a mixed bag…

This weekend has gone by soooooo fast!  (Saturday… cold, windy, sunshine, rain, a little everything.)We cleaned up the deck and Rick built a railing for our new BBQ to back up against.  (we get high winds without notice and we don’t want it tipping over like the old one did.) 

So while Rick played with the tools and wood,  I got the outdoor table and chairs cleaned up.  I decided that the skirt thing that went around the table had to go.  And when I took it off… an idea hit me!  I could put flowers on the shelves!  We have had this tall table & chairs for 6 years now.  Considering the weather here I think it has done well.  (The salt air/water tends to eat everything!)  Anyway here’s what the table looks like with the skirt thing off (and pre-flowers). 

Maybe the deer won’t be able to eat the flowers in here.  Well, I can hope. 

I also got the windfeathers from our wedding last summer out of storage and put them up.  They are very colorful and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping the ducks and geese off our dock.  The dock really needs to be cleaned, but that will happen on another day.

Saturday wrapped up with some movie (very memorable, I can’t even remember the name of it!), and making a few samples to check for the right gauge before I pick a yarn for my sweater.  I had some Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece left over from a project last year and I decided to knit it up.  Then I decided to try some left over Cascade Pima Tencel. 

 

The colors are NOT what I’m going to use, but they really helped me to decide what kind of yarn I want for the sweater.  (That will come later!)  Anyway, here are all the samples I knit to help me see what size needles.  I even did a sample of the trim on the sweater. 

 

The pattern called for size 7 needles but with the one in the middle (light blue pima tencel), I had to go down to 5’s! And the purple size 6 was ok.  I will make the final decision next week.  (Thank you Bunni for taking so much time with me on Friday to look through all the yarn books!)  I really like the tiny bow pattern, it’s very simple to remember and it’s an 8 row repeat!

Sunday… we jump in the car and hit the garage sales!  Lots of junk out there and I did good.  I only brought home 3 old knitting mags. 

Jack Frost Volume 41 from 1942 – Original price .25

A 1950’s Knitting Primer with “50 easy knitting patterns and stitches to knit the Sampler Afghan – a lasting record of your knitting skill”.  Original price .35

Spinnovations 3 – 1975 – Idea book … 50 great looks for summer!  (eat your heart out Farrah Faucet)

Monday… The sun came out just before noon!  I grabbed my knitting and ran for the back deck.  This chair is great, it even has a built in yarn holder! 

 

I haven’t been working on these socks much, but they are a good sunshine knitting project.  I got this great purse on ebay a couple of weeks ago and I use it for a knitting bag.  Too cute, the socks coordinate well with it, don’t you think!

 

I was hoping to get more done on my shawl this weekend but, poof… the weekend seems to be about over.  Maybe during the movie tonight. (something he picked out, I’m sure it will be wonderful!) 

All things considered, it has been a good weekend.  I even managed to get some laundry done, and bake brownies for hubby.  Tomorrow is supposed to be really nice and warm.  And lucky me… it’s back to work! 🙂

Have a great week all!

Knitting, Dips and books…

Well the weekend is drawing to an end… and it’s been drizzling all day!  This will be a short entry tonight because I want to get back to knitting on my shawl.

It’s almost doubled since last weekend.  I had a couple of lunch hours that I spent looking for the missing YO.  And then I had a couple of lunch hours that went very well!  I love this pattern.

SOCKS…

Tofutsies are still in the bag… I’m on the second sock and in the home stretch (the foot) now.  In the mean time I have switched back to my much neglected Roza socks. 

Roza… remember the Roza socks? Well they are a good break time knit, and I can spend almost 30 minutes a day on them.  On Friday morning break (outside on the bench in front of work, in the sunshine, I might add) I finished my first Roza.  The pictures just don’t do it justice.  

I love this picture with Thor checking it out.

This photo shows the color a little better.

I was viewing a few blogs this weekend and came across someones Manta Ray Shawl, and thought that I had seen that recently… I had.  It’s in my new book Yarnplay by Lisa Shobhana Mason .  I wasn’t sure how much I liked this book at first, but the more that I look at it the more I liked it.  I could imagine this shawl made out of the brushed acrylic yarn that I have in this grape color.  I’ve only had the yarn for about 24years!!!!  Yes, that’s right.  Back when I lived in Oregon, and worked for Robin and Russ Handweavers, I bought a cone of this!  Back then I could only crochet and weave and I have no idea what I thought I was going to make out of this yarn, (maybe a blanket thing) I just knew that I liked the color.  So what did I do… stayed up half the night knitting on it when I have perfectly wonderful projects to be working on!!  Oh the shame of it. -No picture to follow of this project until I recharge all the batteries (yes, 3 of them) that I have run down. 

On the dip front, I did my inventory – lots to order to have fresh stuff ready to make dips!  I tried fine tuning a couple of dips that I wanted to kick up and change a bit and I made up 3 to take to work.  A mild curry herb dip, a smokey mexican type dip and a blue cheese herb dip.  Stop by and try some if you’re in the neighborhood.

Well for light reading I’ll tell you that I’m enjoying the Knitting for Peace book and I’m listening to The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (at work) and in the car I’m on the last CD of The Seventh Sinner by Elizabeth Peters.  I love a good mystery or thriller or suspense and I love a good story (even the ones that will make me laugh and cry and feel like I know these people).  The book by Elizabeth Peters is a good story.  No guts, blood, and swearing just a good ol’ fashion Agatha Christie type mystery.  Easy to listen to and no, you won’t figure out who did it until the bitter end!  It takes place in Rome and they go to all the places I want to someday visit. 

Did I say this was going to be a short blog night?  Good heavens I must go knit now!  I hope a good weekend was had by all.

Last weekend of April…

And so ends a beautiful weekend.  It took a little while for the beach clouds to blow over, but when they did, what a day!  It’s been a pretty good month, and I can’t believe it’s almost May. 

I always feel a little blue when my hubby leaves for the big city (Seattle) on Sunday.  His new job is in Seattle and soon he’ll be telecommuting, but for a few weeks he’ll just be coming home on the weekends.  The dogs go crazy after he leaves, they run after him, and then sit and stare out the window waiting for him to come back.  They make me laugh, and I love them to death, so I’m glad they are here with me.

Puppy Love…

Knitting… yes, we had some knitting going on over the weekend in-between home projects. 

I first want to show you the cuties little socks ever.  I picked up a sock blocker key chain (w/pattern) at The Yarn Corner this week. 

 

This is a great sock to knit if you need to have some instant gratification for finishing a project.  And who doesn’t need to get that feeling once in a while.  I have it double this week, as I’ve knit up two… I guess I have a mis-matched pair of socks done! 

 

The teal yarn (I know it looks blue, but it’s not) is from my very first pair of socks.  And the second brown/pink and blue yarn is from my RPM socks.  It only takes a little bit of sock yarn and about an hour.  I’ll be making more of these down the road… you know, when I need to get that feeling that I’ve finished something!  You really should get in to buy one of these cute kits before they are all gone. 

My shawl had a little set back early in the week.  I had the wrong number of sts after one row and then I tried to correct it and it got worse and worse and worse.  Totally Frogged it all!

1st try…

I started again on Wednesday and I’m very happy now. 

 

I really love this pattern, I think it’s great for a first time shawl.  I totally love the fact that you have to concentrate on the pattern and it feels soooo good when I have the right number of sts at the end of the row.  Yes, I now count at the end of each row before continuing on to make sure I have the correct number.  Lessons learned.  I know I’ll need to get some pins for blocking too, but I have a while before that day comes!

While sitting at my desk in our home office yesterday, I picked up my dpn’s and my Lucy STR yarn (picked this up at the Canby, OR Flock and Fiber Festival last summer).  I was organizing piles of papers and putting stuff away and ran across this sock pattern that I printed so that I would remember where this great yarn came from.  Anyway, I went out to the website, and once again there is no more of this yarn.  I will need to watch closer or email them to ask if I can get on a list or something for the next time they make it up.  The yarn is from Freshisle Fibers in Canada.  It’s self-striping watermelon!  If anyone knows where else I might find this yarn I would love to hear from you.  OK, back the sock pattern and the lovely Lucy yarn, I decided to start on this simple pattern with Lucy and so now I have one more project going.  These are my Office Lucy Socks – because they will stay in the office, and I will work on them in here while downloading etc.

I’m having some issues with downloading photos right now, so that’s why some are very large.  It seems I’ve used all my space at Flickr for this month, so I’m using my Photobucket.  Whatever it takes to get the job done, right! 

Speaking of getting the job done, I’m off to finish up the laundry before settling in to some knitting!

A clean car and a good book…

Sunday has been a beautiful day here at the beach and the lake!  

My car is now clean and it always feels so good to drive a clean car.  The inside, well… it’s pretty clean.  Maybe I should have spent a little more time on it, but it’s better than it was, and I’m happy with it.

Isn’t she pretty!

I love to go online and check out books at the library.  I’m always ordering knitting books or books on CD or MP3 or sometimes tapes (if that’s the only way I can get them).  Anyway, I don’t always know what the knitting book I’m checking out is going to turn out to be.  I picked up the books that I ordered online, Friday before I headed home and I just finished looking at them.  I have to share one that I fell in love with.  (keep in mind I have no little ones in my house – if you don’t count my dogs). 

The book is Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas.  It’s not just the cute patterns, it’s a beautiful book.

 

Yes, I do love the pictures… but I also love all the helpful how-to instructions in this book too.  The writing in wonderful and I love the way it is laid out.  I highly recomment it, and think I will add it to my collection soon.

Well, that’s it for me today.  I want to get back to my knitting!

This week in review…

MONDAY – Chiropractor tried to kill me… or just break me in two or something like that.  Enough said about Monday!

TUESDAY – Knit Night!  I really look forward to the monthly knit night at The Yarn Corner.  I love to look at all the yarn and dream.  But what’s this?  A clear bag with some stuff in it… roving!  I look at this bag briefly and can’t figure out what “artfelt” is, so I move on to my next favorite thing.  What is everyone knitting!  Another one of my favorite things to do is to pick Amber’s brain.  (She is working on this beautiful bolero in some kind of a yummy brown.) I have a little project that I’ve been working on.  It started out I was just knitting a swatch of a pattern to see what it looked like.  Now it has turned into a project.  I’m making it into a little accessories bag to keep my this and that in (tape measure, small notebook, scissors, etc.). I have fabric to line it with, and I’m going to learn how to put a zipper in, what a great learning experience.  And if it doesn’t turn out, so what, I’m learning!   OK, before I go any further I need to warn you, I’m going to be jumping around a little here, try to keep up.  I checked out this awesome book from the library called Vogue Knitting.  I love this book it has so many tips and show me how to do it pictures.  Things I should have read before my first sweater – but that’s ok, it was my first, you live, you knit, you learn!  OK, so this awesome book shows up on my desk in a brown box.  Yes, my very dear sweet friend Patty bought it for me!  (and one for her too!)  So, on page 136 is a pattern called Embossed honeycomb (remember I’m still new to knitting, sort of)… looking at the picture I was intrigued, so I cast on and began knitting to see what it would look like. 

This is a sneak peak at the soon to be accessories bag in the embossed honeycomb stitch.

I like it, and as I’m knitting I am reminded of another book and project.  It’s the One Skein book by Leigh Radford (another fav book of mine) – on page 52 there are 3 little accessory bags.  I really like the willow green one.  It’s crocheted… I can crochet, but would rather not now that I can knit.   So… I’m thinking why not make this swatch sample into a little bag, OK, maybe a little bit bigger bag.  Jump back to Tuesday Knit Night, and I’m picking Amber’s brain.  I’m not sure what to do to the sides of my big sample embossed honeycomb knitting experiment.  I did knit a simple bottom to it and now I’m thinking I need to make the sides about a half inch.  But do I pick up stitches around and knit somehow, or do I make a side piece and add it by stitching it in place?  Help me I cry.  Amber as always with her wisdom directs me to a Interweave mag from a while back and that I could maybe use it for a guide.  Big smile on my face, I will do this the minute I get home.  OK, that’s what I was thinking at the moment.  Now flash, I’m at home and I’m pooped so I take the dogs out and go to bed.

WEDNESDAY –  All day at work, I’m thinking about those cute clear bags at The Yarn Corner, and what do you do with that stuff.  So what do I do… well I leave work early and rush over there!  Only 15 or 20 minutes before she closes.  I use ALL of this time to examine closely each bag 10 times!  I kid you not, ask Sherri or Lauri.  Thankfully she had to close so the last one I touched is the one I took home!  At the time I just couldn’t figure out what I was going to be doing with it, so the colors didn’t really make sense to me.  NO knitting required for this new project.  But still I’m game to learn what secrets are in this magical clear bag that will one day be great to keep yarn in, me thinks at the time!

Here’s what I got…

 

I love the colors!  I watched the DVD (twice)!  I get it!  This is cool project it’s paper felting.  I’m going to make something… so I jump into cutting apart the big roving by colors (like the DVD said to do) and now all I want to do is make something.  So knowing I don’t have a lot of time tonight, I decide to just make a little something.  I grab an old towel, cut a small piece of the magic paper that my roving will go on and go to town with the poking!  Please see The Yarn Corner blog for more details about this kit (April 4).  Now I really still have no idea what I’m going for here (I recommend you know what you are going to do BEFORE you do it).  But like I said I’m jumping in! 

Oh, and another thing, the barbed needles are very sharp (Hello, barbed like barbed wire fencing that hurts when you try to crawl under it in a halter top with a sunburn – got the picture!)  Ring, Ring, it’s mom, but I can’t stop now.  So I’m excitedly telling my mom about what I just got and I’m still poking at my roving with this very sharp barbed needle.  (I don’t recommend talking on the phone while doing this either)  Yes, there was a little blood involved, but I’m learning! 

Here we have what Shanda created on her first try… 

 If you have stopped laughing at them, you can continue reading.

So yes, I didn’t understand everything and I should have watched the DVD one more time, and I probably shouldn’t have been talking on the phone with mom.  But I was so excited to make something with this roving!!!! 

Flash forward, quick get the little blobs wet, roll in towel carefully, shove in panty hose leg carefully, tie knot in leg so it won’t fall out in the dryer, and toss in dryer.  (don’t forget to change the setting to Cotton, or high heat, or whatever)  Now, flash forward 20 more minutes and unknot not so carefully, pull rolled towel out of leg, not so carefully because you are so excited to see it, and there it is!  Please no drum roll… it’s not done yet.  Run to the kitchen where we had a pan of water boiling in preparation for this moment.  Now toss the little blobs into a glass brownie pan (wish I had brownies right now) and pour bowling water over it, magically the paper dissolves!  Back to the towel to get rid of excess water and then they must dry. 

Flower blob on white yarn ball.

Here we can see in more detail the size of my flower blobs!

and here we have a highlighter to compare the size of my cute little flower blob.

I swear I will make something more carefully, and planned out later… as soon as I stop laughing at these poor little blobs that I created.  I know you are saying “What was she thinking?”  OK, I was thinking of a flower type object when I started and now I’m happy to say this test is over.  I will move on to create again – after I watch the DVD a couple more times!

THURSDAY – I get home from work and take the dogs outside as usual and WHAT IS THAT!

yes, it has a blue roof!

This may not seem like a big thing to you and yo mama – but someone has cleared the beautiful trees on the lake directly across from our house!  I knew that someday someone may build or do something like this, but not yet.  I can see the log house that someone built on the street across from the lot they cleared.  This is all very strange to me.  I’m sure I will adjust it just feels weird to see a house over there, and at night they have a LIGHT for crying out loud!  It’s the dark side of the lake, there are to be NO lights!  As you can tell I’m adjusting well. 

FRIDAY – (the 13th) It’s payday and I’m still laughing about my little blobs that I made all by myself!

SATURDAY– Today it feels like spring outside.  We’ve had sunshine and rain all day.  During the next sun break I really should run outside and wash my very, very dirty red Honda Element.  And during the rain I am Spring Cleaning.  Where did this tradition start?  No, don’t tell me… I will hate that person forever I’m sure if I knew.  OK, so I’m blogging, I’m looking at more knitting books and I’m proud to say that our taxes are filed and the money is in the cyber-mail!  We have movies to watch while I knit tonight and things are good.  I left out something that happened to me on Thursday, but that big news will follow later.

The sun is out and I must run!