A simple knit?

It looks like a simple chenille flower washcloth, right? I've made lots of these, since they are such yummy, easy gifts. This one thought decided to be a difficult knit. Can you see the 2 cast-away peddles? Upon trying to join all 5 peddles together, I put my knitting needle into the little loop & the loop broke. Thinking it was just me having a bad knitting moment, I quickly knit another peddle and umm, the same thing happened. At this point I put the flower aside, muttering about how I would never speak to it again.
I did finally come around and picked it up, speaking sweetly about how it was supposed to go to my Secret Pal and make her happy. I guess discovering it had a purpose was all it needed & the flower washcloth is now done, leaving me with a new record of needing more than a week to knit this. Seriously.
Notice I had the brilliant idea of photographing it on my purple towel. Yes, a purple washcloth will look very pretty on a purple towel, if you can find it. But let's look beyond all that and look at the ground. This picture was taken in the very spot that the bee socks were last week. The snow is disappearing!

E is for Eager

M woke up on the 1st day of spring super excited. He ran to the door and I could see disappointment take over. After counting the days, checking with everyone to make sure that he had the right day, the snow was still there!
Therefore I thought it would be fitting to show his new bee-socks next to the bee-sign in our yard laying in, yup you guessed right, snow. I didn't have the heart to ask him to model them in this pose though.
I love these socks, in fact I think I love them more than he does. (he's a boy, they are socks, need I say more?) They are made from 1 skein of Lorna's Lace beestripe, 56sts, toe-up, magic-loop, 3x1 ribbing. Do you think they will help spring come faster for a very eager boy?

A trip through North Dakota

My boys & I took a quick trip to my sister's house this past week. It was their spring break & they had both gotten very good reports during the parent/teacher conferences. Seemed like the perfect time to go bond with their cousins, right?
I took these pictures on the way to my sister's. I always say that North Dakota has the same tree that appears over & over & over again. Thank goodness I discovered Knitcast & Storynory before I left!
More later this week after we get unpacked & settled at home again.

Heel adventures

It all started with some yummy Trekking yarn my knitting buddy gave me. She has the same color, which will mean matching socks. (I love
matching things!) She has started hers and
is doing an afterthought heel. I loved that idea and decided to practice with Q's St. Patricks socks (there is green in them).

1st picture: both socks done without the heels. (on the orange chair. Do you see the white in the background? That's the snow we got yesterday. Seriously, spring? You can come anytime now.)

2nd picture: 1 heel done, 1 'hey there is a hole'. The boys giggled a lot over this and thought that I should leave it like this.


3rd picture: the hole left after finishing the heel. Easy to sew up, yet it left me wondering if I was supposed to pick up stitches here?

4th picture: the socks on his feet this morning.

It was fun to try this way, yet I'm not sure if I will do it again. The socks went really fast, until the heel. Maureen you were right, picking up the stitches takes time. I also usually like adding a few extra stitches around the ankle (for about 1 inch), then going back to the regular amount of stitches for the rest of the leg. I suppose I could figure out how to do this with the afterthought heel, but it's just easier the 'normal' way. It was a fun heel adventure and best of all Q has his 'green' socks.

For the love of yarn....

A couple of weeks ago my Secret Pal saved me by sending me extra skeins for the sweater I'm knitting Q. I was blown away by how quickly she got the yarn to me & Q was blown away that she had send something that will (eventually) be his. I wanted to capture the moment I showed him the box, his mouth just dropped and he was so excited. But alas, it's now how many weeks later and my camera shy boy will just not be talked into letting me capture the moment.

So, instead I'm showing the yarn with the sweater. One of the skeins my SP sent me is already almost knit up. I put the sweater aside thinking I had made the armholes too big. Today I measured it on Q, and it was perfect. Apparently once again my mind has not caught up with his growing older. On the other hand, the good news is that I can now finish his sweater without frogging anything.

Thank you again SP for sending this yarn! This sweater will now allow us to remember your generosity every time Q wears it. (the other picture shows Miss Thangs new favorite spot to nap. I recently moved my yarn shelf and she kept pushing some yarn off so she could lay there. I finally gave up and let her have 'her' spot. How can I blame her if she wants to nap by yarn? She's one smart cat!)

A scarf...

It's a scarf! Whew, betcha didn't think I could knit anything but socks...hehe. This is a simple garter stitch/dropped extra stitches scarf knit with LB ribbon yarn. (I think I used 12 stitches). I took this pic of Deanna right before we left for the trip back home. We were walking and I remembered I needed to take a picture of the scarf, so you get the quick pose (it was cold!). Sadly I just realized you can't see the fringes in this pic.

My blog is having issues again. I'm not sure what the cause of it is. Someone hacking into it again? It's very frustrating and I'm trying to decide if I should switch to another service. Any suggestions, ideas, etc will be greatly appreciated! (Twice this week, when you try to get to my blog all you get is a weird code. I have to then redo everything and I haven't had the time this last time to finish re-adding some of the changes I had made to the sidebar.)

The fun we have....

Close to the end of the Olympics, Q realized that maybe they were cool. M had been humoring me all along and watching them with me, but not Q. My can't-breathe-without-sports son didn't want to be bothered with watching, until they were almost over. Isn't that how it always goes? He did however build an Olympic torch in our front yard. I love when they do unique things all on their own.

The 3rd pair of Olympic socks were for M. Technically I never did watch the Olympics while knitting these, but they were knit during the time. (remember the long hours in the car?). They were knit with Regia mini-ringel, which I now love. Aren't those stripes cool? (56 sts; magic-loop toe-up; 3x1 ribbing; short-row toes & heels).

A birthday break...

This is my favorite picture of my big brother & me. Probably because it was taken when we still got along...hehe. You know before the whole annoying each other phase. (I tried taking a picture of the picture & it didn't work so well. One of these days I'll set up that scanner sitting in my closet).
Today is Mark's Birthday. I'm going to come right out and share something he doesn't even know. Mark is the sibling I admire the most. He always got great grades (actually trying to keep up with him was my motivation in school), he never got into trouble, and he always seemed to have life together. He has become a great teacher who really cares about his students. Something that I think is rare. And after years of having girls cushing over him (including almost all of my friends), he proved that waiting for the right person is worth it and much to my relief married a nice girl. But the greatest thing about him is that he has proven to be a great Uncle to my sons, which we all know is what really matters.
So here's to big brothers, great teachers & in Q's words an 'awesome Uncle'. Mark, I hope you are having a great day!

More Olympic socks

I discovered today that I had actually been added as a participant for the Knitting Olympics. I was so excited about this that I organized my sidebar a bit. I tried putting the FOs up and found that I really should take better pics and that I haven't blogged about all of them. Seems silly considering one of the reasons I started this was to have a record of what I knit. So my goal for my 2nd year blogging (yes, last month was my blogiversary) is to be more organized.

And I'll be posting more in the next couple of days, as I try to catch up with showing you the Olympic knitting that I did. In the pics are Z's socks, the 2nd pair of Olympic socks. This was a Valentine gift to her to celebrate her getting engaged to my brother last year on Valentines Day. The socks are knit with Lorna's Laces in the colorway Yellowstone, which is where they spent their honeymoon. I really wished that the colors weren't so girly, cause I wanted to make my brother a matching pair. (56 stitches; magic-loop toe-up; 3x1 ribbing; short-row toes & heels).

D is for Deanna

A big treat this past weekend was that I got to see my bestest friend. We don't get to see each other as often as we want and the times we do get together go by way too quickly.
She spoiled my kids and I rotten with Christmas gifts. (She gave
me 2 seasons of the Gilmore Girls!! I guess calling her up crying when I realized I could no longer get the WB in my area provoked sympathy for me? Either that or she had to figure out a way to keep me from whimpering every Tuesday.)

I knit her a pair of socks using Regia in the color way Las Vegas. (Thank you Maureen!!) She is
planning a trip to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks and these seemed perfect. And they fit, making me seem like a knowledgeable knitter...hehe. (they are knit magic-loop style, size 1 Addis, 3x1 ribbing, with lots of good luck mixed in for Vegas).

The biggest thing Dee's friendship has taught me is to be incredibly thankful when you are given the gift of an amazing friend. Friends like her are so rare and so good for one's soul. There is nothing like sharing things with her and everyday I wish we still lived by each other. But most importantly I am incredibly thankful that she is winning her 3+ year battle with cancer. Cause who else would know to make me a Ben Stiller collage for my birthday?