Orna-mental

So what does a knitter do after all the Christmas knitting is finished, with a big bag of frayed satin ornaments
and a batch of leftover yarn from the latest stocking project?Why, she knits ornaments, of course!Of course there are plenty of non-Christmas projects on the to-do list, many of which I won't even have to buy yarn for. Good to know since I'm trying desperately to reduce the overall size of my yarn stash.

Three Hats and the Last Two Stockings

In November at my last craft fair of the year, I received a custom order for three adult-sized hats. The customer had seen my baby/toddler hats and wanted a couple of them done in adult sizes for herself and two friends. They were finished a couple of evenings ago and picked up this morning. Here are the three hats:
I also finished up the last two stockings, going to two different customers. The first one is someone who found me at a craft fair in November and requested one stocking to be made in time for Christmas and another in preparation for next year. Here is the stocking that I made for her for this year:The last one for this year goes to a friend who had me make two for her for last Christmas for her new son-in-law and daughter-in-law. This year she has a new granddaughter (born right before Thanksgiving) and needed a stocking for the new baby. Here's Mckinzie's stocking:
Now I'm done with the Christmas knitting and I can relax and start figuring out how to get the house straightened up for company that will be coming in the next week or so. But, never fear! There is still plenty of knitting left for me to do this winter - one Christmas stocking pre-ordered for next year, two scarves with probably more to come, not to mention snowball hats, yoga mat bags, yoga socks, and legwarmers. Oh, yes, and a few pairs of socks for dear hubby who is running very short on hand-knitted socks as his are all several years old and wearing out.

That said, I'd like to wish all of my loyal readers (all two of you! LOL) a very Merry Christmas and a joyful and prosperous New Year.

California Stockings are Done and Shipped!

The custom stockings that I received the order for last Thursday are done and on their way to California. They are supposed to be delivered by tomorrow at 3 p.m. I thought they turned out fairly well considering how quickly they had to be made.Upcoming: 3 custom-knitted hats and two more stockings, and then I'll be done with the Christmas knitting for this year. Hooray!

A Moment of Insanity

As if I didn't have more than enough to do before Christmas, I just agreed to take on yet another custom order. I received notification of an Etsy purchase, and then the customer immediately emailed me to say that she had just purchased the white stocking, but could she have it knitted in red, with her husband's name added, and get it to California by Christmas?

I replied with a price quote that included a personalization fee, a rush order charge, and the postal service's charge for overnight shipping (for what I thought was a simply exorbitant total price) and her response was "Great! Can you make one with my name on it too?" And only a week before Christmas Eve! I surely must be nuts!

Doing the Impossible - and Doing It Well!

In my last post I mentioned having to do an "impossible" afghan. The backstory is this: In October, I was contacted by someone who said that she had an afghan pattern worked in squares and that she needed some help putting it together. I envisioned someone who had all the squares knitted and just needed a little coaching on seaming techniques. Boy, was I wrong!

When I arrived to meet with the customer, she presented me with a pattern book
and a big bag full of yarn


and explained that this was the yarn she had chosen for the afghan pattern she wanted.

The problem? The afghan pattern calls for the squares to be knit with the same size needles, the same number of stitches and rows - BUT the three yarns she had chosen were all different weights - one bulky, one worsted, and one almost a fingering weight. Needless to say, it was a huge challenge to somehow make it all work out.

The end result, although frustrating to produce (involving multiple needle sizes and doubling the lightweight yarn to make the blocks come out the same size), turned out surprisingly well. I was a bit disappointed (although not surprised) that the cables pretty much disappear into the color changes of the variegated yarn. Had I made the choice, I would have chosen the variegated yarn for the plain stockinette blocks, the brown bulky yarn for the double moss stitch, and the solid blue for the cables.
However, the customer was delighted and paid what I asked without batting an eye (although in retrospect I think I probably should have charged more for this job). The biggest downside was that due to a scheduling glitch and a looming deadline I developed a major case of tendinitis in one hand and wore a splint on one finger for a couple of days to give myself time to recover. However, it's done and delivered and now it's on to the next project (or six!).

A Couple of Baby Blankets

In October I mentioned a baby blanket that I was working on but never got a photo posted of the completed blanket. I thought it turned out really well and enjoyed working on it. I ended up driving all over Metro-East trying to find the perfect shade of green for the border, and ended up settling for what I could find. It doesn't match exactly, but I thought it looked better than the yellow border would have.

Then shortly after that blanket was finished, my son's girlfriend came by and asked if I could make her a "John Deere" baby blanket for her friend who is a farmer and just had a baby. After finding some appropriate green and yellow yarn in my stash and contemplating all the possibilities, I ended up with this:

I was basically happy with how well both blankets turned out, and I'm really wanting to do a couple more baby blankets, but alas, duty calls and instead I have to knit two customized Christmas stockings, three hats, an impossible afghan, and probably two or three other things that will crop up between now and Christmas.

Knitting with Wire and Beads, Part Two

A while back I blogged about a knitting class I took in Springfield, called "Knitting with Wire and Beads" and taught by my friend Dianna. You can imagine my surprise last Friday when she called me to say that she had a work conflict with her next session of that class and would I consider teaching in her place? I ended up agreeing to teach the class, and she offered to provide her already prepared handouts, samples, and materials for me to use.

Yesterday with no small amount of trepidation I set out for Springfield. There were four people signed up, with only one no-show, and the three students that I worked with did really well. Even the one who had the most difficult time commented on how much she enjoyed the class. They all gave me straight 5's on my evaluations, too. Overall I'm really happy with how well the class worked out, and I'll be looking forward to teaching again next semester.

Five Generations Times Two

Recently my mom has started sorting through a bunch of family photos, and last weekend she brought a bunch in for me to look at. Among the photos she brought in were two that I found of particular interest. The first one was taken in the summer of 1958. The baby in this photo is me. The adults are my dad, my grandma, my great-grandpa, and my great-great-grandmother.

The second photo was taken in 1977. The baby in this photo is my oldest son Ben. The adults are myself, my dad, my grandma, and my great-grandma.

I have not known anyone else in real life who has five-generation photos in two consecutive generations, and I just thought it was pretty cool. I'll probably enlarge both of them, frame them, and hang them somewhere in the house soon.

Preparing for Next Semester Classes

Proposal forms came out this week for Spring 2010 classes. I have to get outlines prepared and all of my proposals submitted by Friday, November 6.
I'll definitely be re-offering Knitting 101, and adding a new class called Knitting and Computers. I'm thinking about a couple of other classes as well. Any suggestions would be welcome and appreciated!
I'll definitely continue my individual computer tutoring sessions as I'm really enjoying those and the students I've had seem to be liking them as well. I may also be teaching a private computer class for a bank's senior citizen group in Hillsboro. Lots to think about, more to do. Not to mention a knitting project list a mile long. Too bad I can't figure out how to knit and type at the same time!

An Interesting Prayer Shawl Experience

A couple of months ago when I was buying yarn at the Litchfield Wal-Mart (our local one doesn't have yarn) I was led to pick up a couple of skeins of a pretty rose colored yarn for a prayer shawl. I understood that it was for someone fairly young and recently widowed but couldn't really think of anyone who fit that description at the time.

In mid-August, my cousin Rose's husband died fairly unexpectedly at the age of 56. At that point I realized who the shawl was to be for, and so I was able to direct my prayers specifically for her as I knitted the shawl. It has been finished and sitting on my piano for a couple of weeks now and I was wondering how I would get it to Rose, since I don't see her on a regular basis - usually just at family reunions once or twice a year.

Soooo..............this morning I was packing up my knitting bag and some last-minute items to take with me to a craft fair that I'm doing about 35 miles away from home, and heard a little voice saying "take the shawl with you." I raised my eyebrows, shrugged my shoulders, and packed the shawl into one of the gift bags I use to present the shawls. After I arrived at the show I was fairly busy with sales for a while and then there was a lull. I straightened some things on my table and when I looked up, there was Rose standing right in front of me! I gave her the shawl and we chatted for a while before she left.

Later as I thought about the experience there were two things that stood out to me: first, that I wish I knew how to always be that "tuned in"; and second, I wonder why I was so surprised that things worked out that way?

Current WIP

A few weeks ago I was asked to provide a knitted baby blanket for our local Catholic Charities fundraiser dinner/auction. I was most happy to oblige since that gave me an excuse to try out a new pattern that I wanted to knit: Grumperina's Honeymoon Blanket. I had also been looking at Bernat's Baby Jacquards yarn, and this seemed to be the ideal pattern for me to try it out. So far I'm really pleased with how it's turning out.

Instead of a regular cast-on, I made a crochet chain cast-on of 163 stitches and started knitting my first block in the center of those stitches. Then as I added blocks I picked up more sts from the cast-on chain as needed. When I have it all knitted up and the four parts seamed together, I'll unravel the chain cast-on and pick up those stitches for the solid-color border.

Now I just need to decide whether I'm going to settle for solid yellow for the border (which I actually have on hand) or if I'm going to try and track down the green that I'd really like (Bernat Softee Baby in Soft Fern) instead. Mary Maxim has it in stock but I'd hate to have to pay shipping for one ball of yarn. I know that the yellow would be fine but the green would be fantastic.

I've really enjoyed working on this blanket and might have to do it again soon. I'll definitely post pics when it's finished before I turn it over to the fundraising committee.

Another Prayer Shawl presentation

Today I had the privilege of presenting a prayer shawl to a newly baptized member of our church congregation. It has become a tradition in our church that a prayer shawl is made and presented to anyone who chooses to be baptized as a member of our church, and I've been delighted to make the prayer shawls as needed.

In June, shortly after I learned that Maggie had asked to be baptized, I was in Michael's looking for yarn for another project when I spotted a yarn I hadn't seen before: Red Heart Collage. The Blue Wave color virtually leapt off the shelf into my arms, loudly proclaiming "I want to be Maggie's prayer shawl!" Naturally I couldn't argue with a proclamation like that (not to mention the excuse to buy yarn!), so three balls of the yarn went home with me that day to become a prayer shawl.I really love the way it turned out. The color is totally reminiscent of baptismal waters (the light blue is a little bluer than it appears in the photo) and three balls were just enough to make an awesome shawl. I don't know (right now) of anyone else needing a prayer shawl but I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use this yarn again.

Namaste

About a year and a half ago, my friend Sue invited me to attend a yoga class with her. This class has been going on for a couple years and is free to anyone who wishes to attend. I'm grateful to her for the invitation, because I would never have had the gumption to show up on my own, and going to yoga is absolutely the best thing I've ever done for myself. The class is available five mornings a week (and two evenings) and I attend every morning I possibly can get there.

In January, Sue began a training course to be come a certified Pranakriya yoga teacher. The course ended with her graduation on Sunday, September 13. Yesterday our yoga group celebrated her graduation with a wonderful dinner in the (awesome) home of one of the class members.

I've been working on a prayer shawl which I presented to Sue at the celebration dinner. In order to make it more of a group gift rather than just from me, I precut strands of yarn for fringe and everyone at the dinner was able to help tie on the fringe.Although it doesn't show up very well in the photo, the shawl has the word "namaste" knitted into it. "Namaste" is a Sanskrit greeting meaning essentially "The light within me honors the light within you", typically offered at the end of a yoga practice.

Congratulations, Sue! Thank you for being a wonderful friend. Namaste!

I Got the Check!

I received my check today from Mary Maxim in payment for the pattern that I sold to them. I guess that officially makes me a published designer now. Not to mention that we can definitely use the money!

I did verify that the baby blanket I submitted along with the big blanket did not win any prizes. In fact it should have been returned to me in July when they sent back all of the non-winning entries. Now they're busy trying to track down what they might have done with my blanket so that they can get it back to me. It will be up for sale on my Etsy site as soon as I get it back.

The heart blanket will stay at Mary Maxim to be photographed for the catalog and the printed pattern folder. It is supposed to be returned to me in March or April. Meanwhile I will be sure to post a link as soon as the pattern is available on their website.

Car Seat Challenge

Those of you who know me in real life are no doubt aware that I have been a nationally certified Child Passenger Safety Technician for a little over six years now. What that means is that I've attended a certification class and lots of trainings so that I can (and will!) tell you more than you ever wanted to know about car seats and child passenger safety. I can also tell you that despite massive advances in child passenger protection, car crashes remain the number one cause of death of children between 1 and 14 years of age, in part because some families lack the resources to provide the correct seats to keep their children safe.

In the past six years I've worked closely with our local Safe Kids coalition and the Public Health Department to help with checking car seats for proper installation and use, and distributing free or low-cost seats to those families in need. For several years the Health Department has distributed seats to families that for whatever reason lack the means to purchase a seat on their own. These seats were purchased with grant funding from the national Safe Kids organization. Unfortunately Safe Kids, being primarily funded by contributions from General Motors, has fallen on hard times and the grant funding is no longer available for the Health Department's distribution program. The loss of grant money means that Public Health will not be able to provide car seats to families that have need.

As a temporary measure to “bridge the gap” until more permanent funding can be secured, our church's Mission Leadership Team is issuing a challenge to all of our local religious and service organizations to provide at least 1 car seat per month over the course of 6 months, for a proposed total cost of $360 for each congregation/organization.

I am proud to say that as of today, a little more than a week after the original letters were sent to the other churches and service organizations, we have commitments for a total of $1020 in car seat funding. In addition, our congregation has already given $230, plus one additional car seat was purchased and brought to the church (and has been delivered to the health department for distribution).

The Mission Leadership Team will be tracking the response and I'll update with new totals as we receive updated responses from the other congregations and organizations on the list.

So It's Official!

Today I checked into the Lincoln Land Community Learning website and discovered that the fall schedule has been finalized. I'll be teaching a knitting class on three Thursdays, September 24 and October 1 & 8. I'll also be available for one-on-one computer tutoring for anyone who wants to sign up.

The schedule also contains a photo of me (scary!) and a short blurb about my knitting and computing skills. If this semester works out well I'm hoping to add a couple of additional knitting classes in the spring, and maybe one-on-one knitting tutoring as well.

Baby Blanket Mania

I know that I haven't posted much about my knitting projects lately; however that doesn't mean that I have stopped knitting. On the contrary, I still manage to have something handy to work on wherever I happen to be. During the hottest part of the summer, I made a LOT of dishcloths.

When we left on vacation, I took a lot of yarn with me, and a lot of knitting needles, and a bunch of patterns. Oddly enough, I ended up coming home with not much to show for my week away. When we took off on the canoe trip, I took much less yarn with me, and didn't get a whole lot accomplished then either.

However, since returning home I've finished up two baby blankets. I had some leftover baby sport yarn in white and yellow and I thought that I could use it up and decrease my stash a bit. The resulting project, Little Hearts, is a variation on my contest entry full size afghan shown here.
Here is a close-up of the heart blocks:
Unfortunately, the use-up-the-yarn-stash plan totally backfired as I ran out of yellow yarn on the last row of the final set of heart blocks and had to purchase another 11 ounce skein of yellow to complete the blanket. Now I have almost a whole skein of yellow yarn sitting around in my stash.

The second blanket was a special request from one of my church friends. She asked me to make a pink blanket using the same pattern I had made before as another of her friends will be having a baby soon. I finished it up and took it to her at church this morning.

Coming up:

• a country blue and white Double Hearts afghan for a friend at church
• a prayer shawl for my cousin who lost her husband this week at 56 years old
• another prayer shawl for a young friend who will be baptized next month
• another baby blanket for a yoga friend
• a pair of socks and a nordic hat for another friend
• a dozen water bottle covers in purple and red for someone to give her Red Hat friends as gifts (anyone know where I can find purple and red variegated yarn?)
  
• a whole bunch of fruit hats in preparation for the Historical Society's Fall Festival coming up in September.

Guess I should really get off the computer and get busy knitting!

A New Venture for Me

Well, it appears that things are looking up on the employment front. This morning I met with the Community Education coordinator for Lincoln Land Community College at their Litchfield campus, and it was a very fruitful meeting. Starting this fall I will be providing one-on-one computer tutoring for their Community Education department. I have also been asked to submit a proposal for a knitting class, and possibly some other classes are in the making.

When the new fall schedule is published it will be available here. Of course the one-on-one tutoring is entirely dependent on having people sign up to be tutored, so if you know anyone in need of some basic computer skills, be sure to pass the word!

This Year's Vacation

Last year for our vacation we traveled to Illini State Park near Marseilles, IL where we camped for a week and traversed part of the I&M Canal trail on our bicycles. We had thunderstorms four of the seven nights that we camped out, the tornado siren went off once, and I sustained a hugely painful knee injury falling off my bike on one of the trails. Other than that we had a fabulous vacation.

This year for various reasons we chose to return to the same location. The weather was fabulous (except for one day when we and the bikes got rather wet on the trail), there were no bike mishaps on the trail, and we had a really wonderful time. Since we didn't want to cover the same ground that we had last year, we drove the van to the last year's respective endpoints and rode our bikes further from there. By the end of the week we had covered a total of 71 miles on our bikes, and between the two trips we have now covered the majority of the trail. We reached the westernmost point of the trail at LaSalle/Peru on one trip and got as far as Aux Sable access on our other long riding day. We found that the trail conditions varied from mostly well-maintained toward the eastern end to very rustic and challenging on the western end. However we really enjoyed the trip and are planning another biking vacation for next year.

Afghan Design Contest Results

Well, I heard from Mary Maxim today. I didn't win the first prize (although the lady who called said it was very close) but they wanted to buy the heart afghan pattern from me anyway! So when the December issue of the Mary Maxim catalog is released I'll be a published designer. I'm pretty excited and will definitely post a link to the pattern once it's published.

Sad Day

Today is a sad day for me. After being a licensed family child care home provider for the past 23 years, it became necessary to allow my license to expire when it came up for renewal. Today my final license expired. Although I realize that it was a necessary move, I'm still very sad to have had to give up what has become my life's work. It's odd to walk through the house and see lots of equipment that is no longer needed, and very strange when I catch myself in a store thinking "This would work out really well for the daycare -- oh, wait! There isn't a daycare any more." It feels funny to have a computer full of finely edited documents including a parent handbook and many curriculum ideas, which I won't be using any more but represent way too much work to just delete off the hard drive. And I still will catch myself contemplating about how I could incorporate such-and-such activity into the daycare routine before I remember that all those thoughts are now irrelevant. My Child Development Associate credential, my Special Needs training certification, 12 semester hours of Early Childhood classes have all become moot.

I don't know what I'll end up doing next (except that I'll definitely keep on knitting while I wait to find out what's coming) but I'm sure that there will be something new and different in store at some point. I'll be sure to update when I find out what is coming.

Afghan Design Contest

So in a burst of inspiration (or insanity! LOL) I decided to enter the afghan design contest at Mary Maxim (one of my yarn suppliers). They had four categories available, with first prizes of $500 for each category, and a grand prize of $1500 for the overall winner (the best of the four category winners). I chose to enter two categories - baby blanket and knitted afghan - and have been knitting like crazy for the past couple of weeks. I finally have them both ready to go and I'm really happy with the way that both have turned out.

The full sized afghan (called Double Hearts) uses a combination of seed stitch knitted with a double strand of yarn (1 strand each of two colors) and double-knitted panels with one strand on each side of the afghan. The end result is a pretty afghan with reversible heart panels.
The baby afghan (Primary Blocks) is a riot of bright primary colors, with a center square knitted from four diagonal blocks that I joined while knitting, and then borders of bright yellow with blue corners and an outside border of red. One of my sons pointed out the irony of using pastels (or at least pink) for the full sized afghan and primary colors for the baby afghan, but I really like them both. If I win first prize in either category, they will pay me the prize money and keep both the afghan and the pattern. Otherwise I'll get them back and have two afghans and two patterns to sell on my Etsy site. It's a win-win situation no matter what happens.

Dye-ing to Tell You

So today I had to make a trip to Springfield to pick up some yarn for my contest entries, and my first stop was at Hobby Lobby. I realized halfway through knitting the center section of the baby blanket that I was going to run out of the variegated yarn and needed another skein – and of course I needed to match the dye lot of the skein I bought in March. I had slipped one of the skein bands into my wallet so I'd be able to check since I didn't really want to buy THREE skeins of the variegated yarn and start over, but after nearly three months I wasn't really optimistic that I'd be able to match the dye lot. You can imagine my surprise when the very first skein of the variegated yarn that I laid my hands on was that exact dye lot!

I also decided that I needed to pick up another skein of the yellow just in case I ran short, but I just had to grab that one and go since I hadn't thought ahead to bring the skein band of that color. Needless to say, when I arrived home I was doubly amazed to find that the dye lot of the yellow yarn matched as well!

Now to get busy and finish knitting up these two projects.....

Mystery Project Revealed

In my last post I mentioned a secret project that I didn't want to reveal yet. Now that the recipient has received the surprise I can talk about it here.

Recently all of the church members were invited to a surprise party for our church's administrative assistant, celebrating her more than 15 years of service to our church. Because I know that her favorite color is yellow, and because I had drooled over some awesomely beautiful yellow yarn when I was yarn shopping in March, it was immediately obvious that I needed to knit her a prayer shawl out of that gorgeous yellow yarn. I made a quick trip to Litchfield after one of my Gillespie meetings and picked up the yarn, then knitted like crazy for about a week. I think the color is simply luscious, and the yarn is so soft......On Thursday the party was held with a good portion of the congregation in attendance, and I was able to joyfully present Sue with her prayer shawl. I always love to present prayer shawls for celebratory occasions instead of just in times of stress.
So now it's on to the next 30 things on the list......

A Busy Week (or Three)

I've been busy this week finishing up a few projects that I've had in the works for a while, some of which had been languishing on the needles for several weeks. I decided that I wanted to get at least a few of these finished before I started anything new. I'm almost done with my latest pair of socks and need to weave in loose ends on a couple of bigger things that I have had "done, but not finished" for some time. I expect to get the blanket and the afghan listed on Etsy in the next couple of days. I also have to knit a pair of men's slippers in addition to the pair I knitted last night so I can ship them out as a custom Etsy order by Wednesday. As soon as the socks are finished and delivered to their recipient, I'll be working on some wire-knitted jewelry, a couple of felted bags, and a secret project I can't post yet in case the recipient happens to read my blog (not to mention whatever else comes up unexpectedly in the meantime).

Two More Blankets are Done!

So the yellow blanket was finished late last week, and I delivered it to church on Palm Sunday.

The white one was finished on Monday evening and delivered to choir rehearsal on Wednesday evening.
I guess after knitting three baby blankets in two and a half weeks, I'm about blanketed out for a while. Time to work on something else completely different.

Knitting with Wire and Beads

Today I went to Springfield to take a community education class titled "Knitting with Wire and Beads", taught by my good friend Dianna. I thoroughly enjoyed the class and was able to complete my bracelet during the class session.


When I left the class I was extremely inspired and felt compelled to stop by Hobby Lobby to pick up an assortment of wire and beads for some additional projects. How fortuitous that all of their beads were 50% off today, and the wire was 30% off! I was able to stock up on an assortment of supplies and can't wait to get going on some new projects. It's really too bad that my fingers can't keep up with my brain.

First Blanket is Finished!

So I finished the first baby blanket on Friday evening and delivered it to my friend at church on Sunday.
She was very happy with it and presented me with a check right away (although I think she must be a bit mathematically challenged as the check was written for more than the price I told her I was charging for the blanket.

The organist asked about my progress on the blanket that he had ordered, and since I had the work-in-progress with me (like all good knitters, I never go anywhere without something to work on) I pulled it out of my bag and showed him how it was coming along. He loved the shade of yellow that I had found and seemed anxious to get the finished blanket, and then he surprised me by announcing that he really needed me to knit a white one just like it for him as well. So I guess I'll be using up the extra white yarn I had from the last white blanket I made earlier this month. Just as well, since I'm trying to work from my yarn stash as much as possible instead of buying new yarn.

What Happened to Spring??

On Tuesday evening it was warm enough for thunderstorms and rainbows. This morning when I got up, came downstairs, and looked out the kitchen door, I saw this:

Looking out the front door wasn't much better:


Granted it was mostly melted by late this afternoon, but I was totally unimpressed by the whole thing. I'm not a winter person to start with, so having winter slop over into what is supposed to be spring is not very impressive to me.

Can't wait for "sunny and warmer" to arrive!

Rainbow

I was just working on the computer and listening to the rain when I noticed that it had gotten quite a bit brighter outside. I looked out the window and saw this absolutely gorgeous rainbow in the sky. I grabbed the camera and snapped a couple of shots, but like so many things in life, the photos don't really do justice to the actual live rainbow.

Two Baby Blanket Orders

A dear friend from church had recently asked if I would be able to knit a baby blanket for her to give to her friends who are expecting a baby soon after having miscarried their first child. We agreed to meet at church on Tuesday evening so I could show her some sample blankets and some patterns. She looked over what I had to show her and quickly settled on the white blanket I had made - except that she wanted it in green. I assured her that it was no problem to make a green version of that pattern, and as I was gathering up my blankets and patterns to head home, the church organist asked to look at them, as he also has friends who are parents-to-be. He really liked the green blanket that I had, except that he wanted it in yellow. So now when I go to Springfield tomorrow I have to go yarn shopping as well.

Local Government Gone Awry

Yesterday was a wonderful spring day, so I spent about an hour and half in the afternoon raking up leaves in the play yard. (Note that I didn't mention getting ALL the leaves raked, as the central feature of our play yard is a very large oak tree with a propensity for holding onto last year's leaves as long as possible in the most miserly way; consequently I'll be raking up newly dropped old leaves at least until mid-June.) At the end of that time I had a pile of loosely stacked dry leaves roughly the size of a small car. Ideally I could have tossed a match on the pile, watched them burn quickly, and been done with the whole lot in about twenty minutes or less.

Unfortunately our local city council in all their infinite wisdom (insert heavy sarcasm here) has decreed that today was not a good leaf-burning day. In fact the only acceptable days to burn leaves, according to the council, are the first seven calendar days of any given month. Never mind that the first seven days of March were cold, rainy, and extremely windy and therefore totally not conducive to leaf burning in any form. Supposedly the rationale for limiting burning had to do with a small handful of vocal residents who claimed that leaf smoke aggravated their respiratory conditions and that burning should be banned entirely. Since that is totally impractical for most of the population, they opted to limit burning to a specific calendar time frame.

The only problem is that their plan doesn't work. Had I been able to burn my leaves today they would have been gone and forgotten about. But legally they have to sit and wait for another two weeks before being burned. Of course it started raining about 4:30, so they are no longer dry and loosely packed. In the two weeks before April 1, they will continue to compact and be rained on, and develop huge quantities of various molds. When I am finally able to burn these leaves, the resulting fire will be dark, smoky, and full of mold spores; consequently creating much more respiratory inflammation than the same leaves burned dry would have done. Multiply that by 800 or so local households all burning on the same few days instead of spread out throughout the month, and the result is indeed irritating - even to those of us with healthy respiratory systems.

Some people have suggested that other methods of disposing of leaves should be employed and leaves should not be burned at all. It's a concept that's great theoretically but not so great in practice. Composting the leaves might be an option, except that our trees produce such a prodigious quantity that we would quickly find ourselves knee-deep in composting leaves throughout the entire yard (oak leaves don't break down readily - they easily take two to three times as long as some other leaves to decompose). Bagging the leaves and hauling them off is time-consuming as well as expensive since someone has to purchase the bags as well as the gasoline for the hauling vehicle. And so it is that I am left with a huge pile of wet molding leaves that I'm hoping to burn in April, as they will be much worse if I have to leave them until May.

Wouldn't it be nice if the city council would just admit that they made a mistake and repeal the burning ordinance?

New Blog Feature

I had a little bit of extra time this morning to tinker around with the blog, and I finally figured out how to add something - a miniature representation of my Etsy store items. This block shows a randomly selected group of my Etsy listings with a link to take you directly to my Etsy store. I haven't yet figured out exactly how it determines which items to show, so if you click back later you may find different items pictured.

Anyway I hope you'll take a look. You never know when you might find something that you just can't get by without!

The Blanket is Finished

So the yarn that I bought by remote control (see this post) worked up into a beautiful lacy baby blanket.

I finished the blanket on Friday night and shipped it on Monday afternoon. On Wednesday I was very pleasantly surprised to receive this email from the purchaser:

"Hello there, I just wanted to let you know, I received my blanket today. I left feedback for you, but I wanted to make sure you knew personally that I love it so much. It matches a baby gown I have for my new baby boy on the way, I can't wait to use it. Thank you for your talents and time. Very excellent service and so fast.

Thanks again, Rebekah."

I'm so delighted to hear that she loved the blanket. It's very rare to receive actual feedback from purchasers and it is such a good feeling.

Now I'm off and knitting on the next project - a pair of socks for one of my special friends.









I can't wait to get them done and see how she likes them!

P.S. Unfortunately the chocolate is all gone now!

The (Dark) Dawn of DST

So once again we lose an hour of sleep in order to make the politicians happy. Unfortunately by the time we get it back in the fall my sleep deficit has multiplied to the point where I really need that hour returned with interest. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I really don't need to have my body clock biannually readjusted (or maladjusted!). Studies have shown that the incidence of heart attacks, work accidents, and other unfortunate occurrences are increased by as much as 5% in the days immediately following the spring time change. And to what purpose, really?? Daylight Savings Time makes about as much sense to me as cutting ten inches off the bottom of your blanket and sewing it onto the top because your blanket is too short. In the end, we all only have 24 hours in a day no matter how it's configured, and that's never really enough time. Bottom line, I don't really care whether we stay on Daylight time or go back to Standard time, but let's please just pick one and stick with it! Enough already!

Yarn Shopping by Remote Control

And so a new month has arrived, bringing with it yet another new and interesting knitting challenge. I've been conversing on Etsy for a couple of days with a potential customer who was interested in a blanket I already had listed for sale, only she wanted it in a different color. When she confirmed this afternoon that she did indeed want me to make the blanket, I was here at home with my peacefully sleeping grandson and a seven-day deadline to finish the blanket (which of course I hadn't started yet, not having known about the order ahead of time). Naturally I didn't have any appropriate white yarn available here at home (so much for my resolution to diminish my stash as much as possible), and there is no longer anywhere local to purchase yarn. However, Mike and Jeremy were in Litchfield doing some sort of ham radio project, so I called Jeremy's cell phone and asked if they would be willing to stop by the-store-which-shall-not-be-named on the way home to pick up some yarn. When they arrived in the yarn department they called me, and I was able to explain exactly what kind of yarn I wanted, and naturally the yarn I needed wasn't there (that's the ***-**** way!) although there was an empty bin with the appropriate label attached. I was then able to talk them through finding an alternative and eventually they came up with something that I could use in place of the yarn I had originally wanted. Then they hung up and headed off to check out.

Some time later, they arrived home and handed me my bag of yarn and a bonus!

Yes, my son totally understands my chocolate addiction.

Needless to say, I got busy working on both items. So far I've knitted about three inches of the baby blanket and it's gone rather quickly. And yes, there still are some peanut butter cups left in the bag. I figured I'd need at least a few to get through yet another Monday.

"I Pledge Allegiance....."

So today the Little Guy and his mommy came over for a visit. Naturally he was excited to demonstrate the newest thing he has learned - the Pledge of Allegiance! (or Pwedze of Awwediance) He can recite it right through from beginning to end without missing a single word. Of course his articulation is not perfect, but I had no trouble understanding what he was saying, and at the very end he added his own special touch, saying "...wif wibbety and dustis fo' aww - OH YEAH!!"

Some Random Knitterly Thoughts

It's been a busy knitting month around here. I've completed (and listed on Etsy) three winky-wonky scarves:


I've also done a few dishcloths. One of my friends attended a weekend women's retreat, and received a goodie bag which contained, among other things, a ball of yarn and a pair of knitting needles.

She decided that she wasn't really that interested in learning to knit, so she gave me the yarn and needles. I made a basic diagonal dishcloth

and had some yarn left over, but not enough to make a second dishcloth. So I combined the leftover yarn with some solid color yarn I had on hand, and made a two-toned round dishcloth. Both of these went back to the friend who gave me the yarn.

I also knitted three pairs of slippers as a special request for another friend (who is also our church organist)

and a special baby hat for yet another church friend.

This pattern is very special because it's the one her mother-in-law used to make to give as baby gifts for all of the new babies in the family. Since she is no longer with us, I was asked if I could duplicate the hat pattern and now I'm the official supplier of Joie baby hats for the family.

Of course the month is far from over. I still have to make two pairs of socks for two of my yoga sisters (one pair is started, still looking for the right yarn to do the other), and several other projects that have been on the back burner for a while.

Party Animal!

I celebrated my birthday last Saturday (and THIS year I got to really celebrate, unlike last year). Of course I'm turning into a real party animal now -- I partied four days in a row! On Friday night Mike took me to Knit Wits in Springfield, where he purchased a pair of sock blockers for me as my birthday gift. After a couple other stops we drove further north to Sherman and had dinner at Cancun. A wonderful evening was enjoyed by both of us, and we even made it home at a (semi) reasonable hour.

On Saturday (my actual birthday) I was delighted to attend "Love and Chocolate" held in Blackburn's Bothwell Auditorium. The show was a delightful mix of love songs from different eras and genres, and the fact that I knew several of the performers only enhanced the enjoyment. The tickets to this show were a birthday gift from two of my dear neighbors.

On Sunday afternoon, three of my four kids, my parents, son-in-law, grandson, and his mommy all gathered here for dinner and to celebrate my birthday and Jeremy's. Mike made Italian beef in the crcokpot, Sara made pasta salad, and bought the rest of the groceries. She also baked the cake AND put trick candles on it! We had a marvelous time celebrating family and togetherness.

On Monday morning my friend Sue hosted the "yoga sisters" at her house to celebrate my birthday. She baked a luscious carrot cake and spoiled us with a choice of a warm cider drink and various teas. I received an assortment of lovely gifts from my very special yoga sisters.

I think I'm about partied out though. I can't remember any other time in my life when I've had four days of partying in a row. Maybe things will be peaceful and quiet for a few days (and maybe I can remember how to act when that happens).

Field trip!

Today was the long-awaited fabulous knitting class field trip. Two of my knitting students, one of their friends, and I set off this morning to head to Decatur. Our driver is a Decatur native, so in addition to our yarn store destination we got the grand tour of the town; where she grew up, where her husband grew up, where they went to school, etc. Then we drove downtown and entered Enticements, a wonderful yarn shop in downtown Decatur. Two hours later, the four of us emerged with filled shop bags and lighter wallets. After a quick stop at Del's Popcorn Shop, where chocolate and other goodies were procured, we headed off to Monical's Pizza for a fabulous buffet lunch. After we had filled our plates and our stomachs it was decided that we needed to walk off some of the calories we had consumed, so off we headed to Hobby Lobby to buy still more yarn! After a stop at Sam's Club for some essential groceries and a quick trip through the Culver's drive-through for ice cream, we headed for home. At the end of the trip we all agreed that it had been a fabulous day, and we can't wait to do it again (once our wallets have recovered, of course!).

The Winky-Wonky Scarf is finished

I finished up the Winky-Wonky scarf and was pleased with how it turned out. The photos don't really do it justice because I was working under less than optimal lighting conditions. Even my mom liked it. It came out a bit narrower than I would have liked, but I'm planning to do another one using needle one size larger and I think it will be simply awesome.

Here's a close-up to show the stitch detail:
Now I need to get my pattern proofed and posted for sale on the Etsy site. One awesome thing about selling original patterns is that I have no shipping cost to email the pdf file. Next I need to get the snowball hat pattern transcribed. I'm also planning a couple of felted bags, but I need to hunt up a graph that I used several years ago to make a double-knitted blanket as I want to put that design on one of the bags.

Yoga Mat Bag pics and the Winky-Wonky Scarf

Today I managed to photograph the yoga mat bag for the first time. I really like the simple pattern and the peaceful earth tones of this bag. It also came out just the right size to fit my yoga mat.



I also started on a scarf that was inspired by my Wednesday afternoon Open Knit class. We were working on a round dishcloth that is knitted in eight wedges, and then the cast-on edge is joined to the ending edge to produce a circular dishcloth, like this:

At one point there was some confusion about the short row technique used to create the wedges, and I explained that it was important to always make sure that the unworked stitches are on the same edge of the knitting. "Otherwise," I said, "you'll end up with your knitting all winky-wonky like a zigzag scarf."

And so the winky-wonky scarf was born. Here's a shot of the work in progress:


It's worked in worsted acrylic on size 10 1/2 needles and measures approximately five inches wide. Ideally I'd use slightly heavier yarn and bigger needles to make it a little bit wider, but I'm committed to using yarn I already had on hand as my goal for January is to make it through the entire month without buying any yarn. The pattern is very simple - I just worked the circular dishcloth pattern skipping the last row of the wedge, which puts the short side of the wedge on alternating sides of the scarf. It's a good "mindless knitting" project that I'll take along tomorrow when we have a long car ride.

Don't forget to leave a comment when you read the blog so I know that someone is actually reading! :)

the Long-Awaited Yoga Mat Bag

So a week and a half ago I promised a post about the yoga mat bag I was working on at the time, a simply knit stockinette bag in earth-toned variegated cotton yarn. Last week was incredibly hectic and I didn't get everything done that I had planned on. I did finish knitting the bag, and was very pleased with how nicely it turned out, looking nice and fitting my yoga mat perfectly. In fact it worked out so well that as I worked on it I was overloaded with ideas for bags worked in different colors and stitch patterns, as well as a series of matching water bottle carriers (because anyone who does yoga also recognizes the importance of staying well hydrated). Of course I haven't finished any of the other bags or even the water bottle carrier to match the bag I have finished, because unfortunately my fingers cannot knit as quickly as my brain can create the ideas. I had fully intended to post a photo of the completed bag in this post, but unfortunately when I made it back to yoga this morning after an absence of several days, I completely forgot that I needed the mat in order to photograph the mat bag containing the mat. Maybe tomorrow.

Meanwhile I'm knitting socks, because in the last week I've attended a funeral and the accompanying family dinner, a church meeting, and a church dinner, and I needed something a little more portable than the pound cone of cotton yarn I'm using to knit the second yoga bag. I love the bright-colored self-striping yarn and they have gone fairly quickly. I tried a toe-up pattern on two circular needles, which is awesome for traveling since all the needles are attached to the project at all times (I can't tell you how many times I've had to go searching for a missing double pointed needle before the two circular needle method was invented). I'm also working on an original design for a felted purse organizer. And since I finished the handwarmers and the Christmas tree skirt, my grandson's mommy has requested a pair of handwarmers and my mom said that she could really use a small Christmas tree skirt.

I guess this proves that, despite the insistence of my kids, I do NOT knit in my sleep. If I were knitting an extra six hours a night I wouldn't be this far behind on everything. I'll try to catch up and get a picture post up soon.

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

....without whom I would not be the knitlady. When I was very young and played with baby dolls and Barbies, my mom knitted lots of doll clothes because the store bought doll clothes were very expensive and not well made. When I was nine years old, she taught me to knit. My first "big" project was a robin blue cardigan which I finished before I was ten. I've been knitting off and on ever since.

When my kids were small I didn't have as much time to knit as I have now, so a lot of the special knitted things my kids wore came from their Grandma Nancy. Now my grandson is happily wearing a blue hat with a yellow smiley face and a pair of blue mittens that his daddy wore when he was little.

When my daughter was seven, she wanted to knit, and I was delighted to teach her. She knitted off and on for several years but pretty much gave up knitting when she went off to college and had to fit work as well as study time into her busy schedule. I hope that she will be inspired to pick up her needles again sometime and rediscover the pleasure and relaxation that come from this awesome craft. And so it passes through the generations....

Happy Birthday, Mom! And thank you for the wonderful gift you gave me those many years ago when you patiently taught me to knit, purl, increase, decrease, cast on, and bind off!

O Christmas Tree

Okay, never mind that it's now January. Mike left the little tree up a few extra days because I was working on this tree skirt to fit our little Christmas tree.I think it actually turned out pretty well. Of course I'll have to press out the points a bit when I drag out the iron (which I had no intention of doing at 11:45 p.m. on Friday when I finished this thing). At any rate it definitely looks better than the other tree skirt that I had there before. It's just the right size and a little more colorful than the oversized plain white one it replaced (actually sized for a regular tree, not a miniature tree).


Now I guess Mike can finally take down the last Christmas tree for this year, and I'll pack the tree skirt safely away to enjoy next year.

Coming next: yoga mat bags and brain overload.

First FO of 2009......

And it's something that wasn't even on the project list!

Last Sunday evening I went to our church's Taize' service, and as I was sitting in the darkened sanctuary I realized that my hands were really cold. Because of my age and stage of life (think internal hormonal heating) I rarely get cold, but my hands were uncomfortable that evening. I came home after the service and promptly cast on a pair of fingerless mitts/handwarmers/wrist warmers in a mock baby cable rib pattern that I've used before on socks and even a baby blanket.

I finished them up last night but was way too tired to take photos and post by the time I got done. So here they are:

Naturally my youngest son accused me of leaving parts missing, and asked me why I couldn't just knit faster to warm up my hands. But I was very happy with the way that they turned out, and I'll probably make up a few more pairs to add to my Etsy site.

I'm also looking at knitting a few yoga mat bags, since I've run across a couple of patterns, and I've been told that the yoga students at the local university will buy anything. I also need to replenish my stock of fruit hats for the craft fairs. So the to-do list is increasing much faster than my stock of finished objects. I guess it's time to get away from the computer and go back to knitting.