Projects Finished!!!!!

Despite my good intentions, I waited a bit too long to start this Cardigan that I am donating to the Mardi Gras Auction. I did think (a whole lot) about exactly how I wanted it to look, and what yarn to use, what size to make, but I didn't start knitting until about January 8th. Then I didn't seriously work on it until last week, so I was starting to get a little nervous that I wouldn't finish it in time, or that I would finish, but that I wouldn't like the end result and I wouldn't have time to do anything about it. Now I am done, and all in all, I am pretty happy with it - I think. It does have that retro vibe, but it is also kind of corny. Hopefully someone will think it is great and pay alot of money for it - got to keep our tuition down you know!

The felted bag was easier, I can whip those out quickly, so I wasn't too worried about that. With sweaters though, the finishing always takes me longer than I think it will. Finishing can easily add a day to my completion date. That should be a big clue to me that on design work with deadlines, I should not procrastinate! I just hope I am listening and learning.

Knitting and Movie Weekend

It is a Scout Hike weekend, and for me that translates to a Knitting/Movie weekend. I have control of the TV and video rentals - so far the weekend has been very productive both knitting and movie wise.

The hearty men and boys left after school on Friday. Luckily the temp rose all day on Friday because it started out at 0 degress F at 6am. It was in the 20's by the time they hit the road. Once they were gone, I had a couple of neighbors over for a glass (or 3) of wine and snacks. They were here for a couple of hours, which did cause me some minor frogging on my post wine knitting. However, it was nice to catch up with everyone. We used to do happy hours almost every Friday, but we don't get it done as often these days, mainly because of the need to drive the children all over creation!

We chatted and planned 2 movie outings, 1 today, and 1 tomorrow. Today we saw Juno, which was really very good. It is PG13, and I would stick with that, really not appropriate for younger kids. Tomorrow we are going to see Atonement.

For the rentals, I watched Once on Friday night, and Reign over me tonight. I liked them both, good characters with plenty of flaws. I also rented The Dog Problem which seems to be along the same lines. I must have been in a weird mood when I went to pick them out.

Now for knitting. I worked most of the weekend on a Letter Sweater Cardigan that I am donating to Mardi Gras (our School/Church dinner and silent auction.) I should have started this earlier - but I didn't! I just have to put on the button band and sew it all together. I am blocking right now, so hopefully it will be dry tomorrow so I can get it finished, de-dog haired, and give it a nice presentation. I am also donating a felted bag in school colors. I may (will)have to redo that one because my intarsia skills were lacking!




Lastly, I got a great box of yarn for secret knitting today in the mail - all hand dyed and georgous. I have lots of ideas in my head for these yarns, and I can't wait to start swatching and drawing. I was really hoping that it would arrive on Thursday or Friday so I could have played with it all weekend. But you know, it was really better that it arrived today, or I would not have made so much progress on the Letter Sweater. Wish me luck with it!

ETSY (and a little football)

Go Giants - Congratulations Ely - Beat (the evil) Patriots!

OK, enough of that, I just started an ETSY store. I don't have really high expectations for it, but I figured that I might be able to make a few dollars from it. My cbknits names was already taken, though that person has nothing listed on her site, so I am cbknit. No s on the end.

Wait til Next year

I am extremely disappointed.....not only due to the devasting loss to San Diego, but also because I barely even got to watch the game. About 15 minutes prior to kickoff, by son said "Mom, my ipod is not synching" Oh no, you didn't try to sync without plugging in the external hard drive??? For some reason, this makes Itunes unable to find the songs even when you tell it where the files are. It messes up all the playlists, it gets everything out of order, it screws everything up. And, to make things worse, I can not just let it go until later, I have to try and fix it right now. I spent the whole game trying to get it right. Just got done at 5:00 (the game started at 1:00.) I should be able to ignor it, I am very laid back on most things, but problems with computers (and cell phones) must hit some well hidden nerve!

There is probably some easy way to fix it that I can't find even after reading all the help screens. The boys all went to take a hot tub after the game, but I just couldn't wait to get them outside so that I could finish this without anyone trying to get me to stop. And the hot tub would do ME good. I am screaming now.

I was going to work on the Letter Cardigan for the auction during the game. Needless to say - no progress on that front. Happier posts to follow

a better picture

My picture over there got squashed. I will figure out how to fix that. Hopefully it will look right here. I am a computer illiterate!

Here I am!!!

I am posting again, finally. I have been knitting away on design work, and Christmas knitting. I made the Wooly Snowmen for Christmas presents. Unfortunately, I didn't get one made for us. I will put that on my to do list.





As you can see in the upper left hand corner of the page, I added a pattern today. It is the Slip Stitch Ruffled Shawl, and it is knit out of Noro Kureyon. Kureyon is one of my all time favorites, and it really does the shawl justice. The color patterns work great with the slip stiches, almost always coming out in contrasting colors. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I hope you will try it out!

My latest venture (trying to make money from knitting) is knitting lessons to groups of women in my area. It is really fun, and it is beginning to snowball. I will get some pictures of my students on here soon - with their permission of course!