Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Rocking Horse

We had a great weekend, well, all except the hair appointment.

My special young girl (SYG) was over and our neighbors gave her a handmade rocking horse. Our neighbor makes them for sale through a consignment shop in our local area. As you can see SYG was thrilled to be riding her horse!
I actually got out and cleaned my flower beds this weekend too. However, they are in rough shape. I'm going to have to take some shrubs out that we lost from this past winter's weather. I'm debating whether to get another few yards of mulch this year as we really could use the money to go towards replacement windows.
We priced them out and OUCH! Who knew that windows can run $300-400 dollars A PIECE, times 9! That isn't counting our 8 foot window in the front.
I'm still playing chicken with turning the heel on my socks. They are still in the same shape and place they were two weeks ago. I really need to get over my heel hangup and just do it. However, I don't want to make a mistake yet I want to wear them now...such a struggle.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

A gray WHAT?!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I'm officially getting old. There, I have spoken it.

I went to my hair stylist this morning, who has been doing my hair for over 17 years. She and I have quite the friendship...however, it took quite the turn this morning. She is in the middle of foiling my hair and the conversation goes something like this:

"Oh look at this, a gray hair!" -Phoebe
"A WHAT!?" - Me
"Your first gray hair"
"WHAT?!!"
"Here, let me cut it off so you can see it."
"Do you have to? I'd rather be in denial."
"Here, feel it. It feels different than regular hair."
"That is real nice. Thanks for making my day."
".....laughter..."

ARGH! I'm not taking this well. First the eye doctor last fall mentions that I'll be needing bifocals soon and now this. What is next, a hip replacement?

Well very shortly my special young girl will be spending a bit of her weekend with us. Her mother is a bit under the weather and needs some recovery time. At least that will cheer me up!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Is that sun I see?

The sun actually appeared for a little while today. Yahoo!

Here is the photo I promised the other day. It is of the maple tree sapling that the neighbors gave me. I had to use a white piece of paper to have it show up in the photo against the mulch. You can see the two buds...you can... right? I mean they are right there...

:-)


I had one heck of a night/day. The power went out at 2AM this morning. This is a problem when you are used to running an air purifier for not only allergies but for some noise to allow such deep slumber. Once that filter turns off it becomes way too quiet for any sleep. So, when the power finally came on 6 hours later I was already awake (much to my chagrin) to start my day at work. A little late, but still it made for a really long day.


I am still waiting on my socks until the weekend. However, I did start a new project with the Cascade Fixation. I wanted to do a gauge square and got a little carried away...an inch and half later, I have a pretty Garter Stitch of I don't know what yet! Maybe it will be a small facecloth, flower post coaster, drink coaster?! We will see!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Still no sun but how about sunflowers?

With all this rain it is really depressing around here. In fact I dressed in all black to get ready for work, went into the closet when I was ready to leave and put on my black trench coat, picked up the black umbrella and pocket book then out the door I went. Ready for a dreadful day.
I'll leave you today with pictures from last years flower garden.

These sunflowers were planted by the birds. Our neighbors have a huge bird feeding area on the other side of those trees and the birds love to eat next to the phlox on the mulch (which is where the sunflowers grew up from). I couldn't bear to cut them down even though they really stood out in the low growing garden.

Monday, April 16, 2007

A Soggy Monday to you

Ugh! Nothing like 2 days of straight rain. I'm talking pouring beyond cats and dogs! We had one hour of snow that left a slippery mess of the walkway yesterday. The weatherman stated tonight that we are going to have rain through Wednesday! Double Ugh!

I had to work today, so not much knitting is happening tonight as I got home late from having to drop off my car. Which brings me to a beef I have with my local new car dealership. My car went in for scheduled maintenance (20K service) and you don't get a loaner car. In fact they don't have loaner cars, but they will glady 'rent out one'. What is with that?!

Needless to say I will not be getting my next car from them.

To end on a happy note, the Japanese Maple little off-spring that I dug up from our neighbors yard last year, made it through a New England winter and has 2 buds on it. When it stops raining around here I'll post a photo.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

April 14, 2007

DH was out of the house for the bulk of today. It was so nice and quite I was able to finished my latest James Patterson book, Judge & Jury. Once that was finished I was able to knit about 4 more inches, between the two socks. I’m so excited that I’m getting so far along.

Although I still have the heel which, having only completed one class sock prior, is still a huge challenge to finish before I’ll breathe a sigh of relief!! I love how the colors of the material are coming out and this Panda Cotton is just a delight to work with.

I also scored myself some Jimmy Buffett tickets this morning. I was cleaning out my inbox and came across an email from a ticket house and one thing led to another…I’m thrilled that I landed tickets.

I also went to the PO and picked up the mail. I knew I’d have my Simply Socks order waiting for me. Allison hasn’t disappointed me yet on fast shipping. I was emailing her the other day about other non-wool sock yarns and she mentioned the Cascade Fixation. Of course, I had to buy some right away and a little bigger DPN to work the knitting with.

So now I really have to finish the socks I’m working on to start the new ones, I have a feeling it is a battle that is going to be a constant one!

April 8, 2007


Happy Easter!

It is one of my favorite holidays (next to Christmas and Birthday). It certainly helps that I’m a huge bunny fan.

We were able to take time out of our day and head to see the special young girl and present her mother with her birthday present. She loved it!

April 6, 2007

I was so looking forward to this day for the past few weeks. My day off from work. A day that would be entirely mine, to do with it whatever I wanted to do, YAHOO! I had a loose plan to sleep in late, head to craft store, pick up a few needed items, head to club store to pick up lightweight table, come back do a little knitting, a little reading, make some baked goodies…
What really occurred:Got up at regular work time with a stomach bug and a raging headache. Proceeded to spend rest of day in bed. Ugh!

April 1, 2007

Happy April Fools Day!

I had my special young girl over for a few hours today. We worked on a project for her mother’s birthday. She is great with any craft related project. I had painted a pot white prior to her arrival. Once she arrived, we made shapes and stripes from painters tape, then taped up the pot with those and paint we did.

She would pick out what colors she wanted one at a time, then would apply the paint to the pot. Like I said, she is SO good with crafts, I had paint on my hands…while she didn’t have any.

She then picked out the flowers she wanted in the pot from the local flower shop. We also picked out a yellow bumblebee. I’ll just wait a few days and seal up the pot for her, plant the flowers, set the stones on top and we’ll present it to her mother next weekend.

I'll be posted photos next week on this project. I can't have special young girl's mom peaking at her present, now can I?




I've finished my 'class sock' with the Panda Cotton. I've also taken the plunge and my first pair of socks currently look like this:

February 2007

I finished the Suede Loom scarf and even finished a matching hat. I love the scarf and the colors. I've worn it with my black leather jacket and it really looks nice. I've received many compliments on it. However, the hat I do not like it as the stitches are too loose.

I also made a tiny hat for a co-worker who is due next month. I did it in the same warm chenille. I presented it to her at work and she teared up!

I also received my first order from The Loopy Ewe. I'm starting on my Panda Cotton sock. I'm going to follow a book I got, more about that later, and start a class sock of a smaller proportion to get some of the techniques down.

January 2007

I am working on completing the Loom scarf in Lion’s Brand Suede. It is so soft and wonderful to work with. I use the blue loom and just keep circling with the “e” loops. With the way weather has been here in New England I hope we get another blast of winter weather so I can wear it. I'll post the photos when I finish the matching hat I'm planning to make.

Christmas 2006

I got the Knitty Knitters Looms for Christmas. Right away I started on a hat. It is a nice change from the scarves. My first hat is the Lion’s Brand Chenille. The hat will match a scarf I made for my Grammie for Christmas. I tried a sock and well, let us just say that I need some practice.
I should have pictures up shortly.

Year End Wrap Up - December 2006

It has been quite the busy year from me. Here is the knitting recap:
I learned how to knit scarves
I started 6 scarves
I completed 5 this year
4 of them had Fun Fur in them
2 were completely Fun Fur

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to give everyone (well that I could) something home made for Christmas. I was able to make snowman bracelets for all the ladies on my list. Here is my side of the family showing off their bracelets. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the other side of the family as we were not there when they opened them :-(





I made my Mom & Sister amethyst necklaces:







I also made my sister a collage. She went to Paris and brought us back a package of chocolates. From the picture above the middle picture is the front of the chocolate package, the little orange pictures were the wrappers and the backround sheets of both sides are from my MIL’s scrapbook collection that she was nice enough to donate to my project.

My Grammie's scarf w/her checking out my stitches!










For a really good friend, I made her a pendant. It is reversible, purple on one side and black on the other. While her special young girl made her a floor cloth (with a little help from me):









Here are the pictures of the Fun Fur scarves. I made the one on the left for my sister and the one on the right is mine. My sister has much darker hair than I do so it looks great!

Past Projects Completed

This one was for a very special young girl. It is a toddler size bed blanket that she’ll be growing into shortly. This is the first quilt that I actually picked out coordinating fabrics myself and designed the pattern, a little more advanced than the ones I already completed.

King Size Quilt for dear friends for their wedding. It took me so long to quilt it that they were married for a year before the presentation! Her favorite color is yellow and his is blue, so I found through Keepsake Quilting most of the fabrics (in a package) while piecing the other fabrics from a local Joann store. It was so big I had to lay it out on the deck over plastic to take these pictures.

This is the front (prior to quilting & ironing):



This is the back:











Lap Quilts for my DH’s Aunt and Grandmother:


(I'll post the photos when I can locate them.)