The Cold of February Spent Inside

For February, basically down for the count, 100% recuperation and knitting time, that is when I could keep my eyes open (good drugs, prescription of course, can do that to you LOL!)

First and foremost was finishing my Fleece Artist Mohair Shawl (stage left) ... cause I wanted to snuggle in it ASAP. I bought the yarn on holidays, summer 2006 and proceeded to design my own simple design shawl. The colourway I picked, and yes it was so very hard to pick just one colourway, is shades of blues and greens. The colourway reminds me of the day we were boating our way through downtown Huntsville (Ontario) where we were visiting family and taking a nice summer holiday.

Glitten's (stage right) for my Husby, again of my own design, were next to come off my needles. We do a fair amount of winter heating with wood and he wanted something he could work his chain saw with to cut wood in the winter and still be able to keep his hands warm. I used some very old discontinued Braemar yarn. It is a wool/acrylic blend in a black/white/blue rag style colourway. Now my brother-in-law wants a pair too. I have started them but not finished them. Oh well there's always next winter.

Next was a blue hat for my granddaughter with novelty yarn trim. Perfect for a 9 year old girl, but sorry no pic of it right now.

A lacy scarf that I wanted to try the pattern out. The pattern was a free internet pattern and I can't recall it's name right now. I loved the look of the stitches and plan to make a 'real' scarf from that pattern one day. When I do I will post a pic then. I used a skein of slightly fuzzy acrylic from my odds and ends stash and ran out of yarn half way through the scarf. It resembles a large lacy dishcloth much more than a scarf but since it's acrylic I couldn't imagine using it for dishes. Ewwwww..... LOL.

The last finished project for February was for me. A gifted Fleece Artist Mitten's Kit that I have been petting for a long time. I had a strand of Merino and a strand of Mohair together for a wonderful thick comfy pair of mittens with enough left over to make a matching headband. I now have some nice warm gear for walking in winter!

In and among all this I found time to teach my son's girlyfriend to crochet. She can knit... sort of... LOL but it's much too slow for her. In her words, "Lets crochet instead! I hear it's much faster!" Well I taught her and she learned quickly. I have some very cool slightly misshapen sc, hdc, dc, and tr dishcloths added to my dishcloth wardrobe. Excellent starter projects as they are easy, quick to do, and you really can't mess up a dishcloth. If it's full of mistakes, it really doesn't matter as they will still wash your dishes. She had a lot of fun picking colours from my cotton stash and learning a new craft.

Dishcloths are done, and now she knows how, now on to a real project! A blanket for her baby sister for a Christmas present. LOL! I wonder how much of a baby her sister will be when, if ever, she actually receives this blankie as a present?

The other thing I did to keep me down and resting was have my husby make me some home made drop spindles so I could start to learn to spin.

Spinning... Wow! Something I have thought of for quite a while but never thought it would ever come about . I never even mentioned to anyone that I was interested. I already get enough strange looks over my totally addicted crafting obsessions!

Learning to Knit... again!

I lied! I didn't update the other day like I said I was going to. I was out the other night with my husby and got me a new cell phone!! HURRAY! finally huh? LOL Ok so the update.
Firstly FO's have been flying off my hooks. Baby poncho's (pic to the left)in size two approximately for various people I know.



My own creation I call a Bed Shawl (aka hug me tight or shrug) made for the very sick Mom of a very dear friend. (pic to the left)







Also a very large baby blanket for a friend at work (pics below). It was a new pattern that I tried out and "adjusted" to suit my taste.




Ok I admit it when it comes to crochet I am sooo guilty of NOT following the patterns! I start out ok but then I think.... hmmm I wonder what would happen if I... or think... I think it would look better if I.... and presto.. the pattern is no more my guide. I haven't taken pics of all the ponchos but
I have one or two pics to post of both poncho and blanket. I am very pleased with the outcome of the blanket. I KNOW I will make some Woolly blankets using this ghan as a guide. Though as pretty much everything I make is unique in that I always end up changing something from the last time I made that item, I know the next will be similar but not the same.



I have also done a few of the "Martha" Coming Home ponchos. Ok so I am not a poncho person but I wanted to try the pattern and fortunately I have a couple people close to me that were willing recipients of my efforts to create one. In other words... I get to make it but I don't gotta wear it! ROFL! My Mom got one of the Coming Home ponchos so maybe when get a chance I will take a pic of her in her poncho and post it here for you all to see.

On the knitting note.... YES!! I did say KNITTING! and yes it has been a very long time indeed. I have finally found THE bag!. I have been looking for a pattern or idea for a new tote style bag that I can make for me for a long time now. The Booga bag enlarged and yes... felted... is what's soon gonna be happening! (link to felted bags including Booga Bag is here) http://www.blacksheepbags.com/patterns.html In fact I have picked out my colours for the stripes and have been playing with a practice piece. I felted my first felting project yesterday morning. A belt. I did it in colour blocks very similar to the stripes I am planing for my large sized Booga Bag. I must admit I was so excited throwing into the washer to shrink it up. It turned out very nice IMO, and the felting worked out wonderfully.
Ok so back to the 'knit' thing.... well it turns out that I have finally managed to learn to knit Continental style. I don't have to move my arm and shoulder all around and hence it doesn't seem to be bothering my shoulder to knit using this method! HURRAY!!! I can start to knit again!! I need a ton of practice though. Nic would love to see how I am so good a seasoned and experienced knitter that I drop my needles and drop my sts too! I am the clumsy awkward Oaf revisited! ROFL! I have done my whole belt using continental method and though still awkward, I am starting to get the hang of it somewhat. I have a long way to go to get my tension under control LOL. I am posting a pic of my belt too. I hope you like what I have done.

And this, this is my new belt. Yes these are my
jeans! Without my BIG BUTT in them! LOL!

Quick Quick before I get caught!

supposed to be working so quick before Husby catches my taking a puter break, here is my post.... (yes I had it pre-drafted, hope it is ok? if not I will have to edit it later*wink wink*)

Ok has been a while AGAIN!. I need something fun in my life so i thought i might think! In other words...BLOG IT! ROFL. Actually my mind is pretty empty these days or over full, either way quite unusable as usual. Maybe it is time to talk about my knitting and crocheting habits, something I have not yet touched upon in all my ramblings so far. WIPs (Work In Progress) for me are two corner to corner crocheted baby blankets, both in Cottontots cotton yarn. One in pink and one in blue. Both will have white edging on, the pink, a deep pineapple edging, and the blue a deep scalloped edging. Quite nice if i do say so myself. I can't wait to get them done but I haven't had much time to work on them this last week or so. On my needles is a new design by my friend Nicole http://www.geocities.com/nicolethegeek who is now learning not only to knit but to design knit projects as well. I as well as many of my online friends has been grasped in the clutches of a dishcloth making frenzy and this project is a Duckie Dishcloth. I am making it in Cottontots in peach colour. Again I am dying to get back to it and finish it off. I am also working on slippers.I have a great pattern here for crochet slippers. I have just now gotten around to actually making them. I am having a hard time with sizing though :( I have tried two sizes and two hook sizes and so far I have come up with either too big or too small for the person I am making them for! LOL everyone else I know is getting new slippers except the person that is SUPPOSED to be getting new slippers! Go figure huh? Well a lesson in patience and note taking is taking place and by the time I am done with these slippers I betcha I will be able to make slippers in any size going!!! ROFL!! So now that I finally got a digital camera, I am hoping to get some pics of my works to post. Well I am off now to do other things. Perhaps I will pick up my hook and work on these slippers some more. I want to take some time hopefully this weekend to search for a suitable quote to add to my sig line. I have looked briefly a couple of times but haven't come up with something suitable yet. A more thorough search I hope will hopefully provide me with something more witty, more fun, and especially more "me" than what I have been finding so far in my search. Until then though....


Peanut butter facts for Today:
1: Peanut Butter will get scratches out of CD's! Just Wipe the peanut butter off with a paper coffee filter.
2: Peanut Butter will remove ink from the face of dolls.
3: To remove labels off glassware etc. rub the area with Peanut Butter.
4: Peanut Butter tastes great on toast!
5: and lastly, only nerds use call it peanut butter! The "Cool" use the term "PB" as in PB & J (and it's gotta be grape!) sandwich ;)
and a side note on that has nothing whatsoever to do with PB... A Slinky Will hold toast and CD's! I think that is so cool I am going Slinky shopping at the dollar store for office accessories!

Also on closing for today, a word of caution:
Never hold your farts in. They travel up your spine, and into your brain. That's where shitty ideas come from! (author unknown but if it's you let me know and I will give credit where credit is due.)

Nothing much to say

It has been a busy day today. I am just now getting around to blogging!. Well my hair turned out awesome. Best decision I have ever made I think is to let my stylist decide what to do with my hair. LOL. She gets to pick and I end up with a nice surprise. Well so far it has always been a nice surprise. Then again, it' only hair right? It will grow back so what's the deal? So the nice surprise this time is dark reddish brown on the bottom and underneath, coppery brown on the top with tons and tons of blonde highlights! Is much better than the natural brown but mostly premature grey that it would be if I didn't let my stylist play rainbow pallette with it! :) OK for my day today.. well I didn't sleep well last night so I was tired out before I even started. Then the chore of taxes! uggg... How come even if you get a refund, no matter how big or small, it is still such a chore doing the taxes? And yeah we both get $$ back. We had to pay in one year and I swore then NEVER again! Like don't we all have enough bills already? That was my morning. Out shopping for the afternoon. We ended up going to one of the furniture stores by our place to window/comparison shop. We NEED new living room furniture badly and I think we are finally gonna bite the bullet and get some. It will be a total redo, from the floor up so I am really looking forward to it. I picked some stuff today in fairly neutral earthy greens. This is a total change for me and I think I will be a real "pick me up". So I will have to drag dh out again and do some more window shopping before a final decision is made but we actually both agreed on the set we saw today. WOW huh? LOLOL After that home with some groceries and dh made a big pot of chile for dinner. I checked my email then went for my nap, now I am here. Really exciting huh?? I guess Sara is right. You don't need to have anything to say to actually blog. The gift of "babble" works well. I haven't worked on any knit or crochet in a few days. I think my creativity is clogged from lack of crafting. So I will get out my yarn and hook and on my next break (yes I am actually writing this on my break and NOT on company time) I will force myself to crochet. The slippers I am making here are coming along nicely. One slipper was finished in two dinner breaks and it looks so cute too. Now to find a one footed person to wear it??? LOL So think it would be just easier to make another huh????. Ok I am off to do some work now.