Thank you(s) and a little this and that

First of all, I want to thank all of you for sending your thoughts and prayers to our family. Karen and her children are doing as well as can be expected and greatly appreciate all the prayers and well wishes. I forwarded all the responses to her, and they mean so much to her. Thank you all again.

And thank you to Helen. Helen was my partner in the first Hot Socks swap. She was the person I sent to. We have stayed in touch with emails and by leaving comments on each others blogs. She lives in Australia. It amazes me that through the Internet you can develop friendships with people you have never met in person. Helen is one of those people, and I am so happy that knitting and the Internet have allowed us to meet. I was surprised to receive a package in the mail last week from Australia. And a lovely package it was. I love Jo Sharp designs and The Knittery yarns. The Merino Slim Sock 3 ply is a yarn base I have not knit with and it feels lovely. I will soon wind it and decide what to make with it. And, I have found several designs in the book that are calling to me. Thank you again Helen, for your kindness, friendship, and generosity.

It seems like it has been so long since I have blogged, I can't remember what I have shared, or even finished since the last post. I knit a Ballband Tote for DDK. I knit it with Cascade 220 in Navy and Schaefer Miss Priss in (what I believe is a discontinued colorway) Mr. Funny. She loves this bag and has been putting it to good use. I think it has (for right now anyway) replaced all her other bags. With what was left over from the tote, I knit a cabled hat for her. Her younger sister is modeling it and would also like one. Apparently K gets all the "cool" hats. I will have to find something in the stash to knit a "cool" hat for her.

I was lucky, and was able to get a skein of Wollmeise in the last Wollmeise restock at TLE The color is Dornroschen. I also got some of the CTH in the Burnished Berries color. Both are lovely and I must think of what to knit with each of them. And I haven't taken pictures of either of them , but I purchased some Louet Gems in Aqua and and CrabApple Blossom. They will become fingerless mitts.

I am working on a shawl for Karen. It was originally intended for her Birthday, but she has seen me knitting on it and knows it is for her. I am knitting this pattern in Dream in Color Baby in the Deep Sea Flower color. No pictures of it as I can't spread it out to get a good picture, but I am close to finishing it. It just seems to take for....ever to get across a row now. I have also been working on another pair of socks for CIC, pictures of those when they are finished. And I hope to start on some Christmas knitting soon. Can you believe it is October. It is hard to believe with the 80 degree temps we have been having here, but I am sure sock weather will be here soon.

I think that is about it. I hope you all have a wonderful week and Happy Knitting!!

A Little This and That

I really don't feel like I have been doing much in the way of knitting lately. Must be that I haven't knit any socks. I don't know what is up with that. I did order some yarn from The Loopy Ewe this week, and it should be here tomorrow. And I got some lovely sock yarn from Karen for my birthday. She sent the Folk Shawl book too.... you know what that means .... yep, I need to buy yarn for shawls : ) The Paca Peds is the Fireside color. She doesn't know how close I came to buying that myself this week. Thanks again Karen. I got money for my birthday so I am waiting on orders with yarn and needles and bath products and we will see what else I can find to purchase. There is some yarn at The Yarn Grove calling to me.

I am almost finished with driving daughter's top. I just swatched, took some measurements and cast on. Top down, no pattern required. I still need to figure out what I am going to do with the neckline, and of course weave in all those ends. I doubt seriously she will wear this (but I hope she will). She picked the yarn out more than 5 years ago. I bought it when Threadbear was still here, and that has been a while. And you know how tastes change in young girls. I really could not get a decent picture of it, I think all the bright pink and yellow was wreaking havoc with the camera. She was clowning around, not wanting her picture taken. She is such a silly kid.

I also seem to be on a dish cloth/towel kick. This is what I have finished/started this week. The dish cloth is of course the ballband dishcloth. The dish towel is a pattern I saw on Hakucho's blog. It is a free pattern from Creative Knits. I have always liked the hand knit dish cloths, and now I have found I prefer the hand knit dish towels too. Needless to say, I purchased several balls of Peaches & Creme when I was out this week.

I knit up a little doily too. The pattern is titled, Small Doily , and it is. I think the youngest has decided she want to give this along with a candle to her teacher for the end of the year gift, which is next week ( I can't believe the school year is over already). I still need to weave in ends, put some kind of edging on it and block it. It just looks like a lump of lace right now. It was super fast to make, even with crochet cotton and size 1 needles.

Remember me mentioning that the driving daughter found an afghan she liked, and wanted. You know... a crocheted afghan (yikes). I am not much of a crocheter, so keep that in mind.... I started the squares. We saw the design on Ravelry, and she decided she had to have it and it had to be in blue, brown, and cream. I have started the endless squares. I have more than this finished. I am almost done with the 16, needed, small squares. Then onto the medium and large ones. The pattern says to make all the small squares in the same sequence, but I just couldn't make 16 identical squares. There sure is a lot more wrist action with crochet, and my wrists don't care too much for it. I hope to get the desire to work more on this, hopefully this weekend.

Well, I think that is it for today. Have a great weekend. We actually had a break from all the torrential down pours we have been having. It was so nice to have a partly sunny day today.

Disappointment With the Weather "people"...

For the past two days, the weather"people" and their fancy radar and doppler equiptment, have been telling us to prepare for the winter storm of the season. The "storm" was supposed to blow in around late afternoon yesterday and continue through today. At 5, they changed the time of the pending "winter blast" to 7 PM, at 7, it was changed to 10 PM. I love snow, so I was very excited about all the winter weather advisories and the promise of 8 inches of snow. I didn't even care about the threat of the sleet we may get before the snow. As much as I love the snow, I don't care for the ice. I gave up waiting for the arrival of the white, fluffy stuff around 1 AM and went to bed. Imagine my surprise when I got up this morning and DH said, "why are you up, there is no school today?" You would have thought I was the one having a snow day. I went to the front door to take a look out side ........ NOTHING. Why is school cancelled?... where is my promised, biggest snow of the season? This is what it looked like. How sad is that? We did have a little ice. DH said the roads were clear all the way to work. Two weeks ago, the kids should have had a snow day because of the ice, or at least a 2 hour delay, but they didn't. Instead all the buses were late, and the kids were standing at the bus stops forever waiting. I don't understand the weathermen/women and their faulty radar, and I don't understand the requirements for snow days. I am happy to have the kids home though.

Now this, brightened my day. I got a package from Jessi. It had the beautiful prize yarn I won from her blog contest. I have not knit with either of these yarns. The Yarn Pirate is Butternut and the Lime & Violet is Spooky Pooky. There goes my resolve to finish all the singletons. I am a comfort knitter. I am going to wind some new yarn and knit something else to ease the disappointment of not being able to go play in the snow.

I finished the Ballband Bag. It is felted and blocked and dry. I need to give it a light shave as it is a little fuzzier than I prefer. It needs a button too. I will have to search in the button drawer, but I am pretty sure I don't have anything that will work with this. I searched and searched for something to use to block this. When I made the first couple, we had some PC game boxes that were the perfect size for this bag. DH threw them away when he was cleaning out the closet. The girl child just did a report on the Manatee, and these books were the perfect size. I put them is some plastic bags....and into the bag they went. No Library books were damaged in the process.

Well Blogger is being a stinker. It has taken forever to get pictures to upload and the spell check won't work. And trust me, I need Spell Check. So, I apologize.

I am going to go wind some yarn now. Have a geat weekend!!!!

Awards and Contests

I got a comment from Hakucho yesterday, telling me to check her blog for an award. And there was this : That is so sweet. I have seen these on other blogs and I am so honored to get one myself.

Here are the rules:

Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about Blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times!

There are way more than 10 but I am going to list the ones I check first every day.

Karen : my sister and best friend. She just started a new job, go wish her good luck.

Hakucho : who gave me the award but not because she did that. I love the items she makes and that she shares them with us and she always seems to be working on a charitable gift like a prayer shawl, she always has a kind work to leave in the comments...etc

Janice : I love to read her blog and see what she is making both crafting and cooking : )

Beth: She has given me so much encouragement in my knitting ventures and I appreciate

that.

Pat: Pat makes the most beautiful socks and other knitted goodies too and she makes wonderful quilts too. What an inspiration.

Brooke: knits wonderful things and her blog always makes me smile and usually laugh.

Another Beth : I love looking at the socks she is knitting and the yarn she is spinning and Thursday dog pics.

Sheila : who knits beautifully but she also posts the most beautiful pictures of the South West

Allison: Also another fantastic knitter, but I am so inspired by the way she photographs her yarn and knitting works of art, I often find myself going to her blog to look at all the beautiful pictures.

Diane I love that she is able to stick to her charity knitting goals. I found the 25 things for Charity through her blog and I joined and failed miserably last year, but seeing she has already knit more than that so far this year, has inspired me to do better.

OK that is 10, there are many more that I read daily, but I am going to stop there, just in case I need to tag more at a later time.

And I have decided to have a little contest too..... just because I feel like it. I am going to post a picture of 1 of my sock drawers. This drawer is 2 feet x 2 feet and is about 11 inches deep. It by no means holds all of my hand knit socks. It is usually a little more organized than this but I didn't want to make it too easy for you.

So all you need to do is guess how many pair of socks you think are in this drawer and leave a comment on this post. The prize will be a hank of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Brights. How that ballband fell off of that yarn is beyond me, because I cannot slide it back on. It is reds, with some blue and black in it. I will stop taking guesses next Monday January 28, and will post the winner Tuesday. If more than one person guesses correctly I will let the random number generator pick the winner from those.

Have a great week all and Happy Knitting!!!!

Failure .... Kind of

Well, I gave into the temptation and started a new sock. Surprisingly enough, not with one of my new, beautiful, sock yarns. It was something in my stash. Something plain, calling out to be knit into a nice cabled, textured sock. Something other than a plain vanilla sock that seems to be the majority of the singletons I have stashed everywhere throughout the house. I have to tell you, I think I just need to stop knitting basic stockinette stitch and ribs. I cast on for these, and as soon as I wove in the last end of the first sock, the second one was on the needles. I love them. The first one fits wonderfully,and it is very comfortable. I will get back to the singetons as soon as I am finished with this pair .... I promise.

I also started another BallBand Felted Bag . It has been a while since I have knit one of these. Beth brought it to my attention that there was a group on Ravelry knitting this, so I joined. And since it has been a while since I knit one, I thought I better cast on for one to refresh my memory. So I dug through my stash. Wouldn't you know, I gave my last 2 balls of Noro to the knitting daughter about a week ago, so that was out. I found some Rio De La Plata in Chinchilla and some variegated Malabrigo, I am unsure of the color, and cast on. They are more complimentary colors than contrast colors, but I think it is going to look very nice. I forgot how fast these are to knit.

And I was so excited to learn I had won a blog contest. Alabama Fiber Dreams was celebrating her blogiversary and was giving away some wonderful prizes. And I was a lucky winner. I have not knit with either of the 2 sock yarns she is giving away, Lime & Violet’s Sasquatch Sock and Yarn Pirate’s Merino/Tencel blend. I have seen beautiful socks knit with both of these, and am looking forward to knitting them up into socks. Thanks Jessi !!! for the yarn and the wonderful blog. Go check out her spinning, it is wonderful. That is on my list of things to learn to do.

Well, I better go do a little house cleaning (yuck) before the kids get home from school. The boy child needs to get allergy shots today, so that will be an hour of knitting time later on : )

Have a great week!!!!

My Snowmen Came

Alisha , had a contest a few weeks ago, guess the number of pumpkin seeds in the bowl and win some beautiful cross stitch snowman ornaments. I guessed the closest and my ornaments came yesterday. They are very pretty, and the handmade card is beautiful too. What a talented person. My kids and I are going to enjoy watching the snowman grow too. Thanks Alisha for the contest and the beautiful package of goodies.



I am working on a few Christmas projects. The first being a Ballband (ish) Felted Bag for my youngest. She loves brown and pink together so I am making the bag for her in those colors. She has a few of those graphic t shirts with the bunny on them in pink and brown so she will love having a bag to wear with those. I am close to finishing the knitting part of the bag. I found some nice pink and brown material at JoAnne's the other day, so I might even line it for her. I will just have to see how much time I have.



And I am also working on a Christmas stocking. I have not finished this thing anywhere near as quickly as I though I would. I have a lot of "stuff" going on in my life right now and trying to juggle every thing and deal with things has been stressful. Anyway, it will get done eventually. I am using the pattern for the miniature Christmas sock, from the "Socks, Socks, Socks" book and just adapting it to make it work for felting. Blogger for some reason wants to load it sideways, and I am not going to fight with it, so sideways it is.

Well I am off to comfort my sick family. Poor Kaitlin was to go to Chicago today for a weekend trip with the church youth group. She woke up, running a fever and has a terrible sore throat. DH, has been sick and was to the doctor yesterday, he is miserable, and I have a migraine and a sore throat. The 2 healthy ones are out playing, I hope they stay well. I can only handle so much. Happy knitting all.

Ballband Bag recipe

I have had many request for the directions for the bag in the last post. I had to sit down and take a look at the bag again to see what I did. I usually sit down and just start knitting and see what comes off the needles, but I have been getting a little better about making little notes as I go lately. It is a simple slip stitch pattern, and I am sure there are tons of them out there, so I am not in any way laying claim to the technique, but the pattern for the bag in mine, please don't try to sell it yada yada yada... you guys know the rules.

Materials
1 ball Cascade 220 ( I used black) (A)
1 ball Diakeito Rococo ( I used color 104) (B)
10 1/2 circ. needle 16"
Pre felted my bag was about 9" wide and 14" tall, post felting it is 8" square


CO 39 stitches with (A) and knit 13 rows in garter stitch, place a marker(pm) and pick
up 6 st along the short side, pm, pick 39 st on cast on edge, pm, pick up 6 st along side, place beginning of round marker.
Knit 4 rounds
begin pattern:
Rnds 1&2 Knit
Rounds 3-6 with (B) *K4, SL1, (K5, SL1) to 4 stitches before first marker, K4, SL marker SL1 , K4, SL1, sl marker* repeat from * to *
Rnds 7 & 8 Knit with (A)
Rnds 9 - 12 with (B) *K1, Sl1, (K5, Sl1) to 1 st before marker, K1, sl marker SL1, K4, SL1, sl marker* repeat from * to *
repeat these 12 rounds for desired length ( I did 6 pattern repeats)
Knit 6 rounds in (A)
end with an attatched I cord bind off, marking center on one long side for an i cord button loop and marking the 6 side st for a 6 st I cord strap to pick up after bind off is finished. ( I am applying purchased straps to mine.
The button loop is a 3 st I cord 4 " long , pick up 3 st along the center on the inside of the bag and knit 4" I cord and graft to the inside of the bag.
Felt , shape let it dry and enjoy your bag

Ballband Bag anyone

I loved knitting the ballband dishcloth, in fact I made several of them and plan to make even more. I got to thinking that a bag based on the ballband dish cloth would be really neat. And I love all this new Diakeito the LYS has now, and they have some with great fall colors ... so I made myself a new bag. I still need to give it a little shave when it is completely dry and purchase a button and some straps when I go to the LYS next. I have to say, I love it! I started another bag this morning, but I haven't gotten very far, I kept falling asleep, that is what I get for staying up until 2:30 knitting and felting. When I get past the bottom, I will take a picture of it.

BallBand Craze

I have been hit by the Ballband dishcloth craze. I am making these like crazy. I think they are addictive. And the best part is, they are cotton, so your hands stay dry in this terrible heat while you are knitting, unlike my wool ... I am half afraid to knit with it for fear it will felt in my hands from the heat and the sweat. I went to Hobby Lobby the other day and bought more cotton, JoAnn's and Wally World were just about out and had maybe 4 colors total. I think the whole city must be knitting them.




And as if I don't already belong to enough groups, I joined 2 more this week. I joined the FCCabled Hooded Pullover KAL I think I knit this sweater in 1977 when the pattern was released. It looks so familiar. I am knitting it in Cascade Eco Wool. I started with the sleeves, I hate knitting sleeves so I thought I would start with them and use that as my gauge swatch. I think this is going to be a really quick knit.

And the other KAL is the Mystery Sock KAL. You find a sock pattern online that doesn't have a picture, hence the mystery. I thought what the heck, I will be brave and not even look at the patterns first. I closed my eyes and pointed my index finger out and whatever it lands on, that is the one I will knit. So, I am knitting this sock in Mountain Colors Bearfoot. I figure at least the sock yarn will be great, since I am knitting site unseen. It is a simple lace pattern, I didn't even copy it as it is only a 3 stitch repeat with only 4 rows to the pattern, 2 of those being knit . I will have to go back though and look at the name of it so I can post it on the KAL. I think I am starting a little early. I hope that is ok.

Well, surprisingly enough, blogger has been relatively cooperative today. This has been an almost pleasant posting experience, LOL.

My turkey breast smells like it is getting close to done so I better go finish dinner. Have a great weekend all, what is left of it anyway.