On the Road to Recovery

Last week was hectic for both husband and myself following his surgery. It's a ton of work being a caregiver and we had many challenges but somehow we survived the week. His f/u appointment was this morning with Dr. Miller and there was a Frankenstein moment as they removed the bandages revealing the staples in his knee. Whew... I didn't hurl ... and the doctor released him to go on with his life with a full leg brace and crutches for six more weeks.

Tempting II

Okay, I'll admit it... I completely lost interest in this Tempting II sweater project. It all started when I ran out of Rowan Calmer and had to order another skein from out of town. Other projects came and went and I was determined to get things caught up this weekend. While the pattern was extremely simple and looks great on the tiny designer, my sideways knit top band turned out ridiculously too big. Although I had read other posts with the same problem, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I was having a problem. I followed all the directions and started over 3 times which took up my whole Saturday. By Sunday, I'd lost all my patience and replaced the [k2tog, k1] with [k2togs] and knit the band on a 2x smaller needle. I'm happy with the results and especially like the comfortable feel of this yarn.

DIY: Pincushions

When mom and I go to the monthly flea market at the colliseum, I'm drawn to baskets, handwrought alluminum, vintage potholders and vases. We've been "pricing" the vintage glamour girl head vases and finally found a couple we could reasonably afford with pincushions in mind. This was a weekend for completing projects and I gathered up some red velvet to complete our fashionable pincushions.

Hospital Knitting

I'm making the best of a bad situation here. Husband slipped on the ice this week and tore his quad muscle (upper thigh) away from his knee and today was the surgery to reattach it. The surgery went well and I got some knitting done on this baby blanket while waiting for him during surgery and recovery.

Girls Just Wanna Shop II

Kansas City here we come! I was in need of some serious shopping therapy and grabbed my girl Melanie for yet another quick overnight road trip. We can tear a mall up ... we did just that and made a day of it. We then lounged in style in our spacious Embassy suite that had plenty of room to lay out all of our loot from the mall. It was some very much needed GIRL-TIME and rejuvenated me for the work week ahead. Love ya, girlfriend!!

Magic Stripes Thigh-High Socks

These socks fit the bill for a quick and easy weekend or portable traveling project. The pattern is available on the Lion Brand website but I found mine in the Spring 2006 knit.1 VOGUEknitting issue. The ribbing makes for a nice, snug fit and can also be knitted longer in length for the scrunchy legwarmer look that's back --- That's hot!!

One Mighty Long Sock

Taking a break from complicated projects to amuse myself with these quite long (thigh-high) socks. In the meantime, the wait continues for my backordered Rowan yarn for Wicked. I like how Stitchywitch adapted hers for quarter length sleeves. If only I was blessed with such thin arms -- I think I'll have to stick to the short sleeve version.

LaLa Scarf

Every knitter has a few staple knitting books that she goes back to several times for knitting inspiration and patterns. For me, Greetings from Knit Cafe has become one of my favorites and there are several other items in the book I still want to make. I was knitting and couldn't stop and ended up with two scarves and enough leftover to make one or two more. It was my first experience with mohair-weight lace knitting and it really comes to life when blocked.

Snuggle Buddy

This just warms my heart and makes my cup runneth over. How can you resist loving up to a face like this? I absolutely adore my dog, Sheba. We have a little ritual in the morning and no matter how late I am running, this is the sight I have when I look out of my bathroom. She's simply irresistible. Although she's a master of laziness, just about every morning when she hears me open the drawer to put up my hairdryer, she runs into the bathroom to get her teeth brushed. Of course, she has her own toothbrush nearby but shares my toothpaste. I am so lucky to have a dog that enjoys good hygiene.

Chanel-Ish Cardigan Jacket

I am SOOO pleased with this very sophisticated and classic ode to Coco Chanel from the book, Greetings from Knit Cafe. The KnitPicks Wool of the Andes yarn (in Chocolate & Cloud) makes it a very warm piece for winter. I machine washed it in cold water and lightly tumble dried and the yarn holds up great.

The key to the tweed stitching is to make sure you understand the stitch pattern when doing the arms/shoulder decreases because at that point you are on your own to keep in pattern. Also, make sure that the row before the bind off is in the same color for all corresponding pieces. (You can see my oversight in the previous blocking post). When finishing, I found this out and had to add a color touch-up to one of my front collar yokes, but it's all good.

Blocking Cardigan Jacket

The pieces are complete and the blocking is ON! I've already ordered the yarn for my next project so my goal is to get my jacket constructed before the next package of yarn arrives.

Next: I'll sew the shoulder seams, set in sleeves; and sew the sleeves.

Then: Single crochet the edges and finish with one round of Crab stitch alternating colors.

2007 Resolutions

Every year I tend to set my New Year Resolutions around projects. Sure, I'd love to work out, more, eat healthier and lose weight but it all seems to take a back seat to my crafts. Today, I brought in the firewood and got cozy for a full day of scrapbooking (since I hadn't touched any of my THREE books in 2006). I can feel the pressure building on me to get caught up and I'm feeling pretty good about getting 7 page layouts done.
I can always workout tomorrow.......

Happy New Year

The snow is falling.
The fireplace is loaded down and burning bright.
The dogs are sprawled out by the warmth of the fire.
Dean Martin is singing, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"....
I'm knitting the sleeves of my jacket in my favorite chair sipping Godiva coffee spiked with Bailey's.
It's such a perfect Christmas picture then I hear click, click, click as husband oils his new handgun in the kitchen. It's little moments in my life like this that strike me funny and make me appreciate how different we all are. Best wishes to you and yours for a happy new year.

Saturday Morning Felted Bowl

We had a good laugh this morning at our Saturday morning meetup. After all this time, Angelique discovered that she was knitting backwards. I had to come to her rescue and admit that I too had taught myself to knit twisted stitches that very same way and painfully had to reteach myself. After shaming Gwen not to stop, she finished all but the thumb of her first glove. It was a happy, rainy morning and I finshed this felted bowl from Noro Kureyon.

Cardigan Jacket

Long holiday weekends are great!! Now that I'm done with the wrist warmer holiday marathon, I finally got to start on the Chanel-ish Cardigan Jacket from Greetings from Knit Cafe. The honeycomb tweed pattern goes quickly and as you can see the jacket has no side seams. The directions for the set in pockets were surprisingly easy to follow.

Merry Christmas

I was really hoping for a White Christmas but it turned out to be even too warm to light the fireplace this year. The dogs enjoyed their knitted stockings filled with dog treats. Their gift to me was a new pair of (Harley) cowboy boots. They have such great taste!

Pillows Are Done

The quilted pillow covers are complete and now I can get back to my Christmas projects. They turned out to be a time-consuming undertaking but are quite darling I must say so myself.







Still spending a ton of time re-doing my craft room and added this lamp to the knitting side. It's a kit I purchased at Hobby Lobby, filled it with small yarn balls and added a stockinette knit shade cover out of Kiogu. The big news of the week is that I ordered a denim upholstered rolled back Parsons chair from Ethan Allen that not only will look good in the room but support my back while working on all my projects. Bad news, it won't be delivered until March.

I Was a Quilter ...

Long before knitting, I was a quilter. I attended local Quilt Guild meetings and made many family members and friends bed sized quilts. I even made a go at hand quilting for hire but found the very little money for the time invested took the enjoyment out of my hobby. My last partially completed quilt is a hand-pieced, hand-quilted Dresden Plate in reproduced 50's fabric that I hope to someday revisit. But since I found knitting I haven't looked back until recently when a coworker repeatedly asked me to redesign her daughter's old Pottery Barn baby bumper pad bedding into two pillows for Christmas. I'm a sucker for heirlooms and enthusiastically agreed to put aside my holiday knitting projects to undertake this challenge. Because bumper pads are over an inch thick, I had to remove the quilting, the batting, cut out the motifs and sew in borders to make each of the 27" pillow tops. Now I'm requilting the tops and found I really miss my old love of quilting.....

A Bit More Organized

You wouldn't know it by looking at this space, but it took over 6 hours to reorganize the "office" part of my sewing room into a knitting corner. Previously, it held old bodybuilding trophies, school books, tax papers, useless junk and dust. I pitched most of it and now I'm very proud of my new knitting area. Like any project that leads to another, I think I need to add a cozy chair.

A Long Thanksgiving Weekend

My Thanksgiving turkey and leftovers have been stretched throughout the long holiday weekend. My meal turned out fabulous and aside from being under the weather most of the weekend, I found plenty of time to watch movies, Project Runway reruns and knit. The Xmas dog stockings are both hanging from the mantle and I completed a custom made to order pair of felted clogs for the winner of the craft charity auction at work. Even found a little more time to complete a felted Xmas stocking from Noro Kureyon.