One lone sock

I finished the Trekking sock. Just one, because I needed the needles for other, more pressing socks for gifts. I haven't been very excited about this sock since I messed up on the gusset decreases a long time ago. I was determined to finish it, however, and now I did just that. I actually like it much more than I thought. I made it a smidge longer to accomodate my fat foot and it fits nicely. I wish I had another, to make a pair, but sacrifices have to be made.

On another topic, today I begin teaching the knitting elective at school. I have 17 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Yes I have started to panic, and yes, I know I'm crazy to volunteer for such a mission. I have a real problem saying no, especially when it comes to spreading the knitting karma to the world. It is fun to see how many kids (or grown ups) I can teach to knit. I wish I would have kept track of them all, but at this point, I have taught the elective 4 times with approximately 10 or so each time. I have repaid my knitting debt to the universe.

Thank you to Lisa (thank you thank you thank you) for letting herself be persuaded to help me this afternoon. The thought of teaching seventeen teenagers to cast on by myself had me more than a little on edge. Where is Tracy when you need her? I am hoping some of the girls are repeaters from last year, and maybe they can be helpers today also. I have purchased seventeen pair of knitting needles, and many skeins of learner yarn, so wish me luck!

Yarn Paper Scissors Frosting

That is the extended title sometimes, right?

Soccer cake time. As usual, I ran short of time and ended up baking at 6 am for the lunchtime party. Not cutting it close or anything, but had to be at the game at 10:15. I realize I need therapy for my self-infliction of stress. I also had to get the trophies, since I was the official "Team Mom" this season.

The cake turned out pretty good. I count my blessings when I use my wireless printer/scanner/copier. It has an enlarge feature, and I found a soccerball pattern on Google, enlarged it on the copier, and used it as my pattern. I love technology. Especially when it works.

I'm Back!!

My internet was down for a few days. The horror of it all! I now realize the extent of my internet addiction. No Yarn Harlot! No Wendy! No email! Yikes! It was bad, I tell you.

I even read a book.

It was about knitting, in fact it was Knitting, a novel, by Anne Bartlett. It was pretty good. It did have a lot of knitting content, in fact, the writer used to be a professional knitter.

One thing really struck me, and I thought it was profound. (If you plan on reading this book, you may want to skip what I'm about to say) Throughout the book, one of the characters, a woman who was a little "quirky" to say the least, kept carrying around these three large luggage/carpetbags. She took them everywhere, wouldn't let anyone touch them, and would only let them go under rare circumstances. She was a very good knitter, and a perfectionist. About 3/4 of the way through the book, it was revealed that the bags contained every knitting mistake she had ever made. If she made a mistake and couldn't correct it, she stuffed it in the bag, and then had to carry it everywhere she went.

How would you like to carry all your knitting mistakes around with you? Forever? How many of us carry our mistakes around with us like that in our invisible bags? Profound I say. Anyway, it really struck a chord with me.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'm thankful for lots of things, my family, my three beautiful kids, all of my blessings, and at this particular moment, the internet.

Stitches!!

I just registered for Stitches West! I went to the market two years ago, but this Feb I am going for the entire thing, classes, banquets, fashion shows, rolling in yarn, you name it. I am very excited. The only thing I wasn't too happy about was that lots of the good classes were closed by the time I figured out registration was open. I registered this morning and later today I got the brochure in the mail telling me registration opened November 9. Did other people get theirs earlier? Did they just sense it? Curious.

Anyway, I registered for a class on cables, a class by Nancy Bush on Vintage Socks (I have the book), a class on fancy stitches, and a class on knitting lace. I will be there four days. Four. Knitting. All day. Wow. Do I seem like an obsessed woman? Yes.

Carey and Mom will meet me there over the weekend to go to the market, but I'm feeling a little lonely. I need to recruit a partner. I'm usually not the brave one to do things on my own. I know I will be with my "people" so it will be fine. Right?

Don't Josh's ears look warm?

Here's Josh and his new favorite hat.

Bobblilicious babe and the birth of a knitter

Okay, the secret is out - I made Tracy a Noni bag for her birthday. I started on Friday afternoon, and three skeins of black Cascade 220 later, I had the base bag knitted. That was Sunday, about midday. Then I took this--
Basically this was my entire stash of Cascade 220, a few purchased with the purse in mind, some leftover from previous felting projects, even some leftover orange pumpkin yarn. I discarded the dark green because it wasn't interesting enough, and I came up with around 8 colors. The pattern called for 16 different colors for the bobbles. I don't think you could find 16 different colors of Cascade 220 in this city, so I went with what I had.

The pattern called for 4 bobbles in each of 3 sizes in each color. I initially doubled that to account for fewer colors, but after a few hours and only one color done, I decided that unless I wanted to be buried in bobbles, I could reduce the amount of bobbles in half and still have plenty.

Bobbles took me until Monday afternoon. Monday evening was stuffing the large ones, sewing them all shut and sewing them on the bag. Maurice cooked dinner, bless him.

Tuesday morning I had this-


Cell phone included for scale.

At one point in the bobble sewing, Grace said in all seriousness, "Mom, I don't think that hat is going to fit Tracy." At that point, Grace and Alex had to wear it around the house as a hat.

Tuesday morning Tracy tried to lure me into coffee with her, but I resisted--I had a bag to felt. On to Mom's to fuzz up her washing machine, and one quick trip through the machine, it was looking good.

Then on to find lining fabric and heavy interfacing to hold up all those bobbles (I saw that on a knit along somewhere). Joann's was a strike out, of course. Hancock had interfacing, magnetic closure, and zipper. After Grace's dentist appt. (life gets in my way), Grace and I went to Quilter's Paradise, keeper of all good fabrics. I found the perfect stripe, with black and multi colors, just sassy enough to set off all those bobbles, and black fabric with multi color circles to line the inside of the zipper pocket.

After school, I started the lining. Yes, the bag was still wet. Damp, actually. I lined it anyway.
Here it is with the lining pinned to the bag.

Watched Dancing with the Stars while sewing the lining to the purse, and got a little distracted by Mario Lopez, so I put off sewing the handles until morning.

I wrapped it and it was finished at 7:30 am. Knotty Knitters is at 8:30. Could I cut it any closer?


Fortunately, Tracy liked it. I'm glad. I think it turned out well. Thankfully, she is a felter too, so the fact that it is still a little damp didn't distract from it too much.


She's all smiles even before it was opened. Maybe she sensed knitted thing inside.


















Still smiling. I'm glad it matches her outfit.

Happy Birthday Tracy! We Knotty Knitters will miss you while you are sailing the ocean blue!














We also witnessed the birth of a new knitter today. Suzelle joined our little group, and learned to knit today. Hooray! She actually had a short lesson one other time, but today we made sure it stuck for good. Welcome Suzelle!





















Lisa finished her poncho. Aren't they a good looking bunch?

Humming right along

I finished Josh's hat. It is a bit big, Carey losing her raffia and all. (She tied a piece of raffia around his head to measure, and then "a giant gust of wind carried it away.") Seriously. Anyway, it looks good, and it should do the job of keeping his head warm. And it has CABLES!

Here is what it looks like modeled by the bottom of a metal pumpkin.






Here is what is looks like on the only human in the household who would model it for me. Maybe Carey could get a picture on Josh, hint, hint.

I actually finished the hat by Friday morning. Since then I have been knitting my fingers to the bone, and I can't even tell you why! It is super secret knitting! The best kind. I sort of should have started earlier too, because my deadline is Wednesday and the project is far beyond a Friday afternoon to Wednesday kind of project. It is more a month type thing. I always do this to myself.

I haven't had time to blog, or check email, or anything else. I have been knitting like the wind, and my fingers are sore. Knitting should burn more calories.

Stay tuned for photos. Hopefully it will knock your hand knitted socks off. At least that I did it in 5 days.

I'm not unique

I found a silly thing while surfing. Wanna see ?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 60 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Yarn goes Hollywood

I just found out that there is going to be a movie about knitting! Go check out this link:

Julia Roberts to Topline The Friday Night Knitting Club

The cool thing about Julia Roberts being in this movie is that she actually knits. I hate it when actors "act" knitting, and they do it all wrong. It amazes me that no one in the entire crew of the production corrected them, surely someone knits in the crowd.

Finding online inspiration

OK... so my crazy work schedule and my new romance has kept me away from crafting for a bit. By the time I get home from a crazy day making newspapers, all I want to do is talk to my sweetie and watch Dancing With The Stars or Survivor.

I need inspiration! So, tonight I went looking for it.

Check out these sites!
http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com/sassy_sweet_notes/
The samples on this site are just super, super cute and very well done.

http://stampingscoops.blogspot.com/

http://amusenews.typepad.com/a_muse_news/

http://www.themeesons.com/blog/

http://poppypaperie.typepad.com/

http://www.thecatspajamasrs.com/
Although I'm more of a blogger gal than a "buy me" Internet gal, there are knitting stamps here... so I figured hey, why not put it on the list?

http://dancinginpajamas.blogspot.com/

Lisa's wrists will be warm now

When I learn something new, I tend to obsess over it for awhile and have to do it over and over until I move on. I do this with recipes which makes my family bored to death to have to have the same thing several times in a row while I'm happy as a clam making it again (and again). They should be excited that I am actually cooking for them.

Anyway, I feel that same obsession taking over with this cable business. I'm now done with Lisa's wristwarmer/fingerless mittens, having cabled the both of them.

Next up is Josh's hat. I only had a request for a hat, and I'm sure he would be happy with any old hat. But it is a blank slate, waiting for all sorts of cable possibilities. Since I'm new at this cable thing, I won't go too crazy, but he is getting a cabled hat now.

Let's see how many other things I can reconfigure to stick a cable right down the middle.

I've got my eye on the socks. Hmmm...

Cables!!

Okay, now I'm obsessed with my new skill, cabling without a cable needle. It is knitting's version of a party trick. I'm practicing it a lot while doing Lisa's mittens (mitten #1 is done, all but the thumb) and I even showed the owner of Knitter's Haven how to do it on Friday when I was down there getting a sock yarn injection. (I'll take a picture tomorrow of my new stuff).

I even joined a new knit along. See the button over there? Click it soon, and you'll see me posting my cable things. They have to invite me so it might take a day or so.

If you go to the Warm Hands knit along blog, you can see me post there, too. In fact, I was the first one to post a photo. Isn't that exciting!

Yes, I realize I'm getting two knit alongs with the same projects. Maybe I'll branch out at some point. Or maybe I won't.

I'm starting to spend more time on the internet reading and goofing off about knitting than I am actual knitting. I've got to watch that. I know Lisa knows what it is like to hear the computer calling to you.

Right now it is telling me to go to bed.

Knitters keep each other in stitches

Today was Knotty Knitters. We witnessed:

NolaMom almost finished with the Christmas shawl.











The birth of a toe up sock (Lucy color that is becoming known as "Pool and Latte'" in my mind)



















Natalie's first project in the bag (and her first trip to the frog pond with her second project-truly a right of passage)















And Lisa's computer hand warmers courtesy of ghost knitter Cindy, sitting on top of the day's headline in the local paper.














We keep each other in stitches at Knotty Knitters. We also keep each other in scrapbooking updates, 8th and 6th grade gossip, coffee, and iced tea with extra ice.

P.S. Happy 13th birthday to my Miss America! I love you!