept coming apart on me. It fell off at work and broke some of the beads so I had to re-do it. Not a big deal, but I didn't get a picture of the new version.

The second stealth project was this:

A 7-foot+ scarf. Here's a close-up:

The pattern is a modified version of My So Called Scarf. I only cast on 26 stitches, and the first and last stitch of each row is a knit. Then I followed the stitch pattern. I think it gave the edge a nicer finish. Here's how it looked the first time I started it, just following the pattern as given:

The color is more accurate in this picture, I think

See how the left edge is kinda bumpy? That bugged me, so I changed it. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay in the sage colorway. Yes, sage. You'd think it would be green, right? I guess the flowers of the sage plant are purple.

I was worried about it being so long, but Beth is 5'9" and she loved it. She said she was hoping one of the stealth projects was for her. Happy to oblige. :)

Another "sleepy kitties in the chair" picture:

"We do this a lot."

Knitters Without Borders

2010-01-14T21:46:00.007-05:00

Just a quickie - if you're a knitter and have donated to Doctors Without Borders recently, please let the Yarn Harlot know how much you gave at kwbATyarnharlotDOTca. She's keeping track of donations and last I heard she'd added about $46,000 (yes, forty six THOUSAND dollars) to her previous running total since about noon yesterday. And she's still counting.

I've been looking at pictures on CNN.com and I just can't get my head around the devastation in Haiti.

If you haven't donated, I'll join everyone else and encourage you to do so. It doesn't have to be a large amount, every little bit helps. If you prefer to donate to another charity, that's great, too. The Yarn Harlot's only counting the Doctors Without Borders donations, but there are lots of others.

Just be careful of the scammers. It disgusts me that there are people out there looking to make a buck off people who want to help others. They should be airlifted directly to Haiti and dropped off. Parachutes optional.

The Red Cross and your cellular providers are making it easy. If you text the word "Haiti" to the number 90999, they'll add $10 to your cell phone bill, send it to the Red Cross and (probably) not charge you for the text message. They've raised over $5 million that way so far.

"I'd donate if I could."

[I'll be back to my regularly scheduled nonsense next time.]

Penny Haren

2010-01-13T19:24:00.007-05:00

I didn't go to work today. Instead, I went to a workshop with Penny Haren.

The long view of most of the class.

Demonstrating her technique.

As I was listening to her talk, something sounded familiar in her slight accent. I asked her where she was from, and found out she knows my aunt Glenna in Newark, OH! Penny taught Dear Jane classes at her quilt shop and Aunt Glenna was one of her students. The first time I saw Dear Jane blocks was when Aunt Glenna showed me hers. Of course, I thought those little blocks were crazy-fiddly and swore I'd never make one myself. Funny how things change.

Penny brought her Dear Jane quilt top and I got a couple of pictures.

She did a great job on it, but said she plans to take it apart because she doesn't like the sashing. Yikes!!

Today's class wasn't Dear Jane, it was Penny's Pieced Applique technique. A lot of what we learned can be applied to Dear Jane, though. These are the blocks I made today:

A lot of pieces are just glued on and still need to be stitched down. She uses monofilament thread and a narrow zig-zag to do her applique. I usually don't like machine applique and had planned to do all of my Dear Jane appliques by hand. That was before I found out about the arthritis in my right hand. It makes hand sewing painful, so I'm thinking about switching to the machine version.

The Dear Jane motto is "Finished is better than perfect" and my hand applique is far from perfect. I've been a little worried that some of the blocks won't survive a washing, and machine stitching them will maybe make them more secure *and* get them done in my lifetime. I figure I can practice on the blocks from class and decide. If I use the monofilament, it won't matter as much if I can't stay on the lines and I should get better over time.

If you're a quilter, Penny's book is definitely worth a look. Even if I do the stitching by hand, I'll definitely be using some of her techniques on my Dear Jane blocks. I might even spring for some of her fussy cut rulers. I resisted buying one for the class because I have a whole pegboard full of rulers (I think I have every size/shape OmniGrid makes, or very close to it) and didn't really want to buy another one. However, they did come in handy in the class, so I'll definitely keep them in mind.

Here's something you don't see every day:

Yep, all four of the "kittens" in the chair at once.

Now I'm going to go play in my sewing room....

Kitty Cat Laws of Physics

2010-01-07T20:05:00.008-05:00

You might be familiar with the Cartoon Laws of Physics, which are quite different from the laws of physics that the rest of us follow.

I suggest that there are Kitty Cat Laws of Physics. The main points are that A) a cat body at rest will gain mass the longer it is at rest and B) it will molecularly bond to the surface it is resting on. Here's why I believe this. This cat weighs no more than 10 pounds:

Normally she's pretty jumpy and moves at smallest noise or movement. However, once she settles herself on the bed at night, she becomes nearly immovable. You practically have to pick her up and throw her off the bed. And somehow, she finds the perfect location for preventing the human(s) from getting comfortable. Also? She steals the covers.

Fortunately for her, she's also very cute.

I think I mentioned that I spent the first day of the new year in my sewing room attempting to organize my beads, and getting distracted in the process. It continues....

Blue beads on navy wire with silver spacer beads and coordinating (but not matching) earrings

Blue and turquoise beads with gold beads and bead caps and matching earrings

More stitch markers (!)

I mostly made all that stuff because I didn't want to store the beads anymore. As is it, I still have more beads than fit in my rather large bead box, so I now have a large bead box with many organizers in it, a smaller box with more organizers in it and another separate organizer. I don't need any more beads.

Or beaded ornament kits:

I made four each of these which are 6-8" long or so. They're bigger than I imagined when I ordered them (even though the dimensions were listed). I kept two each of the straight ones, and one each of the ones with the stars. I kept all of the blue ones, because I like them even though they're big.

Sad thing? I still have a whole tray of various beaded ornament kits in a different craft box. I can't seem to stop...

In other news, I can now blog one of my stealth knitting projects - fingerless mitts!

They are the Keep Me Warm Mitts in Queensland Merino Spray yarn in the lime colorway. The recipient loved them. She works in a data center and is always cold. Which is why I thought they'd be a perfect project for her. I also made her this 2-strand bracelet:

I was less excited about this part of the gift. I made it mostly because I liked the silver and crystal beads and knew she'd love the color. This was my 3rd or 4th attempt to get the two strands the same length. It was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be. I told her she was welcome to take it apart and re-do it, or scrap the whole thing altogether and use the beads for something else. She was very nice and said it looked fine.

For a change of pace, a (crappy cell phone) dog picture:

My friend, Buddy

That's Buddy, my friend Beth's Doberman. I went to her house to bake cookies before Christmas. She let Buddy out, then I let him in and gave him a treat. After that, I was his best friend. He's a really good, gentle dog.

Public Service Announcement

2010-01-03T13:18:00.004-05:00

The weather is cold and nasty. If you have long stretches of time with not much to do and aren't opposed to some violence and frequent utterances of "Dammit!," Best Buy has all seasons of crack - I mean 24, on sale for $13.99 each. I haven't been able to find used ones that cheap. I already ordered my copies of the seasons we don't have yet, so I figure it's safe to share . ;-) Hurry, they're only on sale Sunday and Monday

Now I just have to wait till May for Season 8 to come out on DVD. I'm not sure I can watch it week-to-week and stay sane.....

Funny related note: I'm reading Patient Zero, by Jonathan Maberry (I like it so far, though I did dream about zombies one night after reading it). The main character has just been told they want him to lead the team to find/stop the zombies. This follows:

"....Why were they asking me? I'm just a cop. Where are the guys who actually do this for a living? How come none of them were here? Where's James Bond and Jack Bauer?...."

I laughed out loud. Jack Bauer would be perfect for fighting zombies. But we decided that adding zombies to 24 would be jumping the shark and we're not ready for that yet.

Kathryn doesn't like posts without pictures, and I haven't made any progress on anything crafty since Friday. So you get this:

"This is our chair!!"

Distraction 2010

2010-01-02T11:09:00.007-05:00

Happy New Year!

And none too soon, if you ask me. 2009 was not a good year - full of vet bills, hospital visits and stressful events for friends and family. I'm definitely ready for a fresh start. How about you?

I met very few of my 2009 project goals, though I did accomplish a lot of other things. I've upped my goal on my Dear Jane quilt to 2/3 done. I thought about leaving it at half-way, but where's the challenge in that? I hope to make it to two UFO weekends the year so that should help. If I don't take anything else to work on, I should be able to make good progress. Don't quote me on that, though. :)

We spent New Year's Eve at home, as usual. We actually fell asleep on the couch and managed to wake up just in time to see the ball drop. We had a toast and went to bed.

Party animals:

Notice Max's extra long tail wrapped behind his shoulder

A few minutes later, they were joined by Runt:

Yesterday I spent all day in my sewing room, but not sewing. My goal was to organize my beads and craft supplies, get some of the newly-acquired yarn put away and generally dig out my sewing table so I can use it for it's intended purpose. Once again, I was distracted by shiny objects.

I found some more beads that I thought would make good stitch markers, so....

I'm not in love with the larger ones, but I couldn't really remember why I bought those red beads and I wanted to get them out of the bead stash. The small gold hearts were in a mixture of beads, like the purple ones from a week or two ago. I put them on smaller rings for use with smaller needles. One of these days I might take my friend's advice and open an Etsy shop. We'll see.

Then I found some old beads and a couple of snowflake charms that I really didn't want to store anymore. The beads have an AB coating on them and are pretty, even though they're plastic. I figured they'd work fine for Christmas ornaments that won't get much action.

The red and green beads on the smaller, center one were leftover from some old ornament kits. Yes, I am a pack rat, which is a good thing, since I needed more beads for that one. Let me tell you, those snowflake wires are a *LOT* harder to bend than the stuff I'm used to working with. Also, an arm (leg?) broke off one of them broke part way through so I had to start that one over. My hand is sore today.

This spool ornament was a make-and-take project from my December guild meeting. I skipped the make part at the meeting, and just took the supplies.

I finished it yesterday so I can put it in with the Christmas decorations.

After spending all day standing on a hardwood floor and bending over my sewing table, I curled up on the couch to watch an NCIS dvd. Emma decided to join me.

"I crawled under the quilt all by myself. It's warm under here...."

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T19:08:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Santa was good to us:

There are very few ornaments on the tree, due to the cats' love of taking them off.

I still don't have any crafty stuff to blog about, but there's no shortage of cat pictures.

Max decided he wants to go to work with me next time I go.

"This bag is just my size!"

We seem to have a new fetch player at our house.

"It was fun having Mama throw the mouse for me today!"

And this one spend a good part of the day in time-out:

"But Mama, your glass of milk was just sitting there. And after I got out of the first time out, I was hungry, and your rolls are so good..."

Easily distracted by shiny objects

2009-12-18T13:43:00.004-05:00

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week. Today, too. I *should* have spent the time working like crazy on my stealth projects, since they are Christmas gifts.

Instead.....

I made a boatload of stitch markers and a pair of earrings. Actually I made 4 pairs of earrings. It's just that two of them were more peppermint candy earrings, and I've already posted those twice. The other pair I just didn't get a picture of.

I also re-strung my peppermint bracelet, which I dropped last week at work. Marble floors are *really* hard and glass beads are very brittle. I put a different toggle on the bracelet, so now it doesn't come undone when I move around.

I put this together, too.

It needs more of those glass beads inside, but I only had one bag of them. I'm thinking about mixing in some red beads instead, just to get some color in there. I should probably add some pretty ribbon around it and a bow on top, too. If/when I get around to that, I'll post another picture.

I did finish one of my stealth projects today. That just leaves one more to go. I'm not sure I 'm going to get it done in time. I better get busy.

"I'll help you, Mama!"

Mouse Wars 2009

2009-12-12T21:17:00.012-05:00

One of my coworkers, Lisa, decorates our office every year for Christmas. This year, she brought in this calendar.

There's a little mouse that travels the pockets. Lisa says it's a count down calendar and started the mouse at 24 on Dec 1, as in 24 days till Christmas. The rest of us say it starts at 1, so Mousie goes in the pocket number of the date.

Thus started Mouse Wars. We kept putting Mousie in the pocket number of the date and Lisa kept moving it back, eventually stapling it in place. It was then unstapled, moved and safety pinned in place. Mousie disappeared, the calendar itself was moved out of a public area, and finally removed altogether. Mousie has been spotted around the office, though.

I have a feeling he'll really be getting around....

Personally, I think the calendar's defective. If it's meant to be a countdown calendar, the numbers should start at the top with 24. If it's meant to be more of a regular calendar, it should go all the way to 25. Confusing.

In other news, a friend of mine is an Uppercase Living consultant and she and couple of other consultants held a project night on Thursday. I made a couple of lamps. Here's the first one:

And the second:

The design wraps around 3 sides of both lamps. If you like the lamps themselves, you can get them at Ikea. I think craft stores carry vinyl stickers to put on them. Or you could contact and Uppercase Living consultant to get their stuff.

We also each got an ornament. I decorated both sides of mine:

We all got another expression. Mine is a "Welcome". Oh, and I won a $25 gift certificate. :-)

See this?

That's Blue's collar. Notice it's not around Blue's neck. I've been finding it in various places around the house in the morning, or when I get home. This morning I found it about 4 feet up in the as-yet-undecorated Christmas tree. He won't tell me how it got there. He got a new collar this afternoon. Hopefully it will stay on better.

The scene last night on the couch:

Yes, they're laying on a Halloween quilt.

A few minutes later:

Yes, that's the Christmas tree in the background. And....?

More beady goodness

2009-12-04T20:22:00.003-05:00

We went to Crop Bistro for lunch today. I had the Mac and Brisket, which is a really yummy mac & cheese topped with pulled beef brisket. We were admiring the artwork but couldn't figure out what one of the pictures was. Any guesses?

Apparently it's Monstera Deliciosa - a weird fruit that grows in kernels on a central stalk, like corn. The whole plant is poisonous except the fruit, and that's only okay after it's ripe. Crazy. It sounds a little too dangerous for me - like eating blowfish. I think I'll pass

I had the day off Wednesday. I'm still working on my stealth projects, but I had intended to spend the day sewing. I did spend most of it in the sewing room, but I was playing with beads instead of fabric or yarn. Here's what I can show you.

I got the hematite rings, beads and crystals in the clearance bin at JoAnn's. When I went to put the toggle on the bracelet I noticed there was no eyelet for it, as you can see. I improvised a loop with the small beads instead.

I had a few of the beads leftover so I made some tiny stitch markers, for use with projects on smaller needles, like socks or lace.

The red and green peppermint earrings are for my friend KB, who requested them that way. I also made a couple of dozen beaded icicle ornaments that I gave to the women's club at work for their craft sale today. As far as I know, none of them sold. And a bunch of the fabric ornaments I made a year or two ago were still there, too. It's kind of depressing, actually. I won't waste my time making crafty stuff for them again. :-(

Ripley loves me, at least. This picture was taken a week or so ago, but it's a good one of my senior baby.

"Who you callin' old, Mama? I make 17 look good!"

I got nothin'....

2009-11-29T20:56:00.005-05:00

Well, not exactly nothing, but very little. I am making progress on my stealth projects, but they aren't bloggable yet. 'Tis the season and all that.

I did do something I can show off. A while ago, I saw these and these in a catalog and thought they were cute. Not long after, I found a whole string of those peppermint beads for $5 here. Using a lot less than half of that string of beads, plus some other supplies I had on hand, I now have these:

Not bad, huh?

The boys were thrilled beyond measure.

All cats, all the time

2009-11-21T21:40:00.005-05:00

My arm got quite a workout yesterday. Blue was in a "fetching" mood. Isn't he cute?

"My eyes don't always glow like this...."

I thought I finally tired him out....

"Chasing that mouse is hard work!"

... but about 2 minutes later, he was bringing his mouse back to me. He's such a weird little cat.

Later in the day, these two unsuspecting girls got to go see all the nice ladies at the vet's office.

Emma's mouth is healing well and Runt is healthy, too. After we got back, we found Runt behind the chair.

"They shoved me in a box. TWICE!!"

And we finally got a picture of Emma in the box.

"Hey, it's pretty nice in here."

In non-cat news, I've mostly been working on my stealth projects. I can show you one thing, though. I embroidered another blanket for someone at work.

I cleaned up my sewing room and fixed a pair of earrings that broke at the wedding last week, too, but I didn't get a picture of that.

A movie, wedding and a lousy photographer

2009-11-16T17:15:00.003-05:00

My cousin Amy got married on Saturday in my parents' hometown of Bellaire, OH (home of NFL players Joey Galloway and Ben Taylor, btw). My dad called that morning and told me that they were filming a new Denzel Washington movie, Unstoppable, in town, and there might be some traffic issues. No kidding. Every road I tried to take to get to the church was closed. I haven't spent a lot of time there lately, so it wasn't a whole lot of fun wandering around there. We did make it before the ceremony started.

The wedding was in the same church my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles have been married in. I thought that was pretty cool. I didn't take my camera to the wedding, since that's usually frowned upon.

I am a lousy wedding photographer since this is the best picture I got of the bride and groom:

I'm such a loser. I got a nice picture of the reception hall (I don't know the people in this picture).

The wedding cakes:

One of the bride's younger sister/maid of honor and her fiance:

Amber and Ryan

One of me and my parents.

And one of my mom and her siblings:

Aunt Karen, Uncle Todd (aka father of the bride) and Mom

The crafty content might be kind of thin for the next 39 days or so. I'll be working on a couple of stealth projects, but they won't be bloggable till after Christmas. The best I can give you today is this link. That's a picture of my friend Jeri from the Cookie A sock class last weekend. I'm glad someone got a picture of her. :) That's my red head behind her.

There was a kitty cat love fest on the couch last night:

Emma's feeling much better now, btw.

Projects, a mystery and more yarn I don't need

2009-11-12T20:31:00.004-05:00

I had Monday off and managed to find my sewing room!

I added borders and the piping/binding to this baby quilt, which is a group gift for a co-worker's new baby.

It was a pre-cut kit I bought here. I'd say it's a good value for the price - it was nicely kitted up, and the piping was already made. We decided against using the plain flannel backing and used a floral printed fleece with no batting instead. I would buy kits from this seller again, but I don't think I'd choose one that has piping in it. It looks nice, but putting on the piping too fiddly for me.

I also finished this small April Bag that I cut out a couple/three months ago. I was in the process of sewing it together when I realized my mistake.

Do you see it? The fabric is directional - and upside down. I'd already cut the shaping so it was too late to fix it. Clearly, it wasn't obvious enough that I noticed when I was doing the cutting. At least it isn't sideways. I'd have a much bigger problem with that. I have two more of these cut out, but I haven't changed the thread in my machine to the right color yet. They are definitely right side up.

I bought two of these fountains when Emma was diagnosed with kidney problems. I originally bought the medium sized one to keep on the living room side of the "Magic Door", where Max and Emma sleep at night. Then I noticed that Ripley was making a beeline to the fountain every morning. Apparently, a bowl wasn't good enough anymore. So I bought this small one for the kitchen.

The mystery is, this one appears to be leaking. I take it apart at least once a month to give it a good cleaning and change the filter. The bottom is a solid piece of plastic, and I haven't been able to locate any cracks. I have no idea where the puddle is coming from. It's about 3 years old now, and I've already replaced the pump once. Maybe it's time to spring for a new one.....

Here's the yarn I don't need.

Pretty, isn't it? That's two 100g skeins of Sheep Shop Yarn's Sheep Feet in Lilac and Ocean on the left. On the right are two 3.5 oz skeins of Three Irish Girls Adorn sock yarn in Masquerade and Elsbeth. I ordered the TIG yarn back in July during the dying contest for the Sock Summit, and I just got it today. I guess they underestimated the demand. I was anxious to get it, but I was okay with waiting. It's not like I'm going to get to it any time soon. It's nice and soft and I'm looking forward to knitting it up. Eventually. :)

Update on Emma: She seems to be feeling much better now. She's back to her normal shape. Her belly behind her rib cage was really bloated when we took her to the emergency room.

"See my waist, Mama?"

Can you see where they shaved her neck, just at the top of her spot?

And her digestive system seems to be back to normal now. Is it sad that the high point of my week was this cat going "Number 2"? I really need to get out more....

"I don't know why Mama was so happy that I went potty. She still didn't let me have any of her dinner, though."

Emma's Weekend Adventures

2009-11-09T12:00:00.006-05:00

Allow me to re-introduce you to Emma, aka Princess EmmaCat CrabbyPants.

As you might recall, Emma had some dental work done on Friday. She had two teeth pulled and was a bit dopey when she came home. She was eating just fine and laying on laps as usual, till Saturday night. Then she started to get a little standoff-ish. Sunday morning she was still sitting in the dining room doorway. Not only did she *not* join in the swarming of my feet for breakfast, I had to take her food *to her* and she didn't eat it. She also looked a little bloated.

I admit I'm a little overprotective of Emma. She has kidney issues, which we first discovered because she was standoff-ish and not eating. I called the emergency animal hospital and decided she should take a ride. They did blood tests and found her kidney numbers were all in the normal range, but her lactate level was 4.7, and the normal is under 2. They decided to keep her for the day, give her IV fluids and run some more tests.

[Warning: due to the graphic nature of the next paragraph, reader discretion is advised. Also, you might not want to eat while reading it.]
We picked her up around 9pm and got more info. They did x-rays and found that she was *extremely* constipated. To put it less delicately, she was literally full of crap.... to the point that her intestines had displaced most of her internal organs! No wonder she looked bloated. They gave her two (!) enemas and sent her home.

She seems to be feeling somewhat better now. She slept with us last night (Ripley was not amused, btw), but she was reluctant to eat this morning until we broke out the StarKist tuna. I was just happy to see her eat something. We're going to keep trying to get her to eat anything she wants and see how she's doing tomorrow. I'm hoping she'll be okay by then. I don't think she'd take kindly to another trip to the vet. Neither would my wallet, for that matter. :-(

"They shaved both of my front legs and part of my neck, Mama! And they stuck things in me. That's no way to treat a princess!!"