Something to do in my "spare" time

The other day a Facebook friend who knows that I knit posted a link to a fundraising project by Heart for Africa.org. Apparently her sister is heavily involved with this charity and brought this to her attention. They are asking knitters to make small "DUDUZA" dolls to be donated to children in Swaziland.

DUDUZA (comfort) dolls

Here is the link to the project page. It's a perfect fit for me, because I have quite a lot of "scrap" yarn, small bits and pieces that aren't necessarily big enough for a large project but too big to just throw out. Of course it could be a bit of a challenge to fit these in with all the other knitting I'm doing (STILL trying to get a show sample of the Double Hearts blanket made, have 9 Christmas stockings to finish before Thanksgiving, not to mention three more craft fairs in November AND a wedding gift and some Christmas gifts) but I'm sure I'll welcome the change occasionally. My goal is to make at least six before December 1 (the shipping deadline for Christmas distribution). If anyone else in the area wants to participate, let me know and we can split the shipping.

Oops! Time to get off the computer and get knitting!

A Long Hiatus and a New Toy

Unfortunately it has been a really long time since I've posted - atrociously long, in fact. I've actually written many blog posts in my head in the interim, but therein lies the difficulty - I have not yet discovered an efficient method for transcribing the mentally-written posts to my computer keyboard.

That said, it has been a crazy busy year, with lots of knitting, an incredible amount of snow (earlier), an outlandishly miserable heat wave (hopefully mostly over now), a broken ankle, and many other distractions keeping me from actually posting. However, I have now set up a reminder in my cell phone calendar which will actually remind me if I haven't posted to the blog for too long.

Meanwhile, I have purchased a new toy - an antique Legare 400 hand-cranked circular sock-knitting machine. I haven't had nearly enough time available to work with it as I would like, but I've successfully cranked out several pairs of socks and am really getting the hang of using the machine. I'm thinking that this may be the year when handmade socks are in everyone's Christmas stocking, although I'm not making any promises at this point.

In May I attended my very first crank-in, a gathering of "crankers" and their sock machines, in Warrenton, Missouri. It was a fabulous weekend which I enjoyed immensely. It was very educational to walk around a room full of people with their variety of antique machines (and a display model of a new machine that is now being manufactured), and awesome to meet an entire new group of people that shared this interest.

Other recent knitting includes the completion of my sixth Double Hearts blanket for sale, and a plethora of dishcloths and kitchen towels. I'm also working on a special order for FIVE Christmas stockings for this coming year, although that project is firmly relegated to "work at home" status since it's just not practical to cart a project around with that many different colors and strands of yarn. Still waiting to be started: yet another attempt at producing a show sample of the Double Hearts blanket (so far I haven't succeeded in completing one before it has sold), two new original baby blanket patterns, two more blankets that I've done before but in different colors this time, and lots of smaller stuff in preparation for the fall craft fairs. Now if I could only figure out how to blog and knit simultaneously I'd have it made!

Without Further Ado......

This will by necessity be a short post, but I didn't want to wait any longer before posting it. So, without further ado, here are the custom ordered Christmas stockings that I finished for this year.

The first one I completed was the mate to the stocking in this post from last year:

Then I worked on a pair of stockings for two children, which were patterned after the stockings that were done for the parents by the mom's aunt many years ago:

In retrospect I wish I'd taken a photo of the two new stockings alongside the original ones that they were patterned after.

And I'm not done. I had someone ask me on Thanksgiving weekend (!) if I'd knit two more stockings like the ones I'd made for her a couple of years ago. I told her that I'd be more than happy to do the stockings but there was no possible way that I'd have them finished in time for Christmas. So, more than likely they'll be popping up on these pages sometime around Valentine's Day.

Happy (not so) New Year!

I can't believe it's already the 18th of January. Of course time has flown during the last six months of absolute craziness. I keep hoping that things will calm down at least to a dull roar, but so far that hasn't happened. I spent a good deal of the fall keeping very busy with craft fair preparations and some custom knitting orders.

Of course it goes without saying that the Christmas season was very busy, and just when I thought things might slow down I had to prepare to teach four knitting classes at Lincoln Land's Needle in a Haystack event on Saturday. Although there were huge concerns even as late as a week before that event that it wouldn't happen, people signed up like crazy during the final week and some even registered for classes on the day of the event. Overall it turned out to be a wonderful day, with a total of 19 classes offered as well as an awesome luncheon speaker.

In addition, with the coming of the new year I am back in the child care business in a small way. I was contacted in December by the family of a child who used to attend my daycare (she is six years old now!) and asked whether I would consider taking their new baby. After two weeks I am definitely enjoying having a baby around again, but missing a couple of things like daily yoga classes that just aren't possible with a two month old in tow.

Through it all I am naturally continuing to knit. I'm currently working on a baby blanket for a repeat customer which I'll deliver on Friday. I have a list of 23 potential knitting projects (some of which are multi-item projects) in my new iPhone, most of which can be made without the purchase of additional yarn (in other words I'm trying to reduce my stash bigtime). In my next post I'll add photos of the custom Christmas stockings that I knitted last year, and possibly the first of my FO's for 2011. Meanwhile I guess I need to get off the computer and get some of the aforementioned knitting finished.

Remote Control Pizza

In September, my youngest son moved to Bullhead City, Arizona to be with his girlfriend who had gone out there to accept an exciting new job. Although he is a marvelously skilled mechanic he has yet to find a job out there, so he has been doing a lot of the cooking and (hopefully!) other household chores.

Yesterday he called me to ask about the necessary ingredients for my homemade pizza crust recipe. We chatted for a while, and then I emailed him the actual recipe after I got home from my craft fair.

A couple of hours later, he called me again with a question about measuring cups. I answered that question to his satisfaction (and he added a set of dry ingredient measuring cups to his next shopping list) and then as I heard rummaging noises over the phone, he commented, "Oh, wow, I don't think we have a rolling pin either."

I thought about it for a moment, then asked, "Do you have an empty beer bottle you could scrub and use instead?"

"Well, no, but I could have one in about two minutes," he replied, laughing. "You know, Mom, it's scary but I was actually thinking about that exact same thing when you mentioned it."

I agreed, and we chatted a while longer, discussing his plans for the pizza. Instead of our regular recipe using tomato sauce, onions, peppers, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, and cheese (and sometimes black and/or green olives) he was planning to use chicken and an Alfredo type sauce with mostly Parmesan cheese. He also was going to try making a stuffed crust. Then he commented that he should probably quit talking and start cooking and hung up.

Later I got an email saying that the pizza turned out well and they both liked it. It doesn't get much better than that!

It Isn't All About Knitting!

In addition to having 40+ years of knitting experience, I have also become a nationally certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, learning a great deal about child passenger safety, crash dynamics, and many other child transportation issues. After I became certified I had an opportunity to enroll in the supplemental Special Needs Transportation training, which I also found extremely valuable. My (grown) kids will tell you that when the topic of car seats arises for whatever reason I can and do tell anyone more than they ever wanted to know about car seats. When I'm not knitting, as likely as not I'm doing something car seat related (and when I AM knitting, I may very well be knitting in front of the computer reading car seat safety forums).

When my grandson, the light of my life, was born, I helped his parents to make sure that he was the safest he could possibly be riding in all of our various vehicles. I coerced strongly encouraged them to keep him rear-facing to the limits of his convertible seat, since rear-facing is so much safer. When he outgrew the convertible seats, I bought him higher weight harnessing seats for each of their vehicles because he was much too young to move into a booster seat at that time.

More recently, I was blessed to win a deluxe higher-weight harnessed seat in a Facebook drawing, and I agreed to submit a review of the seat. This week that review was published in Carseat Blog.

Now the review has generated more questions, and it looks like I'll be submitting another Carseat Blog post soon.

Meanwhile, the knitting continues, even if I'm not keeping up with the postings.............

I'm Definitely Not Keeping Up!

On Monday I posted about my Double Hearts blanket and that a couple of people had asked me to knit a blanket using that pattern for them. I was able to deliver the first completed blanket last Thursday, and started on the second soon afterward. On Monday evening I attended a Ladies' Night Out event at my mom's church, taking my knitting along (of course!), and one of the ladies in attendance at the church event requested that I knit a blanket for her as well. So instead of being almost caught up (I will finish the current blanket either tomorrow or Friday) I'm now a full blanket behind again.

I did manage to complete the designated hat of the day for Monday - a size small topknot hat. The Tuesday hat, a large pumpkin, didn't get finished last night so I'm scrambling to finish that up today. The Wednesday hat will once again be a smaller size since the small ones seem to be the most I can manage in the same day with the requisite blanket knitting. And as I STILL haven't figured out how to knit and type simultaneously, it's time to close this post and get back to the knitting part.

Long Time No Blogging

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I actually posted anything on the blog! I know that time flies, and it has definitely flown the last several months. Naturally I've still been doing a LOT of knitting, but Facebook, summer, a church canoe trip, vacation, and other chaotic events have resulted in a plethora of blog posts which have only been written in my head. Unfortunately I have not yet figured out how to transfer them from the depths of my mind to the pages of the blog without the intervention of my fingers, which have a marked tendency to be wrapped up in yarn and knitting needles at most any waking moment.

In the mean time, my Double Hearts blanket pattern has been published by Mary Maxim, and I've had a couple of people who have requested that I knit them a blanket using that pattern. I've also worked on a couple of other designs for next year's pattern contest, but both will need a bit of tweaking before they are ready to enter in the contest. I think they'll turn out really nicely though.

Right now I'm busy knitting up a storm to restock after a fairly successful craft fair on Saturday. This week I need to knit 1/5 of a Double Hearts blanket each day, to have it ready for the customer by the weekend. I also need to knit one hat each day this week, and three hats a day after the blanket is done, to have enough stock for the next upcoming craft fair. I also will need to squeeze a few dishcloths into the mix since my dishcloth stock took quite a hit on Saturday.

In addition, I'm crocheting on an afghan that one of my knitting customers had started and then talked me into finishing for her. I'm not really thrilled with the project at this point, for two reasons: first, it's very challenging to start in the middle of a project and try to match the gauge of the previous crocheter when the pattern that was provided doesn't even mention the recommended hook size - lots of trial and error here; second, although I have crocheted for nearly as long as I have knitted, I don't do as much of it, and because it is so much slower than knitting I'm much less patient with big crochet projects and therefore considerably less proficient at crochet than at knitting. There is no way that I'll be able to charge anything close to what my time and effort are worth for this project; however, considering that this is for a repeat customer who has paid me well for past projects, I'll finish it up and make her happy. However, I have no intention of taking on any further crochet projects of this nature at any point in the future.

And last but not least, my grandson started kindergarten last month. It's hard to believe that he could possibly be that old already but he's still incredibly cute and the highlight of my life.
He has recently shown some interest in knitting, and I'd love to have him for a while and work with him to see if he picks it up.

Meanwhile, my computer time is up for now, and I need to get back to the knitting since I still haven't figured out how to knit and type at the same time. I promise that it won't be nearly so long until the next post.

Winter Doldrums

Okay, so we're now solidly two weeks into the new year and I haven't blogged about any new knitting projects (or anything else for that matter!) in that time. Although I have done some knitting, I haven't actually completed anything blog-worthy, and I haven't been hugely motivated to get lots of things done.

Part of it has no doubt been a result of the weather. I think my brain was frozen for about a week while we suffered through the coldest winter weather in more than a decade. There's just something about a dark frozen winter morning that makes you want to pull the covers back up over your head and go back to sleep. When the sun doesn't shine for days on end it is very easy to lapse into a huge funk.

Fortunately we've had some warmer weather, lots of thawing and dripping, and finally even some sunny days in the past week, and I'm starting to feel more human again. Of course I'm still adding to my project list faster than I'm checking things off, but at least things are moving along a bit.

Currently on the needles:

• a prayer shawl for a church friend (should be finished this evening)
• camo socks for my grandson
• socks for dear hubby
• an original pattern baby blanket (restock for my etsy site)
• the second of two rainbow-striped scarves requested by a friend

Waiting in the wings:

• more socks for dear hubby
• a pair (or three) of socks for me
• two more baby blankets (etsy restock)
• three Christmas stockings (hooray for customers planning ahead!)
• a hat and pair of socks for a dear friend
• another prayer shawl or two
• three half-finished crocheted afghans from one of my customers (she started on them and was unable to finish for whatever reason so she sent them to me)
• four original design hats that I came up with ideas for on vacation and haven't had time to actually knit yet

In addition I still need to finalize my curriculum for my new knitting classes and pick up some class supplies. I'm also involved with a fundraising dinner which will be held at our church on Super Bowl Sunday.

So it's definitely not as if I'm running out of things to do!

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.