Visiting family!

I'm in Kansas, visiting my family. ☺ The girls and I are having a blast. My sister has brought her girls over every day that we've been here, so it's been pretty wild. Here's a little sampling of what we've been up to....

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A daffodil at the zoo

Angel, reading to her sisters and cousins
All eight girls, at the zoo. (3 belong to my sister Sara, and 2 to my sister Rebekah)

Watching "Annie" on movie night

Me, having a little quality time with my dad and our firearms. ☺

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I haven't had much knitting time, and what I've had was mostly spent tinking. I dropped a stitch on my Adamas shawl, and it fell several rows. I tried to pick it up, but since it was lace, there were yarnovers and decreases in the way, and that just made it worse. I hadn't used lifelines, so I couldn't just rip. I had to tink back about 5 rows, before I was able to pick up the stitch properly. Now I've caught back up to where I was before I messed up. I think I'll finish this repeat, then put it aside to work on Surf.

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In case I don't get time to be on the computer tomorrow.....Happy Easter! I hope you have a wonderful Resurrection Day celebration. ☺

The Olympics are coming!

I'm sure, if you are a knitter, you've heard of some sites that do Olympic challenges; Ravelry and YarnHarlot being two of them. Well, I'm not on Ravelry, since they banned me and my friends last year without cause(Thanks, Casey, I've gotten so much more knitting and designing done since I wasn't wasting time on your site! And no, that's not sarcasm)...so I can't participate in their version of Olympics, with all of its rules and regulations...I'd be surprised if they allowed projects that are patriotic in nature; it might offend someone. (whew, okay, enough snarkiness; even thinking about Ravelry brings that out in me. Sorry) And, since I have nothing of a personal nature to say about YarnHarlot(except that I sure wouldn't have picked a moniker like that), I'll just say I'm not a fan of hers, so I'm not participating in hers either.

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I am a member of another site for yarn artists, and we're having our own Olympic challenge. Originally, the idea was to pick a project with techniques you haven't done before, and since it's the Winter Olympics, to make it a winter project. But we tend to 'go with the flow' on our site, and since we're actually friends with each other, we decided there's no need for stringent rules. ☺ Since I live in Texas, and Christmas is over, I'm already thinking of spring and summer with my knitting. And there's nothing wrong with that. ☺ So anyway, I decided to do a project with a little bit of Fair-Isle, since that technique frightens me a little. Here's a swatch, and the fabric to go with it...
After making that swatch, I decided that I'm actually going to use thinner yarn, so I had to go find a white cotton sweater(to take apart) with the right gauge of yarn to match up with the red cotton yarn, which I got from a sweater last year. The red is actually a little darker than the red in my swatch, but not quite burgundy. Since the blue in the fabric is so dark, I decided that would be okay. And yes, that swatch was knit from the top-down, instead of the bottom-up; this project is going to be a little girls' sundress, in which the top half will be knitted top-down, in raglan style, and the bottom half will be a fabric skirt. The USA part will be on the front of the bodice, naturally. I'm not starting with the knitting yet, not until the Opening Ceremonies, but I'm getting all of the calculating out of the way, so that I can jump right in when it's time.

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In other knitting news, "Cathie" is almost done. It looks great, if I do say so myself. And I hope Cathie likes it as well! I haven't worked on "Surf" at all since I started on "Cathie"... need to get back to that as soon as "Cathie" is done.

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"Surf" in progress

Here we are in January, dealing with Globull Warming in Texas! It didn't get above freezing today, and it's not likely to tomorrow either. We'll have to bring the cats into the garage again tonight. It amazes me that even Al Gore still believes the drivel that he's been preaching the past few years. Then again, maybe he knows it's bull, and is afraid to admit it. Anyway, I'm wearing a wool sweater today, and I'm warm enough, though my feet are freezing. I need to work some duplicate stitch on the bottoms of my wool socks, so that I can wear them again; they're a little threadbare. And I need to make myself some more wool socks. This is crazy, how cold it is here.

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Since I can't do anything about the weather, I'm thinking warm thoughts with my knitting. This is my latest project: Surf. It's a rectangular shawl, or stole. I was inspired by the stitch pattern, and decided to pair it with Caron Spa yarn, which is a silky bamboo blend. The color is called "Ocean Spray", so it's perfect for an ocean-inspired project. I love beaches. I love relaxing in a lounge chair, listening to waves crashing against the shore. This project lets me imagine that I'm there, and it's summer...instead of here, in the winter.

I'm knitting this stole lengthwise, so each row is very long; 336 stitches, except for the yarnover rows, which involve adding 14 loops for every 10 stitches! Of course, I drop all of those extra loops in the next row, but still, that's a lot of loops! I do intend to post the pattern on my pattern blog, since it's a very simple design. I've only done 6 repeats of the lace pattern so far, and I need to do a total of 16-20 repeats, so it'll be a few weeks. This stole is a gift for a very dear friend of mine, someone who sent me a whole boxful of Christmas gifts, with the full knowledge that I couldn't afford to send her anything. ☺ I hope she's not reading my blog right now; that would totally spoil the surprise. ☺ And then, as soon as I finish this one, I need to start another surprise project for my other dear friend who sent me a boxful of Christmas gifts....

I like shawls.

The pattern for my "Gracefully" shawl is now available for free on my pattern blog; the link is over there on the right! ----->

And here's a sneak peek at my newest project. I started this one New Years Eve, while I partied online with my best friends in the whole wide world. One of these days, we need to meet each other in person. ☺
Anyway, this is going to be a rectangular shawl, with a wavy lace pattern. I wanted the waves to go the long way on the shawl, so I'm knitting it sideways, from one long side to the other long side, if that makes sense. Which means I had to cast-on over 300 stitches. I doubt this project will take any longer than my other shawls, but it seems to take forever just to finish a row. The yarn is Naturally Caron Spa, in the colorway "Ocean Spray". (I absolutely love this yarn!) When I saw the stitch pattern, it reminded me of ocean waves, so I knew I needed a yarn worthy of the design. The working name for this pattern is "Surf". Surf is a gift for one of my dear, dear friends; I really hope she likes it. I already know she loves Spa yarn, and the color is one of her favorites, so it's really just a matter of hoping she likes the lace pattern as well.