Busy as a Bee!

I have not written in my blog for some time, I have not been unfaithful, just really busy. Lots of stuff going on, lots of good stuff, and some stuff, not so good. We will gloss over the bad and just concentrate on the good stuff. I have embraced a new to me view of life, in my new view, I choose each day, to be happy, regardless of what outside forces try to make your day. Join me if you like, it feels pretty good.

Spring was fantastic and busy! Mom and I attended the Machine Knitting Guilds retreat at the Sonoma Orchid Inn. We relaxed, visited, knit, ate and generally had a great time. Mom had a lovely time visiting and getting to know some of our guild members. I actually began and finished a sweater over the weekend. I brought along some yarn that I found on Ebay a few years ago. It’s now a lovely sweater that mom and I both wear!

I finished a UFO! Woo hoo! The apricot cable sweater is finished! I had purchased the yarn from a yarn shop in San Carlos in the early 90’s. The yarn is/was Kitten by Reynolds. In 2001, I started the sweater from a Pingoin pattern magazine I had. I love those Pingoin patterns from France, they seem to be somewhat timeless in design. Anyway, I started it and stopped, the reason for the stop after finishing the back and nearly both of the fronts is that I was looking for the yarn needed to finish it, I was sure I had misplaced the remainder of the yarn, I just couldn’t think where. Skip ahead to 2008, I find the sweater and think, well, how many balls of yarn am I looking for? I count the balls used so far and realize that there are no more balls of yarn and after all that work, it looks like I’m stuck with part of a sweater.

I had just joined Ravelry and found a place you could put a call out for some yarn. I’m thinking what do I have to lose, so I put my call out and in comes several replies for the same yarn in the same color… enough to finish the sweater if I blend what I have left and what I found. That brings us to present day, the sweater is finished and I have actually worn it. It is warm and will not be wearing it again till next fall but at least it’s done.

More spring activity to tell you about. Mom and I were also lucky enough to attend a Wool dyeing workshop. We had three fabulous days with fun people, wool, knitting and lots of color. We couldn’t have had a better time, surrounded by all things we love. The wool I dyed turned out wonderful and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to set up my own dye space in the back yard where mom and I can hand paint yarn till our hearts content.

This is the swatch I knit for February Lady, from the yarn I hand painted at the wool dying work shop this spring. I'm actually done with the sweater, and will share it with you in a later post.

I'm telling you, we had a very busy spring, we also attended a bowling event in Reno Nevada, I will tell you that story another time, but to give you a hint, a good time was had by all, even Taggart. Mom had a wonderful visit with Glenn and Kate, giving Lee and I some time to get our DIY projects at least started around the house.

In closing, the bad stuff is still brewing, and I'm still choosing to be happy wish me luck.

Knit One Below and Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts;

A few items came to mind this morning that I wanted to take the time to share. I met a lady on Ravelry, we share some items in common and in our exchange of emails, she told me about her book club, and the books she was reading. I mentioned that I wish I had time to read, that is when she told me about her Ipod and audio books. What a concept, I went in search of my own MP3 player. I did some research and found that I liked the Creative Zen X-Fi 8GB. I have listened to several books already; Angels and Demons, Bone Garden, and now I'm listening to Choices. I now have time to read while doing things, I must admit I am really enjoying the abilty to read some of the many books that I have wanted to read.



Knit One Below samples;




I'm afraid that the photos don't really show the depth of color that the sample in person shows, but this is the best I can do at this point. I think I mentioned that I bought the book titled "Knit One Below". I did some samples, I showed one a few weeks ago with the blues and greens, knit in the two strand method. This sample is also knit with merino wool in varigated colors of rich autum colors, golds, and greens and some caramel colored mohiar from my extensive stash in the single strand method.

I'm so impressed with the feel of the knitted fabric and the colors are so amazing in this sample. The two yarns used beautiful all on their own, but together the colors are richer and the size of the stitch seems to show off the beauty of the yarns, each stitch almost looks like a different color of yarn was used.

It's Spring!

I think spring has sprung, or at least on my front porch it has. I found daffiodil bulbs on sale at WalMart in January, like 2 bucks a bag of 12 bulbs so we planted them in to a couple of pots. Once they bloomed, we moved them to the porch. I call Daffiodils smiles on a stem, how can you look at one and not want to smile...



I have a very small collection of garden bunnies, I'm always on the lookout for more, I love to nestle them in around my potted plants. I used to have a real bunny named Harvey, a lovely little mini lop. I now have this thing for bunnies and since I have too many sheepies, bunnies are out. So I now look for little garden variety bunnies found at your local Ross or Marshalls.




Here is a little tease! A sample of some yarns I'm using for a baby sweater that I'm currently working on publishing for you to all enjoy. It's a quick little knit for the baby in your family or that will be arriving soon. Be patient it will be done soon.

It's spring and time for the kids to get clipped. Here is my lovely little boy, this morning he followed me out to the living room while I sipped my coffee he stared at me. I'm guessing he wanted me to fix his breakfast... so sorry Taggart, but this is my quite time, the only time that I get on the weekends to just sip my coffee and work on my patterns or knitting or like this morning, I was finishing up my audio book. I must admit, he looks so damn cute.

Who Knew?

I was on line the other day, and looking thru online book stores... New World Books, and Alibris are two of my favorites, I love used books... but I digress. Anyway, I saw and bought a book, Knit One Below. The concept sounded interesting. It is, the book arrived a week ago and I have been playing with the concept, some with single yarns, and some with two yarns.... I was first using some inexpensive acrylic. While I was playing around, the idea struck me...

I have all this beautiful mohair, and it's like, what was I thinking? I can't wear fuzzy mohair sweaters for so many reasons, one is that I'm not a thin, tiny person, also, I hate to be over heated... but then there is the issue of my many, many mohair purchases over the years. I'm telling you, I have some mohair. You can probably imagine what it would be like for an adict when they see their drug of choice... then you can imagine what happens when I see mohair. As an artist, I think it is the color saturation that you get with mohair, even with light colors, the color is still saturated without being dark or muddy. So back to the concept with Knit One Below. I took the mohair in the photo above and then looked (yes at Stitches) for a complementary yarn to knit with it....

Is this merino just perfect or what? So I swatched to see if they would indeed come out and indeed they did or at least I think the combo is amazing. I'm not sure what I will do, a sweater or a what. Oh, look at the next photo and check out my swatch...




I think I'm in love... the swatch feels so good and I get to use my mohair and it's soft and has a minimal halo from the mohair, I think I can wear this.....

Crock full of love!

Crock Pot Love……mmmmmm

In my efforts to become more efficient and have more time to knit, I have enlisted the use of my crock pot. When I first hauled it out, I had no idea what to cook, how long to cook, how much liquid to add, what temperature to cook, essentially I had no idea of what to do with it, I only knew that I needed to use it to be more time efficient.

My first foray was pot roast, I had never much liked pot roast, but thought my husband and mom would enjoy it, so I tried it. With much success, even I liked the results. I made several of these and then I tried chicken stew, as I don’t much like beef stew but do like stewed poultry. Again, much success, so I tried my version of Mexican chicken. That one blew the socks off of everyone! So last night after several meals of poached salmon (it was on sale), I decided to make my Mexican Chicken except with beef…. So here goes.

1 2 to 3lb chuck roast
1 Jar Southwest Salsa (you pick the heat) I used mild
1 Lg. can diced tomatoes, all the liquid
1 can black beans, all the liquid
1 cup frozen corn
1 Pk. Burrito seasoning

Dump all the ingredients into the crock pot and put on high for 6 hours.

Serve with steamed flour tortillas, and taco fixings; shredded lettuce, sour cream, shredded cheese, onions, cilantro, diced avocado and tomatoes.

Came out really yummy and probably will make about 8 meals

The cost per meal came out to around $2.75 per.

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.

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...