Saturday, January 31, 2009


On Tuesday, I made a bag. I have had some hemp that I purchased just to make reusable grocery bags. I originally bought it when I saw this pattern on Knitty, back in the summer of 2007. Almost immediately, I went to Elann.com and purchased 2 skeins for their Canapone. When it arrived, I put it away, putting a sticky on it so that I would remember which pattern I wanted to use. Come January 2009, I stumbled across this pattern. I pared it down a little and made a bag that is great for apples, mangoes, or other large fruit. I plan to make a couple more so that I no longer need plastic bags in the produce aisle. The yarn is very strong and the pattern is very stretchy. I could probably put around 5 pounds of fruit in this one, quite easily. The color is brown, with quite a bit of blue in it, so it looks almost purple. Lovely!
Today is the day of my class with Ruth Sorenson on knitting a steeked shawl. I am about to head out to Village Yarn & Tea and will bring a report back on Monday.

Friday, January 30, 2009

My Oldest UFO

Yesterday, I pulled out my Civil War Shawl, again. I finished several repeats of the border. Whoohooo! I really like it. This means that I am about 10% finished with the border. The border is about half of the entire shawl. I think that I am expecting too much, but I would love to get this finished in time for the retreat! It doesn’t make a good commuter project as it requires much concentration. My weekends are pretty full between then and now, as well, so it’s doubtful. However, I do plan to make it my home knitting project for the next 2 weeks just to see what I can get done.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

A New Knitting Book

On Monday, I received an unexpected package in the mail. We have been expecting some packages, though. My husband has ordered several books with my Amazon account, so I though that it might be on of those 3. Also, I ordered some yarn from Elann. However, it was none of these. It was Sweater 101 from the author, Cheryl Brunette. Last Thursday, she said that she would send me a copy, if I would like it, to take to the knitting retreat that I am going to in February. The first thing I noticed was the extra time she took to personalize the cover page with her signature. I really liked that special touch. I started thumbing through it, and it’s wonderful! I plan to read more, as I can always use help on fit. Thanks, Cheryl!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Newest Project


Ta-da! Here is the vest that I started on 1/25/09 around midnight, after arriving home from the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train. I was so excited from the day that I pulled out my swift and ball winder to make the yarn ready to knit. Of course, I couldn’t stop there, so I cast on and knit a few rows of twisted 2x2 ribbing. I am reminded of why I love this yarn, Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool, every time I pick it up to knit! At the gauge in the pattern the garment has that crunchy silk feeling while still having a bit drape and softness. I am knitting from Knitty’s pattern Honeycomb. The pattern gauge is a little firmer than the ball band suggests and I love it!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Portland Stash Acquisition

At King Street Station, I was given a bag with 2 skeins of Knit Pick’s Swish DK. The one that I didn’t use is Cinnamon, and the one I did use is a deep shade of turquoise. Both lovely colors, but I didn’t want to mess around with multiple colors, so I just chose one and have the other leftover.
Upon arriving at Union Station, we were greeted by the Portland knitters who were handing out ½ ounce packages of a hand-dyed spinning fiber. The colors were very lovely, as you can see by the sample that I received. Then, the shopping began.
I really enjoyed being able to buy some yarns from some store that are new to me. There is something so special about finding oneself in a yarn store that is new to explore. At Knit Knot Studio, a small yarn store, I found Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Wool. I love this yarn, and based on something said to me at my LYS, Village Yarn and Tea, I thought that it had been discontinued. I was so happy to see that they had an ample supply at Knit Knot. I have had my eye on a sweater vest made from Knitty’s Honeycomb pattern. The pattern calls for this yarn and I loved the bright, cheery red, so I happily bought enough to make the vest. The price was better than I was expecting and the 20% discount sure didn’t hurt! :)
Onward to Knit Purl, I enjoyed looking at the larger selection of yarns. They have their own “house brand” named Shi Bui. I bought this one skein of sock yarn to make some ankle socks.



Finally, we arrived at Dublin Bay. They had a great selection of yarns and such beautiful colors. They also sell many kits for various types of projects. Lately, I have wanted to start another lace project. I nearly bought some lace weight yarn at Village Yarn a couple of weeks ago, but changed my mind at the last minute. It was almost this same color! This is soft but still sticky enough that I may try out my skills that I expect to learn at next weekend’s class with Ruth Sorenson, Steeked Shawls.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Portland Yarn Crawl

This past Saturday was wonderful! We started off very early in the morning by getting on the bus. With the help of the bus driver, we found our stop and walked along to the King Street Station in downtown Seattle where we arrived just as the organizer was picking up the tickets from the ticket counter. We checked in with her and Katie gave us some yarn for the KAL and a name badge so that we could all get our discounts while in Portland! The excitement was at one of many peaks for the day and every one stood or sat around the station talking. Many of us were meeting new friends, but there were also many who were talking with people they had known for some time. We all boarded the train together. I rode in the car that had a few non-knitters. During the trip down, I met Alyson, Jen, Tina, and 1 other knitter from the north end who I can’t seem to find. It was a relatively quiet ride down.
During the ride, both K & I worked on our KAL hats. The pattern, Charisa’s Lifestyle Hat pattern, was wonderful! I didn’t measure my knitting very well, so it doesn’t fit like I expected, but I will try this one again when I’m looking for anther hat pattern. I had only the ribbing left to finish when we disembarked the train.
In the station, we met many Portland knitters including Joan and Tracy. K & I spent most of the day walking around Portland with these 2 Oregonians. They knew the city well and so we never worried about exactly where we were. It was wonderful! We talked and had a wonderful time roaming the streets of Portland.
To begin with, we followed Charisa down to Knit Knot Studio where a couple of people in our group found the new Addi Click needles sets. When they found that they were not excluded from the 20% off, several ladies purchased them, including K. Then, we continued toward Knit Purl, stopping at Powell's Bookstore and Whole Foods. Both were wonderful. We didn’t find anything we needed at Powell's, but did buy some nuts and dried fruit for the trip home. Knit Purl had a beautiful selection of yarns, but I didn’t find much that was worth the price to me. I had already made a somewhat large purchase at Knit Knot, so I just bought 1 skein at Knit Purl. (There will be more on the stash acquisitions tomorrow.)
For lunch, we stopped at the Deschutes Brewery and Public House. Their burgers were great and well priced, too. After lunch we headed up toward Dublin Bay. Here, there were many from our group sitting near the fire, knitting and enjoying one another’s company. I did a little looking around the store, but then sat down. When most of the others were getting up to leave, I went with 3 others from the Sequim area. We went to the Little Green Grocer that was just around the corner for a sandwich to take on the train, and then continued on to meet up with everyone for the trip back. K had decided to go back to Knit Knot, so she met us at the station.
While we were waiting to board the train, one of our knitters decided to wind her large, lace weight yarn into a ball. Not having a swift or ball winder handy, she used a friend! This is just so typical of us knitters. We're always ready to lend a helping hand.
Back on board the train, we had 2 cars to ourselves, this time, so the noise was more than before. We all settled in and started the trek back north. Around 7:30, about a third of the way into the trip, everyone put their purchases out on their seats and then went to look at what everyone else had bought. It was fun to see and talk to others about it all. After returning to my seat, I finished the KAL hat and began to work on my sock project that I brought with me.
We arrived back at the station a little early. The husband of my friend, K, didn’t want us to have to stand in the cold so he had driven us to the Park & Ride that morning. So, we called to see how close he was to picking us up. He was still at home, as he thought the train came in an hour later. He left immediately and picked us up about 25 minutes later. It started snowing while we were in Portland and continued. Fortunately, it was not sticking to the road and we arrived home safely.

Winner Chosen

Congratulations to katerina, who won my contest! Seeing all of your choices was fun for me. I had 31 people weigh in with 44 choices! In the end, the Lace Cardigan wins for the most votes, with 7. The runners-up are the Pastel & Black Mittens and Christmas Gloves. Each of these had 6 votes each! My plan, as of now, will be to take the Lace Cardigan (my public has spoken, right?) and a pair of gloves or mittens along with Mystic Waters. I would also like to take something with cables. I’m hoping that I will be able to finish a new project that I just started. (There will be more on that later.) This will give me 2 lace projects, a fair isle, and a cabled project. It also totals 4 different types of garments: a cardigan, a shawl, gloves or mittens, and a vest. This shows off the versatility of my projects, as Rachel O suggested.
Thanks, again, to all for your help!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Off to Portland

I'm about ready to head out the door for the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train. I'll post Monday about the trip and the end of my blog contest. Have a great weekend!

Friday, January 23, 2009

UFOs and Anticipating the Train Trip

Yesterday, I was counting my crafts in progress. I thought that I only had around 4 knitting projects that had been started. To my great surprised, I have 9 started! I have been so focused on sweaters lately, that I had completely forgotten the 3 shawls and 2 pair of socks. I also have one project that is crochet and one more that is cross stitch. Since I rarely do either of those, any more, I doubt they’ll get finished this year, but I may get a few hours in on each of them.
As for the knitting projects, I am contemplating which to take with me on the yarn train, tomorrow. Lightweight projects are good as I will have to carry the project around with me while I am in Portland. There will also be a KAL on the train with the yarn provided by the organizer. I am very excited about that one! To keep it simple, maybe I will take my latest simple sock. It would be small and lightweight to pack around the city. Getting another pair of socks finished would be wonderful, too. So many of my socks have been developing large holes and generally becoming very thin. Hopefully, I have a pair that I can wear tomorrow, as it is supposed to be cold, for our area. The forecasted high of 40 degrees sounds cold to me!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Scrapbooking

I did it! I chose a date and am sending out invitations to my first scrapbook party of 2009. My next weekend without another event planned is 2/28-3/1, so 3/1 it is. I really enjoy being the hostess. I make coffee & tea and have some kind of finger foods available. Planning everything is one of my favorite parts. I plan food, I clean house and I set up extra tables and chairs. This time I also need to plan which pictures I will work on and which tools, papers and embellishments I will pull together for those pages. I really want to work on the travel pictures that I took when I was in Europe back in 1998. To do that, I’ll need to get my negatives back from my sister. I suppose that is the first step after applying the postage to the invitations.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Organizing the Stash

On Monday, I accomplished quite a bit of organizing. For a while, now, my yarn stash has been getting more and more out of hand. So, along comes a day off from work and I have time to get busy with it! I started by finishing some mending that had been taking over my ironing board. (I wanted to use the ironing board for my organizing project as it is a great, adjustable "table" for sorting small items.) I put the zipper in the sweater that I made my dh for Christmas and then fixed the hem in a pair of pants and sewed on some buttons. At that point, I felt like continuing down through the pile, and working on some sewing projects that have all been started but are in various states of being unfinished. There is a jacket that I only need to hem, add a button & button hole and sew the sleeves on. There is a pair of pants that I have sewn the front and back darts, but nothing else and a shirt that has only been cut out, as well as a piece of fabric for a dress that has only been washed.
However, I didn’t. I stuck to my original plan of organization. I pulled most of the yarn out of the closet and started to decide what to keep, sell, or give away. At the one-third of the way done point, I decided that I could no longer ignore the lovely weather and went out for a walk/jog. After arriving home, I worked on it a little more, until I needed to get ready to meet my mom and sister. After a fun day out, I came home, made dinner and then went out to get some ink for the printer and some storage bags for it all. Once home, again, I went to work. I bagged all of my cotton leftovers together and put all the wool into one pile to be sorted further. Anything that I had enough for a sweater, I put back in the Rubbermaid tote that I use for storing yarn. Any that there was not enough, I either put it in its own bag or with some other yarn that was of similar content. There were 2 different yarns that I purchased to knit a sweater and ended up having 1/3 of the yarn left over. How do I over estimate so much? Well, that’s a question for another entry…After all of this pooling, sorting and bagging, I filled a regular sized paper shopping bag with the bags of yarn that I don’t have a plan for or were ones that I don’t want to keep. I plan to take these with me on the knitting retreat in February so they can be sold in the silent auction. I still need to write up the listings, but those can be done a little at a time in the evenings until I go.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Wonderful Weekend

On Friday afternoon, my husband picked up a package from the post office for me. It contained the yarn for an unbloggable knitting project. I have been knitting on it since then, and am over half done. Once it’s finished, I’ll post a picture of my Cables & Os sweater, so that I can show the progress, once again.
On Saturday, I knit most of the day, but did take a long break to drag dh out of the house for a walk/run. It was a gloriously beautiful day. Something about the fog and frost burning off into a clear, sunny day just warms me from the inside out. Afterward, we went to his parents’ house for our weekly (usually Friday) dinner and card playing. His brother is back in town and staying with my in-laws. In the past, he has been standoffish and sometimes rude or condescending. This time he played a game of cards with us and was generally much more pleasant. It was actually nice to see him. I think that means that he has made some changes in his life that will make him happier and more likely to keep a job. I am very happy for him.
On Sunday evening, as I was leaving my parents home, I told my mom to give me a call and we could go and try to find a new heat resistant table pad for her dining room table. (The old one was getting cracked, so she cut it up to cover some other furniture.) The next day, we met at Joann Fabrics to see what they might have for sale. We unexpectedly failed to find what she wanted.
My sister and nephew came along for the outing and we four had a good time together. She found some scrapbook paper and sticker kits that were adorable and on clearance for only $4. One of the packages was all about cats, so I purchased one for my MIL’s birthday, in March. I also picked up the birthday and travel themed kits. The birthday one will be good for making cards and the travel one I plan to use for my Europe pictures. I need to get my negatives back from my sister, but then I can have the reprinted and put them into a scrapbook that my MIL gave me for my birthday several years ago. I don’t think that I’ve worked on a scrapbook since then! I am thinking about restarting my monthly scrapbooking party. I have so many things planned over the next month, but maybe I should get this on the calendar while I am thinking about it!
Monday’s weather was also so beautiful that I just had to get outside. Surprisingly, the ground was still covered with frost at about 11:00! Everywhere the sun had shone on the ground it was melted, but if I happened on an area that was shaded the ground was pretty slippery. With the sun warming my face, I had an excellent walk/jog and wasn’t cold at all.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Contest

I am looking for a little help, here:
When I go to Silver Falls for the knitting retreat, I am supposed to bring a couple of items for a Show and Tell. I am having a difficult time deciding what to take. Yes, I know that it is almost a month away, but I love to plan well in advance. In fact, the planning is part of what makes the fun of the weekend start sooner. I have already been working on what to take the Silent Auction that they have each year. I’ll probably take with me much of what is on my Trade or Sell page on Ravelry. I’d love to sell the balls of yarn that aren’t enough to make a larger project. I might even sell enough to be able to buy a larger lot of one yarn for sweater knitting! :) Well, back to the issue at hand…Please, help me out by going to my projects page on Ravelry and choosing your favorite finished project. If you leave me a comment on this post, I’ll draw a name for a special knitter’s package, on Monday, January 26th. That gives everyone a week to comment. I will pay the shipping to anywhere in the US only. (If you enter and are from outside the US, you would need to pay the difference between domestic and international shipping.)

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Health

Primarily, this is a knitting blog, but I just have to share some great news from my doctor. For awhile, now, she has been concerned over some insulin resistance that has been showing up on my blood work. (Insulin resistance often leads to diabetes, and I really don’t want to go there.) I have been trying to avoid sugar and other highly processed carbohydrates, as well as starting on some herbal and prescription blood sugar controlling medications. It looks like it is finally paying off!! I was told last Wednesday that my A1C (one of the best ways to check glucose levels) dropped .4 in just 3 months. I am so happy about this and am working with her, now, on the next thing. It feels so good to finally get a good report after 10 years of feeling powerless to do anything to affect the numbers.

Friday, January 16, 2009

A Treadmill

Today, I really have no new progress made. Last night was also a busy one with an appointment, going to Super Supplements for a small shopping trip and taking some time to walk on the treadmill we received yesterday. My in laws bought a treadmill about 5 years ago. After less than a year, my MIL found out that she had cancer in her knee and should not be putting the extra strain on it. It’s too bad, too, because she was finally starting to get a little stronger and have more endurance. Since that time, the treadmill has been sitting unused. They have so much stuff in their house that she would lay out an old towel on it and then put the cats’ food on it like a table! I asked my husband if he thought they would be willing to “loan” it to us. He has been forgetting to ask for a while. Then, I called him, yesterday, while he was over at their house. His dad pretty much said, “Yes, can we take it to your house now?” So, when I arrived home last night, there it was. My neighborhood is not all that well lit and it has been dark by the time I can go out for a walk or jog, so this will be a great help to me. I still prefer to be outside, even if it is windy or cold, so I’ll go outside when my husband is willing to go with me. However, having the flexibility to get a good cardio work out at home is wonderful!
My doctor suggested that I might get my good cholesterol up by getting more cardio. She (and I) are concerned that my good is way too low and my bad is too high. Put that together and it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Last night, he was too tired to go, so I put on a DVD (episodes of Mork & Mindy) and walked through one episode plus a little more. It felt great and the machine still works well. However, it no longer allows me to change the incline. If I find that I use it often, I may try to convince him to buy a new one that would have everything working better and quieter. :)

Thursday, January 15, 2009

A Busy Evening

I wore my lavender Siena Cardigan, last Sunday, with jeans and a dark purple, long sleeved t-shirt. The fuzz didn’t stick to, or at least didn’t show on my jeans, and I wore the sweater all day, so I didn’t have to worry about the fuzz on the t-shirt. I would have looked a little silly if I took off the sweater as the shirt was loaded with it! :) The next time I wear it, I will probably wear a lighter colored shirt underneath so that I don’t have to worry about it. I am also thinking of washing it to see if that takes care of the issue, but have been too lazy and had too much other laundry to get done, first.

Here is a look into my day, after work:
On Tuesday night, I arrived home rather late, after a full evening. I went straight from van pool (my ride home from work) to the chiropractor. I went home just long enough to eat dinner quickly and then left for church. I didn’t get home from there until 9:00. Then, I started in on my evening routine. I cleaned the kitchen and made my lunch and snacks to take work, Wednesday. Then, as I walked through our home to the stairs, I picked up anything that I could see that belonged upstairs. Once upstairs, I put away the few items that I carried up with me and then put some clothes in the dryer and started the clothes washer, which I loaded but forgot to start that morning. All of this took me about 45 minutes. I changed my clothes and made myself ready for bed, and then saw my clean clothes that were in several locations including on my bed, waiting to be put away. I could hear Fly Lady’s voice in my head, “Just 10 minutes. Set the timer and go!” So, that is what I did. It only took 9 minutes to fold and put all of those clothes away and even hang up the ones that I put in the dryer! By the time I crawled into bed, though, the time had seemed to grow legs and run away, as it was 10:45! I couldn’t believe it!
Fortunately, not every night is this full, but this is a typical Tuesday. If every night were that full, I would simply drop everything long before the weekend.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Cables and Os Progress

I have been diligently working on my Cables & Os Cardigan from No Sheep for You. It is growing! I have completed around 15 percent more of the project, which is almost doubling the progress I had from last year! I started it last May, and worked for a couple of weeks on it. When it did not seem to be growing fast enough and my wrist was starting to hurt, I moved on to something easier. This is a cotton/linen yarn knitted at a rather tight gauge, so it does bother me some if I forget to stretch. I was noticing that it was bothering me a little last night, so I started taking a few more stretch breaks and that enabled me to continue working until I needed another skein of yarn. I forgot to put one in my bag before leaving the house, so I stopped at that point.
Yesterday, I was working on it at a staff meeting and had several people comment on how nice it looks! (I keep eye contact with the speaker most of the time, so no one has ever said that I shouldn’t be knitting at these events. There are around 70 of us at these things and there is only 1 person speaking at a time, so no employee participation, other than listening, is expected.) In that hour, I finished almost one pattern repeat, of 8 rows on 374 stitches. That felt really good and I was quite impressed with myself.
After work, I went to my women’s group at church. During the discussions, I often knit, too. While there, for 2 hours, I finished another repeat. When I am talking, I sometimes stop knitting because I am concentrating on getting the right words so that I am understandable, so I get less done that when I only need to listen.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

NaKniSweMoDo First Finished Sweater!

Only 10 days into the year and I have my first FO! I am very pleased with it, though it could have been a little longer. However, after washing, this cotton/silk blend may stretch, in which case, it would have been too long if I had knit it longer. It is lovely and feels a little like I'm wearing a blanket, but it is so much more fashionable! ;)

After finishing, pulled out my Cables and Os (Cabled Summer from the progress bars on the left) sweater from "No Sheep For You." I have 2 sweaters started out of this book, right now, and would love to finish this one soon. It has far fewer hours worth of knitting left to go than my Morrigan, even though the progress has about equal numbers of inches complete.

Knitting Retreat

I’ve made so many plans for things to do, this week. First, I decided to go to Portland. Then, I registered for a knitting class. Now, I’ve decided to go to a knitting retreat in Oregon during President’s Day weekend. It was such a deal that I couldn’t pass it up. Usually, I always like to make sure that I know someone who is going, before I sign up for things. However, two of the three events, I will be going alone. I surprised myself with that. For the trip to Portland, I did make sure that my best knitting pal is going, before signing up, but for the other two events, I didn’t. I let her know when I signed up for the class, hoping she might do the same, but I didn’t wait for her. Then, when I asked for information on the retreat, I was told that there was only one spot left and still signed up! I am very excited for each of the events and am really looking forward to each one. For the retreat, I have even asked for a carpool partner, a person I’ve never met. Normally, this would make me a little anxious, and it still may, but I’m not worried as of right now! :)

Friday, January 09, 2009

NaKniSweMoDo Progress

I’ve made so many plans for things to do, this week. First, I decided to go to Portland. Then, I registered for a knitting class. Now, I’ve decided to go to a knitting retreat in Oregon during President’s Day weekend. It was such a deal that I couldn’t pass it up. Usually, I always like to make sure that I know someone who is going, before I sign up for things. However, two of the three events, I will be going alone. I surprised myself with that. For the trip to Portland, I did make sure that my best knitting pal is going, before signing up, but for the other two events, I didn’t. I let her know when I signed up for the class, hoping she might do the same, but I didn’t wait for her. Then, when I asked for information on the retreat, I was told that there was only one spot left and still signed up! I am very excited for each of the events and am really looking forward to each one. For the retreat, I have even asked for a carpool partner, a person I’ve never met. Normally, this would make me a little anxious, and it still may, but I’m not worried as of right now! :)

Going to Portland

Another enabling thing that I found on Ravelry: the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train group. I have enlisted a friend to go with me on January 24th. We are going to take the bus from the Transit Center near my house to downtown, where we will meet up with many, many other Seattle area knitters for the 3 hour train ride to Portland, OR. Once there, we are going to visit a couple of yarn stores and a really cool bookstore. After we’ve shopped our to our hearts desire, we will board the train back to Seattle for another 3 hours of dedicated knitting time. Both my friend and I are excited to go. She said that she was hoping it was last weekend (when I was talking to her on the phone Saturday morning) as she wanted to be there instead of doing house cleaning. :) We will be leaving my house just before 6 AM and expect to get back around 11 PM. It’s going to be GREAT!

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Class Registration

After receiving an email from my LYS, I decided to sign up for a class. Ruth Sorenson comes to Village Yarn and Tea to teach classes only about once a year. I have heard such great, great things about her and her classes, that I decided I just had to do it this year. So, I called and registered almost immediately for her Steeked Shawls class. I am really looking forward to this and am excited to see and learn this new technique!

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

My Latest Plans for NaKniSweMoDo

I am planning so that I can fulfill by hope to finish my NaKniSweMo project during the year. My plan is to work on a new project, finish it, and then work on WIPs for the remainder of the month. This is the plan for every month. Of course, I do have 2 on the needles already, so I obviously will not need to start a new one every month, but I love to cast on for a new project!
There are several people in the group with finished projects already and I am just ichin’ to get mine finished. I have the sleeves and the back finished on the Siena Cardigan from Interweave Knits, Fall 2006. Because of the large (US size 9) needles it is going quite quickly. I am finally getting to the more interesting part as the patterning is only on the fronts near the button bands and that part is knit as the front is knitted. The yarn is the very soft and fluffy Misti International Pima Cotton/Silk in soft lavender. The only complaint I have is that I am constantly covered in purple fuzz! Since I wear black as a basic, it really shows. I expect that it will be at least a little better when I am no longer knitting with it, and wearing it instead.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Its been a while, but I'm still alive

Wow, it’s been a long time since I remembered to blog! I’ve been enjoying the Christmas holiday and all the snow we’ve had. Its perfect weather to pour on the hand knits! By the end of the day on Christmas we had over 10 inches of snow on the ground. (Nearly all of this is gone, now, but it was beautiful to look at for Christmas!) For the Seattle-area, that is very uncommon, but I enjoyed myself. I like to be at home, so being snowed in is nearly always a blessing rather than an annoyance, as it is for some. I finished a sweater for me, a pair of gloves for my mom, a scarf and hat for my sister in law, and crocheted a Pikachu for my nephew. The few gifts that I knit or crocheted this year were well received. I love to give a handmade gift that the receiver simply adores and I managed to accomplish this for this year.
During the last 2 nights, I’ve not knitted at all when I was home! My husband received Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman for Christmas, this year, and I’ve been playing with him. It has been fun, but when we finally quit for the night, it is difficult to believe that so much time has passed. I think that is why I usually knit rather than playing with him: I have something to show for it at the end of 2 hours or more! LOL
Now its “back to the grind-stone” as I have to work all 5 days this week! This is the first time I’ve done that since the first week of December, so I’m a little out of practice. :)