The Knitter Prevails

I give you Scallops:

The Scallop socks put up a small fight, but in the end; the knitter prevailed. I finished these in record time considering that when I picked them up on Wednesday I had frogged one complete sock already and had to frog the start of the second due to knitterly difficulties. Since the cuff was only about 24 rounds deep, these actually should have been a quick knit and once I got all of the mistakes out of the way, they were. The socks are short anklets with a ribbed lace design. My idea was that they would be worn with Mary Jane's or clogs that would only allow a portion of the pattern to show. The ribbed texture and gentle curve over the instep sort of reminds me of the top of a scallop shell. Here's a few more views so you can see a little more of the design:

My own pattern Yarn: Classic Elite Summer Sox in Melon Size 2.5 double point needles

Now I’m on to some more baby things, a few shop samples and a pair of blue socks, because I’ve had an urge to knit blue socks. Blue, blue blue; yay blue!

I have a busy month of June coming up with three classes to teach and a trip to Columbus, OH for TNNA, so stay tuned, I should have a lot of knitting to post!

Last, but not least, think good thoughts for Saucey, she had to take a trip to the ER Vet yesterday due to showing symptoms for a UTI. She's on an antibiotic now, so hopefully that will do the trick, and until she improves I'll just keep following her around the house with paper towels, sigh.

Have a good and knitty week!

Nana

Some Mays are Like This

Sheesh! I think I need some frog repellent.

Seriously, I have made mistakes and frogged more sock knitting this month than I can remember. Sigh! Maybe it has something to do with the rainy spring?

Yesterday I finished the Uptown Boot Socks without further incident, (and I’ll get to those) so then I picked up the scallop socks intending to finish sock #2. Now, I was somewhat proud of myself that even though I had decided to change the design and would end up frogging (just a little) part of the foot on the first sock, I was actually making pretty good progress on the second one. After all I had finished the heel flap and was working steadily toward the heel turn. I finished the turn, picked up the gusset stitches started back into the pattern on the foot, pulled out the first sock to do a little counting and then… hmmm, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something doesn’t seem right. Keep knitting, it’s just the light… No really, there’s something off here… no, keep knitting (sneaking suspicion continues to assert itself) … pull out pattern notes, GASP! I have been doing the simple 4 stitch, 2 row lace pattern incorrectly… no kidding! For most of the sock…. here’s what happened next:

Before:

After: But, I still have this to be proud of - Chocolate Truffles: Pattern: Uptown Boot Sock by Jennifer Appleby Yarn: Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino Dream in Bittersweet Chocolate Size 2.5 needles / Magic Loop Times frogged before getting a complete pair: 4

Fit ... perfect!

Some Mays are just like that… June can’t come fast enough I hope it’s too hot for frogs!

Nana

Memorable Weekend

I went down to central IL for part of the weekend and got to see a little parade in my folks town; Dad got to ride on one of the veteran’s floats, unfortunately, I was slow with the camera, therefore too late to get a good picture. Then later that day we all had the privelege to witness my niece Stasi get married…

The wedding was beautiful and moving with a radiant bride escorted by my brother resplendent in his dress uniform despite the tears as he gave away his daughter, then a beautiful tribute song written and performed by my nephew in honor of his sister and new brother-in-law. Many tissues were needed. Then, I had a enjoyable time at the reception catching up with friends and family.

Even though it was a short, pleasant trip, I'm still happy to be back home (and the kitties are twice as happy!)

In knitting news; I was almost to the toe shaping of the second Uptown Boot Sock when I realized that I was knitting on the wrong number of stitches. Epic pattern reading fail (again). Sigh, frogged back to the gusset pick-up. These might take another day to finish. Please ask the knitting spirits to be kinder and gentler to me on this project. Nana

More Life - Less Knitting

I probably don’t post enough about my spiritual life or the things that really matter as a regular enough entry. So today I’m taking a slight diversion from my more fluffy posts to touch on that. I was struck by a sort of humbling thought today as I was driving home from work. Usually I am the sort of Christian who wants to trust God in everything, but being a sort of control-freak, sometimes I really want to know more details about the bigger plan He has for me even though I know I’m not meant to see it. Today it occurred to me that I actually feel happy that I don’t know all of those details. It seems that in many areas of my life right now I know more details than I want to have about things that are going on and I know those things because at some point a decision will be required of me. Some of the decisions will have impact on more than just my life, so it’s a little daunting. I’ve never been one to shirk responsibility, but the humbling I had today was that God’s responsibility for our lives is so much more than any responsibility we have or can imagine. So today I am humbled and happy that I don’t have to know all of the things that God does about the future. I will just plan to take things prayerfully one decision at a time. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) Nana

About Knitting

Yes, knitting has been happening along with all of the other exciting things I’ve been doing. I have a few FO’s that I mentioned, but probably haven’t posted pics of, so I’ll try to do a quick run-down:

The Delve sweater in a better modeled shot (same model, nicer pose and cute guy!)

I finished one brown sock, took this picture and then decided that the stitches on the foot were too big/loose.

Spent a few days thinking about it, decided to reknit at a smaller gauge and more stitches. It has now been frogged and I’ve restarted the sock with more stitches on the right size needle.

I finished the Lily of the Valley socks. Overall I like the pattern and might knit it again.

The nupps gave me a little trouble at first, but they got better with practice (and slightly looser loops!). I need to figure out how to tighten up the braid on the cuff and toes a bit, but it’s a nice pattern. Yarn: Louet Gems in Cream Pattern: Lily of the Valley by Susan Lawrence (available from Knit Picks) Size 2 needles / Magic Loop I got 4 repeats done on my Swallowtail shawl and it is starting to look a little more like it’s supposed to: I still have a ways to go, but hey, it takes time (I might finish it before my grand-daughter gets married, LOL!)

And finally, I spent most the weekend on this: The sample and practice pieces for my students to use during my Toe-up Sock workshop (tonight): I think that brings it up to date…. Happy Knitting!

Nana

Home Again and Yarny Goodness

I and thankfully my suitcase made it home safely. The Fairbanks-Anchorage and Anchorage – Minneapolis flights were fairly unremarkable. Knitting happened mostly as desired and no infants or queasy moms were seated nearby. The flight from Minneapolis-Milwaukee which should have been an efficient 56 minutes took more like 2 hours and 47 minutes; spent mostly sitting on the runway in Minnesota; due largely in part to storms in the great lakes region. The drive home was not fun either, but like I said I made it, and was greeted by two (happy?) kitties when I came through the door.

It's good to be home but I miss my guy terribly already. Here he is in uniform: The kitties and I were pretty lazy yesterday and I thought I’d get this post up, but we were really lazy…. anyway, as promised, I wanted to tell you about yarn stores in Fairbanks.

Here are the goodies that my DH helped me pick out:

(my apologies for the dark pictures... it was a bit cloudy that day).

The first stop was A Weavers Yarn; which is co-located with the owner’s home, so we initially thought we took a wrong turn when we ended up in a residential area, but found it easily enough. A nice shop with lots of good choices for knitters, weavers and other needle artists; since it was the first stop, I had to show a little restraint, but these goodies ended up in the bag:

One skein of Pagewood Farms Hand-dyed Sock Yarn; 2 skeins of Watercolours cotton embroidery thread (for embellishing) (and because it was just so darn pretty), and 2 skeins of Rabbit Ridge Hand-dyed sock yarn. Plus the owner Susan was helpful and friendly and threw in a couple of free sample patterns.

The next stop on our tour was Northern Threads which is also a quilting shop. This was a large shop which is primarily a quilting shop. The shop offered an excellent selection of yarns, fabrics and all the essentials for knitters and quilters. My Mom would love this shop. Here my biggest decision was over colors more than brands. I found an excellent yarn called Rustic Tweed from Queensland Collection. It came in so many nice colors that I had a hard time deciding. Even DH was stumped (he really liked both of the greys so well even he couldn’t decide which was better). The yarn has a very subtle variegation within the skein. So I really wanted to buy a sweater’s worth, but didn’t bring that big of a suitcase, of course the owner assured me that they do ship! I settled for two skeins of a soft creamy gold toned color… and there was also a scrumptious skein of Misti Alpaca sock yarn that I couldn’t resist, as well as a couple of nice buttons to tuck away for a future project.

After that we decided to take a break for lunch and went to a Chinese restaurant where I had some yummy cashew chicken and DH had some teriyaki chicken. We must have been hungry because there were no leftovers! Thus fortified we trekked onward.

Next stop was Inua Wool Shoppe which is a must not miss place. The shop is beautiful and the yarn selection is very well balanced and again I had a hard time not buying several things that I could have bought and settled instead for a few well-chosen things. Of course the one I know you’ve been waiting to hear about is the big-ticket item that is home-grown in Alaska. I’m talking Qiviut and yes! I got some. I had hoped to get some in a natural color, but the shade I preferred was only in stock in fingering weight and I wanted the lace weight because I figure I need to make something very special with this yarn and of course lace weight knits into spectacular things. I settled for a pretty cranberry color and found a lovely smoke ring pattern to knit it up with*. The shop also had an extensive selection of Noro Sock yarn (both Kuryeon and Silk Garden) and I got to see, fondle and pick from colors I hadn’t seen much of locally. After narrowing it down to three possibilities DH helped me decide on color S102 which is predominantly pink-blue-orange. (I see more striped socks in my future). I also found this funky little button that says “will knit for coffee.” It is supposed to go in the hole of a croc type shoe, but I think I will figure out a way to attach it to my knitting bag. (Maybe not the one I take to work… don’t want Linda to get any bad ideas.) I have to give kudos to my hubby here. He didn’t gasp or tremble at all when we checked out. Love him!

The last stop was the Memories and More shop which is a combination scrap booking and knitting shop. Her yarn selection was smaller, but by no means inferior to any of the others. I already had a rough idea of what I wanted before we went (from looking at the website) and was not disappointed! Malabrigo… yippee! In (ahem) a nice light purple shade. And she, too had Noro Sock Yarn and I found a shade of navy-gray-black (S233) that I hadn’t seen at Inua… it too needed to come home with me. I also got a couple of “Alaska” themed pages so I can do a memory page for the trip. (If I ever get photos printed, etc).

Whew! That seems like a lot. I’ll have to talk about my knitting in another post!

Have a Yarny Weekend!

Nana

* In a kind of funny coincidence I was telling DD#2 about our adventures and the pattern I found but I couldn’t remember the name of the designer. Then, she told me about this designer she really liked who had a lot of smoke ring patterns. After she sent me the info on line, I went to the website, and it turns out that it was the exact same designer!

Alaska Highlights

Wow, the time here is really flying by. I guess the fact that the sun is shining most the day makes the passage of time hard to track! DH and I have been having a great time just hanging out, eating great food and exploring some of the area in and around Fairbanks. Unfortunately a couple of the things we had on our list had to be scratched because the official “summer” opening isn’t until this week or next week, but there has been enough else to do. So here are a few highlights of my trip so far. My DH was sweet enough to take me on a “yarn crawl” on Weds and we visited all four of the yarn shops in Fairbanks. Each one had something unique to offer and I enjoyed them all. I’ll have to do a separate post about the goodies I found which will be coming home as “souvenirs” Then that evening, I was fortunate enough to find and join a group of knitters for the weekly meet up at the Alaska Coffee Roasting company coffee house. The Group is the Fairbanks Fiberistas and I found them on Ravelry. Gotta love that resource! I also love the fact that it was so easy to join right in. They like to make up their own KAL’s so some of the ladies were doing an entrelac scarf and some were doing the Cat Bordhi’s Spring Thaw sock (Knitter’s #91, Summer 08). I was working on the Lily of the Valley sock and everyone had nice comments on it. We continued our explorations the rest of the week and through Saturday. Some of the places we went and things we saw: North Pole AK (Santa’s House); The Silver Gulch Brewing and Bottling Co (Yummy food and great microbrews); the Museum of the North (at University of AK, Fairbanks); and on every corner… a coffee hut! I suppose if I had to live here that would be the one thing that would make it more bearable for me (besides the four great yarn shops)! On Sunday, DH took me to the church he has been attending and after services we went to the Alaska Salmon Bake at Pioneer Park, the food was again yummy and the park, even though not quite up and running for the season was charming and we enjoyed the pioneer museum there as well. So here are a few pictures I took: Hopefully the next post will be more fiber and knitting related. Mo Jo to Go! Nana!

Flight Log May 4, 2009

Warning: this is a longish post, but not nearly as long as the flights it describes. (Times are mostly approximate) 730am Arrive at Milwaukee airport, check in, locate gate, read tribune while waiting to board 814am Board flight, settle in; text DH with status update, pull out sadly neglected brown sock (Uptown boot sock), begin knitting. Knit two rounds, begin cable round, and realize at end of first section (sock now being knit on magic loop for plane knitting) that section is short 1 stitch. Count all stitches on both sides of needle, confirm shortage. Pause for flight attendants announcement and safety briefing. Recount; check rows below for mistakes; identify ‘funny’ stitch on last cable round that could be inappropriate k2tog; rip 4 rounds. Take off announced, put stitches back on needle, begin knitting with previous cable round, count stitches upon completion, knit 3 plain rounds; start next cable round and realize halfway across needle that I’m doing wrong cable round (round 7 not round 3); stifle curse. Tink back to beginning of round; knit cable round successfully COUNT stitches, continue knitting uneventfully for duration of flight. 927am Arrive at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. Locate restroom; do what I gotta do (sweet relief!). check gate info, locate nearby Starbucks. Wait patiently in line while person at counter has entire menu explained in detail (apparently it’s her first time ever at Starbucks – How is that even possible?)Exchange incredulous looks with three other people waiting in line. Finally get to counter to order, coffee is still being brewed, wait for coffee to be ready, nice (patient) barista upgrades size of coffee (woohoo) in thanks for waiting. Hike 17 miles to next gate; pass another Starbucks without line enroute. 1001am Settle in at gate, have snack, enjoy big coffee, knit a bit. Enjoy pleasant chat about Alaska, kids and other random topics with lady carrying small Chihuahua in fanny pack 1125am On board to Anchorage. Text status update to DH. Full flight, seats filling quickly 1127am Yikes; young mother with toddler approaching aisle (not this row, please not this) Dang, she snags the middle seat. Cross fingers that baby will not be awake much of flight. 1140am, wheels up. Baby happy and content, Mom battling gag reflex as plane ascends; this is already a long flight, could feel much longer. Attempt to knit while protecting project bag. Plane levels off without incident. Focus on knitting. 1208pm Flight nicely underway, begin cable row. Ack! Drop cable needle. Perform ridiculous contortions in attempt to locate. Determine it is somewhere under seat against wall of plane. I cannot reach. Sigh, seat-belt sign still illuminated. Proceed to finish row doing cables without needle. Progress is slow. Thank goodness cable only happens in 2 of 8 rows. 1249pm Break for in-flight beverage and snack service; resume sock, seat belt sign still illuminated. Arrive at next cable round; abandon attempts to cable without needle after dropped stitch runs. Fix stitch, fish out darning needle from project bag, and attempt MacGyver method of cabling with darning needle. Sadly it is doable, but extremely slow. 1pm-ish Have now crossed several time zones, watch and reality no longer in sync. Captain announced time 20 minutes ago, but paid no heed as intensely concentrating on newly discovered cabling option. Baby still happy, Mom seems to have fully recovered after snack. 11 or 2ish Depending on the time zone. We are about halfway through flight time; reset watch 3 hours back in estimation of appropriate time; no help. Body and watch are now hopelessly out of sync. Aisle passenger, baby and mom now napping; Attempt to set up stitches for heel flap, after three attempts, get it right. Sort of feeling sleepy myself, decide to give in and close eyes for a bit. Sleep for 15-20 minutes (concept of passage of time now only concept). 1140 am (Alaska time) Start heel. As experienced sock knitter, assume what is written in pattern and forge ahead with standard heel. 1215pm – start heel turn; refer to pattern to determine ending stitch count. Whoa! Go back and read instructions from start of heel flap through turn. Ooops! Not even close to heel I’m making. Decide to proceed with “my” heel version to forgo further ripping out and gnashing of teeth. No need to frighten other passengers with knitter’s angst. Continue knitting standard heel in defiance of pattern. 1235pm Pilot announces arrival in Alaskan airspace. Approximately 1 hour 45 minutes of flight time remain. Scenery will be visible soon! Seatbelt sign has been off for a bit. Turn around and ask passenger in seat behind if it would be possible to locate stray cable needle. Search and rescue successful; gusset shaping complete, cables rounds now much less stressful. 119pm Snow capped mountains visible through thinning clouds; Capt. announces approach to Anchorage. 205pm Arrive in Anchorage. (text hubby of course) Tour concourse and check gift shops in attempt to stretch out legs. Not quite ready to sit at gate yet. Immediately notice Qiviut display advertising Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers Cooperative (in Anchorage). Resist urge to break glass in order to fondle knitted items and yarn. 242pm Report to gate area. rest, then update log. Chat with very enthusiastic lady from Juno who is affiliated with the boroughs (county) program. She is going to Barrow to administer grants. Knit some more of sock after snack while awaiting boarding. 342pm On board plane to Fairbanks, preparing for take-off. (Send text) Continue knitting on sock – very close to start of toe shaping I have high hopes of finishing soon. Get to within ten rows of finishing toe before flight is over. 510pm Arrive in Fairbanks. Greeted by very happy DH! Stay tuned for Alaska stories and pictures later this week. I’m off to plan our shop tour. happy knitting! Nana

I did it, I did it, I got it done!

Yeah, I know really original post title. Well it’s been hectic, creativity is a little on the short side today. But I finished Delve, project name Desire. Yay! I did a little happy dance even though you can’t tell from this picture. (Maybe I should have let Saucey take the picture instead of Zelda... she never holds still! I’ll try to get a better, less-blurry modeled shot when I’m up in Alaska.) So just the facts today: Desire; Pattern Delve from Rowan #43 Yarn: Rowan Summer Tweed Color 546 Loganberry Size 6 needles

I thought this might knit up a little heavy because the yarn is a worsted weight, but the silk saves it and the finished sweater is light and airy. I hope to get much wear out of it. I ended up using smaller than the recommended needles to get gauge, but as you can see it was worth it to get it to fit! The yarn is actually really nice to work with and I was almost a little sad for the knitting part to end. I totally want to knit something else with this yarn again… maybe color 548 (swirl)… hmmmm.

Happy Knitting Next post from Alaska! Nana

I Get By With a Little Help from My Cats

I had drafted a post earlier in the week, but didn’t finish it… and it really doesn't seem relevant any more, so according to the cats they said I should start over. (Starting over has been a theme lately)

I did, however, finish the knitting on my sweater: Here’s Zelda helping block the sleeves:

(I’ll hold it down, mommy)

All I have left to do now is sew it up and weave in ends.

I also finished Sock #1 of the Scallop socks. Even though I had to rip and reknit the toe three times, I’m not sure I am completely satisfied with how my experimental pattern turned out. The transition between the lace and foot just doesn't quite seem right. I may tweak the design when I knit Sock #2 - I have an idea of how to fix it. If I like it, I'll have to frog sock 1. Otherwise, I guess I’ll make sock #2 match sock #1 since there will be way less frogging at that point (not to mention that I already grafted the toe on sock#1!) Here’s a peek at what I’ve done so far:

Also, Saucey was a very big help this morning hunting down a vicious spider and almost catching it – that is ‘til it went under the cat bed. At that point she sort of lost track of it and didn’t know what to do next. Then Zelda came over and wanted to help at the last minute. I tried to capture it on video it might not be you-tube worthy, but I thought it was cute...

Have a great weekend!

Happy Knitting

Nana

CSI Nana

Late Friday afternoon our team received a report of an attempted assault. Upon arrival our team carefully photographed the victim and collected evidence for processing… an eyewitness was still at the scene.

The victim:

The victim appears to have been dragged away from it’s home and roughed up, but was not seriously injured during the attack. After interviewing the eyewitness and getting a detailed description of the suspect, our fine force was able to track down and apprehend the perpetrator who was then taken in for questioning. The alleged perpetrator:

Although the suspect refused to respond when questioned, we believe there is enough hair evidence (which will be confirmed once full forensic testing is completed) to prove that the suspect is indeed guilty. The eyewitness has already made positive identification from a lineup….

The prosecutor has been notified.

This, That and the Other Thing

I started two new pair of socks. One pair is for knitting at work and one is just because I really wanted to use the yarn. The first pair is a pair of anklets I’m doing up in Summer Sox (5560 - Mandarin Mix) which is a new yarn we got in the shop this spring. I thought it would be nice to have a sample pair and it gives me a pair to use for demos during my sock class. I’m about halfway thru the first sock and it’s not too bad. The yarn is a soft cotton blend and the colors are striping fairly nicely. I’m sort of making this pattern up as I go based on the basic 7 stitches to the inch pattern in the Ann Budd Getting Started Knitting Socks book and one of the lace patterns from the book.

The second pair is from yarn I bought at Stitches two years ago. It's called Celestial Merino Dream by Lucy Neatby and the colorway is Bittersweet Chocolate. It’s been calling my name for a couple of months, so I thought it was time to make some socks with it. It's just as yummy to work with as it sounds . This picture is pretty close to the actual color:The pattern for these is Uptown Boot Socks by Jennifer L. Appleby from Favorite Socks. So far I like them.

I also finished the second baby sweater I was making, but still need to sew it up and add buttons.

And... yippee cayaay... I finished the front of Delve and actually have a picture to show. Here's my solution to not having a big enough blocking board; a set of these interlocking mats costs less than $20.00 at the hardware store and the size is adjustable!

I got started on the first sleeve and I was going to work on it at knit night, but forgot to bring the pattern, so I’ve only done about 2 pattern repeats so far. It will probably be my main project this weekend.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been in and out so much lately or if I did something else suspicious, but I’m a little concerned about what the cats were discussing yesterday morning when I walked in on this:

Not that I'm paranoid or anything, but this definitely looks like a conspiracy ... any thoughts?

Oh well, have a great weekend,

Happy Knitting! Nana

They Came, They Shopped, They Knit

North Suburban Knit Out and Crochet, Too 2009, went well…. I’ll let the pictures tell the story today!

I think I must have walked about 50 miles just keeping things on track, coordinating with mall management and talking with the different participants, volunteers and so forth. It was a lot of hard work, but in the end, I'm really pleased with the result.

Doing this makes complicated knitting seem a whole lot easier... Maybe there's hope for the swallowtail shawl yet!

Happy knitting... and back to project updates in the next post

Nana

Knitting And Not Knitting

I have been busy! Some knitting has been done, but mostly I’ve been finalizing the details for the North Suburban Knit Out this Saturday. Wow, I can’t believe it’s finally happening. I’m really excited about the schedule we put together and hope that we have a great turn-out. If you’re curious about it, go here. If you live in the area, come and join us! As far as the knitting goes, I needed to do up a few quick baby things; so far I finished another Blanket Buddy (pattern from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders) / Velvet Touch Yarn.

and a Last-Minute Sweater (my pattern - this is actually the "test knit" and it's a good thing I kept my original notes, because I found a few errors in the pattern I had typed up!) Knitpicks Shine Worsted in Grass. These are both for members of my church who are due very soon. I’m working on one more Last-Minute Sweater for a knitting friend. I need to finish it soon, because I’ll miss one of the May meet-ups and she may have her little one before the other one!

Before I started those, I finished the Falling Leaves socks!

They turned out pretty well. I decided to try the afterthought heels after all. I guess they didn’t turn out too bad for my first go at it. I’m not sure that I love the technique, but having done it at least I understand how it works now. I can also see why it could be useful in some patterns. Here they are: Falling Leaves Socks by Angela Kreutser an exclusive pattern from A Swell Yarn Shop, done in XXL Duet Sock Yarn. The pattern and yarn was a gift from a swap I did last year. The only pattern modification I mad was to the length of the leg. DD#2 wanted the shorter leg (thankfully) and not the knee-sock length the pattern is written for.

I’m also still plugging away on the Delve front and should hopefully get into the lace pattern today or tonight.

Consolation Prizes!

Since I’m probably the only sock knitter anywhere who won’t be going to Sock Summit this August (too close to new grandbaby’s arrival)… I took full advantage of Knitpicks recent sale on sock books… I got The Eclectic Sole by Janel Laidman And Knitted Socks by Anna Tillman AND Sock Innovation by Cookie A (woohoo!) Not quite as good as being there in person, but lots of good reading and knitting inside! (I suspect a certain person will expect a certain pair of socks now, though) I’ve been super busy putting the finishing touches on the Knit-Out event for next week. I can’t believe it’s almost here. But I am getting pretty excited. I’ve also had house guests for most of the week. C and M who are students at St. Louis Christian College and are doing their Lab week here at our church have been staying with me. They have been pretty easy guests for the most part they get up have breakfast, then head out and aren’t back until late in the evening. C is a pretty awesome crocheter and we’ve had a lot of fun doing needlework together and visiting when they return in the evening. I think I’ve convinced her that she needs Ravelry (hee, hee, hee). So I have had time to do some knitting. I’m almost done with the Falling Leaves Socks and have made forward progress on the Delve front. Hopefully I’ll have some knitting pictures to post soon. We have had two sunny days in a row which is really nice. (The curbberg is no more, yay) Happy Knitting Nana

It Helps to Upload the Pictures First

I’ve been meaning to get a new post up, but for some reason I keep forgetting to upload the pictures from my camera… I mean really, how hard is that?

Maybe I’ve just been kind of lackadaisical lately?

So, with out futher ado and unnecessary apologies, here’s what I’ve been up to knitting wise:

I finished the little striped socks for my grandson Improvised pattern using Poems Sock yarn (958) done in 2x2 stripes using both ends of the ball; size 2 (2.75mm) needles

I also finished the Blue Honeycomb Mittens, which are practically unneeded now.

Pattern: Honeycomb Mittens by Jean Newstead from Homespun-Handknit (one of my “workhorse” books) Yarn: Lambs Pride Worsted in blue magic and Twilley’s Freedom Spirit shade 506 Needles: Size 7 dpn I could have knit these in two nights instead of the two months it actually took. I just had too many other things on the needles in between. Oh, and just in case you needed to know… Curbberg day 7 (And there’s snow in today’s forecast… hmpf!) I’m off to try and finish another something. Happy Knitting Nana

Important Announcement

This website is being redesigned and will be debuting on April 13th, 2009 as “Papa and the Cubs” content will include detailed play-by-play analysis of every Cubs baseball game home and away. Highlights will include but not be limited to commiseration with fellow Cubs fans when one or more of the following occurs: · Inexplicable seventh inning collapse after leading the previous six innings · Inexplicable use of closer who cannot find plate in must-win game · One or more runs scored due to pitcher / fielding error combinations in should-win games · Anytime, Lou Pinella, Carlos Zambrano, or any Cubs catcher is thrown out of the game for kicking, spitting, name-calling or hitting another coach, player or game official Additional topics will include: · Rumors and scandals involving current and past Cubs players, managers, coaches, owners and Illinois state officials · Debates over lead-off hitter and general line-up problems · Details of potential trades, up-and-coming farm team players and status of pitchers on injured reserve · Open forum on Jeff Smaradzija’s hairstyle Stay tuned as we develop this new and exciting site! (Just kidding…!) Hope you got to do something foolish today (Regular knitting and Kitty content will return soon)