Tuesday, September 11, 2007

What a Beautiful Morning

I woke up this morning to cool temperatures. It was 68 degrees! Wow, fall like temperatures this early, I'll take it. Even better...the high today will be in the low 80's. I have my windows up and a delightful cup of Whittard's English Breakfast tea from Britt. Such a nice start to the day.

We will have guests today. My friend, Angie, is attending a conference and needed a place for her two youngest to stay. My boys can hardly contain their excitement. It should be a fun day.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Finished Objects

Believe it or not I actually have some finished items to show. Woo Hoo! It feels good to have accomplished something! The first is a calorimetry. It was a fun , quick knit. I loved doing the short rows and it really gave me confidence to try them later in a garment. I actually did a gauge swatch and followed the pattern precisely...but I think it is too big. I am going to take it and show it to Dawn, she is the expert in our knit group on these. Maybe she can see what I did wrong. I used a heavyweight Socks That Rock in the Christmas Balls colorway. I love the bright colors.My second item is one with which I am pretty tickled. I needed something to keep my ipod in when I exercised. I knew I had seen some free patterns for ipod cozies on the web, so I went searching. While many were cute, they were also more involved than what I wanted, making me go out on the edge and design my own. Nothing exciting or special...but just what I wanted. Speedy B decided since it looked like a sock when I was knitting it, I needed to call it an I-sock. I was especially pleased with the little pocket to hold the earphones when not in use. I used another Socks That Rock, this one was Christmas Rock.
My last finished item is this sweet ruffled scarf. My friend Ellen bought the kit for me when she took her daughter back to college. The colors are perfect for fall. There are two yarns in the scarf, koigu and a mohair. I had never knit with mohair before...kinda fun to try something new.
So there you are...actual knitting content. Finished objects no less, not just stash enhancement!

Ravelry Swaps

Last week was such a lousy week...it was such a nice blessing when I received not one, but two swap packages! The first was from Britt off of the Ravelry "Cup of Tea" group. The group did a tea swap and Britt did a wonderful job. She sent four wonderful varieties of tea, some lemon cookies, the darling pot and cup for one. The yarn was a beautiful shade of blue in an alpaca blend. I think it will make a lovely scarf for this winter.

The second swap was also from Ravelry. Baseball Knitter set up a summer camp themed swap. My partner was Lixie from the Lixie Knits It Podcast. I received a great package from "home" including chocolates (they didn't last long!), a notepad from the underground, various pens and pencils, a cute cupcake candle, a knitting journal and some great Stroud Wool in shades of blue and green. Gotta find the right sock pattern for that luscious yarn!

Thank you ladies!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Exhausted, but home

It is well after midnight as I type this...but it is soooo good to be home. The two younger boys and I came home this evening. RacerDad and SpeedyB will be home tomorrow.

The funeral was a fitting tribute to a lovely man. Unfortunately the weekend brought up many memories of mom's funeral. So it made for a long, emotionally draining five days.

Glad to be home.