Time flies when you are ...having fun....

Thanksgiving Cactus 2009

....and being very busy. My last post was August 22nd. I really can't believe it's been that long. My only excuse is that I've been busy. Yes, I've been knitting and cleaning. More cleaning than I've done in awhile I hate to say. The reason....my son's approaching wedding....this coming Saturday. Yikes! He gave his girl a ring around the time of my last post and then almost immediately to our surprise there was a wedding in the works! They are having a very small wedding, but there is, nevertheless, a lot to do. I can't believe it's almost here! I'm very happy for them that everything fell into place. They just want to be together! Since they are having such a small wedding we will have a family party for them the weekend after Thanksgiving, so even though the wedding will be over, I'm still not in the clear for a little while :)

Besides cleaning I have been knitting, but I'll have to wait and show you what I've knit for the most part later. I will try to be a little better about timely posts in the future. I just think I got out of the habit of posting and reading blogs. I never seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do. I did make time this past Sunday to go into Boston with a group of women in my church to the 3rd Annual Knit-a-thon for the Pine Street Inn. A very worth while cause. You can read about the Pine Street Inn here.

In total, the five of us brought with us 329 squares! That's about 9 and 1/2 blankets worth!! These were all knit by the ladies in our church and some even came from the Senior Center. I didn't knit as many as I usually do. Here are my squares:

I made only eleven this year, but we were able as a team to sew together one blanket and about 2/3rds of a second one. Sewing the blankets together is very labor intensive, but it is a labor of love. One of the women brought that one unfinished blanket home to finish and some of us including myself brought home a bag full of squares to complete a blanket. Here's my pile of squares:
During the time we were there (from about eleven in the morning until about 3:30pm) around thirty something blankets were finished. It was very impressive to see all the finished blankets.

This was my first time going into Boston for the event and I found it very interesting about how they go about constructing the blankets. When you arrive you hand over all your squares. Then they sort the squares in regards to color and whether or not they are hand or machine washable. Your group is then given 35 squares to sew into a blanket. First we had to sew the squares into 5 rows of seven squares. None of my squares were in either of the two blankets that we put together, but I was determined to find some of my squares in the bunch of squares that I selected to take home to do later. Two of mine were in the pile! Yay :) My collection of take home squares are quite the miss mash of different weights and sizes of squares. I hope it will go together nicely, but no mater what it looks like in the end, one thing I do know for certain is that it will be warm

Before I left I bought a tote bag
Next year when I make my squares I'll have the perfect project bag. Hopefully I'll be able to go again next year....it was a lot of fun. One thing we anticipate doing perhaps next year is to do a little prep work ahead of time. Have a night at our church before the event to sew some of our squares into strips, so that we might be able to make some blankets with more of the squares from our church family. Wouldn't that be nice? Of course I forgot my camera. I wish I could show you our completed blankets, but I will keep you posted with the one I'll be working on at home. Here is one of the blankets finished, not ours though.

Hopefully once things settle down I'll be able to get back to some regular blog reading and writing. In the meantime I do hope all of you are happily knitting away. I'm anxious to see what all of you have been up to!! Until next time.....

Moving on

Now that I have finally finished stitching my longest (20 year) project ever, a counted cross stitch, I can move on to my knitting (actually crocheting this time)! You can see what my project looked like back in 2006 here. Next I need to wash it and get it ready to be framed. Way back when, I actually took a class in framing cross stitch pictures using the lacing method. I did frame several pictures, but I'm not sure I remember everything I need to know. I will have to make a trip to the cross stitch store soon and do some investigating. Maybe if I tell them what I remember they can tell me if it's possible to do it myself...successfully that is. That's one thing you don't have to worry about when you knit...no framing required ;) I like that!!

Now, that I have that off of my mind so to speak, it let me be free to try something that I have been wanting to try ever since I saw it (sort of - I will explain) in a February 1977 Family Circle magazine that I came across last summer. Looking through the index I saw a craft that was new to me. Clothesline Crochet. I was soon very disappointed because by the time I found the appropriate pages to my chagrin I found that they had been cut out of the magazine. No pictures to see what this craft looked like. I was not very happy, but at the back of the magazine the instructions were intact! Yay! They used strips of fabric and there were 6 patterns to choose from. I wasn't sure that I wanted to go the fabric strip route. I did that once knitting strips of an old flannel sheet into a rag rug. It was very hard on the hands and I anticipated the same thing would happen crocheting strips of fabric. Definitely a good recycling craft, but I wanted to see if some one else had did it with yarn. A google search led me to these instructions - using yarn. I used the information there to start my experiment and here is what I came up with, a small basket:

Basically you use regular old clothesline,( yes, the stuff you string up to hang out your wash on) as a core which you crochet over and it gives your crocheted item a stiffness, almost like when you felt, but not. I think you get my drift.


Here's the basket...you can look inside of it:
I made handles similar to the ones on my plastic big bag. It was rather fun to try and there are numerous possibilities for making other items.
Before I forget again I want to show you what my sister sent me for my birthday back in June: Some beautiful handspun yarn that she spun for me. The lavender skein(didn't photograph too well) even has a metalic shiny thread running through it. Next on my to do list - must be on the lookout for the perfect pattern for this yarn. For now I just keep petting it as it is sooo soft! Included in the package was a teabag holder that her husband made from scratch from a piece of myrtle wood. I wish you could feel the smoothness of the wood. It is very special and I will treasure it forever :)
Well, as of the beginning of this week I was pretty caught up with my blogging and then pep band camp happened and I was quickly back to square one. It was worth it though as this year I helped with the uniforms, fitting the kids and altering the uniforms to fit them was rather fun. The kids were very appreciative. Between all the hems and buttons I had a pretty sore finger though. The first day I forgot to bring a thimble. The second day I had it and it was much better. Between that and bringing my middle guy to look at colleges, we have been very busy and there has been a little excitement in the family as my oldest son gave his girl a diamond engagement ring last Friday. No date set yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if a wedding is in the works sooner rather than later :) I know I should have taken pictures of them both (I'm a bad mother) but it was a bit confusing when they were here for dinner last night. There was a lot to catch up on as we had not seen him since the 4th of July weekend.

Well, hope this finds you all happy and enjoying the little bit of summer that is left. The time goes by way too fast. Never ever enough time to do everything you want to. Happy Knitting everyone :)

Twins

There is very little knitting-wise that has excited me lately. I made a big mistake in picking my projects as of late. Two pairs of socks, same pattern, one after the other is a bad idea!! The other day I finally finished the second pair of socks that I knit from the same pattern. You can tell that I really enjoyed knitting the first pair.....

....so I just had to knit up another pair. The pattern is Socks of Kindness: a Recipe. The stitch pattern is easy, but looks intricate

I loved how they turned out and right away I cast on for another pair of the same. The yarn was pretty much the same as well, which added up to a lack of interest after a fashion. The first pair was camouflage and the second looked very much the same, instead of green- the major color was blue. Talk about second sock syndrome, second pair syndrome is worse.! I learned my lesson this time :) I think I need a break from socks.

I always have a take-a-long project in the works.
The latest one finished is another baby prayer blanket with yellow and green alternating stripes. This was mostly knit while I was doing my physical therapy and as a passenger in the car. Easy, boring knitting as well.

Now I need to find a new and different project to work on. I have some ideas. but first I need to finish a counted cross stitch project ( "A Little Girl's Fancy" by Paula Vaughan) that has been in the works for about 20 years on and off. I am very close to be done!! I HAVE to complete this before moving on!

Here it is in the summer of 2006:
It was supposed to be finished that summer. That did not happen. Every summer since I have worked on it a little bit, but I must admit I get tired of it very quickly.

Hopefully by my next post I'll have a finished piece to show you. At least I have good intentions!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying what's left of summer. Happy Knitting :)