Moonlight Serenade

News

2010-11-02T09:21:00.003-04:00

Thanks everyone for sympathizing with me on my bad week. Knock on wood, everything has been going just fine since then.

I do have to add that the potato soup that I was making when I got the vertigo turned out HORRIBLE! I know I missed adding celery, but I must have missed something else also. I just can't think what it was. I forced myself to eat 2 bowls before I made the decision to dump it. Honest, it was bad!!

On a lighter note, I wearing my sweater today that I finished knitting about a week ago. I still have to sew on 2 buttons, but I need smaller black reinforcing buttons to go on the back side. I only had 5, so I have to go buy some more. I have 3/4 length sleeves on my shirt and then the sweater over the top. The sweater is made of wool, but I'm amazed that it's not itchy. It was very nice and comfy on my walk into the voting precinct this morning. I have 4 1/2 skeins left, but not sure what I'm going to do with it. I need to get a new picture of it finished.

This is just not my week! (A.K.A my time to whine)

2010-10-29T13:48:00.004-04:00

This has been the week from hell for me. Healthwise anyway. I hope when they say that bad news comes in 3's that it applies to your health also. Cause if so then, I done!

On Tuesday, I woke up with a migraine. But you know I never want to admit that it's a migraine. Instead I got up and took 2 Tylenol and went back to bed. No surprise when I wake up an hour later and it's worse. So I finally admit, yep its a migraine. Then I remember that I have new meds, guess I'll see how they work.

When I went to the Dr. last time, I took in my old prescription for Fioricet. I just knew when he saw the label he was going to yell at me. They were slightly expired; as in 2001. Wow I actually heard you gasp at that. Anyway he took one look at it and said yeah he'd renew it since it probably wasn't doing me much good anyway. I said I usually take one and go to sleep; works great. To which he replied "We call that the Placebo affect." And boy he wasn't kidding. I took the new med and went back to bed. Slept for an hour before I woke up because my hand had gone to sleep. Don't think I move at all after I fell asleep, since my hand was still tucked up under my chin. Of course then I couldn't go back to sleep. The fan was on low and on low it rattles. So I turned it up; now it's humming annoyingly. Then the cats see me move and decide if I can move I can feed them. Hungry gluttons, there were still a few nibbles in the bottom of their bowls. I really should have tried harder to ignore these things, but no I discovered that my headache was gone so I might as well get up. The meds might have killed the headache but it blanketed the rest of my brain with a major fog. It felt like it took me 5 seconds to blink! I actually thought to myself a few times when I blinked "Ok you can open your eyes now." I got to work and my bossed asked if I should be driving. I laughed and replied "too late for that now." We had a 10am meeting scheduled and I figured it would be a major pain to reschedule (since I had all the info). I made it through the meeting, but ended up taking an hour nap in my car at 1:30 for lunch. By then it was only taking me 2 seconds to blink. Big improvement! Needless to say, I went to bed 2 hours early that night.

On Wednesday night after work, I went to dinner at El Paraiso's (little mexican Mercado /restaurant downtown). They have $1 tacos on Wednesday. YUM!! As I was getting back in my car (it was facing into the wind), the high winds that we had been having all day gusted and blew my door closed. Or well it tried to, but I was in the way. The top of the door hit be in the nose and the top of my lip. Saw stars! Luckily for me it didn't swell and I didn't get a nose bleed. However my nose has been so sore ever since. I can usually ignore it. Except for those times when my nose itches and I forget and rub at it. Then OUCH.

Last night started out pretty well. I talked with McKelle for a while. Just chatting, I hadn't touched base with her in a while. Life just gets in the way you know. I decided it was cold enough out to warrant a nice hot pot of potato soup. I know sounds good doesn't it. I was cutting up the potatoes when I started to feel a little shaky. Ahh I thought, my sugar must be low. So I drank some grapefruit juice and had a Chex Mix Bar. Felt a little better, so I didn't think much of it. The potatoes where boiling when I decided to look in the cupboard the lid for the pot. When I bent over the world started spinning. Damn, it wasn't my sugar at all, it was Vertigo! Crap Crap Crap!! I had plans for the night! So there I was trying to hold my head still so I could finish the soup, I needed it for lunch on Friday also, when my mom called. She asked how I was doing and I said that I was royally pissed. Why I whined? Because I'm in the middle of making the soup and I feel like I'm gonna hurl if I don't lay down. I obviously wasn't thinking to straight. She calmly says "So turn off the stove, put the lid on the pot and go to bed." Damn why didn't I think of that?!? So I did. It took a while but I finally got situated on the bed so that the world stopped spinning and my stomach decided it wouldn't empty itself. I slept for 2 hours, then got up to finish the soup. The world was still spinning, so I just added my diced ham, the can of soup and some milk. Gave it a perfunctory swirl to mix everything and stuck it in the fridge. Luckily the vertigo was gone this morning, but I'm so totally exhausted. It's hard to get a good rest when every time I tried to roll to my side I would jerk awake so that I could stop myself. Laying on my side might be my preferred way to sleep, but it plays hell with vertigo. Tonight I get to get the "soup" out of the fridge and see how it turned out.

So glad this week is over with. Hopefully things will be better next week.

Dart for the Arts 5K Results

2010-10-11T08:23:00.004-04:00

I participated in the Elkhart Dart for the Arts 5K on Saturday morning. All proceeds raised went towards the Lerner Theater Project.

Kelly and I went over on Friday night to pick up our pre-registered packets, which included our numbers, map, T-shirt, a pen, hand sanitizer and a packet of Light Multi-Grain English Muffins. I thought getting the muffins was kind of cool! (Gonna have one for breakfast tomorrow, because I was too brain dead this morning to think of it.) It was really fun talking to Kelly about what to expect in the race on the way over.

We got to the race around 7:15 and met up with Susan (who was entering also) and Rachel. Rachel got to knit while we were racing and I don't think that was fair. I know a 5K is about 3.3 miles, but let me tell you when its your first 5K ever, it's a lot longer than you realize. We wound our way around Elkhart's Riverwalk area. I think we crossed bridges over the river at least 4 times.

Walking on the treadmill is not a true indication of how fast you will walk. The treadmill moves you along and not necessarily at your own pace either. Based on my time on the treadmill, I estimated that I would finish somewhere between 45-60 minutes. My finishing time was 52 mins 34 secs, which I am satisfied with for my first attempt. My overall ranking was 116 out of 119 finishers. The timing guy said that 161 people had registered for the race, so I should say 116 out of 161, but well that doesn't seem right.

As you can see from my ranking, I was not the last person to cross the finish line. I was pretty bummed when I realized I had fallen to the back of the pack. There were 3 ladies ahead of me, then me, then the guy on the scooter who brought up the rear. The scooter guy told us as we hit the second turn from the end, that it was time to sprint from here. I said yeah right. He said he was game, to which I replied "get off the scooter and we'll see." Sorry, I was tired. He didn't want to do that, because he said he didn't think he would be able to do a 5K. Anyway, as we came around the last corner I decided to run across the finish line; because Kelly told me I had too! Well actually I decided that since I had signed up for the 5K RUN, I should probably run across the finish line. And no I did not sprint past the 3 ladies that were ahead of me. That would have been cool, but the truth is they stopped to chat with people in the crowd. I didn't think much of that, because you only got a timing chip if you signed up for the 5K Run, not the 5K Walk. So I crossed the finish line and told the guy that was collecting the timing chips that I was the last one. So basically he could start packing up. But when I bent down to take off the timing chip, the 3 ladies realized that they hadn't crossed the finish line and came jogging up behind me. YEAH I wasn't the last one!! Small victory but I'LL TAKE IT!!!

Pictures

2010-10-08T14:25:00.004-04:00

I wasn't sure if Blogger was going to let me upload my pictures today or not. It does not like Photobucket for whatever reason. Or maybe PB just doesn't like Blogger. I know I don't like PB, but my phone won't let me upload them to Flickr, which I would prefer.

Anyway, here are a few photos of current projects. At retreat last weekend, I worked on my Ocean Waves quilt. I decided to do it as a "quilt as you go" project. I have the first 2 rows quilted and sewn together. Here's the front side of the 2 rows. (FYI, it's more neon than what the photo shows)

Here's a picture of the back side. You can see the seem where I sewed the 2 rows together. The loose blue fabric will get hand stitched down over the seem to hide it.

The quilting is pretty simple, but close enough to work.

And here is the progress I've made knitting my Slinky Rib Tee. I just finished the ribbing on the body and am knitting straight stockinette now. It's going so much faster.

This weekend is going to be so packed. Tomorrow morning, I'm walking my 5K. I had wanted to run it. And I just HATE admitting that my dad was right when he said my ankle couldn't take it. I have a 22 year old injury that limits its mobility. And it just ached all the time when I was running. You know, I don't know about you, but I really don't like it when someone tells me I can't do something. I need to figure that out for myself. Who knows, I just might be able to do it.

After the 5K, I'm heading to Vicki's house for a Fiber Frolic. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's several hours dedicated to fun, fiber (yarn, wool, roving) and food. I'm taking a spinach salad.

And if that's not enough, after the Fiber Frolic I'm head to Lily's house for more fun and food. Doubt there will be any fiber there. At least not the kind that I can knit. :o) She's talking about dinner and possibly a bonfire if the weather holds. Which it looks like it will.

Thank God I don't have to be to work on Sunday until noon!

Retreat Fun!

2010-10-05T08:45:00.005-04:00

Retreat was really fun. Visiting with friends who share the same hobby is always nice. You get to see everyone's projects and new gizmos.

Helen had this really cool purple air cushion. When you sit on it, you have to stabilize your body and it made me sit up a bit straighter. I always find that I'm slouching when I sit at my sewing machine. I found them at Amazon.com. Think I want to get one of them and try it out. Who know's it might work for work also.

I've been wanting to do some machine quilting, but don't feel comfortable with doing something big or with free motion. Straight lines I feel comfortable with. I finished the blocks for my Ocean Waves quilt a year ago. I even sewed them into rows.

I had the idea that I wanted to try a "quilt as you go" type project. That's where you quilt each block (or in my case row) individually and then sew them together. That way it's more manageable. Here is a quick demonstration by Paula, The Quilter. I figured if it didn't work, I would have 5 long table runners for Christmas gifts. Well it worked, so I'll have to figure out something else for Christmas Gifts. I started with Row 5 so if my quilting was kind of crappy, it would be at the foot of the quilt. I got rows 5, 4, and 2 quilted. And I was able to sew rows 4 and 5 together. All I have to do is a little bit of hand sewing on the back to hide the seem. Can't wait to get the other 2 rows quilted. I did get them basted, so at least they are all ready to be quilted.

Will post pictures soon. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. I did had my camera with me, but just never dug it out to take photos. That's a real shame too as there were lots of wonderful projects being made.

We had a little bit of auto excitement over the weekend also. On Thursday night, JoAn was having transmission trouble with her car and when we went to leave on Sunday, my battery was completely dead. I had been planning on getting a new one before winter, but obviously that was a little to ambiguous a date for my car. However I know I got off the cheaper. Hope JoAn gets her car back soon.

Knitting Retreat and Fair Isle Knitting

2010-08-11T09:33:00.009-04:00

On Saturday, I attended the Frog Pond Fiber Arts Knitting Retreat. Oh it was so relaxing and enjoyable. A good time was had ball all. Special thanks to Chris, Vicki, Sarah, Karen, Deb, Elizabeth and Janet K. for all their hard work and/or donations.

Elizabeth gave a Fair Isle class. We all got to pick our own projects and she would help us with tips and techniques that she has learned while doing her own projects. I picked the Linen Jeans Purse from the book "Norwegian Sweater Techniques for Today's Knitter" by Therese Chynoweth. I used a Berrocco Cotton Twist yarn in a Chocolate Brown and Blue.

I have did a Faux Fair Isle project not too long ago, so I knew a bit of what to expect, but I did learn a few new things. One is that the yarn that you want to show up in the foreground (the blue) needs to always be the top yarn and the background yarn (the brown) will be the bottom yarn. I tried to do 2-handed knitting, but my left hand is just too stupid to figure it out. I did better with the "throwing" method. That's how I normally knit anyway. In order to keep my 2 yarns in the correct top/bottom position, I figured out if I put the top yarn over the back of my hand I always knew where it was and could grab it and keep it in the top position.

Here is a picture of what I had gotten done by Sunday night. This was knit in the round and my tension was pretty good, except for the areas where I switched from one needle to the next. See my lovely floats. :o)

I finished the rest of the knitting on Monday night and then got a chance to practice my next new technique; Steeking.

Elizabeth didn't show us how this was done at the retreat, but she did explain it and she had showed some of us previously how it was done. For those of you who are non-knitters, steeking is cutting your yarn in order to either add a sleeve, neckline, or edging. It's very terrifying! I have this fear that as soon as you cut one thread the whole knitting project will just fall apart. Since my yarn is cotton/rayon, I had to run two rows of machine sewing on either side of the line that I was to cut on. If you look closely, you can just see them. Thank god Nicki had the idea of using white thread. I had planned to use black. Would never have been able to see them!

And then, you take several deep breaths, pick up your scissors and while holding your breath CUT!!

I was so relieved when nothing unraveled. Even with the lines of machine stitching I thought it would all fall apart. I picked up my flap stitches last night and was able to knit 4 rows on that before I headed for bed.

Son of a ......

2010-07-27T08:35:00.003-04:00

I thought I would do a little home repair project this weekend. Nothing to big, just recaulking the tub/shower. It definitely needs it. And since I'm getting the bathroom window (which is in the Shower!?!?) replaced in about a month, I thought it would make it look a lot nicer.

The bottom of the surround has been bowed out since I bought the house. Well the reason is because the plaster wall was disintegrating behind it. So when I pealed off the old caulk, a shower of plaster chunks literally rained down into the tub. I must admit that my dad and I kind of thought that's what was happening, but we didn't realize how bad it actually was.

I talked it over with my dad and I decided to try a "quick fix" to see if it would hold. After knocking out as much loose stuff as I could, I cleaned the edge up and put some liquid nails type caulking behind the surround. Boy was that messy! I couldn't get the tip of the caulk gun far enough up into the opening, so I ended up squirting a whole bunch of it into my hand and spreading it myself. Yuck!! Then I laid a 2x4 along it and wedged another one between it and the side of the tub. I left it that way until Sunday night. When I removed the 2x4's I expected it to just pop out, but surprisingly it held. I decided to wait until the next morning to caulk to see if it would hold through the night. It did, so early Monday morning, I was recaulking the tub.

To my sorrow though, when I got home last night it had not held. The surround had popped back out. My Dad's coming over this weekend to look at it, and I'm thinking we're going to have to take the whole thing out and replace the plaster with drywall. The kind specifically made for bathrooms. So in the mean time, I slathered more caulking along the hole hoping to at least close it up temporarily so I can take a shower until we get it fixed.

Guess the house got jealous that I spent so much money on fixing the car last year that it thought it was it's turn. :o)

I had wanted to "SOMEDAY" gut the whole bathroom and re-do it. However, that day is not today! Would be nice though.

I'm Tired!

2010-07-23T10:51:00.004-04:00

I'm beat today. I could definitely crawl in bed for a hour or two nap. I completed my second workout of week 1 on the Couch to 5K program last night.

Before I started it though, I had a health assessment meeting with James at health club. They checked my blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, you know the normal things I would expect. Then he made me walk a mile to determine how long I would take. OK no big deal right. Well, took me 20 minutes to do 10 laps on their indoor track. But THEN, THEN he wanted to know how many push-ups I could do in 1 minute. HUH!?!? WHAT!?! I have never been good at push-ups. As a kid I once did 100 sit-ups because my brother bet me I couldn't do it. Could barely stand up straight the next day, but I did it. But push-ups, nope. I barely and I mean barely did 11 of them. Really not sure if that 11th one should have counted but he did count it therefore I'm claiming it.

After the push-up torture, I ran my second C25K workout. It was a little easier this time because Susan told me about an App for my phone that is geared specifically for the workout. So I loaded a bunch of music on my phone to use it as a MP3 Player and then ran the app. It dings me every time I need to switch from run to walk. Was a lot easier than watching the timer on the treadmill.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on running around the neighborhood or something. Kelly was telling Susan that we shouldn't just run on the treadmill. But I guess it will depend on the weather. If it's not raining I want to go early in the morning before it gets hot. It's supposed to be cooler on Sunday, so I may do it then instead.

Couch to 5K

2010-07-21T09:06:00.004-04:00

This weekend while I was at Faith's Baby Shower, several interesting topics came up.

The first made me chuckle but also start thinking about my own life. Amy was talking about "30 things she wanted to do before she turned 30." Now here's the part that made me chuckle. She said she just had things she wanted to do before she got old. Those were not her exact words, but that was the gist of them. When she said that I looked at Faith and kind of rolled my eyes. Faith chuckled too and told me "she doesn't mean you are old." I know she didn't mean anything. She was referring to herself and the things she wanted to accomplish in her own life.

But it made me start thinking about my own life. Several of our mutual friends have been doing a similar list "101 things to do in 1001 days." For me, that was way more than I wanted to commit to even though there are no 'size' requirements on the 101 list of items. It could be as small as making your bed every day for a month or knitting 1 project out of every book you own, or reading Pride and Prejudice. Or as large as running a Marathon. But the whole reference to "things I want to do before....." caught my attention. I've been thinking for awhile about certain things that I want to do or experience with my life.

Another conversation that caught my eye was Susan telling us about this program that she just started. It's called Couch to 5K. The idea is to transform yourself from couch potato to runner. After 2 months you should be ready to run a 5K (3 miles). You start of the first week alternating running for 60 seconds with walking for 90 seconds. You do this for 20 minutes 3 times. The second week you run a little longer, and so on until you are up to your 8th week and running 3 miles. Now depending on your degree of potatoness, you may choose to repeat a week or two. After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to do it too.

I've looked up 5K's in our area, hoping for something around the end of September, beginning to middle of October. At first, all I could find were 2 on September 18th and the next one wasn't until Oct 31. But I have since found one in Elkhart on October 9th. Gonna email the girls and see what they think of this one. I say girls, because Kelly said she would run also. Not run with us, since she could leave us in the dirt, but be there to cheer us on. Which I think would be great. Kelly has been very encouraging. She just started running a year ago and has already run several triathlons and a 1/2 marathon. So you see what I mean by leaving us in the dirt.

Anyway, to make a long story short. I finished by first workout last night. Now that I am an Memorial employee, I get a major discount towards a membership at Memorials Health and Lifestyles Center. They have an excellent gym and pool. I was a little stiff this morning, but not nearly as bad as I thought. I did realize that as I was writing up the description I did unintentionally cut my exercise program short. I did the 5 minute warmup walk, then began my running. I was supposed to run for 20 minutes, but I only did 15 because I was looking at the treadmill clock and saw the 20 minutes and thought yeah I did it! Susan told me about an App for my phone that I could use or I found some Podcasts that play music plus tell you when to run/walk. Have to get those set up on my phone.

I called my parents last night to tell them what I was doing. I should have known what my Dad's reaction would be. His immediate reply was "YOU CAN'T DO THAT." Nothing gets my back up more than him telling me I can't do something. For those of you who don't know it, I was in a car accident 22 yrs ago that messed up my left ankle pretty badly. It has no radial movement and limited up/down movement. However I have noticed that when I exercise my ankle, it actually loosens up and works better. I told him that I know my limitations. If my ankle starts to be a problem, then I will walk the whole damn 5K if I have to. While the running I did last night did make my ankle ache a bit, I wore my ankle brace to bed and it was fine this morning.

Faith's Baby Blanket

2010-07-20T09:01:00.005-04:00

Here is the world's tiniest photo of the Baby Blanket that we presented to Faith this last weekend. This was a joint effort by several knitters. We each got to choose the stitch/pattern of our choice and knitted a strip 144 sts wide by aprox 4 inches tall. We all used Knit Picks Shine Worsted weight yarn. Which if you have never used it is very very softy and comfy. A crocheted border will get added to it next. But at least it was far enough along to gift it.

Mostly we passed the strips around, so there wouldn't be a lot of seaming, but for the out-of-towners that just wasn't going to be an option. So I volunteered to Kitchener (a.k.a graft/seam for those non-knitters who may be reading this) any strips that may need it. Turns out I only had to do 3 seams. However, Kitchenering 12 sts across the toe of a sock is way less time consuming than doing 144 sts. After the first seam took me 4+ hours, I was a little worried about what I had gotten myself into. But the first seam was my "learning" experience. I wasn't sure how much extra yarn I would need to sew the seam. I ended up with WAY too much. After taking a stitch, I had to pull the yarn FIVE times the length of my arm in order to tighten up the stitch. Well I didn't want to end up with 3 inches to go and no yarn left. Was so not a problem! Then I found out the the rule of thumb is that the yarn should be 3 times as long as the length of your project. After that the next 2 seams just flew by. They still took about 1.5-2 hours, but hey it was worth it.

I actually finished the last seam on Sunday morning 2 hours before I had to pick Faith up for the party. Just in the nick of time!

We all met a Rachel's house for lunch. And boy was it yummy. We had Taco salad fixings, Gazpacho, GF crackers, hummus, chips, cheese, Blueberry lemonade, veggie tray, deviled eggs, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberrys, creme puffs w/ice cream, GF cupcakes. Everything was extremely yummy!

Sky Photos

2010-06-18T08:23:00.006-04:00

You should have seen the sky this morning! It was so cool.

The weather report has been saying "a chance of thunder storms today." So I've been waiting to water the garden, thinking I won't have to. Mother Nature would do it for me. Then we end up not getting any rain. Poor garden. Well this morning, I decided to go ahead and water it, thinking that if we ever did get rain, it would be later in the day/evening anyway.

Well, when I went out to turn the water off, this is the view of the sky that I was privy to.

Awesome isn't it?

FYI on the storm, I just barely made it into my car and out of the driveway before it started to rain.

A Bargain is Struck

2010-05-05T10:37:00.003-04:00

As you may know (or maybe not) I am not just a knitter. I was a Quilter first. Or more specifically, I am a Topper. I like to make the quilt tops, but I'm not into hand quilting and haven't really gotten into machine quilting yet. So, since I can't always afford to pay to get my quilt tops quilted, I have a box of tops lounging in my sewing room. I finish a top and in the box it goes. I need to add, that I do get tired of people judging me for not finishing my tops. If they want to pay for me to get them quilted, I'm more than happy to take their money, but if not they need to just shut up about it. They will get done when they get done. I know another 'Topper' who says that her tops take up less space in her tiny house. Some one else once said that they were making future yard sale finds, which I thought was hysterical. I will now climb off my soap box and continue with my original story line.

Last month, I finished my Temple Guardians quilt top and I really would like to get it quilted, so that I can hang it in a couple of quilt shows this year. I mean I spent almost 3 years appliqueing the blocks, I am ready for this thing to be done and on my bed! I spoke with one of my local Machine Quilters at a retreat in January. I mentioned wanting to get it quilted, but money being a bit tight, I wasn't sure when it would actually get quilted. She said that she liked the fabrics that I pick out for my quilts and that maybe I should mine my box of tops and we do a trade. At first, I wasn't too sure about this because I really liked the quilt tops that I've made, but the more I thought about, I kind of liked the idea. They are just lounging there anyway right.

I called her yesterday to set up a date to bring the quilt in to get it quilted. Turns out she only had yesterday available. She will be leaving this weekend for another quilt show or training class. She teaches machine quilting classes around the country. She's even taught in England. I digress. Anyway, I raced home last night to get ready. Luckily I had batting and backing for another quilt set aside that I could use. (Color me boring, but I just like to use plain white on the backs of my quilts.)

While I was rushing around, I came across my Mexican Tiles quilt top that I finished last year. I had originally made it with my friends daughter in mind, but since she already had a quilt, I decided to keep it and use it for my 'retreat' quilt. I don't have any twin beds at home, hence I don't usually make that size. It's bright, cheerful and it makes me smile when I look at it. I had more backing, but not another batting. I thought "what the hell" let's throw that one in too and see how much it is to quilt that one.

So, I pulled out my box of tops and started riffling through it. Let me tell you, it wasn't looking too promising. Each one I pulled out, I would say, "oh no, can't part with that one." Finally, I found some that I wasn't too attached to. While they were pretty, I really couldn't seem myself getting them quilted anytime soon. I guess I should be totally honest and admit there was one that I really didn't like. Sorry no picture as it was finished prior to my blog. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty quilt, but it did not turn out how I pictured it. I used a pattern called Strait of Georgia from the book More Fat Quarter Quilts by M'liss Rae Hawley. I loved the one in the book and modeled mine after it. I picked a smashing purple oriental print for the border and then all the blocks were made from the 'supporting' colors. I used different creams/light tans for the background fabric. I think that was my mistake. It turned out too 'brown.' Brown and BLAH!! As you may have guessed from viewing other quilt tops on my blog, I like bright vibrant colors.

Since I wanted to take a variety of tops to my friend, I added that one to the pile. I ended up trading that one, a small wall hanging made from a Moda Charm pack (in really bright colors!), a pastel Yellow Brick Road baby Quilt, and a Island Star Baby Quilt to her. And the best part, I get BOTH of my quilts quilted. You know, I'm happy with the trade that I made.

I just can't wait to get them back!!! Do you think it's too soon to ask her if she's done yet?? :o)

Playing Catch-Up

2010-05-02T14:09:00.018-04:00

It seems I'm always playing catch up lately. Something will happen for which I will think, "This would make a great blog entry." But do I follow through on it, NO. So here I am again giving you a really long entry to read in order to catch up what has been happening lately.

Quilt Retreat - I went to quilt retreat about a month ago. I had a really good time. I got done everything that I had planned, plus a few extra things.

1) I finished the borders on my Temple Guardians quilt. It turned out wonderfully. I can't wait to get it quilted. I'm hoping to get that done soon. I have to call Deloa and set up a appointment to bring it in. I would like to get it done in time for our Quilt Guild quilt show in August, but that depends on her schedule; so we will see. I have another quilt show in September that I can shoot for just in case. If not, there's always next year.

2) For my Oceans quilt, where I mentioned here, I got my rows put together. I'm not sure if I mentioned in previous entries, but I would like to quilt this using the "quilt as you go" technique. I will quilt each row individually, then sew the rows together, add an outside white border and quilt that. I'm hoping it goes alright. If not, I might end up with 5 table runners instead of a full sized quilt. Who knows, but my friend Helen has done several quilts using this method and they seem to work for her, so I thought why not give it a try. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

3) Last year, during my spring quilt retreat, several of us made a trip to Lolly's Fabric Store in Shipshewanna. I fell in love with an oriental jelly roll in teals, brown, greens, and creams. I loved it so much that I had to buy the jelly roll, coordinating fabric for borders and the book that the quilt store's sample was made from. I started that project. Sorry, no pictures as all I was doing was sewing all my strips together. However, yesterday, I got all my blocks cut out of the strips. I just have to press them and then they are ready to lay out.

Vacation - The day after I got back from retreat, I re-packed and headed to Kentucky with my Mom, my Cousin Tracy and her daughter Erica. We went down to visit Aunt Corinne and Aunt Hattie (Marie). We were supposed to leave on Tuesday morning, but after getting 3 calls from Aunt Corinne asking when we were leaving, Tracy decided there was no reason we shouldn't leave on Monday night. That was fine by me, I was packed and ready to go. It was a LONG drive. It took us 8.5 hours to drive it. We would have made more stops to relax, but it was dark and rest areas are down right spooky in the dark. Tracy was very proud of the fact that she drove 'through' Chicago. She did very well other than the death grip she had on the steering wheel. We arrived around 2 am and boy was I tired. Tracy did most of the driving, but I was still recovering from lack of sleep from retreat. I never sleep well on their small twin beds.

Our plans were pretty loose for our visit. Other than visiting the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah, we just planned to hang out. The first day, we made a trip into Murray to do some shopping. We went to an antique/re-sell shop called Trends and Treasures, I think. It was very nice. I got a new book (Vanished by Karen Robards), a set of measuring spoons and 2 silicon spatulas. Then we went to a consignment store. I hit the mother lode here. I found a pair of dark lime green Capri's, and 3 shirts. It turned out that I had a shirt in my suitcase, that went with the Capri's so well you would have thought I bought them together.

On Wednesday, we went to the quilt show. Well, Mom, the aunts and I went. Tracy and Erica stayed back to visit with Uncle Johnny. Tracy's not really into quilting. My Aunts and Mom all sew, but they don't "Quilt" like I do. I love to quilt, they not so much. I appear to be the only one who inherited a love/passion for quilting from Grandma Bonnie (their Mother).

The AQS quilt show was held in the Expo center, but they also had this huge inflatable dome next door with a lot of vendors in it. Because of where we parked, we entered the dome area first. It was funny, because Mom, and the Aunts thought that WAS the quilt show. Once they were done visiting all of the booths, they were ready to leave. I had to laugh at their expressions when I explained that while yes, there were quilts hanging up to be admired, this area was vendor booths only, not the quilt show. They ended up leaving me there to go get something to eat while I visited the rest of the show and vendors. I wasn't that hungry and besides, I hadn't come ALL the way to Paducah just to visit the vendors. I wanted to see the quilts too. I did take pictures, but it seems they frown on people displaying them on their blogs/on-line. I guess copy right infringement and all that. Anyway, you can go the AQS Website to see the winners.

I didn't buy a lot, but I really like what I bought. I got some teal/brown fabric to go with my project from retreat, a Bali-pop with 2 yards of coordinating green batik, a 3 yard piece of blue/tan batik, and 3 coordinating fat quarters (mauve, orange and green). I also got 2 lumbar supports; 1 for me and 1 for Mom. If she doesn't like it I plan on using it in my sewing room.

I realized after I came home, that I didn't get any pictures of all of us together. Actually the only pictures I took were of the flowers, Aunt Hattie's Pond and the quilt show.

So here are some beautiful Azalea's blooming at Aunt Corinne's.

And this is the Tulip tree that is blooming in Aunt Hattie's back yard. Someday when my Tulip tree grows up, it will bloom just like this one.

The Dogwood Festival was happening in Paducah also, but this picture is the only part of it that I saw.

We came home on Friday and the car was SO packed, that we decided to take our time and to make extra stops so we stretch our legs. It took us 11.5 hours back, because of this and detours for construction. Just so you know the reason that the car was so packed was not because I bought up a lot of stuff at the quilt show, it was because the Aunts decided to clean out their closets and give it to us. Most of it went to Erica, but the rest of us did not come home with some stuff too. Tracy had to do 15 loads of laundry when she got home to get all of Erica's stuff washed. OMG 15 loads of laundry!!!

Fiber Frolic - This last weekend a bunch of my knitting friends got together at Vicki's house for a fun-filled day of fiber, food and friendship. We got to ooh and aah over Vicki's new 3 Season room. I loved it and would so like to have one off the back of my house. The breeze coming in the windows was just awesome. I'd spend most of my time out there if I had one. To eat, we had Sloppy Toms (made with turkey, hence the name), Spinach salad, taco dip, veggies, hummus, deviled eggs, orange cupcakes, blueberry muffins, cookies. Everything was so good. Oh and Elizabeth brought some awesome strawberries. They were so good I had to drag Deb to Sam's Club on the way home because I don't have a membership card and pick up some of my own.

Of course it was until almost everyone had left that I realized that although I brought my camera, I forgot to take photos. No one else did either though so there! But I did take a picture of the progress I made on the sleeves for my Hoodie. I'm trying to do the 2 sleeves at one time thing. I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, since I didn't like doing the 2 socks at one time on circular needles. But so far it's going pretty well. I can't wait to get them done. I still have 12 rows to do on the body of the sweater, but I had put that aside since it was so boring. I measured it as is, and it measures 22". My row guage must be off a little, because it's only supposed to be 22 1/4" after the 12 rows that I have left to do. I just finished a pattern repeat though, so I'm thinking I will stop there and add the sleeves on when I get them done.

I know I'm forgetting things, but what the hey, someday I made need to play catch-up again.

See ya!

Quilt Challenge Pictures

2010-04-09T10:04:00.005-04:00

First Place - Diane H.
Song = With a Little Help From my friends
I have this pattern and have been wanting to make. Now I have inspiration!

Second Place - Sandy M.
Song = The Scotsman

Third Place - Joan G.
Song = Red Sails at Sunset
Sorry, I didn't get a picture of hers.

Other participants:

Helen M
Song = On the Street Where You Live

Helen M
Song = Lavender Blue
MaryBeth P
Song = Moonlight Sonata

Sorry, I didn't get pictures of the last ones.
Joan G.
Song = Anchors Away

Joan G.
Song = Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

I forgot to write down the name of the last participant, but her song was "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries."

Quilt Guild Challenge Results

2010-04-09T08:56:00.010-04:00

I won Second Place!!!

I was really pleased with all the chatter about my quilt. And it was funny that most people didn't guess that it was mine. So without further ado here it is:

Can you guess the song? Take a good look at it; even click on it if you have to to enlarge it. Well, if you guessed the folk song "The Scotsman" then you are correct.

Here is a close up of the Trapunto quilting technique I was telling you about from my last blog entry. Hey every Scotsman quilt should have six-pack abs don't you think?

As you may know, this song address what a Scotsman really wears underneath his kilt. Well, my version had to be 'family' friendly as it will be hung at out quilt show in a public library. So, this is what my Scotsman has underneath his kilt.

Below is a video of the lyrics and the music from youtube. I first heard this song sung by my friend Nancy Flanagan. She plays the Mountain Dulcimer and graced us with a small concert at one of out first quilt retreats. I've loved it ever since. I hope you enjoy it too.

I really had a blast making this quilt. It was so much fun! I've been knitting so much this winter that I had forgotten how much I really enjoy quilting. It's so stimulating and yet relaxing too to cut up a bunch of fabric and sew it back together.

I'll post pictures of the other challenge quilts in a separate post.

Challenge Quilt

2010-04-07T15:06:00.004-04:00

We have had 3 quilt challenges at my quilt guild. The first one I did not even do. I can't remember what it was, but I wasn't feeling it so I didn't even attempt it. The second one was the paint chip challenge. I finished my top, but didn't get it quilted. I still don't have it quilted, big surprise right!?! Then, last year, Helen issued a new quilt challenge for us. We have to pick a song and then make a quilt based on that song. I thought and thought, but couldn't come up with a song that I would like to do. Then one day "THE" song popped into my head and I knew it would be perfect, IF I could figure out the logistics of it. Well, I played around with the idea for awhile even embellished the idea a bit. Of course I procrastinated the whole year away, but eventually started on it about 2 weeks ago.

I'm so excited to say it is almost done. All I have to do is put the binding on it, which I am planning on doing tonight. Sorry, I cannot tell you what it is yet. But we will be turning them in on Thursday night. So I'll post pictures on Friday.

I will give you a little hint. One of the special effects I used was Trapunto, which is a quilting technique that is quite decorative in that it utilizes at least two layers, and is then padded from the underside. This produces a raised surface on the quilt. This style originated in Italy before the fourteenth century. This was my first attempt at trapunto, but I do think it turned out very well.

I can't wait for you guys to see it.

All I Can Say is OMG!!

2010-03-14T20:13:00.003-04:00

Woman causes crash shaving bikini area while driving

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=12107993

It Blows My Mind

2010-03-10T08:35:00.003-05:00

I just heard on the radio that some city in California is planning to start charging it's citizens if they make a 911 call. I believe around hear, we have a fee tacked on to our phone bills or something like that. But Tracy, CA is taking it to new highs. Due to a shortage in funds, they are going to start charging a $300 fee every time someone calls 911 unless they sign up for a yearly contract of $48/year.

So if you're strapped for money, and can't afford the $48/year membership fee, because let's face it we know there are people out there who can't, you now have to make the decision to let your husband/wife/child suffer and possibly die because you can't afford a $300 fee.

Here is a scenario: You're in a hotel visiting this fair city and someone in the hall has a seizure; is unconscious. What happens if you call 911? Do you get charged $300 or does the unconscious person get charged?

What if your neighbor's house is on fire?

Can you imagine how many people are not going to call 911 if this happens?

I've Come to a Conclusion

2010-03-09T15:48:00.003-05:00

I've come to the conclusion that I just eat out too much. I need to cut back, not only to save money, but to make sure I'm not eating too much junk.

The only problem with this is that I have no idea how to plan my meals for the week. How do I know what I'm going to be hungry for next week?? I have in the past, bought items, thinking they would be good to eat next week and then either didn't want it or didn't have time to cook it. I've lost count of how many bunches of broccoli or cauliflower that have gone bad languishing in my fridge.

Another problem as I see it, is that I don't really know how to cook for one. I end up with too many left overs that have to be eaten for both lunch and dinner sometimes 3 days in a row. That really puts me off cooking.

Last night I made shrimp scampi or something very similar to it. It tasted good, but I have enough for lunch/dinner today, lunch/dinner tomorrow. In the hopes of not OD'ing on the shrimp so quickly, I brought along a sandwich and veggies to eat for dinner tonight on the way to my quilt bee group.

Any ideas?? Either tips on learning how to plan my meals or on how to cook with less leftovers??

Updates and New Toys

2010-02-18T09:05:00.010-05:00

OK, I've been busy working on my Ravelympics project - Gail. Here is a "bad" picture of it. I tried to take a close up of the pattern, but it was too blurry. I'll have to pin it out tonight.

I had to take last night off though. I'm prone to Tennis Elbow when I knit too long and it was starting to hurt on Tuesday night when set my knitting aside. I'm going to try knitting tonight, but probably not as many rows as I have done before. Maybe I should knit a couple of rows, take a break, knit a couple rows... We'll see how it goes. I am anxious to get this done so I can start my next new project.

Which leads me right into the "New Toys" topic. A year or so ago, Knitpicks.com had a colorwork bag pattern for sale as a kit. I was too intimidated by it to even contemplate buying it. But now that I have tried knitting colorwork, I think I'm ready to give it a try. So I went looking for the it. The kits are no longer available, but I was able to get the pattern and yarn. Here is a picture of the bag. It is called Sipalu created by Kerin Dimeler- Laurence. Ain't she beautiful?!?!

I got the yarn to do the orange/fall colored bag. The pattern calls for 17 balls of yarn, but if I read it right, that is enough to make 2 bags. I figured it out that if I bought the 17 balls of yarn, it would actually have been more expensive than buying one of their Sample packs which has 21 balls yarn. (All different colors of course) And since it was such a bargain :o) I bought the Sample Pack . It came in the mail on Tuesday. Can't wait to start it! Still need the right size needles though.
I did buy 3 extra balls in the orange colors (on the left), because I really wanted my bag to look like the fall colored bag. I played with everything Tuesday night and have all my colors figured out. It will have more green in it than what the picture shows, but I cool with that.

While looking on-line for the needles for my Sipalu bag, I ran across an interesting link on Erica's Sewing Center web-site. Joyce Roberts of Arkansas, sent in a great new idea for storing all your knitting tools. I was floored!! I have been looking for a solution to all the different containers that I have my needles in and low and behold she found one. Thank you Joyce for the wonderful idea.

It is called the StitchBow Needlework Travel Bag and it is made by DMC (as in DMC embroidery floss). It works perfectly for storing my Knitpicks options circular needles, Boye interchangeable circular needles, DPNs, and crochet hooks. Check these photos out.

Nice expandable handles and an outside pocket.

See the dark spot in the lower left corner? It's piece of dark felt for putting your needles in. Thanks to an idea by Antonette, I'm going to put saftey pins there to hold my stitch markers. There is a 3-ring binder inside that hold floss binder sheets that are perfect for storing your needles. 1 sheet comes with the bag when you get it, but you can buy more in packs of 2.

I put a piece of paper behind it so it is easier to see it. Here are my Knitpicks Options Circular needles. Each sheet flips out and you can store the needles on both sides. I plan to label all the pockets with the appropriate needle size. (Just need to buy batteries for that pesky label maker)
It even fits your 8" DPN's.

The front and back sides have nice big pockets for storing all your miscellaneous items also.

I took this to my knitting group last night and they were all oohing and aahing over it. I just know there is going to be a stampede once everyone realizes they can buy these at JoAnn's with the 40% coupons.

No pushing or shoving ladies!!!

Ravelympics Begins!

2010-02-12T10:56:00.004-05:00

Team Michigan
Events: Lace Luge and WIPs Dancing

Well, it will at 9:30pm tonight at the start of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I can't wait. This is my first time participating in the Ravelry Olympics (ravelympics). You are supposed to start a project or work on a WIP (work-in-process) project with the idea of pushing yourself to finish the project before the end of the Closing ceremonies on February 28th.

I'm going to be working on a shawl Gail (Ravelry link) and also my Bagged colorwork tote bag that I started last September. I figured 2 projects would probably be my limit, however there are people signing up to do a lot more. There's no way they could possible get them all done. I think signing up for too many would just overwhelm me. I wouldn't be sure what to start first.

Tonight I am going to Heidi's house to watch the opening ceremonies with several other knitters as we begin our projects. Should be fun. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

If you don't have a Ravelry account, click here to see a picture of Gail from the designers Flickr page.

They're Done, They're Done, They're Done!!

2009-12-17T11:35:00.004-05:00

I finally finished a knitting project. It has been awhile, so yes, I'm kind of excited. Also, I love the project that I finished so I'm doubly happy to have them done.

Here they are; my Faux Fairisle Fingerless Mitts.

I tried to be a little artsy with my photo, but ... not so much. The bottom mitt was the first one I completed and the top mitt is the one I finished last night after I got home from Knit Nite. I like the colors of the second one better, because it's more purple. But they both look great. And they are toasty warm. I've been wearing them today at work.

So happy and excited!!

Edited: I just looked on my Ravelry project list and I think I can get 2 more projects done over my Christmas Vacation. I'm going to work on the Pooling Scarf (which only has about 6" left on it) and the Felted Colorwork Bag (which only has 1 more repeat and handles). I'm slowly but surely getting some UFO's done. I have a little Christmas knitting to finish up too, but it's not on my rav list. Just in case people peak!

Knitting and Spinning

2009-12-08T12:56:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, I meet up with a few friends for a day of knitting and other sundry crafts. We had great food and goodies too. Kathy made chili and Katie brought this Toffee Bar dessert. It was a first attempt at this new recipe and she figured we would all make great guinea pigs. It was very good. Thanks to Carlina for opening her home and to Devon for the nice bag pipe concert.

Kathy spearheaded the meet-up and decided we should have lots of different crafts to try out. She brought her weaving loom and knitting looms. I brought my spinning wheel, because she wanted to try it out. I was a little panicked by that thought though, because I hadn't done any spinning in a year. I mentioned that to one of my other spinning friends and she laughed. She said just think of it this way "They don't spin, so they won't know the difference!" I laughed and thought she's right. I practiced for a while, then turned it over to Kathy. She did pretty well. Then her niece Katie wanted a try. She had a little trouble coordinating the hand and foot motions. For a little while I spun the wheel while she did got used to spinning, then I turned her loose on her own. She seemed to really enjoy it and she did surprisingly well for a first try.

While she spun I knitted on my blue hoodie. I'm only 40 rows away from starting the sleeves. What I really need to do is dedicate myself to doing 4 rows a night for the next 10 days and I would have that part done.

But, last night after dinner, I decided instead of knitting I would do some spinning. The rocking chair was a little too low, so I got out my office chair. It worked just great after I adjusted the height. Here's a picture of my mystery fiber. Well, I do know it's wool, but other than that I've no clue. I got it as a gift from one of my spinning friends when I got my wheel.

I still quite a bit left to spin. I'm hoping I have enough after I get it all spun up to do a pair of socks or may a pair of fingerless mitts. Not sure if I will ply it or just knit it as is, but I will probably ply it.

Merry Christmas To Me! Merry Christmas To Me!

2009-12-01T08:35:00.006-05:00

My 'early' Christmas present to myself came in the mail yesterday. I'm so excited! Here it is:

It's the Knitpicks Options Nickle-plated interchangeable needle set. It comes with needles sizes 4 thru 11 US, 2 24" cables and 2 32" cables. I also bought an extra 40" cable and 2 extra needle tips in size 8 & 9. But those are the wooden Harmony needles. I really like metal needles, but I wanted to try out the wooden ones just because. I meant to play with them last night, but I got caught up in a book I was reading and didn't knit a stitch.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was pretty good. I went to my Parents house for dinner. This year since there were only going to be the 3 of us (everyone else was doing their own things) we had Rib-eye steaks instead Turkey. Boy were they yummy too! Along with the steaks we had oven baked potatoes (both white and sweet), sauted green beans with bacon, cranberry relish and rolls. It was all very good.

My Mom stayed at my house that night, so that we could get up at 3:30AM to go shopping. We weren't really planning on going shopping this year, but my friend Staci needed some help. She had a list from her 2 brothers and her Mom that she needed to get in addition to her own stuff. It was such a mad-house at Wal-marts that we took turns watching each others carts while the other one went after one thing or another. It was too hard trying to get the carts through the crowds. I got most of my Christmas presents bought and only have a few things left to get.

After Wal-Marts, we headed to Lowe's for the 99 cent Poinsettias. Staci asked me how many I wanted and I told her that I tend to kill them and just give them to Mom when I get one. And since Mom was buying her own, I didn't need any. Then we headed to Menards, but the checkout line was so LONG there and Staci was only looking for one item, we just turned around and left. Then we headed to Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and PetSmart. We parted ways after that. Mom and I headed back to Niles where we met up with my cousins Tracy and Erica for breakfast and a little more shopping. I was exhausted by the time we got back to my house around 3pm. After they left, I took a nap!

On Saturday, my friend Kathy J. came over. After a quick trip to the Red Purl and Moon Beads, we spent the rest of the day chatting and knitting. I made a pot of the Tomato Florentine Soup for dinner along with grilled cheese sandwiches. I got a lot of knitting done on my Hoodie. I am now 2/3 of the way done on the body. Only 45 more rows and then I get to start the sleeves, which should be much faster to knit since there are fewer stitches. I also worked on my fingerless mitts and my pooling scarf.

I forgot to get a picture of the Hoodie, but here are ones of the mitts and scarf:

I still have to weave in my ends on the first mitt, but the 2nd one is coming along nicely.

The scarf measures 44", so I only have about 16" left. I was having a little trouble lining up the colors after I added in the 2nd skein, but I'm getting used to it now.

Really Good Weekend

2009-11-16T11:26:00.003-05:00

I don't know about you, but I had a really good weekend.

The weather was AWESOME! Sunny and warm and sunny.

My Mom and I made a day of it. We started out at Goodwill for their 50% off sale. I hit the mother lode too. I got 2 practically new pairs of jeans, 1 lime zippered cardigan, 1 brand new still had the tag on blue sweater, 4 scrub tops, 2 scrub pants, a small brand new Tupperware strainer and 4 wool felting sweaters. I spent $40, but new scrub tops alone cost $12.99 each. I wasn't expecting to spend that much, but I definitely got more than my money's worth of merchandise.

Then I took my Mom to the South Bend Farmers Market, where we got some dark espresso roasted coffee beans for my Dad, some herbs, loose leaf tea (darjeeling, french vanilla, chai), fresh pumpkin donuts (the yummy cake kind), broccoli (which I steamed on Sunday for dinner), tomatoes, garlic, yellow bell pepper. I got to taste a chanterelle mushroom, which was very good. We probably spent a good hour to hour and a half wandering around checking everything out. She's already making plans with her friends to come back for another visit.

Then we headed to Goshen to the Ewe-Knique Knit Shop, where I had to exchange a skein of yarn I bought when I was at the knitting retreat. While trying to find the end of the yarn from the center of the skein, I totally messed up the skein and had to re-wind it. In the process, I found 6 big slubby areas. 1 or 2 I could have lived with, but not 6. Well they didn't have the same color of mini mochi, so I got another colorway. And to be on the safe side I decided to go ahead and get an extra one while I was there. :o)

After lunch at the chinese buffet, I went home and took a nap. When I woke up, I did laundry. I had to wash my new scrubs, so I could wear a set to work on Sunday. And I figured If I was going to do one load I might as well do several. Not going to admit to how many loads I did; I let the laundry kind of pile up. I finished up the last load on Sunday morning before work.

All in all, a very good weekend!

New Recipe - Tomato Florentine Soup

2009-11-13T13:54:00.005-05:00

A pizza restaurant here in town (Barnaby's), used to serve Tomato Florentine Soup everyday on their menu. I loved it! I don't know if they tried to do something different or what, but they removed it and replaced it with Italian Wedding Soup. Oh it was horrible! I stopped going there as often, because I was always getting the soup/salad combo and they didn't have any other soups that I liked.

Well I got to craving that soup last week. I looked up recipes on-line and found several that I liked "bits" of. So I combined them and WOW I loved it! So here it is:

Tomato Florentine Soup
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

1 lb ground Italian sausage

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 beef bullion cubes

1 cup boiling water

2 cans diced tomatoes

1 12 oz. Can V8 Juice

1 small can tomato sauce

¼ tsp Tabasco or other hot sauce

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 tsp. oregano

2 tsp. thyme

2 tsp. basil

1 tsp. dill

2 cups of water or milk

1 bunch of Spinach, julienne

1 to ½ cups cooked shell pasta

Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown sausage until it is almost done. Add onion and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent. Add this and all other ingredients except the pasta to a crockpot. Cook on high for 1 ½ hours. Add cooked pasta. Cook for ½ hour. Serve with crusty bread/butter or grilled cheese sandwiches.

Note: I took this to work with me, that’s why I used the crockpot, but the original recipe(s) were geared towards making it on the stove. It was very good the first day, however it was awesome the next day.

Knitting Retreat

2009-11-09T08:51:00.010-05:00

Ok, I mentioned earlier that I would be updating everyone on the knitting retreat that I attended on Halloween. The South Bend Knitworks (Rav Group) held our first retreat. It was so much fun, I hope it isn't our last one. Thanks to Faith and Madalyn for organzing the whole thing. And thanks to Rachel for decorating the gift bags, Kelly for the neat stitch markers (SSK & K2tog), and to Carly for the cool name tags. They had small wound hanks of yarn. And thanks to all who brought snacks, Yum!

I had such a great time. Kallie tought us how to do Entrelac. I wasn't going to do it, because I thought "Why learn something else to become addicted to!", but actually it was quite interesting. Here's my sample:

Kallie went around the group giving everyone a little bit of extra help, for which I was glad. I learn better if someone is showing me what to do, instead of just plain reading/interpreting it on my own. Every time she got to me though, I would confuse her because on the purl rows I was knitting backwards instead of flipping it and purling. I think Entrelac would be a huge pain to do if you don't know how to knit backwards. All that flipping to the back side to purl 2, 3, 4, etc stitches would suck.

We also got in some great knitting time too.

Liz, Kallie and Shelley.

Shelley (again), KellyLynn, Megan, Christine, Carly and Madalyn.

Rachel, Susan and Jonel.

Kelly, Faith and Rachel (again).

It was kind of hard not to overlap photos, since there were not a lot of us. Personally I like the smaller sized group, because it was easier to talk to everyone and get to know some of the different Ravelry members. I just realized that I didn't get a picture of Danielle, because she had to leave early.

We all trickled through Ewe-Knique Knit Shop around lunch time. I got 2 skeins of Mini Mochi, that I just love. That's the yarn I'm using for the fingerless mitts from the previous post. Very soft!

Oh, lest I forget, Faith was responsible for getting us some great door prizes, none of which I won though. :o( But Jonel won a Sweater Kit from Berroco, KellyLynn won a kit from Spud and Chloe, Liz won a goodie bag from Lion Brand Yarn, Carly won Purple sock yarn donated by Red Purl. Sorry there were more winners, but I don't remember who won what.

Other donated prizes came from: Erica's Sewing & Craft center - a purple bag and books for our goodie bags and another kit from Spud & Chloe.

I Wasn't Going to do it.

2009-11-08T12:49:00.005-05:00

But I did. I told myself I shouldn't, but again I did. I started another knitting project! I have too many started already that I need to get done, but I just couldn't resist.

I attended a Knitting Retreat in Goshen on Halloween (details to come) and while there I bought some Mini Mochi yarn at Ewe-Knique Knits yarn shop. They had this wonderful sample made up of a hat. The pattern could be downloaded from Crystal Palace's website. It's for a fake Fair Isle design. I'm not real interested in the hat, but it also include a pair of mittens that would make perfect fingerless mitts. My hands are always getting cold and I've been planning to make myself a pair. I just never seem to get around to it. I have the ribbing done on Mitt #1 and am only 2-4 rows away from starting the thumb gusset.

I have been working on other things: I have 20 inches done on my pooling scarf and I'm more than 1/2 done on the body of my Hoodie Sweater. It's just that the sweater is getting to the point where it is not too portable and with it taking almost 1/2 hour to knit a row, it's a bit frustrating too.

I know, I know. It doesn't take much to justify starting a new project right? I really do need to get some things done though.

(11/9) Edited to add photo

Family Dinner Swap

2009-11-06T15:28:00.002-05:00

Amy of Park City Girl is doing a Recipe Swap and I thought I would add my two cents to the list.

I love love love Thai food and stir-frys. I'm always hitting up my friend Lily (who's from Thailand) for interesting new recipes. Here is one of my favorites.

Chicken Basil (Gai Pad Gra Pow) This recipe was put together from info from both Lily and Thaifoods.com

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp oil
4-7 Thai chili peppers (minced or crushed)
1 Tbsp. sugar
1-2 pkgs fresh Thai Basil
1/2 lb. ground chicken (or bite-sized chunks of chicken)
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3Tbsp fish sauce

Method:
Mince garlic and chili peppers together. Clean and pick basil from its stems. It may appear like a lot of leaves, but they will shrink when cooked and this dish's flavor comes from the leaves. Fry garlic and chili in oil over high heat. When garlic starts to turn brown, add ground chicken. The juice will start to come out. Keep stirring until all the juice is gone. It might take a couple of minutes. Add sugar and fish sauce. Then add the basil. Quickly turn over a few times to mix the leaves with the meat and then remove from the heat and put in serving bowl. Serve with hot rice.

Notes:
You can substitute ground turkey or pork for the ground chicken. Some people like the meat cut up in bite sizes pieces rather than ground. You can also add Sliced green peppers and onions just before adding the sugar and fish sauce.

PS: If you haven't tried the Thai Basil, you really should. It is much milder and more flavorful than the regular 'italian' basil that we tend to use here in the US. I've also done eggrolls and Coconut Chicken soup and you can get those recipes by clicking here.

Enjoy!

World Take Notice!

2009-10-30T10:40:00.003-04:00

I giving the world notice right now. I'm in a good mood and I don't want anyone pissing on my parade today!

I got my hair cut and colored last night. I was long over due and while I'm kinda on the fence about the color (it's a little darker and a little on the coppery side) I do like it.

I also paid bills last night AND had money left over. And that didn't even take into account the fact that I got paid again today. Then I balanced my checkbook and was only 18 cents off. Whoo Hoo! Teresa (my Accountant friend) will be so proud of me. She shudders when I tell her I haven't ballanced my check book in ohh 6 months or a year. She'll be happy to know I only let 2 months lapse this time.

Tomorrow, my knitting group "South Bend Knitworks" is having our 1st Annual Knitting Retreat. Where I'll get to learn Entrelac knitting. I actually voted for crochet finishing techniques, but that's OK. And it just so happens that the place where we are having the retreat is right across the street from... yep you guessed it... a knitting store; Ewe-Nique Knits. I've never been there and I can't wait to browse their wares as I've heard really good things from other knitters.

I Need to Vent!!

2009-10-28T15:00:00.004-04:00

I really really need to vent right now. If I don't, I will explode. Please don't read any further if you don't want to hear me complaining about my family.

You all know that my Aunt Margaret passed away last week. BTW, Thank you all for your wishes and prayers.

Well, Aunt Margaret had a son, Stanley. I always looked up to him. He was the first one in the family to go to college. Well about 14 years ago he dropped off the radar. He stopped calling, visiting, etc. One day my Aunt ran into one of his friends in town and the friend asked her why she hadn't come to Stan's wedding the previous month. Well, she hadn't attended because she wasn't invited nor did she even know about the wedding. Same thing with her learning in the subsequent years that he had children. Not once did he call or even write her a letter.

A couple of us were looking for him to tell him about the death of his mother and also because a second signature was needed in order to have her cremated like she wanted. Well a message was left for him on Friday night by a family friend and another message was left on Saturday by my Mom. My mom was not feeling very charitably towards him and left a message that basically said the reason she was calling was that his signature was need in order to cremate his mother who just died. I don't think I would have put it quite that bluntly, but Mom and Margaret were extremely close and she was very upset by what she considered his abandonment of his mother. Anyway, he didn't call back. More calls were made on Saturday night and Sunday, but the answering machine had been shut off and the phone just rang and rang. So you know somebody was there. He didn't call until after the funeral home contacted the Charleston Police Department to go to his house to inform him of a death in the family.

Now I ask you, what kind of a person just turns their back on family, specifically their MOM. I could understand it if she had been an alcoholic or abusive. But she wasn't either of those. She was a single mother struggling to raise 3 kids. There hadn't been a fight or anything either. She was extremely proud of him and used to tell everyone about him going to college to make something of himself and the wonderful job he got in Ohio. She was so hurt and confused because she never could understand why he did what he did.

My Mom told me today that she heard he might be coming up this weekend. I told that I frankly didn't care and that I wouldn't be around this weekend. I have a knitting retreat on Saturday and I work on Sunday. Aunt Margaret was a very special woman in my life and I just don't think I can forgive him for the way he treated her. I told her I was afraid that if I saw him I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut and would probably just kick him in the knee. And I really didn't think the family needed any more animosity running through it than we already have had over the last couple of days.

The thing that set me off today was that I discovered through the wonderful world of the internet that his wife has a blog. And she was gushing over a visit from her Mom and Dad and how close they were to her kids and Stan. But did either of them ever even think about Stanley's Mom and how she would have loved to get to know her grandchildren. I just wanted to scream when I read her entry.

Stanley is such a shit. And you know they always say what comes around goes around. I just hope to hell none if his kids ever treats him like he treated his own mother. But it would be sweet justice if they did.

Thanks for listening to me vent. I just couldn't keep all this bottled up inside anymore and I didn't want to say this to Tracy (Stan's sister) or my Mom, they've been upset enough as it is. Surprisingly I feel much better after spilling all this.

Sad News

2009-10-26T09:34:00.003-04:00

It is with a sad heart that I let everyone know that my Aunt Margaret passed away on Friday.

She was doing so well after the surgery last Monday to move her feeding tube. But then on Wednesday or Thursday they said she aspirated some water while taking a drink and coughed herself right into a heart attack. Her body was just too weak to recover from that and she passed away Friday Morning.

I had a good cry this weekend when I realized that this Thanksgiving I actually get to have lumps back in the mashed potatoes. I'd trade all lumps in my potatoes for her to be there at the table with us. At least she's not suffering anymore. She was a great lady and I will miss her terribly.

Pooling Scarf Class

2009-10-23T14:28:00.003-04:00

Last night I took a knitting class at the Red Purl. It was for the Pooling Watercolor Scarf (Ravelry Link). The class taught us how to find the color repeat on the yarn and to knit it into vertical stripes. It was quite interesting. I had a little bit of trouble though and after having to rip back several times, I finally set my project on the table, crossed my arms over my chest and said "That's it. I'm done. I quit." Everyone kind of laughed and Kallie's response was something like 'That's really being adult about it.' :o) Heidi, the instructor, helped me out though and got me past my little snit. I was really having trouble varying my gage; either tightening or loosening a few stitches in order to make the color changes line up.

When I got home, I thought that I had figured out what was going on, so I decided to do a little more knitting. Bad idea, as I was tired and the lighting wasn't that great. I almost threw my scarf across the room in frustration. I did 2 rows and realized I had messed up my count. I should have just put it away, but I wanted to get it fixed before I went to bed. So I ripped, then re-knit. Still wrong, but for a different mistake. Rip/re-knit. Still wrong. etc. After about 45 minutes (yes I said 45 not 4 to 5) I finally got it right and was able to actually proceed ahead. I have a whopping 3 repeats done!

I must admit that I took a page out of my fellow knitter Kelly L's book and called the scarf a few choice words. I think that scared it enough to finally start cooperating. Or it at least temporarily shocked it into submission. We'll see what happens when I next pick it up.

Update

2009-10-16T15:27:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to let you know that Aunt Margaret is doing really well. However, they have rescheduled her feeding tube surgery until Monday or Tuesday. They want her infection to have a few more days healing time. Also, her bronchitis is trying to form into pneumonia. She's still in the ICU, but they are hoping to move her out this weekend, depending on her progress.

It's a small bit of border line good/bad news, but I'll take anything I can get.

PS. I'm off to the last quilt retreat of the year. I leave directly after work tonight. It's only about 30 minutes away. I had a whole list of things I wanted to get done. But I'm pretty tired after this week, so I cut back on the projects and am just going to take it easy.

PSS. I signed up for a knitting class last night at the Red Purl. It is for the Pooling Watercolor Scarf (Raverly Link). The basis of the class is to take a multi colored yarn (a.k.a. Lorna's Laces) and figure out the length of the colors and knit them so they all line up and for vertical strips. The class is being held next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Good news

2009-10-15T10:03:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I got the dreaded call that no one wants to get. That middle of the night call from my Mom saying my Aunt Margaret wasn't doing well and could I please come up to the hospital. My cousin wasn't there yet and Mom really wanted me to come up. She asked if it would be OK for me to take the day off. At that point, I realized I had perfect clarity on what she was saying and what she wanted from me, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember what day it was. I remember my brain thinking is today Saturday? So I asked her "What day is it?" She said "It's Wednesday" with a little hitch in her breath. I said of course, let me get dressed and I would be right up there. I called work and left several messages to let everyone know I would be out and then headed out.

As I was driving towards the by-pass, I saw a speed limit sign that said 25 and looked down to discover I was already at 45 and edging towards 50. I had to consciously make myself calm down and slow down. When I got on the bypass, I set the cruise control so that I wouldn't have a problem.

When I got to the hospital, I realized I couldn't remember what room my Aunt was in. All I remember was that Mom said 2nd floor. I felt so scattered. I asked and was told she was in ICU on the second floor and to take elevator A. My Mom and Tracy (Margaret's daughther) were in her room waiting for me. Tracy had gotten the call around 3:30 that her mom was having trouble breathing. Her oxygen level had dropped and her carbon dioxide level had risen. Her BP was sky high and they were having trouble getting it down. She was disorientated and delirious. She's lost so much weight over the last couple of years. She looked so tiny laying in the hospital bed. They had a B-pap mask on her that was helping her breath. Everytime she takes a breath, it would force more oxygen in, but she still wasn't getting enough.

She kept trying to take the mask off and pulling her blankets off to try to get out of bed. One of us took turns removing her hands and covering her back up. At one point when I was holding her had, she looked right at me with these huge panicked eyes. She tried to ask me something but with the mask on we couldn't understand her. If she took the mask off an alarm would sound. We got the nurse and they came in to check on her, but she had drifted back off. A bit later another nurse came in to do a breathing treatment. And once the mask was finally off, she was able to ask what was going on. That's when I realized that I think I freaked her out when she saw me at her bedside. I think she worried that we were all holding vigil for her to die and she was scared.

She was originally admited for an infected feeding tube. Then she got bronchitis. On Monday they did one of those throat stretching procedures, because she has a lot of scar tissue in her throat from Kemo/Radiation due to Laryngial Cancer. Her esophagus is only as big around as my pinky finger where the scar tissue is. Once past that it's wide open. While they were doing the procedure, I guess her throat started spasming and she almosted coded. But they were able to stop it by stoping the procedure and removing the anistheisia.

In essence we were sitting vigil, because the hospital didn't know what was causing her sudden lack of oxygen. But we sure as hell didn't want her to think that. We were expecting the Dr. to come in around 8:30, because that's when the nurse said he was coming, but we figured it out after that thas was when he started his rounds. He didn't get to her room until after 11am. In the mean time we figured out that when Aunt M. was pulling at the blankets and restlessly moving her legs that she hadn't been trying to get out of bed. The poor woman was HOT! And every time she tried to get rid of the blankets, we all covered her back up. Of course we didn't realize this and we all had a real good laugh over it after the fact.

In the afternoon they stuck a scope down her throat to see if there was a reason she couldn't breath. They were specifically looking for another tumor that might be restricting her airway.
Thankfully, there was no tumor; the reason she couldn't breath was because she had a mucus plug stuck near her lungs. Because her esophagus is only as big around as my pinky finger, she couldn't cough it up. They removed it and she is doing really well.

They are planning on doing surgery on Friday to install an new Feeding Tube and they will probably keep her in for another week after that to make sure everything is going OK.

I realized after the fact, that her Dr's obviously don't talk to each other, because the woman has been cancer free for 3 years and can't gain any weight. She's currently 91 lbs. The one Dr. decided she hasn't been getting enough calories because they thought she was getting at least 1/2 of her caloric intake by mouth and the rest through the feeding tube. However because she has been aspirating things that she eats/drinks into her lungs her other Dr told her not to take anything by mouth. But he obviously didn't think to let the other Dr's know that he told her that, so they could adjust her feeding tube feedings. So while she is in there over the next week or so they are going to be re-evaluating what she needs. About Time.

But I wanted to thank you all that kept us in there prayers and thoughts yesterday and let you know that she is doing well. I'll keep you posted if anything else happens.

Project Updates

2009-10-13T10:27:00.009-04:00

I finally got around to updating my Ravelry Page with some pictures today. It suddenly dawned on me that I have 5 projects started and no pictures of any of them. Well 3 down, 2 to go.

Here is what I have on the needles right now.

1. Calypso Shrug - It will have long sleeves and button in the front.

The colors are much brighter than in the picture, though. This is my 4th try at knitting this yarn into a shrug. I've frogged the project (ripped it out for those of you who don't know the term) 3 times, because I didn't like the way it was looking. I'm pretty happy with the way it is going right now.

2. Felted Colorwork Bag - I wanted to learn how to do 'stranded' knitting, but since I was worried about my tension, I decided I would make a felted bag. Then no matter what my tension troubles may be, once it is felted (shrunk) you would never know the difference.
I'm half way done knitting the 4th repeat, which is supposed to be the last one. However since felted items shrink more from top to bottom than they do side to side, I'm thinking of adding another repreat. I don't want the bag to be too short once it is done. Also, the top is supposed to be bound off with ribbing, but I'm going to do an I-cord bind off to give it a little more stability. I'm also planning to put non-knitted handles on it. I haven't decided whether I want leather or wooden ones yet though. Leaning towards the leather, but it just depends on what I find.

3. Sandy Hoodie - A.k.a. Susie Hoodie. This is a Hoodie Jacket.

It doesn't have buttons or a closure, but I'm toying with the idea of adding some. Maybe 2-3 in the chest area, to hold it closed when it is cooler out. I thought it would go faster, but with 251 stitches per row, it's taking about 30 minute to do one row. And if I get distracted by the TV, that time goes down. Right now I'm averaging 4 rows per night, which doesn't seem like nearly enough.

2009 Internet Quilt Festival

2009-10-12T10:08:00.005-04:00

Park City Girl started an internet quilt show last year, that I thought was just great. Everyone displays their favorite quilt and then links it back to her blog, where she has a list of participants.

So I thought I would post my fav's here today.

This is called Siamese Elegance. It was made as part of my Quilt Guilds Challenge, which was called the Paint Chip Challenge. What you do is take your initials and find 3 paint chip colors that start with the first letter of your initial. Then use those colors plus a background color, if you want, to make a quilted project. It can be any size or shape. My colors are: Stoney Fields (Taupe), Alpaca (Cream) and Magma (Black). I took a backwards approach to this, because I made the quilt I wanted with 3 colors and then found paint chips to match my colors. And let me tell you, trying to find one that was black that started with either a S, A, or M was extremely hard.

Yes, I said Fav's, which is plural. I thought I would add a second quilt to the show.

This is my Stack-N-Whack quilt. Although it is the only one that I have currently done, I had a great time doing it and I have bought other fabrics to use for more Stack-n-Whack quilts.

For more quilts, please click here.

I Was So Productive

2009-10-05T12:55:00.012-04:00

I really can't believe how much I got done at retreat. I had 1 item on my list that HAD to get done, but the rest was in the 'want to get as much done as possible' list.

The one that I HAD to get done was Dawson's Colts quilt. Yes, Teresa if you are reading this it is done. So I need to know when you guys are come up next and if it is not anytime soon, I will mail it. Anyway, here it is.
Then I worked on my Temple Guardians Quilt. This is the Siamese Cat appliques that I have been working on for the last 2 years.
It has one more border that needs to be put on. The design on the fabric runs salvage to salvage , so I will have to do some fussy cutting as the the length is over 60" and the S to S dimensions are only about 42. Just in case you are curious, here is the fabric I will be using:

It is called Luminosity by Paula Nadelstern and printed by Benartex. I just fell in love with it when I bought it several years ago. I didn't know what I would do with it when I bought it, but I new I would find the perfect project for it and I think it will be great at the final border on my Temple Guardians quilt.

Then I worked on my Lillibet's Garden BOM. I didn't realize until I started working on it this weekend, but it was started in 2006. It was the retreat project that year and Kathy J. and I were the only two who attempted it. I had the blocks and sashing already done, but I had to finish the applique flowers in the center and then assemble all the blocks. This was one of the "want to get as much done as possible" projects, but I actually got it all done. It was close, but I finished it up around 11 am yesterday. We had to start packing up around noon, so we could be out by 1:30.
I was talking to my Mom one day and she said she would like to look for a new quilt for their bed. I told her I had a quilt top that I was working on that I would give her. It wasn't quite done, as I still had some applique to do, but if she wanted it, she could have it. Well 2 days later, she called to let me know that she had already bought the batting for it. So I thought it would be prudent to take it to retreat with me and get to work finishing it. She hasn't seen this, but I think she will be happy with it.

Here are a couple of other projects of note:
1. Marie's Dear Jane blocks. She was laughing, because she only got 7 of them done, but damn, I think they take 2-3 times as much time to make as regular sized quilt block. They are 6 1/2" squares. Click here to see what the finished quilt is supposed to look like.
2. Helen's Soduko Baby Quilt - There will be 6 puzzles on this quilt. The Baby's Mom is a Math major. I love the colors, but I want to make one with fussy cut pictures like 9 cats, 9 dogs, 9 oreos, etc. I think that would be a great I Spy project.

3. Deanna's Christmas Ball - This ornament is just beautiful. I have ideas for this. Deanna was my 'table mate' at this retreat and it was really fun talking to her.
4. Steve's Tribute to Oz quilt. I honestly don't know what he is going to call this quilt, but I thought that title sounded great for my blog. Anyway, last retreat we did a project called 'Mexican Tiles' (Here's mine). Steve decided to use Wizard of Oz fabric. I love the way he created Tornado's from the blue & black sky fabric. He got more of this done, before we left, but I didn't get an updated photo of it. I think it is just fabulous and I so can't wait to see the finished item.

5. Sharon's quilt for her granddaughter. I love the clean lines. It's great.

Of course there were plenty more great projects going, but I can't post them all. And I got too little sleep, because I was working so hard. I had wanted to take a walk, but the weather was too cold and wet for me. Luckily I wasn't driving, because I took a small nap in the van on the way back and then took a 2 hour nap when I got home last night. I'm still tired though. That's what staying up until 2 am every night and getting up for 8 am breakfast will do to you. Gonna go to bed early tonight though. Right after I watch Heros!

OMG!

2009-09-30T09:51:00.003-04:00

Oh my god, it's been over a month since I last posted. Things have been happening, just forgot to blog about it.

Here's a small recap sans pictures as I haven't any.

I went to Stitches Midwest in Schaumberg, IL at the beginning of September. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a HUGE Knitting/crochet/fiber convention. Lots and Lots of vendors and demos. They have classes too, but I didn't take any. This was my first trip to Stitches. I had only gone to the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, MI before. Which seems like small potatoes compared to Stitches MW. Wow, there were 8 rows of vendors! I forgot my camera, but was told that's OK, since they don't allow photos to be taken at the show anyway. One less thing to cart around. I went with a plan. I thought that would be smart, since I didn't want to overspend by buying everything that I saw that I LOVED. Well.... my plan wasn't defined enough apparently. I thought I would get 1 or 2 skeins of sock yarn and then the yarn to knit a sweater. I had 2 different sweater patterns with me that I wanted to make. I wasn't sure what to expect from Stitches, so I thought whichever one I found the yarn for first would be the one I would start knitting the next week. As I said earlier Well...... I did find my 2 skeins of sock yarn. One in a yummy fall orange color, which is not normally my color but was just fabulous. And the other is variegated fall colors. Then I found the yarn for my Mirage Sweater (here's a link to someone's version), but Miss Babs didn't have enough of the yarn in the color I wanted (Kiwi), so I order it. Well, that I think might have been when I made my mistake. Oh, not buying the yarn, I'm anxious to receive it. But the thought that I wouldn't have anything really good to show for my trip. You know!?! Well, except for the 2 skeins of sock yarn. Whoopie! More sock yarn. Not to mention that I wouldn't be able to start my sweater any time soon, like I planned. I didn't realize it at the time that these thoughts were bouncing around in my head when I stumbled across the "WEBS" booth. I found this awesome blue yarn by Sheep Shop Yarn that would be perfect for my Susie Hoodie Sweater Jacket. So I splurged and got it. I started the sweater that week too.

I've got about 6-8 inches of the bottom done. I had to rip it out and start over once. I was supposed to start the bottom edging with a size smaller needles then what I used to knit the rest of the jacket. My cables were not showing very well either, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I commented to a couple of people about it and they said give it time, cables kind of have to develop a little in order for you to see them well. I was getting very frustrated and agonizing over what I was doing wrong. I tried drawing out what the row would look like and still couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, because it matched what I had on the needle. That's when I realized that I was having a major "blond moment". Because the even numbers for the cables was printed on the left side of the chart, I was reading them from left to right instead of right to left. DUH!! (FYI, You are always suppose to read the charts from right to left) I've decided not to rip them out though, as that would mean I'd have to start over again. The messed up part lines up with the garter stitch edging, so it just looks like part of the bottom edging. Once I started doing the cables correctly they really popped out. I'm about 4 rows from the 1st waist decrease. I'm not planning on actually decreasing though, just knitting that row normally. The waist needs to be a little bigger for me as I don't have much of a waist.

Then, last week I went on a quilting Shop Hop with my friend Patsy and 2 of her friends Judy and Joyce. For the shop hop, you bought a 'passport' at the first shop and then got it stamped at all of the quilting shops that were participating in the S-H. You turned the passport in to the last shop and your name is entered into a drawing for a really great prize. I found a nice pattern from Benartex for $1 and then at the next store I found the fabric to go with the pattern. I'm planning to work on it this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend. Tomorrow is the start of the River Bend Quilt Guild's Fall Retreat. I can't wait to get there. Although packing up all my sewing to stuff to get there will be a pain. But it's always worth it. I'm planning to work on Dawson's quilt (MUST GET DONE!), My Mom's quilt (which is another must get done) and then the new quilt for myself. I'm taking a few other small things in case I get bored with the new quilt. Like my Temple Guardians Quilt. I finished the last applique cat a couple weeks ago and can now start putting it together. I didn't realize it, but it took me 2 years to applique 9 cat blocks. Well, I wasn't working on them the whole time. I worked a little, then set them aside, then picked them back up; repeat. I'm not really into applique, but I really like these blocks. But I can't start on it until I get Dawson's quilt done! Which just needs to be quilted and the binding put on. I should be able to get that done on Thursday night.

Oh, and lest I forget, I got the news this week that I am back to full time. I have been working only 30 hours per week since January, because business has been slow. Either things are picking up a bit or it's the 'end of year must spend budgeted money before we lose it' rush. Either way, I'm good with it.

Nothing Much

2009-08-27T13:18:00.005-04:00

Nothing much has been happening with me this week. How about you?

I did have another stupid car scare this week. I'm really beginning to dread the feeling of panic followed by anger that I get every time I hear or feel something off about my car. I had stopped at the stop light when all of a sudden my car starts shuddering like it wants to stall. {Instert Feeling of Panic} Then the emission light on the dash board starts to blink. It has come on before and I had to have a sensor changed, however it has never BLINKED. Now what the hell does that mean!?! {Still Panicing} Well, I'm only 2 blocks away from Automotive Plus, the place I always take my car. And since the car hasn't actually died I figure I should be OK to drive there. {Anger starting to take hold} I pulled into their parking lot, got out my manual and looked up the emission light. It basically says "Oh yeah, if this light is blinking, your engine is misfiring. Take it to a mechanic immediately, but don't accelerate fast as this might damage the cadilitic converter." {Anger Increasing} Just great! I just had it in for a tune up and spark plug/spark plug wire change. What the hell else is upstream from that that would cause misfiring; UGH! I went into the office and they were able to get my car right in. Turns out there was a piece of carbon stuck in the spark plug gap that wouldn't let it spark. The guys were so great and best of all, they didn't charge me. {Instant Relief WhooHoo!} I was only 1/2 hour late to work.

That night, I went to Quilt Bee. I finished the body of my last Temple Guardian Cat. I only have to applique 2 (yes, I said TWO) eyes and ALL the applique for that quilt is done. I would have worked on it last night, but it was Knit Night and I decided to work on my socks instead. I had a great time, even if it was a small group. With all the car trouble and my vacation time, I hadn't met up with that particular group in a couple of months.

I'd like to finish them tonight, but I really need to do LAUNDRY. You wouldn't believe the pile of laundry that needs to be done. Doing the laundry isn't so bad, but I wish it weren't in the basement. It's such a pain bringing everything upstairs. Note to self: Dream house will NOT have the laundry room in the basement!

Tomorrow, I'm going to the Taj Indian restaurant for lunch with my neighbor Althea. I've heard good things about it, but had never made it there.

This weekend is the Higland Festival and Scottish Games at the St. Joe Fair Grounds. I may go there on Saturday after work. I work until 12:30. I've always wanted to go, but I always miss it because I either didn't know it was taking place (which is most often) or I had something else already planned by the time I learned of it. If I go, I'll take pictures. If it's raining, I probably won't go though. I'm hoping the rain either clears up before I get out of work or holds off until evening.

What I did on my Summer Vacation....

2009-08-19T12:43:00.009-04:00

Do you all remember having to write that essay during your first week or so of the new school year? I do. We never took any vacations though, so I never really had anything exciting to write about.

Anyway, I had a pretty good time on my vacation. First off it was mostly a working vacation, because I had a lot of things that needed to be done around the house, but I did through in a couple of fun things too. I asked around to find out what a "Honey Do" list is called when you make it up yourself and the predominant answer was "Crap that just needs to be done." So I worked on that and surprisingly I got a lot done. Here's some of the "crap" that got done:

1. My Dad and I changed the starter on my Car.
2. I cleaned up the basement storage room by putting in a few more shelves. Then organized the tools/paint/household items onto those shelves. Plus moved some of the stuff (mainly Xmas ornament/decorations & misc. tools) from the outer basement area into the storage room. I'm trying to clean up the whole outer area, but that is going to be slow going. In the process of all this lifting, I forgot the warning 'lift with your legs, not your back.' I ended up straining my lower back and was out of commission on Tuesday. I was going to rest it on Wednesday too, but I forgot to tell my mom (although I thought I did) and she came over at 8:30am to help me paint the kitchen.
3. So we painted and re-arranged the kitchen. I have to go back and do a lot of touch up on the trim, because I couldn't bend very well with my back hurting so much. And frankly, it needs to be touched up anyway. I also realized why I've never painted any of the other rooms in my house. I HATE painting. If I had painted before I moved in, it wouldn't have been so bad, but trying to move everything around to paint behind things was a real pain in the ass. We also sorted out some dishes that I didn't need/use. Some went to goodwill and some (extra plates and bowls) went to the basement storage room. I figured if I had fewer plates/bowls/glases, I would HAVE to do dishes more often; We'll see. I would really like a dishwasher, but that's not in the cards right now.
4. I borrowed my brothers power washer and washed the house. Of course I dropped the stupid thing and broke the hose quick disconnect. I bought a new one at Lowe's but I still couldn't get it to stop leaking. I was really upset, especially when I told my brother and he said "Man, I can't have nothing good around you." Honestly, this is the only thing of his that I can remember breaking!! Except maybe his Tonka Truck Semi-car carrier, but that was when we really young, and I'm sure it was his idea to lay on it and push my feet against the wall to zoom across the room. And it still worked afterwards, it only bent a little. Anyway, I told him repeatedly I would buy him a new one if he wanted, but he said not to worry about it, he would tear it apart and see if he could figure it out. I mentioned it in front of one of the guys here at work and he said he had the same problem and it has something to do with the washer have pipe threads while the quick disconnect has hose fittings and the two are not exactly 100% compatible. So I have to remember to tell my brother that.
5. Then my brother and I changed out my screen door, which was broken. That was kind of interesting. The instructions were a bit lame, but for the most part it covered everything. We put the old door out beside the trash can, and it was gone the next day. Not sure if the garbage company took it when they emptied the trash or someone else, but either way it's out of my hair.
6. I did some general pick-up & put away type cleaning on the rest of the house. It needs more, but the weather was getting hot and frankly I was tired of CLEANING.

In between some of the cleaning, I had a little fun.

1. I went to my 20th Class Reunion. Go Decatur Raiders Class of 1989! It was fun seeing all the old faces (LOL!). Surprisingly I didn't have too much trouble identifying anyone. (Except Paula. Sorry, she was half way across the parking lot and everyone knows my eyesight is crap! But as soon as I said the wrong name, I new that it wasn't her and corrected myself.) We had a great turn out too; 25 people were able to come along with a fair number of spouses. We only had a class size of 44 to begin with. There were a few people we were unsuccessful in finding and we also invited a few that moved away before graduation, but that we all still remembered and wanted to see.
What a good looking group!

We also had a family style picnic the next day. OMG! was it HOT! There was a small breeze, but by the end, I was wiped out. Thanks to Julie's quick thinking, the kids enjoyed a nice water balloon fight after lunch.
2. I laid out my Ocean quilt blocks to see which way I wanted to sew them together. And I decided I wanted to do them using a modified "quilt-as-you-go-method." I am going to sew the 5 rows together and quilt each row then put the whole quilt top together.

3. I went shopping with my mom one afternoon. I had a JCPenney $10 off a $10 purchase that was burning a hole in my pocket. And a 30% off coupon at Kohls. Happily for my pocket book I had a hard time finding anything at either stores that interested me. I actually didn't even use the Kohls coupon.
4. I attended the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, MI with my knitting buddy Carly. Even though I didn't find anything that really interested me other then some lemon soap and a tape measure, I still had a great time. The one booth I was looking for that always has cheaper millend Socks that Rock sock yarn, didn't have any this year. That company kept all their inventory to take to the Sock Summit in Oregan. Carly said she was sorry I hadn't found anything, but I figured I hadn't been real happy lately with anything that I had been knitting (continious wripping out was effecting me) and I didn't have any particular pattern in mind that I needed yarn for. But like I said I still had a great time looking at everything and talking with Carly. She found some yummy superwash wool for a baby dress. The color was supposed to be Bubble Gum Pink, but to me it looked more salmon-ish. It was very pretty though and I can't wait to see it knitted up. Then we headed to the Grill House for lunch, where we had chicken salad sandwiches on soft pretzel buns (those buns were great!) with a fruit cup and homemade potatoe chips. Oh and we had pita chips and roasted red pepper hummus for an appetizer. It was all very good. It was hot enough the I voted for eating indoors in the A/C which gave us time to re-coup from the festival. And of course, we had to stop at St. Julien's Winery in Paw Paw for a little sample. After sampling 6 different wines, I decided that the Catawba (sweet blush wine) was still my favorite and bought a bottle.
5. And I surprised my Aunt Margaret with a visit. I tagged along with her and my mom to my Aunts' doctors appointment. I took a new pair of socks that I started knitting with along since my mom had warned me it might take a couple hours. She had to have one of those lying down stress tests. They have some kind of new medicine for it that gave her a headache. She asked me to rub her shoulders and neck for her to try to get rid of it. I could have cried. Her muscles are so tight and atrophied. She's recovering from throat cancer. At lunch she told me she's still having a hard time gaining weight. I said it looked like she had put some back on, because her face doesn't look so skeletal (I didn't say it that way to her though). She shook her head and said she just can't seem to get past 97lbs. Man! But she said, with a twinkle in her eye, that if she wears a BRA and her coat she actually weighs 100 lbs. I had to laugh, because really how much does the bra add. Except discomfort and agrevation. :o)

Well, that about covers everything I did on my vacation. Hope you had good week too!

Reunion

2009-08-08T09:18:00.003-04:00

Tonight is the big night. I am attending my 20th High School Reunion. It's going to be fun. We will be getting together at Big T's restaurant in Lawton. Lucky for Debby, it's only a 10 minute drive for her. This will be for Classmates and their spouses only. Tomorrow, we are having a potluck picnic at the Raider Romp Park in Decatur where everyone can bring their kids and show off. The picnic is not strictly just for the class of '89 though. That one if or +/- a few years and for out teachers. Everyone is supposed to bring their own meat and a dish to pass; except the teachers, they get to eat for free. The weather should be great, if not a bit hot (93 degrees), but there is supposed to be a breeze.

I'm planning on bringing my Aunt's Cowboy Beans recipe. Kind of like baked beans, but they are in the crockpot. I have to stop on my way home from work today and buy a bunch of hamburger/hot dogs buns and a few missing ingredients for my beans. Planning on taking a coconut cake also plus a pitcher of lemonade and iced tea.

I'm taking my camera along, so there will be photos. Just not sure when they will get posted. You know me by now. I'm kind of lazy about that. Although it really does make for a better blog.

Duck Races, Quilting & Knitting

2009-08-05T10:32:00.020-04:00

And their off!

Here they are paddling along minding their own business. #5's in the lead, followed by #3 (pink) and #2 (green)

OK, so #5 may have been a little tipsy to begin with, but it looks like #3 & #2 were also. That's still no excuse for #4 to cheat.

I was so upset, I forgot to get a picture of the winner. HAH!

Oops, actually I did. He's over in the lilypads on the left, laughing at the floundering #3 & #2. The fish, thinking this is some new food are zeroing in on him. Luckily for him, Lu swished him out just in the nick of time. Isn't Lu's Pond gorgeous though?!? What a lot of work, but so peaceful.

Here is the cheering squad.
And the brave few who decided to brave the rain.

OK now for the quilting segment of our broadcast. :o) Last night, I finished all of my 4x4 blocks of my Ocean quilt. I actually got 1 turtle appliqued. Still 25 more to go, but I did get them all cut out. The thing I did discover is that you should never use a calculator with a faulty display to determine how many blocks you really need. I needed 144 blocks total. I had 8 different colors. So using my trusty calculator, I determined I needed 13 blocks of each. WRONG! That darn display wasn't working right. The 3 in the 13 was really an 8. I needed 18 blocks. Well, I don't have enough fabric and can't get anymore, since I bought this stuff several years ago and they were Hobby Lobby bandannas to begin with. Oh well, I finally decided that instead of 36 16" blocks, I settle for 25 and put a white border around the lot to make it the right size. The upside is that I don't have to do anymore triangles!!

Here is some knitting news I forgot to post. Go figure right! (sniff, sniff) Sheldon left me! (sniff, sniff) But only because he thought Dawson would be a much better pal to have around and play with. See here they are already getting acquainted.

I just knew what Dawson was thinking too. "Hello my new little friend! Now how do I get you in my mouth? And which part do I chew first?"

On the regular knitting front, I've been really struggling with not liking anything I've been knitting lately. I was working on a shrug. I've ripped it back 3 times because I didn't like the way it was looking and started a new pattern each time. I've settled on top down ballarina shrug that ties in the front. We'll see if I finish it or not. Still not 100% happy with it. On the bright side I've decided to start a new pair of socks. (Please forget the pomatomus ones that are still sitting on the sticks waiting to be re-sized) I found a new pattern on Ravelry called Komet (Ravelry Link) and I have the perfect light purple cotton yarn to knit them in. Going to start them this week.

An eventful Weekend

2009-08-03T11:11:00.005-04:00

I don't know about anyone else, but I had a pretty good weekend.

On Saturday, I went to a picnic at Lu's house. It was for our Tuesday Night Quilt group. I had a real good time visiting with everyone and there was lots of yummy food. It started to rain just after we ate, but Lu has a nice big porch that we sat around chatting on. There was a duck race too! It took her a while, but Lu built this awesome pond in her back yard. It has a small upper pond that spills over a waterfall into a larger pond that contains fish. There is also a little river that gets fed from the waterfall and winds it's way around the pond and empties into it on the opposite side from the waterfall. Lu put 5 rubber ducks on the river and we all cheered to see which one got to the pond first. It was hilarious. Yes, I took pictures and yes they are still in my camera. I'll have to post them another time. Duck #4 cheats by the way. My Duck (#5) was in the lead until #4 rammed into him and knocked him over so that #4 could cross into the pond in first place. Wasn't the first heat #4 won either. I might have thought the race was rigged if Lu's number had been #4, but as it is I guess we'll never know. :o)

On Sunday I finished 2 more siamese cat blocks from my Temple Guardian BOM quilt. I have 8 done and ONLY 1 more to go. YEAH!!!! I glue-sticked the last one up today while at lunch. I want to get it appliqued this week. Then I can start assembling the quilt top. I'm so excited, I just can't wait!

Oh, I almost forgot. On Friday morning I got a call from the SB Medical Foundation. I donate blood with them and my name was drawn for their annual golf "hole-in-one" contest. You get a chance to hit the ball 150 yards for a hole-in-one. If you make it, you win $50,000. Yeah like that's gonna happen! I did have the option to elect to have someone else hit the ball for me. Since the only golfing I've ever done is either putt putt or Wii mini-golf, I asked Gary at work to do it for me. He told me he hadn't golfed in a long time and don't get my hopes up. Jeez, I didn't have a shot in the dark to begin with. He'll hardly do worse than I would have myself. I had asked my cousin Kevin to do it on the 4th of July if I got selected, but he said "They make it impossible for you to win, so No." The SBMF said there would be other drawings also. And that everyone would win something. So hey it's for a good cause and it should be fun. I found out that my friend Robin got selected also. So it will be fun to visit while we wait around. Registration is tonight between 5 & 5:30. I'll let you know how it goes.

Busy Busy Bee

2009-07-22T15:48:00.008-04:00

That is exactly what I have been over the last couple of weeks.

I have discovered that who needs a TV in the sewing room when you have access to Books on CD! Only 1 channel comes on the TV anyway. Although I do have a new 'homemade' antenna that works great, but I have to figure out a way to mount it somehow. I'll discuss that another time.

So far, I have listened to 3-4 books on CD while sewing my little heart out. My poor machine doesn't know what hit it.

I mentioned in a previous entry that I had stayed up until almost 4am one night sewing while listening to "The Keepsake" by Tess Gerriston. Well I have since finished: "Terminal Freeze" by Lincoln Child, "Silent Thunder" by Iris & Roy Johansen, "Dead Silence" by Randy Wayne ... (crap forgot his last name). And I just started "Deep Storm" by Lincoln Child on the basement CD player and "The Artic Event" by James Cobb in the car CD player. OK, I admit that I do occasionally read more than 1 book at a time, but the reason I have 2 books on CD going right now is that I was just too lazy last night to go out to the car for the 'current' book.

OK, so while listening to all of these very interesting books, I've been doing some serious sewing.

This quilt started out as a charity quilt project. It was only the striped center. Then I got the wise idea that it needed something, maybe a border or 2. Well non-sewers might not realize this but 'good' fabric is not cheap. I spent too much on the borders and binding (little bit of strip fabric peaking on the bottom right corner) that I don't like giving it to charity. I'm thinking of giving it as a gift to an un-named relative at this point. Don't want to blow the surprise ya know. I have other stuff at home that I can use for a charity project.

Then, while shopping for the border fabric, I saw a pattern for an apron. I've been wanting one, but haven't found one I want to either buy or make yet. This pattern was called "Four Corners Apron." Sorry don't know who it was by, because I didn't actually buy it. I looked at it, thought hmm that's just a big old square set on point. I can do that. So I went home fiddle around with some paper and wallah. I have made 2 so far and have 1 cut out. I have fabric for several others picked out also. Can you guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year?!?

In between the quilt and the apron, I made this tote bag.

I bought the pattern and a charm pack at the Topeka Quilt Show. It went together very well, however I have discovered that I really do not care for the charm packs. Even though they say each square of fabric is 5 inches, it is NOT. I had to supply several of my own squares for the inside pockets as I was a few short and there was a noticeable difference in the sizes. I did like how the pattern used fusible fleece to stiffen the bag.

I like it so much in fact that I decided to make myself a purse using it. My friend Kathy got a Vera Bradley purse as a gift. The style was exactly what I had been looking for, but I'm sorry Vera's prices are just a bit out of my price rang. Especially for a purse that I will be be 'using' and not just admiring. Anyway, I made this purse patterned after Kathy's purse. It hangs across the body and sits on the hip.

I love knitting, but I really love the instant gratification of sewing. I never could have knitted all of these projects in 2 weeks.

I just have to pass this one along.

2009-07-22T10:01:00.007-04:00

I recently received this forwarded email and I just had to share it with everyone. It is hilarious! I just love it!

Recently, in a large English city, a poster featuring a young, thin and tanned woman appeared in the window of a gym.

It said: "THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?"

A middle-aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

To Whom It May Concern:

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, sea lions, curious humans). They have an active sex life; they get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins, stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don't exist. If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them, not to mention how could they have sex? Therefore they don't have kids either. Not to mention who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store? The choice is perfectly clear to me; I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver and a coffee with my friends. With time we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, "Good gosh, look how smart I am!"

Arggh!

2009-07-17T16:06:00.003-04:00

Another month has almost passed since I blogged. This is beginning to be a re-occurring problem. Several really great things have happened over the last 'almost' month, and at the time, I think "This will make a really great blog entry", but when it comes to actually doing it I've been failing miserably.

Things of note:
1. I went the the Shipshewanna and Topeka Quilt Shows at the end of June. Road down with several other quilty friends. Bought several discount quilt books at the Topeka show and a nice charm pack w/tote pattern (not discounted sadly). I recognized several quilts hanging at the ShipShe Quilt Show. Congratulations to Michelle S. for winning 2nd place with her quilt. I saw Marrianne Fons, of Fons and Porter, while I was walking around the show. She had given a talk the day before. I tried to kinear (sp?) a photo of her, but only got the back of her as she was walking away. I personnally wouldn't want a photo of my backside posted all over the net, so I will refrain from doing that to someone else. I thought about stopping her and asking to have my photo taken with her, but thought 'No, don't bother her while she's enjoying some time alone.'

2. Spent the 4th with Family. My Aunt Hattie came up from Kentucky for a visit. Honestly, that is her name. Although I didn't know it until I was in my mid-20's, because the whole time she was going by her middle name. The first time I heard someone talking about Hattie moving to Kentuck, I was totally lost. I mean I knew Aunt Marie was moving, but who was Hattie? Was she moving near Aunt Marie? Were they going to travel down together? Imagine my surprise when I discovered that half of my Mom's sisters had all been going by their middle names and I never knew this.

3. Stayed up unitl 4 am one night sewing and listening to a book on CD (The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen). I was so hooked by the story that I actually had to find more sewing to do just so I had an excuse to stay up listening to it.

4. Finally met someone with my same last name that I wasn't related too. You're gonna think this is stupid, but I'm 30+ year old and my whole life, people have been asking me "Do you know so-and-so Moon, are you related to so-and-so Moon?" The answer has always been no, but I couldn't help think "if all these other people know a Moon, why have I never met one?" Honestly as many times as I get asked you would think there were more Moon's than you could shake a stick at running around in the world. But this month I met one!!! She came to my quilt guild meeting. No, I'm not related to her either. Her husbands family is from ID or IA originally. I hope I didn't scare her. I was so excited to finally meet another Moon. Ok it's the small things that keep me happy.

OK, gotta go, but I'll fill you in more later.

I'd like you to meet....

2009-06-23T10:26:00.005-04:00

Sheldon. I finished knitting him at the ND retreat this weekend. He's a gift for Dawson. I liked him so much though that I'm going to make myself one.

and the Daylily Scarf.

Thanks Marci for the idea on the name.

PS. We had an awesome time at the ND retreat this last weekend. Thanks to Janet for all her work on gather such awesome goody bags and door prizes. And to Chris, Vicki and Elizabeth for organizing and planning the classes.

Sheldon's Going to Retreat

2009-06-18T09:22:00.005-04:00

I finished knitting all of Sheldon's parts last night and started the assembly process. I stopped just short of doing the icord edging to attach the shell to the shell breastplate last night before heading to bed. I also realized, as I was assembling, that I knitted the breastplate out of the wrong yarn, but I figure Baby Dawson won't know the difference, so whatever.

I'm planning to have him done this week. I had planned to finish him last Sunday while at work, but as I was taking a steak out of the oven for my Sunday dinner, I hit the back of my hand against the oven door and burned it. Of course it was the right one and I'm right handed, so every time I curled my hand it throbbed. No knitting for me. :o( I have a mark on the back of my ring finger from the big knuckle down to the fist knuckle about 1/2 inch wide. Luckily I work right down the hall from the urgent care facility. One of the nurses kindly gave me a bit of silvadeen (sp?) burn cream. I applied that for 2 days and then it was fine. The area where it blistered still hurts just a little if I bump it, but otherwise, it feels fine. And more importantly, I can knit again.

This weekend my Frog Pond Knitting Group is having another Day Retreat. You may remember, that we had one back in January. Treking across the Notre Dame campus in the snow and cold was not fun, but we had a great time once we were inside and the layers were all pealed off. Elizabeth S. is going to be teaching a top down sweater. She has put so much time into designing the sweater. Since there were so many semi-newbie knitters interested, she decided not to do a raglan sleaves. I want to make one (baby sized) but I have so many other projects on the needles right now that I think I will just take notes and work on that later. For when Dawson is just a bit bigger and isn't growing out of things every couple of weeks.

Vicki may be doing a Ravelry demo. She emailed the group to find out if there was any interest, but no one replied back, so she was planning to nix it. I'm one of the guilty ones who didn't reply. However I honestly missed the email. I emailed her this morning and told her that a couple of people were still planning on bringing their laptops just in case. I hope we can still have it.

And of course we get to have that yummy Notre Dame Dining Hall food. I'm not being sarcastic when I say that either. Their food is so good and there is so many varieties that if you come away hungry, there is something seriously wrong with you.

Sewing and Knitting News

2009-06-10T09:23:00.014-04:00

I mentioned a couple of entries ago that I had been working on a quilt pattern called "Oceans." Well, a funny thing happened while I was chain sewing triangles on to a bunch of squares. There were a LOT of pieces. As the chain got bigger and spilled over onto the floor, it would normally form a huge pile of fabric. However it was so weird, because it formed a circle and kept going around and around. I just had to take a picture.

It's that that hilarious?!?

I also sewed some knitting needle cases. One for my DPNs and one for stray Circular needles that I have.

The only problem with the DPN case, is that it is not big enough. After putting my metal needles in this, I realized I have a lot more bamboo or wooden ones that need a home too. So I need to make another one. Maybe I'll keep all the metal needles in one pouch and the bamboo ones in another? hmm...
My knitting pal Kelly, asked me about making the circular needle case. She saw one and drew me a picture. This is the prototype, because I want to put a flap on it like the DPN case, so that the needles don't fall out of the top. I was using scrap fabrics and while I really like the colors of the DPN case, this one is just a tad gaudy I think.

On the knitting front, I finished my ruffled scarf that I was designing. I need to block it yet. I want to get that done before my knitting retreat, so I can show it off. I made a few changes to the pattern (replaced some K2tog's with SSK's) and figured out how to create a chart from my notes. I plan on re-knitting it from some yarn I bought at Lorna's Laces in Chicago. I think the yarn I used for the original one (Caron Spa Bamboo) is more a DK/Worsted weight, so I'm going to have to adjust my needle size I think, which means doing one of those dreaded guage swatches. Yuck! I'll post a picture of the original one once I have it blocked.

I joined a KAL (knit-a-long) on Ravelry. We are not all doing the same pattern, but just something "babyish" except for those who have done a boatload of baby stuff already. They are doing whatever they want. We're pretty lax about it. Just so that we are all doing something 'together'. I'm knitting Sheldon the Turtle. He is so cute! I have his body, 2 legs and part of his shell done.

I wanna keep him! I wanna keep him! I wanna keep him! But I can't. He is being made for Baby Dawson, so I have give him away. But Dawson's only 6 weeks old he and won't knot the difference right? Right?? Oh OK, I'll give him to Dawson and make another one for myself.

Oh, I almost forgot! My Color Swap partner (Rebecca in NC) got her stuff, so I can now post a picture of the package I sent to her.

And here is the one I got from Susan in FL.

I just love the Alpaca neck warmer! I can't wait for fall/winter, so I can wear it. The Cookie A. Sock Innovation book is wonderful. There are so many that I want to make. The Twizzler's barely lasted long enough for me to take the picture. I had to pace myself on the Chocolate covered coffee beans though, because they pack a caffeine punch.

Poor Lonely Blog

2009-06-09T12:53:00.002-04:00

Dear Blog,

I want you to know that I have not abandoned you. I know it may feel otherwise, but it is just not true. I keep getting great ideas about topics I could share with you, however I just never seem to follow through on it. I've noticed that I have been avoiding you ever since I linked you up with my facebook page. I've been feeling a little inhibited by the fact that so many more people have access to my thoughts. So it's not you, it's me.

Your's Truly,
Sandy

Hello Again

2009-05-21T16:29:00.004-04:00

I know it's been awhile since I've talked to y'all. The last month has been a bit of a pisser. I'm not going to go into it right now as I'm in a good mood. I may tell you about it later.

Anyway, I've been working on a quilt (started at retreat). I have 26 blocks done and oh only 118 to go. However I do have most of the stuff sewed together to make 39 more. Then I have to cut more fabric. Here's a sneak peak:

And I decided to try my hand at designing lace. Don't get too excited, it only a scarf, but I thing it's turning out rather nice.

Ok, please disregard the double chin, it's hard to take a picture of yourself without getting either that or a boob shot. Least I'm not flashing anyone.

Have a nice Memorial Day weekend!

Awesome News!!!

2009-04-23T15:44:00.003-04:00

I have 2 good bits of news to share.

First:
Baby Dawson Jeffery G. was born last night at 8:17 pm in Indianapolis. He was 21 inches long and weighed 8 lbs. 10 ozs. Teresa (Mom) is doing great and Mark (Dad) did well through the delivery except for near the end. I'm told he almost passed out and was woozy enough that they didn't let him cut the cord. Oh well, this is his first, I think we can let him off the hook on that one.

Second:
My car is fixed. I get it back tomorrow. (could actually get it today, but I have to be to the 2nd job by 5:30 so I figured I'd just wait.) The good news is that it was not the transmission. A mouse built a nest in my engine and chewed the electrical wiring harness connected to the transmission. YEAH!!

Highs and Lows

2009-04-21T10:09:00.007-04:00

I don't know about anyone else, but I had an awesome weekend. It was that time of year again: Spring Quilt Retreat. And the weather was the best it has been so far this year: in the low 70's! Mind blowing right.

The plan was for several of us quilters to meet up at Camp Freidenswald around 11 am and then carpool to Shipshewanna (a.k.a. quilt shop nirvana). So, I got up early Friday morning, finished gathering my supplies, cloths, bedding, packed the car and left town around 8:30 am. Camp Freidenswald is only 1/2 hour from my house near Union, MI however, I decided I would take a slight detour to Calico Point in Wakarusa, IN first. I was looking for several fabrics for 2 different projects and her prices are right up my alley; usually between $4.50-$6.99 for quality name brand fabrics like Northcott, Hoffman, Clothworks, Batiks. While I like the fabric stores in Shipshewanna (Lolly's and Yoders) and they have a lot better selection because they are bigger, I would rather spend less for my fabric. I ended up getting 6 different fabrics totalling 8 yards for $50. That's at least $20 cheaper than what I would have spent in Shipshe. Then I headed back north to meet up with everyone at the Camp.

After dropping off our food and several items to make room in Lu's van for everyone (Elaine, Ruth, Sarah and myself), we were on our way. It was so much fun. Our first stop was at Lolly's Fabric Store. Talk about fabric overload! I hit the basement first, where they have the discounted fabrics. I found a pink flowered fabric to go along with one of my projects. Then it was back upstairs to the regular show room to browse. I couldn't believe how busy the store was, but then I thought 'look how awesome the weather was, of course people would be out and about'. That of course was one reason, however there was also a quilt retreat going on in Shipshe, another quilt guild was meeting up there, plus several people had stopped by on their way to the Chicago International Quilt Show. Of course they were from Wisconsin, so I'm not too sure how Shipshewanna, IN was on their way to Chicago, IL? But hey it's their story and they can justify it any way they want right!?! I also spoke to several women from Toronto, who were in town for the Retreat. Actually, they were oohing and aahing over a sample quilt that was hanging up near the fabric table. I made the mistake of stopping to see what had caught their attention and fell in love!! It was a braided quilt made from one of those jelly roll things. I have been wanting to purchase one, but never quite found one that just jumped up and shouted 'BUY ME!' Well that one did. It was an oriental jelly roll in blues, greens and browns. But not just any blue, kind of a mix between teal and aqua. Oh it was lovely. Of course then I had to have coordinating fabric to go with it, because it was just such an odd fabric color that it would be hard to match at a later date. You know I'm right!?! Also, the jelly roll wasn't marked, so I wasn't sure who the manufacturer was. When I asked, I found out that Lolly's employs a women full time to make their own jelly rolls and other fabric kits. The pattern they used was the Friendship Braid. It was in a book they had for sale next to the sample. The patterns in the book were all geared towards using jelly rolls (sorry can't remember the name). Since I liked quite a few of the patterns, I decided to buy it also. Not mentioning any numbers, but lets just say I did my part to stimulate the economy this weekend.

Midway through our trek around Lolly's, Kathy showed up. She moved to Oottlewah, Tennessee last year, but came back up to visit for retreat. I've driven to Lafayette, IN for a retreat, which is 2 hours away, but she drove 10 hours to get to ours. Well she spent several days in Indy visiting her nephew Baby Jack before she came up to retreat, but still that's 3 hours away. Anyway, it was really nice to see her.

From Lolly's, we headed to the Blue Gate Restaurant to meet up with Cheryl and have lunch. I had never been there, but was warned to leave room for PIE. The Blue Gate is Amish run and has excellent food and AWESOME pies. I had a half chicken salad sandwich, potato soup and strawberry rhubarb pie. One of my favorites! Was a little on the sweet side, I like mine tart, but was still very good. Oh and lest I forget, the waitress brought out a loaf of bread and on the table was a container of home-made apple butter (Yum) and home-made peanut butter. I had never had the peanut butter, but I was urged to try it because it was supposedly very good. Personally I was looking forward to the apple butter, because I hadn't had it in so long. Little did I know that the home-made peanut butter would taste like... like... like... Jeez, I can't even think of a word to describe it, other than to say it was VERY Good. And that doesn't seem adequate. Smooth. Creamy. YUM. Oh man was it good. They had some for sale in their bakery, so I purchased a small container to bring home. And I'm not sharing! It's all MINE.

After lunch, we headed for Yoders Department Store for more fabric shopping. After the damage I did at Lolly's I feeling a little more picky. I actually didn't find a thing to buy. Who hoo the wallet was a bit exhausted anyway. From there, we decided to make our way back to Camp via Middlebury. I wanted to stop at the cheese factory from some fresh cheese curds. To my disappointment, they no longer sold the cheese curds. Boo! I loved the way the fresh curds would squeak against your teeth when you chewed them. Elaine asked Lu to stop at Gohn's Deparment store in downtown Middlebury, where they sell...you guessed it more fabric plus Amish cloths. They actually make the clothes upstairs and sometimes you can hear the machines going. A couple of bolts of fabric fell off the shelf as I walked by and I had no choice but to pick them up and take them along with me. :o) I just hate it when fabric gets a mind of its own and does that. Don't you?

I was so exhausted by all the shopping that I didn't actually do any sewing on Friday night. I just visited with friends and checked out their projects. Really, I just wasn't in the mood to work on the baby quilt project that I had planned to work on. On Saturday, I started cutting out my Oceans quilt. It was a free pattern sent out by McCalls Quilting Magazine when they were trying to get you to buy their magazine. I have a white-on-white background, 8 different Batik Type fabrics in lime, blue, fuchsia, orange, aqua, peach, purple, yellow/green and a dark lime Sea Turtle Batik that gets fussy cut and appliqued between the blocks. I purchased the Batik Type fabric from Hobby Lobby, but the funny thing is that they are 100% cotton handkerchiefs and they were on sale for 99 cents each, oh about 5 years ago. They are 20" squares, which calculates out to roughly the size of a fat quarter. At first I was going to use Thangles to make all the triangles, but after careful consideration, I thought I would just cut them out using my Easy Angle Triangular Ruler. More precise with less wastage. I wanted to make sure I had enough. I did, but just barely. Not a lot of room for error, so I'm glad I was careful cutting. The only downside to this method is that I need 728 colored 2.5" triangles, just as many white one and 104 6.5" white triangles and 13 from each of the 8 colors. That's a lot of cutting. I didn't get them all cut out, but at least half. I also got 4 blocks finished. Only 140 more to go!

OK, those were the highs for the weekend. Now comes the lows.

I had to work on Sunday, so I had to leave retreat early in order to get there on time. I did a little sewing and piecing, then packed up and headed out. I did not get too far, before I realized there was something wrong with my car. The transmission would not shift gears. Freak out time! I was a mile or so down the road. So I stopped, put the car in reverse and backup down the road back to the camp. I didn't really want to wait on the side of the road. I called my Dad, then called work to let them know I would be late. Once we figured out what to do about my car, my Mom was going to let me borrow her car so I could get to work. Dad gets to the camp (thank god they only lived 30 minutes away!) drives my car down the road and back. The @#$@ was shifting fine he said, only there was a blinking indicator light on the dash. OK that hadn't been on when I drove it. I got out the book and looked up the light. It was for 'Transaxle Error" and read "Car may be experiencing trouble shifting gears (Duh). Please see a service tech immediately." I turn off the car, so we can all go inside the camp facilities to wash our hands and use the bathroom. (Why is it that after standing in the cold you always have to pee?) Anyway, then we all get in our respective cars Me, Mom, then Dad bringing up the rear and drive back to my house. Once again, the car would not shift gears and to top it of the speedometer wasn't working either. The indicator light had gone off also. What is it about our Dad's or men in general that make the car work for them when it won't work for us??? I'm really curious, does anyone know this? I pull over, discuss the situation with Dad and decide to drive home in first gear going what 15 mph the whole way. Crap! But about 5-10 miles down the road, the Transaxle Indicator light pops on and Wow the car actually starts shifting again. Yeah I actually got to accelerate. Of course since the speedometer wasn't working I wasn't sure how fast I was going, but hey I know it was faster than 15 mph and less than 60 mph. I got to work just shy of 2 hours late and was pretty much bummed the rest of the day.

I took my car into the shop on Monday morning and they are looking it over. I got a call this morning that some critter had made a nest in my engine and chewed the hell out of one of the wiring harnesses. Bob the Tech was a little embarrassed when I told I loved him after he told me it looked like my transmission was OK. They'll know for sure one the wiring harness is repaired and they can clear the computer codes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In a Fog

2009-04-15T08:46:00.002-04:00

I am so tired today. I woke up this morning at 3am then tossed and turned until the alarm when off. I seriously considered taking a sleeping pill, but figured it was too late (?early) to take one. I probably would have slept through the alarm.

Quilt Retreat! Quilt Retreat! QUILT RETREAT!

2009-04-14T12:51:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again. Spring quilt retreat is this weekend. I've already been digging through patterns and my stash to see what interesting new items I can make.

Also, I'm riding an a bit of a sugar buzzzzzz right now. Love those hard candy coated easter eggs. You know the ones they call "hiding" eggs, because they are individually wrapped and when you crunch into them there is white marshmallowy stuff inside. I think I've eaten about 8 of them today. Actually is was more like those 8 were eaten in the last 2 hours) Yummy Yummy SUGAR.

Pictures

2009-04-09T14:38:00.005-04:00

Here are the promised pictures of my Tomato Sweater and my Celtic Vest.

I just finished this last night at 12 am, so it has not been blocked yet. It will be a little longer once it is.

They both turned out really nice if I do say so myself.

Monday Weigh In & Stuff

2009-04-06T09:06:00.004-04:00

Jeez, I can't believe I haven't done any blogging since St. Patricks day! I thought for sure I had, because lots of things have been going on. I guess "thinking" about blogging a topic doesn't actually count. My knitting friends pointed this out last week. Yep, I said last week and I still didn't get a blog entry in until today.

Ok, first things first then I'll update you on what's been happening. Today is Monday weigh-in and the good news is that I lost 3 lbs this week. Woohoo! That brings my total to 5.6lbs. I'm totally amazed by this since I wasn't able to get to exercise class last week. I threw my back out somehow and was NOT feeling well at all. I couldn't move my neck and I had such a headache. It just made concentrating so hard. I went to the Chiropracter everyday last week and now I'm feeling better. Although last night when I got home from work, it was hurting again and the headache was back. But not as badly as before.

On the knitting front, several exciting things have occured.
1) I took a trip to Indianapolis over the weekend of March 20-22 to visit Teresa. Actually 4 of us went down to attend her baby shower. When I mentioned to a knitting friend that I was going to Indy for the weekend she exclaimed "Are you going for the big sale?" To which I promptly replied "What big sale?" Well Mass Ave Knits was having their annual classroom sale. All the yarn was $1 per skein (yes I said ONE DOLLAR) or you could fill a Mass Ave Backpack for $25. Well, since I WAS going to be in the area anyway, I did a mapquest search to see where they were in relationship to my friends house. Imagine my surpise when it said it was only a 17 minute drive. ROAD TRIP!! So we got up early Saturday morning, which was not too easy for me as I think I had food poisoning the day before. Yacked twice on the trip to Teresa's house. Of course it didn't start until I got to Carmel, IN so I couldn't really turn around and go home at that point. Besides, I had a passenger that was so looking forward to visiting Teresa. Leslie had never been to Teresa's new house and was excited about the weekend away. Sorry, back to the yarn. After standing in line outside the shop for awhile in the cold, we were usherred in to the classroom. At first I was a little disapointed, because all I saw was novelty yarn. You know stuff like fun fur, that bobbley yarn and ribbon yarn. But after circulating around a bit, I did find some cotton blend yarns. And you know, if you collapse the cardboard inserts on certain skeins, you can fit 41 skeins of yarn into your backpack; 20 Sonrisa by Katia all in one color (cotton/poly/nylon with a cardboard insert), 13 Cotton Twist by Berroco in various colors (cotton/rayon) and 8 Nostalgia by Berroco in 2 colors (cotton/acrylic). What a haul! I looked up the yarn on-line to see what they had been selling for and wow! The Katia had retailed for $7/skein and I got 20. That was worth the trip right there. I got $265 worth of yarn, for $25! Teresa's Mom and SIL got some yarn also. We were the only knitters/crocheters in the group.

2. I finished my Tomato Sweater!!! Mine is in Bubble Gum Pink. I was planning on wearing it this week, but with the temps dropping back down into the 30's and the snow flying around, I think not as it is short sleaved. Brrr!

3. I finished knitting the Celtic Vest. However, when I tried it on, it's a little tight around the middle, so I'm going to pick-out the cast-off edge on both sides and extend it a bit.

4. I finished another Temple Guardian applique' block. I now have 5 done, 4 to go. Yeah I've passed the half way point. The head of #6 is done. I'm planning on getting the last 4 blocks done this summer, so I can get it pieced by this fall. If I knuckled under, I could get all 4 done before summer, but that would mean no knitting, and I'm just not prepared to do that right now. I never realized how addictive knitting could be!

Yeah I know, where are the pictures?? I havent' gotten around to taking any yet. But I will soon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T13:54:00.000-04:00

Do you have your green on today? Pinch Pinch

Quilting Projects

2009-03-16T13:29:00.009-04:00

So, since I was forced to take time off from knitting to baby the tennis elbow, I have been doing some extra sewing.

1. I finished another of my Siamese Cat applique blocks from my Temple Guardians BOM quilt. I have 4 done now. 5 more to finish although I am about 80% done on #5.

2. I mentioned a couple of entries ago, that my Quilt Guild is doing a Challenge for our March Meeting. It is called the Paint Chip Challenge. What you do is take your initials and find 3 paint chip colors that start with the first letter of your initial. Then use those colors plus a background color if you want to make a quilted project. It can be any size or shape. My colors are: Stoney Fields (Taupe), Alpaca (Cream) and Magma (Black).

The snafu I ran into when piecing (mentioned in previous post) was that I didn't have enough fabrics to finish the ribbon pieced border. I was one repeat short on each side. So instead I added a blank section in the middle of each long side. Since it was kind of plain, I designed an embroidered motif based on the border fabric. Here is a close up of that:

3. Many moons ago ;o) I purchased some Fancy Cat Fabric by Loralie Harris. I had no plans for it, but I love cats and couldn't resist it.

Well while at a LQS in Kalamazoo, I saw that they had embroidery patterns for the cats to be done all in black. I thought it was beautiful and decided I must make a quilt using those embroidered cats. To my dismay and sadness, they were only available for use in Embroidery Machines! I was soo disappointed, however after much thinking, I decided that if I put the fabric on the copy machine and enlarged the cats, I could make my own embroidery patterns. So that is what I did. I think there are 15 different cats. I have the first two done.

I wasn't sure I would like embroidering, but so far it's been pretty relaxing.

Weightloss Challenge a.k.a. Looser Monday

2009-03-16T13:18:00.002-04:00

I am down 1 lb this week. Not great, but better than I thought after the munch fest I had this weekend. I tried to munch on good things, like an apple, south beach bar or WW Pumpkin Muffins (recipe to follow) and drink a lot of water/iced tea, but it still felt like I ate too many snackies. I was stuck at work all weekend and you just never know what the workload will be.

Here is the recipe for the Weight Watcher Pumpkin Muffins. They are supposed to be 1 pt each. Not sure how that corresponds to calories as I didn't take the time to figure it out.

1 Spice Cake Mix
1 15 oz can of pumpkin
1/2 cup of water

Mix ingredients. Spoon it into a regular sized muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

A co-worker brought these in and they were super moist and super yummy, so I begged for the recipe, as I LOVE anything that has pumpkin in it. Enjoy.

Monday Weigh-In

2009-03-09T09:22:00.003-04:00

Ok, to be honest, I was a very bad girl on Friday night. I went out with a couple of friends to the Fiddlers Hearth to celebrate Kathy's 1 year anniversary of her brain surgery. And while I would recommend that anyone who goes there gets the Irish Car Bomb for dessert because it was sooo delicious, it was soo not on the diet.

That being said, I got on the scales this morning and was amazed to see that I had only gained 1 lb. I ate sensibly the rest of the weekend and also did some extra exercises to try to burn it off the car bomb, so apparently they worked a bit.

No Pain, No Gain

2009-03-05T09:44:00.003-05:00

Or so they say. In this instance, it should be no pain, no loss. Of course that doesn't rhyme, but who cares right?

Anyway the point to this train of thought is that I worked out last night. I am amazed at how puny I felt when lifting weights. Of course I haven't exercised in over a year. In last nights class, the instructor had us doing a lot of arm/shoulder exercises, squats, and crunches. With the arm exercises, I started out with 5 lbs, dropped to 3, dropped to 2 and finally had to go to no weights. But I felt really good afterwords. Although, my muscles were kind of quivering like jello and it felt kind of weird.

I am sore this morning and just a bit tired. But it felt good to exercise again. The hardest part is sitting down and then getting back up again.

The Exercise Place Got Lost!

2009-03-03T09:53:00.006-05:00

I drove out to the west side of town last night (slightly scary) to try out a new workout place that a friend told me about. It's called The Fit Club. Well anyway I couldn't find it. Of course I printed out the class schedule from their website, but didn't have it with me. I drove back and forth on S.R. 2 from Krogers out past the bypass and couldn't find it. So when I came to work this I checked out their website again. It's located on the west side of the bypass, but I turned back too soon. If I had driven another 1/2 mile, I would have seen it on the right side of the road. The next boot camp class is on Wednesday, so I'll head back out there before knit and try it out.

To be truthful, I really needed the workout last night too. I had a bad weekend. I went to the Quilting Day Camp at Barb's. I was doing OK staying away from the snacks (I brought some of my own) UNTIL.... Until I stumbled across the Rice Krispie Treats. Oonly they weren't made with rice krispies they were made with Fruity Pebbles cereal. OMG they were so good and so bad for me I know. So I majorly crashed and burned that day. But I did much better on Saturday. I brought a salad with me and ate it when I got there around. So I wasn't hungry for snacks. I got back on track food wise yesterday.

I am planning on changing my weigh in days to Monday instead of Thursday. It's hard to remember to do it in the middle of the week. So I won't be weighing in again until 3/9. Bonus is I get a couple extra days to make of for those RC Treats.

Speaking of the Quilting Day Camp, I finished a small wallhanging while there. I had one of those Moda 5" Charm square Packs that has been vegatating at my house for a couple of years. I never could figure out what I wanted to do with it. My friend Patsy found a pattern from Marcus Brothers. It used the Aunt Gracie Charm pack, but I like the layout so I used that one. My charm pack had lots of bright colors in it, like pink, purple, yellow, orange, blue and LIME. I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I will.

My Quilt Guild is doing a Challenge for our March Meeting. It is called the Paint Chip Challenge. What you do is take your initials and find 3 paint chip colors that start with the first letter of your initial. Then use those colors plus a background color if you want to make a quilted project. It can be any size or shape. It's supposed to be completely done and quilted by the March meeting which is on 3/12. I almost had mine done on Saturday, but ran into a snafu. I didn't have enough fabric to finish the pieced border that I had planned. I was using up some Michael Miller Zephyr scraps I got from my friend Patsy. Another quilter Helen and I played around with it and think we have a plausible solution. Not sure how it will look. If I had not waited until the last minute, I could have ordered more fabric from Hancocks of Paducah, but since I'm a great procrastinator, I just have to deal with it. I think someone said Stitch in Time has a lot of Fairy Frost fabric, so I might go see if I can get a bit more of that to add to what I have. I am hoping to get it finished on Saturday and work on the binding on Sunday at work.

On the knitting front, I got the neck ribbing finished on my Tomato Sweater. I have to finish the arms, but I'm taking a week off to rest the elbow. Stupid Tennis Elbow! I don't even know how to play tennis. :oP I not sure yet if I want to make long sleeves or 3/4 sleeves. I'm waffeling, but it will probably be 3/4's.

First Week on the Diet

2009-02-26T10:36:00.004-05:00

First off, I hate calling it a 'Diet'. It has such a negative feel to it. So maybe I'll call it an 'exercise plan' instead. Exercising is part of it. Yes, that's what I'll do.

I jumped on the scale this morning for my weekly weigh-in. This is my first week on the new exercise plan. I didn't think I was going to have anything to report, as I got an error message. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought "What the .....?" I got off, let it shut itself off and tried a second time. Got the same thing. The scale is digital and apparently needs a new battery. I tried it a 3rd time after my shower and finally got a reading. I am down 2.8 lbs for my first week.

Last night I met up with Anita O. at knit night. We are planning on being partners as we both have a little weight to loose and it is sooo much easier to have a partner. I took my books along that I follow, specifying that she didn't have to follow the same ones. We had a great conversation where she made it clear if this diet book required her to give up her morning coffee with creamer, she just wasn't going to follow it? LOL I assured her she didn't have to. If you have to say "I can never have this again" your not likely to commit to the diet anyway. We are going to report into each other every 2 weeks. Of course if we have stuff to share in the mean time, we will definitely be in contact. Although I forgot to give her my phone number, I will be sending it to her.

On the knitting front, I got all of my stitches picked up around the neckline of my Tomato Sweater. I was a little thrown on how to evenly space them. Talked it over with Kathi at work and realized I had to do the ratio thing. I haven't thought about ratios in almost 20 years. Couldn't really remember how to do it. But since she has high school kids, she reminded me. So here is how I figured it: (not sure if it is the correct way to calculate it, but it came out)

I had 40 stitches to pick up and I have 55 stockinette rows. Divide both numbers by 10 and you get a ratio of 4 to 5.5. So for every 5.5 rows of stockinette, I have to pick up 4 stitches. To make it an even number and easier to fiddle with I multiplied both numbers by 2 to get a ratio of 8 stitches for every 11 rows. Since I'm a visual person, I drew a graph with 11 boxes and played around with where to 'skip' 3 rows that would make it look even. I came up with this: KSKKSKKKSKK Repeat. K= pick up/knit stitch & S=skipped row. It worked perfectly on the first side of the neckline, but I had to fudge it a bit on the second side. Might have been because I was doing this a knit night and trying to do this plus follow several conversations at the same time. I then got 1 row of ribbing done before we had to leave. I'm planning on taking a couple days off from knitting as I am going to a quilting thing this weekend, but I can't wait to get it done and be able to wear it!

Weight Loss Update

2009-02-25T11:11:00.003-05:00

I have a couple of observations from my first week back on the diet.

1) Since I have been eating better I am not feeling totally exhausted by the end of the day. I haven't fallen asleep on the sofa once this last week.

2) Eating better foods has sparked my interest in cooking again. I have not been in a cooking mood, because all I was cooking was unhealthy junk food. I broiled a nice steak the other night with a small baked sweet potato and salad with romaine, spinach, tomato, a little cheese.

I have held off on renewing my membership to Fitness USA, because I just don't enjoy going there. So I stopped off at another one called Lakeland Athletic Club, but it wasn't what I was looking for either. I have admitted that I don't do well by myself. Both of these facilities operate basically the same. You are given a list of exercises and you do those on your own, unless you have a friend join with you. I do better with classes, but the only ones these places have are aerobics. On Friday, I'm going to try out another facility out by the bypass called The Fit Club. Sounds promising. They don't have machines, they just do free weights and classes. The first class is free, so you can try them out. Then it's either $6/class or you can get a punch card for $45 which is good for 10 classes. Will let you know what I find out.

In the mean time, I'm going to be doing some of the weights from The Cardio Free Diet Book and from a new book that I got last night at Borders. It is geared towards women and is called "101 ways to work out with weights" by Cindy Whitmarsh.

Tomorrow is weigh in day, so I'll let you know how I've done this week.

Minor Success!

2009-02-25T09:46:00.003-05:00

I finished binding off the ribbing on my Tomato Sweater last night. I tried it on and it FITS!!!! IT FITS! IT FITS!

Can you tell I'm excited. The first piece of clothing I knitted was a vest and it was too small. Then I made the Friendship Jacket and it was a little too big. Then I tried the Asymmetrical Shrug, which was a total disaster. The right sleeve was knit flat and then seamed and the left one was was knit in the round, which resulted in one being too loose and the other too tight and too short. It's still waiting to be frogged. I couldn't even look at it.

So you see, I haven't had much success in knitting anything that fits; other than socks. That definitely explains my joy.

Now all I have to do is finish the sleeves and the ribbing around the neck and it will be completely done. I really like top/down sweaters. I can't wait to get it done and wear it. At this rate I may have it done by Easter. Keep you fingers crossed.

YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! :o)

Pink Tomato Sweater

2009-02-24T09:56:00.006-05:00

I finished the ribbing on the bottom of my sweater last night. I didn't bind off, because this is my first top down sweater and I wasn't sure what the best way to bind off ribbing was. I thought about calling one of my Elisabeth S. but by the time I did, it was after 10pm. I thought it was bind off "in pattern," but although I looked through a couple of my books, I didn't find anything. So I decided to wait until I could ask Kathi at work. She told me that is exactly what I'm supposed to do. So at lunch today I will be binding off the bottom edge on my sweater. I'm deliberating on whether to start the neck ribbing next or pick up one of the sleeves and knit that. If I had 2 sets of Size 10 knitting needles I could do both. Hmmm Think a trip to Hobby Lobby is now in the works. If I have them both going, then when I'm tired of ribbing (because let's face it, its BORING) then I could switch to the sleeve for a break.

I've been doing so much knitting on the Tomato Sweater and the Celtic Vest the last couple of weeks, because I want to get them DONE. Any way, I notice my elbow is starting to act up again. This time it's the left one. So I'm planning to take tonight off knitting and do some applique on my Temple Guardians blocks. I have 2 done for sure and half of the 4th one done. There are 9 blocks altogether.

I know I should take longer off and I will as I am going to a quilting "day camp" this weekend. Barb D. is opening up her office on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah quilting marathon. Now I just have to figure out what to sew on; UFO or new project??????

Eggrolls and Coconut Chicken Soup

2009-02-22T13:05:00.006-05:00

On Friday, I drove over to my friend Lily's house. Where she taught me how to make authentic Thai Eggrolls and Coconut Chicken Soup. It had so much fun and it turned out to be a lot easier that I expected.

I took lots of notes and photos. Those I will upload later.

Basic Eggroll Recipe by Lily Davis.
8 cups finely shredded cabbage
4 cups shredded carrots
8 cups cooked rice noodles, cut into 2"-3" lengths
1 cup sugar
3-4 tsp salt
liberal amounts of black pepper
3 packages of eggroll wrappers (we only used about 2 1/2 pkgs)

Mix the all your filling ingredients together and let them set to marinate. Lily said the longer you let them set the better the flavor will be, but we on a time limit, so ours only set for 1/2 hour or so. Next, you have to get all the liquid out of the filing mixture. Take a cotton towl and lay it in the sink. Put a double handful of the filling mixture on it, wrap it up and begin squeezing all the moisture out. This step is important otherwise your wrappers will get soggy. Repeat until you until you are done.

Lay out the eggroll wrapper on the diagonal. Place a pile of the filling in that corner. Pull the point up and over the filling. Keep it tight. Roll the eggroll to the center of the wrapper. Then fold in each side corner. However at this point you want to pull them in enough and at an angle the last point is slightly skinnier that the eggroll itself. It won't absorb as much oil that way. Repeat, Deep fry and enjoy!

Edited 2/24/09: I found a blog mentioning baked egg rolls and I plan I trying that on the 10 I have in the freezer. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. Cook 6-7 minutes on each side until they are brown and crisp.

Coconut Chicken Soup by Lily Davis:
1 can coconut milk
1 can water
2 cans mushrooms or fresh if you prefer
1 chicken breast, thinly sliced
Lime Leaf: 2-3 if fresh or 3-5 if frozen
6-8" piece of lemon grass cut on the diagonal
3 Red Thai peppers
1/2 cup sugar
fish sauce (2-3 Tbsp/ to taste)
Juice of 1 Lime
Cilantro

Mix coconut milk, water, pepper, lime leaf, lemon grass, sugar in a pan over medium heat. Be careful, coconut milk can skald just like regular milk. Once it is hot, add chicken and fish sauce. Simmer to cook the chicken and bring out the flavor of the lime leaf and lemongrass. Add the mushrooms, simmer a little longer. Once you turn off the heat, add the lime juice. Adding it while cooking will make it bitter. Serve with cilantro on top.
NOTE: I found a recipe in my Everything Thai cookbook for this also, however it adds red curry powder or paste. I think the Cambodian Thai restaurant that I go to does this and it is very good.

Eggroll dipping sauce:
Ok, we didn't make this, but Lily told me what was in it and I tried to make it at home. Mine tastes good, but isn't as thick as Lily's. So I think I added too much water.

Chili peppers, simple syrup (water/sugar), garlic and white vinegar.

These all tasted very good and I hope you try one.

Winter is Back!

2009-02-19T10:48:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning to 4 new inches of snow. I actually had to wear my boots to work again. And the latch on my car door was stuck in the open position, so it would stay closed. This has happened before in cold weather, but it didn't happened when we were have the sub-zero temps, so I wasn't expecting it. I sprayed WD40 in the latch mechanism and connected a bungy cord around the handle and over to the passenger seat. As soon as the car warmed up (about half way to work) I tried shutting the door again and it finally caught. What a pain though.

Sheesh I was so hoping the snow was over with.

New Topic: I have decided that I need to get back on my exercise program. I kind of petered out over the last year. I did so great last year. I lost 30 lbs and over 27 inches. I was working with a group (B100 fit club) sponsored by the local country radio station. But once that ended I lost my momentum. I work better with a group then I do by myself. With the group, I am held accountable if you know what I mean. By myself, I'm not accountable to anyone but myself, so if I don't exercise no one knows. Well, I've fallen back into the same routine as before I lost the weight and gained back about 15lbs. I go home tired and nap on the damn couch. Then I can't sleep when it's time for bed, stay up late and wake up tired again. It's a vicious circle.

I also donated blood last month and got a new reading (non-fasting [NF] of course) on my Cholesterol In January 08 when I lost all the weight, my NF Cholesterol total was 132. So that has definitely gone up. And I pretty positive that means my Triglycerides have gone up too, which was one of the reasons I had originally started my exercise program.

I am determined to do something. So I dug out the book "The Cardio-Free Diet" that we were using with the B-100 Fit Club. And I am re-starting my exercise program. I know when I mention the book on my blog, that the author Jim Karas will get dinged on his blog. I'm kind of embarrassed for him to read this, because I was doing so well before.

I'll keep you all posted with my results.

Color Swap #2

2009-02-17T10:05:00.004-05:00

Last Friday was a really trying day. I stopped off the post office to ship my Color Swap package out to my Swapee. Then headed out of town for a funeral. When I got back home that night I was totally surprised to see that I had a package sitting on my porch. It was my package from my swap partner. If that's not Karma I don't know what is.

And it was such an awesome package from Mary a.k.a (Silverbirks) too. It was just what I needed after a long day. I had only stopped at the house to drop off some food and then I was heading for the Red Purl which has open knit nights on Friday night. So I took the package with me and opened it there.

I liked the blue tissue paper so much I kept it and am going to re-use it for packages. Just a perfect color.

I will tell you that I loved all my blue goodies. I especially love the felted bowls/scissor case and the Fleece Artist Somoko sock yarn. Mary was worried that it wasn’t as blue as it looked on-line, but Mary you don’t have to worry. It is great; dark navy blue, green and purple. I can’t wait to make the Cherry Swirl Socks that came with it. Everyone at the Red Purl was drooling over it too. I also got the leftover yarn from the bowls, a skein cotton yarn to make dishcloths, buttons, beads, notepads, scissors, quilting highlighter tape, Wintergreen Altoids, Nestle Crispe Bar, Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Carmet bar and Oreo Cakesters. If you haven’t tried the Cakesters, you must. I love them, but try not to buy them because I know I would eat the whole box. Oh I almost forget, She included dried blueberries, which I had never tried had before. They are good too. Once you start eating them you just can’t stop. And then they are gone.

Here's a close-up of the Fleece Artist yarn. I am currently working on a vest and sweater, then I have a baby sweater to work on, but once those are done, I AM working on these socks. I just can't wait.

And here is the close-up of the bowls. I'm planning to use one of them to keep my keys in, because I am always laying them down and then forgetting where they are.

Thank you Mary!!

And here is a view of the package I sent. I can't tell you who it went to thought, because it takes 6-10 days to get there.

Books

2009-02-12T19:36:00.006-05:00

I went to the library last night before you guys left me books to check on and picked up 3.

Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb - Futuristic Cop murder mystery. I LOVE this series and have been waiting to get this one.

Velocity by Dean Koontz - A guy gets a note to do something or a young school teacher will be killed. The cops think it's a hoax, so he does nothing and the woman is brutally murdered. Sounds kind of interesting.

While My Sister Sleeps by Barbara Delinsky - One sister has a heart attack and is in a coma.... I've read a couple of Delinsky's books before and thought what the heck.

Thanks for the book suggestions. I will look into them during my next trip to the library. The medical thriller sounds good. I've heard that Robin Cook was good, but never tried any. Tess Gerritsen writes some good ones too. Harvest was excellent. And I've heard several knitting friends discussing "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", I just can never remember the title. Now I have it written down. :o)

On the knitting front, I started my Celtic Vest again; my third attempt. The first time I accidentally felted it. BooHoo! The second time, the colors just didn't come out right, they kept pooling when I didn't want them to. So this time I have a lovely lavendar/green/aqua yarn that I got at Lorna's in Chicago paired with a solid aqua. I only have 10 rows done, but it is looking great!

I've also been working on my Tomato Sweater; in Pink/White. It's knitted top down and I have it knitted down to the decreased just below the bust line. I tried it on before I started the decreases and it was a little loose, but I don't think it was too terrible. I tend to where my clothes loose anyway. I don't like clothes the cling to you. I have 5 skeins of the pink cotton ease and I'm hoping that is enough to make the sleeves 3/4 instead of caps. I'm really liking the feel of the Cotton Ease yarn.

I need a Book to read!

2009-02-11T16:18:00.003-05:00

I desperately need something new to read. I have been re-reading a couple of my favorite books, but I've read them so many times, I practically know what's going to happen when I turn the page. Any suggestions?? I like mystery, sci-fi (fantasy), romance.

I think I'll head for the library tonight before my knit group to see what's new.

Wristlet Project Bag

2009-02-04T10:41:00.006-05:00

Picture courtesy of Vicki from Simple Knits

I am announcing the debut of my very first pattern. Ok, I've made patterns before, but never to sell.

I designed this small bag to carry my sock knitting projects in. But it would be perfect for any small knitting or sewing project. It hangs from your wrist, enabling you to carry your projects with ease and comfort whether you are on the go or just hanging out with friends.

The pattern is being sold for $5. However, if you do not sew and you would still like a bag for your own, I will be making the bags to sell also. They are $15 each. If you are a Ravelry member, my user name there is: moonlightserenad.

Additional photos:

I have not been lazy!

2009-02-04T10:24:00.003-05:00

I just wanted you to know that although I have not posted in a week, I have not been lazy in that time. I have been working on knitting, sewing and (yuck!) cleaning.

On Friday, my day off, I actually took the Christmas decorations down. They are packed, and just waiting for me to transport them to the basement. Since the tree is only 4ft tall, and I don't have a box to store it, I am going to leave it intact and just put a garbage bag over it. Yes, I took the ornaments off and pack them away. But I did leave the lights on it. Then I proceeded to clean the living room. I am notorious for getting something out and not putting it back, so I had to take care of all that. And I vacuumed too. Dang can those cats shed!

I finished knitting a small feltable bag on Sunday and last night I felted it. It is so cute. I'm going to be adding a fabric lining and handles. It is for an on-line knitting swap, so I cannot post photos of it until my swap partner receives it.

I have also been writing up the pattern for the small project bag that I designed. I will add a separate posting for that with pictures and information.

OH no! More Snow!

2009-01-28T09:46:00.005-05:00

We are getting more snow today. Last night the "weatherman" said we would just get a dusting. Well if he considers 2 inches just a dusting then he needs to..... Well I just can't think of anything good enough for him right now, but I will.

I haven't had to shovel snow for about a week now and it has been so nice. Gonna have to do it tonight though. Ohhh! But just remembered that my Thrummed Mittens are now done so my fingers should stay nice and toasty warm while I'm shoveling. Still think I want to make Thrummed Toe covers or something, so my toes done freeze either. Will have to work on that after I get my Color Swap package done.

Edited to add the following:
When I got home after knit on Wednesday, I did indeed have to shovel snow. Especially the crap at the end of the drive deposited by the snow plow. The only part of me that wasn't cold was my hands, because they were protected by the Thrummed Mittens. Now if only I have a thrummed snow suit or something.

Knitting Retreat

2009-01-19T14:43:00.008-05:00

On Saturday, one of my knitting groups (Frog Pond Fiber Arts) sponsored a Day Retreat. It was held in the South Dining Hall on the Notre Dame Campus. Although it was cold and snowy, it was definitely warmer than it had been all week. It was held from 10 am to 5pm and included lunch in the Dining Hall.

I had a blast. It was so much fun, that I didn't want it to be over. We had 2 vendors come to sell there wares. I bought 2 skeins of merino/silk fingering weight yarn. The first will be for socks, but the other I think will be for a shawl.

We held 3 classes throughout the day. The first was Knitting Backwards; done so you don't have to keep turning your work. I have really been interested in doing this and had actually been able to do the knit stitch on my own; once. Jessica also taught us how to do Purl backwards also. Here is the dishcloth I made.

I even bound off going backwards!

The other 2 classes were held after lunch, which I just have to describe. It was unbelievable! Our admission price included lunch in the Notre Dame Dining Hall, which I must say has got to have the largest buffet I have ever seen. They had everything imaginable: 15+ different dry cereals, bagels, muffins, pancakes, omelet station, belgum waffles, bacon, sausage, pizza, 5 different pastas with your choice of sauces, roasted chicken, ribs, fish, 2 or 3 salad bars with every topping imaginable, hummus, corn casserole, cooked vegies, fresh fruit, yogurts, danishes, donuts, ice cream, frozen yogurt and probably 30 fountain pop machines. That's probably only a drop in the bucket of what they had, but I was so overwhelmed, I know I missed some stuff.

After lunch Vicki taught lace class (which I took) and Janet taught a woven triangular shawl. Here is the shawl I began, but I as SOOO NOT liking the colors that I am going to rip it and redo it. I'll probably use the blue/purple yarn (pictured above) that I got from one of the vendors, but I may look for something a little heavier maybe DK weight.

Here are a Carol and Jessica learning how to weave on Janet's looms.

Aubrey and I worked on our Thrummed Mittens. We were hoping to get our mitten #2's done so we could wear them for the walk back across campus to our cars. Didn't happen though. We BOTH made mistakes, which resulted in frogging. Aubrey wanted to do kitchener grafting on hers like I did and to make hers longer. She had already ripped it back before she got there. So she knit it back up and was ready to cut her yarn to start the kitchener, when she discovered that she hadn't made it long enough; I think it was one thrum row shorter then her other one. So she had to rip back again. On mine, I didn't read the instructions thinking I knew what I was doing since I had already finished mitten #1. Well, I was just about to cut my yarn to do the kitchener grafting when I realized I had 2 righthand mittens. I put the thumb hole in the wrong spot! Luckily all I had to do was frog back the mitten top shaping (about 13 rows) and move the decreases to another location. I think Aubrey finished hers on Saturday night, but I finished mine on Sunday afternoon.

I have more photos on Flickr and I will be uploading them to our Frog Pond Group Page.

THERE DONE!!!

2009-01-18T20:45:00.004-05:00

I just finished my Thrummed Mittens!! Yeah!! I can wear them home tonight from work. I'm so excited. I'll post picture tomorrow, as can't upload them from here.

Here they are:

And they are really warm too!

Cold Weather Sucks!

2009-01-14T16:53:00.002-05:00

I normally leave work at 4:30 in order to do the company bank deposits. I went out a little earlier today to warm the car up and clean off all the snow. You wouldn't believe my luck. The doors locked!!! With the automatic locks, if the car is running it always unlocks itself if the doors close with the locks engaged. It's just too cold for them I guess. And of course, my spare pare of keys is in my purse, which is sitting on the passenger seat. I had to call my parents, who have another spare key to my car and who also live 1 hours drive (on a good day) away.

Well all I can say is that my car is going to be really really warm by the time they get here!
Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!

Always playing Catch-up

2009-01-14T09:19:00.006-05:00

Why does it always seem that I am playing catch-up these days. Things have been happening in my life, honestly. I just haven't felt wordy you know.

My last blog was just before Christmas, so I hope everyone had a great one. I stayed the night on Christmas Eve at my parents house. My Aunt Margaret and cousins Emily and Becky were there too. They had stayed all week. I got a food processor from my parents. The normal sized one. I have a itty-bitty one at home, but I wanted a 'real' one. And I got a beautiful pink shawl/wrap from my Aunt. It is rayon-ish and I wasn't expecting it to be as warm as it is, but I've been wearing it everyday since I got it.

The day after Christmas, we had a huge ice storm and I determined that I really didn't need to go shopping like I normally would. The news was reporting all kinds of slide off and accidents, that I thought it just wasn't work the risk; so you know it was bad. Around noon, I heard spinning wheels out side and figured someone had slid into a snow bank and got stuck. When I looked out the window, it looked as if a Jeep Cherokee and a Semi had a accident. The front bumper on the semi was right up against the back of the Jeep. Then the semi started backing up and I realized that the Jeep had gotten stuck on the ice in the middle of the intersection and couldn't go anywhere. So they hooked up a tow rope to the back of it and the Semi slowly towed it back until it could get on snow and have some traction. When it started going forward again, it was kind of funny, because it looked like the Jeep was towing the semi. They went down the road that way. Although someone should have told the guy in the Jeep that you don't spin your wheels on ice; you just creep.

Then I got sick just as it was time to go back to work. I had an ear infection, bronchitis, and a throat infection. Although it wasn't Strep, it was something similar. I went to work on Monday, but came home at lunch, stayed home on Tuesday, and worked most of the day Wednesday. I only went in on Wednesday, because it was the day before a Holiday and I had to at least work 6 hours or I wouldn't get my holiday pay. But let me tell you, I was miserable! I went to the urgent care office on my way into work and the Dr told me that I needed antibiotics. She said she could give them to me 2 different ways: (1) 10 days worth of pills or (2) a shot there at the office and then 10 days of pills. When I asked what the difference was, she said with the pills alone, I would feel better in about 3 days. If I took the shot and the pills, I would start feeling better in 1 day. Well Geez that was a no-brainer!! I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes at her and said just give me the shot! I had already felt like crap warmed over for 3 days, I couldn't take much more.

Last weekend was my Winter Quilt Retreat. Due to illnesses, there was only 13 of us there. We couldn't cancel either, or we would have lost like 90% of our deposit, which would have been like $900+. People who had put down deposits and then couldn't come, had to forfit their money in order to cover the cost. But I am so glad that we didn't have to cancel it was so fun. I always have a good time when we are there. I finished my Mexican Tiles quilt from my October quilt retreat. Here is a photo:

Ain't it bright? I wasn't sure how the bright fabrics would look, but it turned out quite nice if I do say so myself.

Back in the beginning of December, my friend Nicki gave me a free Lazy Girl Design Pattern for a small bag called Noriko Handbag. It was very pretty and I thought it would make the perfect little sock bag. Anyway, I made it up out of cottons. It would have been better, if I had used lighter weight fabrics. It just didn't drape right. So I decided I would re-design it. Instead of 2 handles, I thought 1 that you could hang from your wrist would be better. And instead of a button, maybe just a loop. So here it what I came up with:

This is actually one I made for Ann at Quilt Retreat this last weekend from some left over border material she had with her. I never did get around to taking a photo of mine. When I first designed it, I made 3. One for myself (brights of course), a brown one for my Frog Pond Christmas party gift, and an extra blue one in case person who got the gift didn't like brown. Christine really liked hers and several other were interested too. So they suggested I make up some to sell at our Knitting Retreat that we will be having this coming weekend. So I took my template and fabric to the Quilt Retreat last weekend and made some up. I ended up selling 3 of them there and Cheryl wants me to make 5 more for her for gifts to her Scrapbook group friends. I need to write up a pattern for it too. I have been carrying mine around with my Pomatomus socks in it.

Also, I just realized that I never mentioned that at the beginning of December I joined a KAL to knit Thrummed Mittens. I have the first one completely done and about 1/3 of the second one done. I really could use them right now as it has been so cold here next to Lake Michigan. Brrr!

This picture was taken before I got the thumb done. I finished it last Thursday, but I just haven't taken a new photo.

Shoveling Snow

2008-12-23T08:44:00.004-05:00

The sun may have been shining yesterday when I posted about going home last night and shoveling snow, but it sure as hell wasn't shining when I got home. And my God did it get a lot colder when the sun disappeared. Most of the snow that I had to move was the light fluffy stuff, however the crap deposited at the end of the driveway from the snow plows was all a frozen mess. Luckily they had fully plowed the streets, so I parked along the curb when I got home. I had the snow shovel in the car with me, so I got out and immediately started shoveling. Then I had to slog through the snow to the shed, dig it out and get my regular metal shovel. It was definitely hard work and I didn't get it 100% done, but I got it cleared enough to get the car in the drive. I had to stop, because my fingers had gone numb and they were really starting to hurt badly. I don't know how long it takes for frostbite to set in, but didn't want to risk it.

When I got inside, I made myself a hot cup of tea in one of my favorite "no spill" Starbucks Mugs. I don't think I drank all of it, but I mainly wanted to hold it to warm up my fingers. I sat on the sofa under 2 fleece blankets holding that mug until I felt warm again. Of course as soon as that happened, I promptly fell asleep! I'm trying not to take naps when I get home, because then I can't sleep when it's time for bed.

There was absolutely nothing to watch on TV last night. I take that back, I watched House, then there was nothing. So I popped in a DVD to watch. I borrowed "Pride and Prejudice" from a my friend Carly starring Colin Firth from A&E (1995). I had never seen any version of this movie nor read any of Jane Austins books. When I was in High School, I had to read "Tale of Two Cities", "Oliver Twist", multiple Shakespeare plays, and "Wuthering Heights". I'm sure there were others, but I can't think of the titles just now. Anyway, I wasn't sure I would like it. I watched the first 2.5 hour DVD last week and finished the second 2.5 hour DVD last night. The first 2 hours of the 5 was pretty boring, but I really liked the rest of it. The mother, Mrs. Bennet, was a major Twit though. I just wanted to tell her to shut the hell up when she went into her hysterics. And I wanted to just slap the youngest sister Lydia when she kept harping on how she was the youngest and had married first and therefore was better than all her older sisters who couldn't seem to catch a husband.

Well, if I don't get back to tell you, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. I'm going to be spending the day with my parents.

To Ski or Not to Ski?

2008-12-22T10:17:00.003-05:00

That was the question yesterday and the answer was "Hell NO!"

On Saturday I went to my friend McKelle's house. She was having a Christmas Party and needed a little help finishing up the cooking. Since the party didn't start until 6pm and it was kind of nice out, I brought along my cross-country ski's thinking if I had time, I would take a trip around the fields behind her house. Well, we didn't have enough time, because she was expecting 45+ people and so needed to make some extra goodies. And boy were there lots of goodies. One of my favorites was the Brown Sugar Candy that she made from Eric's Grandmothers recipe. YUM! And the BBQ Meatballs.

Since we were so busy on Saturday, I told myself that I would wait and ski on Sunday. Then I woke up on Sunday and looked outside. Yeesh! The wind was blowing so hard and it was soo cold I decided it wouldn't be an enjoyable thing. So the skis are still in the car.

My Mom called while I was at McKelles and wanted to know if anyone wanted any bananas for making banana bread. She came home from visiting our friend Luci in Kalamazoo with 40 LBS of bananas. Yes, I said FOURTY! On Sunday she made 8 (yes EIGHT) batches of banana bread and then gave the rest of the bananas to a couple neighbors.

The weather was just as bad this morning too. I looked out the window to see if the roads had been plowed. It looked like they had been. Wrong! I got stuck trying to get out of the drive way; half in the street half in the drive way. If I could have gotten the car back into the drive way I would have called to say I was staying home, but I couldn't get back in either. Finally, after alternating digging, putting kitty litter behind the wheels and going forward a bit then back, I had to admit defeat and go ask help from Elijah, my neighbor. He brought over a dirt digging shovel, since my snow shovel wasn't getting through the icy stuff under the wheels. One little dig and a shove and I was free. The drive to work down 933 was a piece of cake after that. Of course I have to go home tonight and finish shoveling out the drive way. But the snow has stopped (for now) and I think the sun is shining too.

Much needed Haircut

2008-12-18T15:55:00.003-05:00

Am heading out early today to get a much needed hair cut. I got it cut real short a couple of months ago. Now there are uncontrollable pieces that want to stick out every which way.

Haven't been very wordy lately, because I was having a really bad headache. It started on Dec 7th and I just couldn't shake it. I tried every frigging headache drug imaginable; ibuprofen, Tylenol, alieve, fiorcet (migraine med), Excedrin and sinus head meds). Nothing worked. Finally broke down and went to the Dr. on Tuesday. He ended up doing a Chiropractic adjustment on my and OMG if feels so good to be headache free. I didn't realize until it was gone how if was affecting my thinking and my mood.

Gotta run!

Ah Hah!!!

2008-12-11T14:02:00.003-05:00

If you'll remember, last week I was bummed, because I had 2 knitting projects going and was having a problem with both of them. The 'Ah Hah' is in regards to my Cul-de-Sac Vest. I was having a stitch count problem, where things were not adding up and it was throwing me into a tizzy. To recap just a bit:

"After joining the 2 bottom flaps and finishing charts C&D, it said I should have 142 stitches. Then beg. increasing 2 stitches every 6th row, 6 times for under the armpits. After doing that increase, according to the pattern I should have 138 stitches. Which is obviously doesn't add up, so I chose to ignore that part and just knit on."

I emailed a couple Ravelry members who have knitted the Cul-de-Sac Vest. The thought that kept popping into my head was: "why am I having such a hard time figuring this out when at least 60 other Ravlery members have made or are making this vest and they don't seem to be having the same problem." I could not figure out what I was missing.

"Spinsterrowe" (a.k.a. Lisa) emailed me back on Dec 4th, and although I read her email, there was obviously an electrical short somewhere between my brain and the lightbulb that hovers over everyone's head. (You know you have one too right?). She sent me another email today, checking up on my progress, and I replied back, that no I hadn't really figured it out but that I had just decided to frog back the armhole decreases and re-do them. I told her I had even tried to count the stitches in a row below the armhole decreases to determine exactly where my mistake was, but hadn't had any sucess with that either (because I counted 138 and new that must be wrong). I admitted that I had also switched the L/R cable charts and so had ended up with an "S" on either armhole in one spot instead of the cable. So for aesthetic reasons, I was just going to frog back and my stitch count would just have to be what it was. After sending this response back to her, I decided re-read her earlier email to see if I could maybe glean some more info from it, which I thought highly doubtful. To my immense surprise, I read the following sentence:

"when you join the back pieces, there are 16 extra stitches for the cables that have been decreased out of the picture before you get to the underarm. 142-16 (cable stitches) =126, 126+12 (increases) =138."

OMG!!! I can only imagine what this woman was thinking of my intelligence level when she read my "no, still haven't figured it out" email, and here she had answered my question in her email on the 4th. I admit I'm blond, but I don't usually act it!

Everytime I re-read the pattern I was interpreting it to say "After joining the 2 bottom flaps and finishing charts C&D you should have 148 stitches" when in actuality I was joining the 2 bottom flaps in the middle of the charts and then decreasing as I finished charts C&D.

Again, OMG how dumb am I. No wonder none of the other 60+ knitters were having problems with this pattern as there wasn't a problem in the first place.

I must now admit that I have actually messed up my armhole decreases, because I have 1 decrease row left to do and I should then have 88 stitches but will have 96. So I know I missed a couple of decreases along the way and still need to frog to fix that. But I at least know that what it is that I was missing.

I Have Pictures!!!

2008-12-10T14:31:00.005-05:00

I'll start with the oldest first.

I took some photos of the new sewing room after things have been sorta moved in. Now remember I said 'sorta'. There is still some sorting and re-arranging that will need to be done. There is trim that still needs to be put up, yada yada yada.

Here is where I sit and sew.

Here is the fabric STASH. Jeez, didn't know I had that much fabric. If you look closely at the bottom right, you can just barely see an orange tote hiding behind the closet door. That too is full of fabric that needs to be sorted into the rest.

And here is the majority of my yarn stash. I have a couple of bins upstairs with acrylic yarn in them. I have some shelves to build in the closet to the left of the fabric rack above. I wish I had bought another of these pink rolly bins, because they are already getting kind of full. The oak table above the bins will be my cutting table, however I didn't want you guys to see the top of it as I've been using it to sort stuff and it looks a mess.

I finished and blocked my Cascading Leaves Shawl by Vicki M. It turned out so nicely. The color is called Grape Jelly and I used 2 skeins of Knit Picks Lace yarn held together.

I joined a Thrummed Mitten KAL on Ravelry. There are several of us doing them in my South Bend Knitwork Group. Our start date was Dec. 1. I picked out a blue Pattons Classic Merino wool, but couldn't decide if I wanted to use redish roving or white roving. A coworker suggested I alternate them. So I did and here is what #1 looked like.

I wasn't real happy with the mitten. Mainly, because I've never done anything thrummed before and discovered that I made my beginning thrums too fat. I thinned them down on each consecutive row, but then thought how hard it would be to match mitten #2 to #1. And to be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the red, white and blue effect of the alternating rovings. Great colors, but they just weren't doing anything for me. So I ripped #1 back to the row just before I added the roving and started over. I ditched the red roving and thinned out my white ones. Here is what it looks like now, I like this version much better. And I think I'll actually be able to move my hand when the mittens are done. :o)

PS From what I've seen, the thrums are supposed to form those cute little V's, but my first attempt was too fat to form them. They just looked like big polka-dots.

I started making a pair of fingerless mitts for one of my friends for Christmas. #1 is all done and I am just starting the thumb shaping for #2

I tried out a new pattern this weekend for a sock knitting bag by Lazy Girl Designs. (Technically, I think it is meant to be a purse, but let's be real it's too small for a purse. At least for me!) It's cute, but cotton just doesn't drape well. I want to re-design the bottom, so it not so curvy. Of course, you cannot tell that by the picture you are about to see as it is sitting down, but trust me.

I told you I had pictures, but did you really believe me? I think not. Wait, I'm not done yet either. I have one more.

TADA!!! I put up my Christmas Tree for the first time in about 4 years. I know it looks a bit pitiful, but I discovered that I don't have (or at least can't find after much digging) any ornament hooks for my ornaments. I'll pick some up this week and hang some stuff this weekend. Also, I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that the tree was still standing. As many times as I had to chase Java and Jasmine away last night while I tried stringing those red beads around, I thought for sure that it would have been lying on it's side in pieces this morning.

Mini Retreat Happiness

2008-12-05T14:41:00.003-05:00

Well today is another day and I'm in a better mood. TGIF!

I decided to let my 2 knitting projects cogitate for a bit and started something new last night. It is a pair of the fingerless mitts. (A Little Twist Wristwarmers) They are a Christmas present for my friend Clara who has been hinting about wanting a pair. They are knitting up really fast. I started while watching CSI last night, worked on them at lunch today and have the first one almost 1/2 done. They are a blue denim color. Want to make a pair for myself too.

Tonight, I have to head home and do a little straightening to the house. My friend Kathy is coming over tomorrow and we are going to have a mini-Quilt Retreat at my house in my NEW sewing room. Yeah!! I am planning on setting up the crockpot. We will have Cranberry Pork Roast, mashed potatoes, and corn. I might even make a Peach Dump Cake for dessert. I've been wanting to make one, just didn't want to end up eating the whole thing by myself. I even have vanilla ice cream if we want it ale mode.

I have a few little projects that I would like to sew up for Christmas presents and I would like to get my Mexican Tiles Top finished. All the blocks are done, I just have to assemble it. It is twin sized, so it shouldn't take too long.

Well, you all have a nice weekend. I plan to.

I'm Bummed!

2008-12-04T15:35:00.005-05:00

For several reasons.

First: Now that I have the Cascading Leaves Shawl done (pictures forthcoming), I decided to cast on for my Celtic Vest. I made one of these last year and accidentally felted it. I bought some really cool yarn on our Chicago Yarn Crawl at Lorna's Laces. It started out really nice, but then the yarn started pooling. The Celtic Vest Pattern is designed to be knit using 2 balls at one time tp avoid pooling. Like I said, it started out looking really nice, I even made sure to start my balls of yarn in different parts of the color repeats. Maybe they were still too close. Anyway, when I noticed the pooling, I thought maybe I had done something wrong because partway through I had decided to try a little continental knitting. Will get into that more later. So I ripped back to before the pooling and re-knitted the area. Started pooling again at the same spot. I have set it aside until I figure out if I want to use different yarn, or rip it and restart with the yarns repeats even further apart. Still thinking on that. Any ideas??

Secondly: I picked back up my Cul-de-Sac Vest last night by Elsebeth Lavold. I was having problems with the decreasing for the armholes, and set it aside until I had the heart to trying figuring it out. I got the pattern from a 2003 Knitter’s magazine and am now wondering if there is errata out there somewhere or if the pattern has been reprinted in another magazine/book at some other point. I found what I think is an error when working on the back. After joining the 2 bottom flaps and finishing charts C&D, it said I should have 142 stitches. Then beg. increasing 2 stitches every 6th row, 6 times for under the armpits. After doing that increase, according to the pattern I should have 138 stitches. Which is obviously doesn't add up, so I chose to ignore that part and just knit on. However, I am now on the arm hole decreases and my numbers don’t match the next set either, so now I’m not sure if i have done something wrong or if the pattern is again wrong. Not sure if I should rip back to the before the armholes or just plug ahead and again ignore the numbers. I did determine that the armhole decrease numbers are based on the 138 stitches. When I do the math based on the 142 stitches, I figured I should have 154 stitches after the increases and 104 after the armhole decreases. I have one more set of decreases to make and my stitch count now is 98. So something definitely wrong. I have contacted 2 people on Ravelry who have finished the vest to ask for their opinions/help and I tried contacting Elsebeth Lavold to find out about the errata. But I'm pretty sure regardless of what they say, I still have to rip back.

Third: On the way home last night from knit I stopped at Taco Bell for a snack, because I had skipped dinner. I went through the drive thru and was getting my money out to pay, because I was next in line to pay, when the pick-up in front of me backed up and hit the front of my car. Luckily the only damage done was to my bumper. Her Reece trailer hitch holder broke a hole in the center of the plastic bumper. Since we weren't in the street, the police won't do a report, so I had to contact her insurance company directly. I'm not mad that she did it, just mad that I just had that stupid thing fixed from when I rearended someone a month or 2 ago. GRRRRR.

WooHoo! 4-day Weekend.

2008-11-26T09:45:00.002-05:00

Yeah!! We have a 4-day weekend this week. Although I do have to work on Sunday, but still can't wait to get out of here (as in work).

Tomorrow of course is Thanksgiving and I can't wait for the food. YUM! Of course I'm on pop patrol again this year. Am starting to wonder if my family thinks I can't cook or something. I know my Mom has eaten food prepared by me before, but makes you wonder. And I always make the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. Granted, they are usually already boiled and ready for me to mash when I get there. And really how hard are home-made mashed potatoes. You mash the potatoes and add a little milk and A LITTLE butter. Not a whole stick like some family members insist I add. Sneakily, there are some years when I don't add the butter, and no one ever notices. They all drown them in Gravy anyway. Not me though. I like corn on my mashed potatoes. And not that snotty looking cream corn either. Yuck! My Aunt Margaret, won 2 turkeys last week. So there will be plenty of that to go around.

Not sure what I'm doing on Black Friday. Other than not going to Kohls at frigging 4AM!! Can you believe they are opening that early. Oh and the McDonalds across the street from the Kohls on the south end of town is advertising that they are opening at 3AM, in case you want to stop there before hitting Kohls. Gaahh! I do have to make a trip to Lane Bryant and Hallmark, but it doesn't have to be super early.

On Saturday afternoon, I'm going to be meeting with a few old high school friends to discuss the idea of a 20 year reunion. Yes, I said 20! This is a first get together to throw ideas around. Maybe discuss sending postcards to see if anyone is interested in attending before we go to the trouble of planning the whole thing. The Decatur Raiders Class of 1989 only had a whopping 44 members, so it doesn't have to be a big bash. Personally, I'd be happy with a Pig roast/picnic like my brothers class of 1986 had.

Although we had something like that at the 5th reunion and there were quite a few complaints from the hoighty toighty people. They thought we should have had a fancy sit-down dinner with dancing (like a prom almost). McKelle, Debby, and I had planned that one, because no one else would help. I was so disgusted with the complaints, that I said I would not be planning the next one. And look, it's been 15 years since the last one. I told McKelle when she mentioned the 20 year, that I'd help, but only if the other class officer's stepped up this time. Guess I should have mentioned that only McKelle had been a class officer (Treasurer). Debby and I were just volunteers. So this weekend, 2 other class officers (Julie & Sherry) are going to be coming, plus McKelle, myself, Carol, and maybe Debby.

Tag, I'm it.

2008-11-24T10:55:00.005-05:00

I've been tagged by Liz, and now must tell everyone 7 random things about myself. Jeez, this may be hard.

1. I played Varsity Softball in 9th grade. I was an outfielder. I was only a mediocre player, and since I didn't like the coach, I didn't play the next year.

2. I'll take good black licorice over chocolate ANY day.

3. Here's a good one. You know the Lawn Darts games that were outlawed during the 70's as being too dangerous? I was stabbed in the hand by one when I was 3 or 4. My brother and his friends were playing the game in the backyard. I wasn't allowed to play as I was too small, so I was sitting on the sidelines on top of the well housing. I can remember seeing one of the darts being thrown into the air, watching it fly up and over and then down, right into my hand between the thumb and the first finger. I still have a scar from it. I don't remember crying, just thinking huh? as I pulled it out. I probably did, but like I said, I don't remember doing that.

4. I am an ardent fan of Ansel Adams. His Black & White Photos are awesome! I've done some of my own and would dearly love to install a dark room in the basement.

5. I have worn glasses since I was 3 years old. My mom used to get really frustrated because I wouldn't clean the lenses of my glasses. I have a vague memory of my Mom taking my glasses off to clean them and thinking that the light was way too bright when she gave them back. That should tell you how dirty they were and that she had a ligit reason for yelling. However finally, to get her off my back, I started licking the lenses and then using my shirt to clean them. Boy did that drive her crazy! Of course my Dad wouldn't let her punish me for it, because she'd been yelling at me to learn to clean the glasses, and now that I was, it would give me mixed signals to yell at for cleaning them. I only occasionally do it anymore and that is usually only when I'm around her and she is annoying me or if they need cleaning and I'm somewhere where there is no sink.

Gotta go to lunch, so I'll finish this up when I get back. If I can think of anything else.....

6. I don't like the scent of Lavender. (Most especially when someone shoves a bar of lavender soap under my nose to verify that I intensely dislike the scent. :-P ) My favorite flower scent is Hyacinth. To me that scent represents spring.

7. I know how to make home-made Tamale's. My Mom and I usually make a batch every Christmas.

Tag Michelle M., Kary, & Vicki

First Christmas Part of the Season

2008-11-20T10:50:00.005-05:00

I forgot to blog about my first Christmas Party of the season. Last weekend, I and several other knitting friends converged on Carly's house for food, fun, knitting and cheesy Christmas movies. I was very impressed that she had even put up her Christmas Tree for the occasion.

We had Potatoe Soup, Chips/Dip, Vegies, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread (YUM!! and I want the recipe Faith), Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies (YUM also!!) and Pop with the biggest bag of ice I've ever seen. We were supposed to have more cookies, but Liz thought they were (a) sitting in the driveway at her house, or (b) scattered all over the road in front of her house being devoured by the neighbors dogs.

We also had an Ugly Christmas Sweater contest. From left to right: Me, Carly, Faith, Liz, Mary with Aubrey in the front. Not pictured was Rachel who had to leave early to finish homework. Aubrey won the prize with her lovely black sweater.

OK, I don't consider mine ugly (the blue with snowman), but I didn't have an 'ugly' one, and I still wanted to participate. My friend Kirsten asked "who would purposely buy an ugly sweater." To which I replied "Ugly is in the eyes of the person not wearing it." Because all of the other sweaters were purchased at Goodwill, so you know someone had originally bought them thinking they looked great. Personally, I didn't think Carly's was too bad, but you'd only want to wear it on Christmas day and then put it away for the next year. Or 5.

Gingerbread (a.k.a Graham Cracker) Houses were also made. I didn't participate in this as I was busily knitting a complicated row on my Cascading Leaves Shawl. However, I did watch and occasionally snitch candy. They all turned out very lovely, however there was a slight seismic occurance and several houses were completely distroyed. At last report, only 2 of the 5 survived the earthquake.

PS Thanks to Carly and Aubrey for the lovely pictures which I snooched off Facebook. I forgot my camera and the camera phone's batteries died enroute to the party.

Color Swap Package

2008-11-18T10:41:00.002-05:00

It sure felt like Christmas yesterday when I got home last night. Not only was there about 4 inches of snow lying on the ground with more coming down, but my swap package was tucked in between the screen door and the front door. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to get in the house and open it. The funniest thing about it was I had come from the Post Office where I had shipped my Color Swap Package off to my secret friend.

My lovely purple package came from Xtiand in the United Kingdom. There was a beautiful purple Stolen Moments Wrap made from Sirdar, some great Wild Fire Fibres Sock yarn, Purple buttons, stitch markers, note pad and mechanical pencil (I love Mech. Pencils), Rose scented bath soak, a Simply Knitting Magazine and Simply Knitting Sock Calendar. They both have some great patterns. And lest I forget some great Loose leaf Earl Grey Tea and Yummy black licorice.

And here is the wrap. Isn’t it great?

Stitch markers and Buttons

I should mention, that I have been wanting to try the loose leaf tea for quite some time. I even bought a small tea pot with a removable mesh basket made specifically for loose leaf tea. And Earl Grey is one of my favorite flavors. I immediately made myself a pot of tea last night. Normally I only drink 1 cup, but last night I drank the whole pot. It was so good. PS: The mug was from Sarah when I participated in the Hot Cocoa Swap last year.

I would have dug into the licorice also last night, however after sitting outside all day it was hard as a rock. But I’ve already opened it this morning and tried it. YUM!!

One of my friends mentioned last week that with as much work/thought I was putting into my package and she sure hoped I got a good package in return. At that point, I was having so much fun, that I wasn't even thinking about what I would be getting. But you know, I couldn't have asked for a better package. It was perfect.

I love swaps! If you've never tried one you should. Thanks again Xtiand!

When it Rains, it Freaking Pours

2008-11-14T09:58:00.004-05:00

It's that how the saying goes?

Well I sure feel like the Peanuts character that walks around under the black cloud this week.

First a dear friend passed away and I attended the viewing and funeral. I hate to say it, but I'm glad it is all over with. It was just so emotionally and physically draining.

Then yesterday I dropped the car off at the shop, because the front end was bouncing and squeaking when I drove over bumps. I figured I just needed new shocks. Well my car has struts, so there are no shocks. So the tech tells me, but if it is the struts they should be covered under warranty, because I just got them replaced not too long ago. Got the call at 4pm that they haven't figured out what exactly is wrong yet,but they were pretty sure it wasn't the struts maybe an axle. They need to keep it overnight and do more investigating on Friday. I just knew something would go wrong as soon as I paid that damn thing off.

Wait, wait, it gets better!

When I got home last night, I noticed the house was a little cool. So I go check the digital thermostat, because it's not programmed to warm up until 5:15 and I wasn't sure what time it was. Well, it was 5:30 and I could hear the furnace cycling, but no blower coming on. I went down to the basement, took off the front panel of the furnace and look at the blinking LED light. The damn things not supposed to blink. You have to count the blinks to see what the error code is, then look up the code. Some airflow thingy was either not opening or not closing, can't remember now. I checked the filter and the air intake opening on the outside of the house. It was blocked by leaves, so I moved that all away and went back into to turn the furnace off and back on. At first it acted like it was going to work, then that stupid blinking started up again. So I called the service people and they will be out on Friday sometime after 5pm.

If it's true that things happen in 3's, then I am DONE. Nothing else can happen.

Chicago Yarn Crawl

2008-11-11T13:49:00.004-05:00

Like I mentioned yesterday, a group of my knitting friends and myself took a road trip over to Chicago on Saturday for a tour of the Lorna's Laces Factory. We got a tour/history lesson on the business, a dyeing demo and then a shopping spree. ;o)

What truly amazed me was that Beth Casey bought the business from Lorna Miser (the original creator of Lorna's Laces) without knowing anything about dyeing yarn or even any experience in dyeing yarn. I would have been petrified to try that.

Here's a picture of Beth, as she demonstates how they set up for and do the dyeing of the yarn. Her 'recipes' for each dyelot are tacked to the wall above the sink.

I could be wrong, because a few times my attention lapsed as I drooled at the yarn hanging all around, but I believe she said each dyelot consisted of 10lbs of yarn, which was equal to only 40 skeins. So if you decide to buy Lorna's Lace yarn, buy extra of that dyelot, because there is no telling where in the world the rest of the dyelot went. She said they have no clear way of tracking particular dyelots. (Thank God for Ravelry and Rav. Members who are willing to trade/sell excess yarn!)

Anyway, once the dye is applied to the yarn, it is put into steamers and cooked for 45 minutes. Each dyelot usually takes up 2 steamers at a time.

Once it is done cooking, it is put into a regular (cheapy) washing machine, where it goes through two spin/rinse cycles. It is NOT adgitated, just rinsed and spun to get the excess dye and soap out of it. Then it is hung on PVC pipes to dry. Not sure which 'recipe' she used for this demonstration batch, but it sure looks like the Tuscany Shepherd Sport yarn that I bought.

Once the demo was concluded and all questions answered, Beth turned us loose to do some serious shopping. She had 3 tables of Mill Ends for sale. The one pictured below held Shepherd sock yarn and sport weight yarn. There was also one for Shepherd Worsted/Bulky weigh yarn. The 3rd table held her a good selection of her Organic Green Line yarn.

Doesn't that look so tempting?!?! Well, we had no problem shoveling a great deal of this yarn into our plastic bags. I myself bought 11 skeins of yarn (6 worsted, 3 sport and 2 sock). I've posted it to Ravelry, but didn't think to take a photo of it all together.

By the time we were done at Lorna's, we were all very hungry. To save shopping time, we packed lunches and ate them in our cars. It was too cold to sit outside at a park. Then we cruised south on Damen St. to Knitting Workshop and Soutache (a button shop). I was still riding on the high of discount yarn, and didn't purchase any more yarn at Knitting Workshop, although I was tempted to buy some of the new Harry Potter sock yarn. I bought 2 wooden rings at Soutache in order to make the Dumpling Bag from the Fall 2008 Interweave Knits magazine. I looked for a shawl pin, however the few they had I felt were too large for me. After Soutache, we headed for downtown and Loopy Yarns. I finally found a skein of lime green sock yarn (TOFUtsies) and 3 skeins of Pastimes lace yarn, which was on clearance for 60% off. Can you say YEAH!!! I was very proud of myself. I decided to leave the credit and debit cards at home and only use cash. I came home with $8.00 to spare. Of course once we were back in South Bend I went out to eat with a few of the girls and had to use the debit card for dinner, but that doesn't really count, because I wasn't in Chicago anymore. :o)

I was so exhausted when I got home. I sat on the sofa to be mobbed by the Cats and promptly fell asleep after only about 10 minutes of petting.

BRRRRRR!

2008-11-10T09:30:00.003-05:00

The boiler must have shut down over the weekend again, because when I got to work this morning it was only 62 degrees in the front office. I knew there was a reason I decided to bring my fleece jacket to work even though I work a sweatshirt. Grandma always said "dress in layers. You can always take it off if yo'reu hot, but if you don't have it you can't put it on if your too cold." I'm sitting at my desk in layers, plus I have a hot cup of tea and the space heater going under my desk. I'm fine until I have to leave my desk. I currently need to walk out to shipping, but I don't want too because I'll get cold again. :o(

PS: I had a great time in Chicago on Saturday. 17 knitting friends and myself, took a trip to visit the Lornas Laces Factory. I'll fill you in a little later.

Bad News - Good News

2008-11-04T13:14:00.002-05:00

I always feel it is better to get the bad news over first, then concentrate on the good.

On Saturday, I had a lazy day at home where I indulged in a knitting marathon. I was trying to finish my Cascading Leaves Shawl by Vicki M. so that I could wear it this weekend. Anyway, I thought I would pace myself and take a few breaks to clean the living room and get some food. I'm not a fast lace knitter, so I only got about 18 rows down; that's 1 1/2 repeats. Anyway, I ended up majorly irritating my elbow. I've had problems with Tennis/Golfers Elbow before. When it flairs up, the only thing I can do is set the knitting aside. For a couple of weeks (3 is recommended). Darn it!! Just when I'm on a roll. I only have about 2 repeats left on the shawl and it will be finished. Double Dog Darn it!!

I've been wearing my elbow brace, but it still hurts. The worst part is that it is in my right arm and I'm right handed. Do you know how hard it is to NOT use you're right arm? I got frustrated this morning, because I was having a hard time just coming my hair with my left hand. My left hand is just too stupid to figure some things out. Last night, since there was nothing on TV and I couldn't knit, I decided to go to the sewing room and do a little sewing on my Mexican Tiles quilt. The sewing was fine, but trying to cut fabric or iron the blocks just hurt. But I did get the last of my blocks done. Now I can start assembling the quilt.

Now for the good News!!

I paid off my car today!

And I'm going on a "Yarn Crawl" this weekend to Chicago! We are going to be touring Lorna's Laces Yarns with demo in dying and access to their store. Then we will be hitting approximately 3 other knitting shops around the area. Not sure of the names yet, but I think one is Knit1 and maybe Knitting Workshop. It should be a fabulous time. There are going to about 18 of us carpooling over. It's supposed to be a little on the cold side, but I think it will be great fun!

Retreat Project Pictures

2008-10-28T13:45:00.004-04:00

Here are the photos of my Mexican Stars wallhanging that I did at quilt retreat #2.

The next picture shows a closeup of the 3-D effect.

All the white-ish triangles are squares folded in half. So when you fold the diagonal area back, it is on bias and shapes into a curve very easily. Not sure yet if I will sew them my machine or hand. Leaning towards hand, but still haven't made up my mind.

It Freaking Snowed Last Night!!

2008-10-28T10:11:00.009-04:00

Can you believe it?!? I got between 1/2" to 1" of snow last night at my house.
And it was the wet sticky stuff too.
Our controller went home for lunch yesterday and said that in a 4 mile drive he drove through sleet, hail, rain and sunshine.

And the oddest part is that by the end of the week, it is supposed to be back up in the mid 60's.

Added Photos:

These are a little old. I took them when we were putting up the drop ceiling in the basement. Just forgot to post them. This is my brother Ray. Mom was helping too and I took a photo of her, but I must have forgot to save it. I was using the camera on my phone.
I have almost everything moved to the sewing room, just not organized. It's still pretty messy. But I'll try to take photos this weekend to show off.

Playing Catch-up

2008-10-24T09:01:00.009-04:00

I can't believe I've been so quiet. Things have been happening, I just haven't felt very wordy this last month.

With my mom's help, I got everything moved downstairs to the new sewing room. God I have too much stuff! Especially fabric! I always "knew" I had a lot, but it wasn't all in one place like it is in the basement. So now I can SEE how much there is. I have decided that for any new projects I start, I need to start using at least 80-90% of the fabric from my stash. It would be much better if I could do 100%, but sometimes you just need a little something that either you don't have or you don't have enough of. I still have a lot of organizing to do, but I actually did some sewing. Luckily I didn't have to cut anything, because the cutting table is piled high with stuff that has to be sorted. But it's a start.

I went to 2 quilting retreats this month. The first was at the Tecumseh YMCA Camp in Brookston, IN. (North of Lafayette) It started on Thursday and finished on Sunday. I checked out a new quilt store in Rossville, called Rossville Quilts. In November they will be having their first anniversary. It was a very nice shop. I was impressed with the wide variety of fabric that she stocked. Most shops you go into, lean towards one type of fabric usually based on the owners preference; whether it's brights or it's thimbleberry/civil war type prints. This shop had a nice variety of both. It was really great because everyone was able to find something that they liked.

I worked on 2 quilts while I was at Tecumseh. Didn't get either of them done, but I made progress on both. The first was my Lillibet's Garden quilt. I was working on the machine appliqued flowers in the center of the quilt. I decided to make it smaller, because it's a king sized quilt and I only need a queen. That means I get to leave off the outer boarder strips with it's many flowers and vines. Yeah! less applique to do. I got all the flowers sewn (12) and I got the flowers and vines appliqued on one section of the center areas, before I got tired of it and switched to my other project.

The other project was a "guild" project. There were at least 8 if not more of us there doing the same quilt. And none of them even looked remotely alike. It is called Mexican Tiles and was designed by Kay the QuiltDiva. Mine of course is kind of on the bright side; go figure. The main fabric is yellow with pink flowers. The center of the flower is kind of turquoise and there are some green leaves in the background. So my supporting fabrics are turquoise, bright pink, light pink, lime green, dark lime green, bright yellow and white for the background. Sorry no pictures yet. It is made up of basically 4 blocks. There is 1 star in the center, surounded by Snail Tails blocks, 80 flying geese and then a 4-patch in a 4-patch block. I got the center star and the 4-patches done while at Tecumseh and finished up the Snail Tail's blocks at my second retreat. I have about 20 flying geese which need the second wing and then I am done with all the little piecing and can start laying it out to piece the whole thing.

I had thought to give it to my BFF McKelle for her daughter Brenna, but Brenna's grandma beat me to the punch. So it will either go into the "top box" or I will finish it for my retreat quilt since it is only a twin size and I don't have any twin beds at my house.

My second quilt retreat was at Camp Fredenswald. It is a menonite camp up near Cassopolis, MI. My Tuesday night quilt group has been going there for at least 10 years now. It is a really nice camp. The beds are extremely hard though. I saw another quilter bringing a 'eggcrate' looking mattress pad, which I am determined to bring next time. As mentioned above, I worked on my Mexican Tiles quilt, but I also worked on a Mexican Stars wallhanging. Carol of Carol's Quilt Cottage was conducting a class on the 3-Dimensional techniques that Annette Ornelas using on her quilts. There were 4 of us doing the Mexican Stars pattern and 1 doing the Victorian Tablerunner and 1 doing the Tulip Bells Tablerunner. We all got the projects pieced, but only 1 of person got the 3 dimensional applique done. And it wasn't me either.

I finally figured out what to do with my toe-up socks that I started when I was camping this summer in Ludington. I have both feet done, but I just couldn't find a cuff pattern that I liked. I tried 4 different ones, including a mock cable that I had been wanting to try, but nothing looked good. I decided last week to just to a simple K3,P1 ribbing. And I love it! I think the variation of the color was just masking all the patterns. The ribbing is so simple, yet it looks great. I had about 1 1/2 inches done on one cuff, when I switched it over to a circular needs so I could try it on. I wanted footie type socks. But it still isn't long enough. I figure it needs to be at least 3 inches if not 4 inches long. When I switched it to the circular needs, I had to switch sock #2 to the straights, because it had been 'waiting' on the circular. So instead of switching #1 back to the straights I just went ahead and started knitting on sock #2. I have about 1 inch done. When it gets done, I'll go back and finish #1.

And last but not least, I decided I needed a change. So I got my hair cut and colored last night. I am no longer blond. I am now a brunette with carmel highlights. I really like it. I stopped by Liz's place on my way home to get a second opinion. She liked it too. It is SHORT too.

This was taken last night when I got home.And this is my 1st attempt at copying what the stylist did. OK, she was better, but I still love it.

Just Things

2008-09-30T14:29:00.003-04:00

I wanted to let everyone know that my brother, mother and I installed the drop ceiling in the sewing room on Saturday. Yeah! Pictures will be forthcoming.

I got up at 7ish and remembered that I needed to put the drywall 'repair patch' above the closet door before we could start on the ceiling. So I started working at 7:30 am. Yawn! I got the closet taken care of, then started on the baseboard trim. I didn't get it completely finished, as the door trim will go down to the floor and the baseboard trim will butt up against it. Since I don't have the trim either picked out or bought yet, I wasn't sure it how wide it would be, so I didn't get it quite finished. I can still start moving things down, as long as I don't set things near those spots.

Then I started cleaning up so that we wouldn't be tripping over things. I even moved 'stuff' from in front of the mattress that is for the spare bedroom. The plan was to move the kitchen table downstairs (it will become my cutting table) and [temporarily] put the mattress set in the kitchen. That way once the spare bedroom is cleared out, I can move the mattress set in there by myself to set up the bed. I do have another smaller kitchen table that I bought from my late Aunts estate. It currently resides in my parents garage, but I will need to get it soon, so they can park in there when the snow comes.

Anyway, after 1 false start and a trip to Lowes, the ceiling went up pretty quickly. Although trying to get back home from Lowes was a bit of the challenge. This weekend was the Apple Festival. We left just as the parade was starting and so got out OK, but trying to get back was a bit of a nightmare.

By the time we got done and my brother left, it was 8:30. God was I so tired! 13 hours of work!!! And my bum ankle was killing me. I actually had to break out the crutches and the big pain pill in order to get to sleep. Although I don't really think it lessened the pain, it just knocked me out. I was hobbling around most of Sunday at work. But I made sure to wear my ankle brace (applied bengay) and took tylenol every 4 hours. By Monday it was better. I still get a twinge every now in then, but it's manageable now.

I had planned to go to knit night tonight, but I'm going away this weekend and need to start packing. I also thought I could get a head start on carrying some stuff down to the basement. Not too many trips though, because I want to be able to enjoy walking around this weekend. Although since it is a quilt retreat, I will be sitting at the sewing machine for most of it.

You Know....

2008-09-24T14:17:00.002-04:00

You know it time to put away the sandals and start wearing socks when you have shove your fleece lined jacket under the desk and wrap it around your feet.

PS: Things have been happening, I just haven't been feeling very wordy lately. I'll catch you all up later.