Friday, January 30, 2009

Cute or what????

Sleeping Beauty


I ask you, is she cute or what? I woke the other morning and this is what I find sound asleep on the loveseat. I grabbed my camera and started shooting. She didn't wake up and only moved a little. This is my mom's Daisy, she is beyond sweet and way too funny for words.

A close up of that sweet little face. When my mom wanted a sheepdog like mine I looked all over and finally found her in Southern California at an animal care center. When I brought her home to mom, it was love at first site. We now all live together and all three dogs get along fine. Daisy remains the funny girl she was when we got her and she is still mom's dog.

This is Daisy wide awake, her bangs were so long, I had to give her little pony tails so we could see her eyes and so she could see too.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

UFO's and the finish line

I have this goal, to finish a UFO! there I said it, I have a UFO, I actually have more than one, but this one I still really like and it has few or no mistakes.







The biggest mistake I made was not having enough yarn for the sweater. I started this sweater around 2001 and must have put it aside thinking I had misplaced the remainder of the yarn. When I pulled it out last year to finish it, I made the discovery that there was no more yarn, it had all been used in the progress.



Thankfully I had become a member of Ravelry, an online knitting community. I posted that I was looking for this really old yarn in apricot color. I didn't get just one, but two people who had the yarn and in the right color. I forgot to mention that I had purchased the yarn some 10 years earlier and bought it on sale, so it was probably no longer being made when I got it. Back to the story, I made a simple donation and the yarn was sent to me. While the yarn that was sent was a different dye lot it was pretty close and I had some of the original yarn to blend the knitting.

The button band with some buttons that I found at Britex in San Francisco, they are lucite from France... I thought it was perfect as the patten is one from the French yarn company (sadly no longer with us) Pinguoin. I have knit a couple of items that I found in their pattern books, I love the style and the patterns for the most part were well written and frankly if you knit classics, you can weare the garment for decades or until you wear them out...



Sunday, January 18, 2009

Random Knitting

Kristin Nicholas Rocks!


I started this sweater on December 10 2008, It is a Kristin Nicholas design. As you can see it is very textural. I love cable knitting, more cables the more I enjoy the process. I finished the back on December 27th, and now the fronts are cast off and the sleeves have been cast on and an inch or so is knit.

I had in my extensive stash, some beautiful merino wool. This is in wine color and is really beautiful. I cast on and knit the fronts on one circular needle. This sweater has a wonderful knotted rib knit

Here are the fronts on one needle just before I did the decreases for the neck edge and sleeve edge. This pattern went fast. I love all the cables and interest.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Happy New Year!



Goodbye 2008! Anyone else happy to see 2008 behind them? I know I'm happy, it was a tough year.... I'm not one for new year resolutions, and this will not be a year for exceptions. However, I have decided to embrace this year differently, to start each day with expectations of a wonderful day, do what is needed to do in order to have a good day. I was reading the blog of Bonne Marie Burns, of ChicKnit fame, and she talks of looking up this year, I think I too will be looking up and in more ways than to just lift my chin...

I'm going to;

- take more random photos
- post once per week to my blog (at minimum)
- design more baby sweaters
- write the patterns for what I have designed
- look for the good in people
- be the person I would like to meet and know
- be nicer to my husband
- knit out of my stash
- continue my yarn diet
- look for something each morning to be grateful about to start my day with a smile
- bring my lunch to work more days than not
- take more classes, knitting, jewelry making, self improvement
- start my water aerobics class again
- be better to myself
- dress better regardless of my size... I'm not where I would like to be, but heck, I'm what I am and I should enjoy

I will continue to add to this as I see more that I want to do in 2009 or change for that matter...