Just Not Enough Time in the Day...

for me to do all I want to do. Wah! (Okay, I'm done whining now.)

Started writing this post at about 9 this morning. Kept the window minimized all day and finally got back to it at 10:30 p.m. Where did the time go?

Let's see... I desperately had to do some unnecessary shopping that should have taken about 1/2 hour but took 3 hours instead. Then, I had to make a gazillion three or four phone calls to straighten out medical insurance stuff, then I wanted to work on the website and see how far I could get without having to stick needles in my eye but a friend came over to shop in my stash instead and whoops! I found myself ordering some more yarn to throw on the shelf in my closet along with the rest of my stash make a couple of blankets. Then it was time to go and get my daughter and the rest of the day was taken up with her. Not too productive, I'd say, and still, have you seen me mention that I got any knitting done?

Noooooooooo....

I have not gotten any knitting done since Monday. Not even in bed at 4 a.m. when I wake up or 11 p.m. when I watch TV for a couple of hours... not a single, solitary stitch!

Buuuuuutttt...

While my friend was over, she said there was a package for me on the front step, along with my mail and would I like her to bring it inside? Sure... thanks!

So in she marches with a priority mail envelope, looking at me, trying to make me feel guilty for ordering more yarns... except I didn't order anymore yarns... honest, I really didn't... well, I did, but they have not arrived yet...

So I opened the package, and what did I see, but my sock-ret pal's next "installment" on my spoiling... Check out these goodies... I know, I know, the picture sucks.



What you don't see is that the strawberry chocolate wrapper is already empty... the PEZ candies are all down my throat and the snowflake crystals, as well as this incredibly great smelling bar of handmade soap (yum!) will be hitting the tub tomorrow night! The Regia "Crazy Colors" that I got are truly crazy and I love them. Fuschia, purples, greens, blues and orange. And guess what? The colors work beautifully together. These will make a gorgeous pair of socks! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

New year is coming quicker than I care to think about and I am not one to make resolutions, however I will make one. I plan to write more frequently on this blog. I really enjoy it when I do get around to it and I want to do it more often, so I think I will set an outlook reminder for myself every couple of days to come in here and add something. Let's see how long this resolution lasts. It's got to be better than all the failed diet resolutions I made all my life.

I'm going upstairs now to watch some TV. I'm taking my knitting. I can live in hope, can't I?

Just in time, before vacation...

Look what I came home to waiting on my porch...


I bet you think it's two dogs just hanging out in the window waiting for me to get home, but NO... it's the great card my sockret pal picked to send me. I LOVE it!

And this...


In case you can't see it well, I got this really great skein of UrbanGypz sock yarn in Playing With Matches colorway, a can of Bentley's white tea (which will wait for a cold winter morning when I can sit, knitting and drinking some tea, yum!), a personally made CD of almost folksy music (that I love), an origami project, a pad straight out of the 50s for my little notes to myself (i.e. -- note to self, do NOT forget to print out boarding passes for the morning!) and a bag of pernigotti chocloate that I am fighting with myself not to rip right into and throw down my throat open so I can take them on the plane with me.

I'd love to write more, but time is fleeting and I've gotta load of wash to finish so I can start packing (nothing like last minute for me... hahahahaha). More when I get back on the 12th...

Thanks a bunch, sockret pal, you are terrific!

There's some happy dancin' goin' on...

out there in another part of the country.

My sock-ret pal got the package I sent the other day and man, was she happy! I'm just loving shopping for her. Buying stuff for someone you don't know can be difficult, but when you figure out what someone might like and then they actually do like it, it's a ton of fun.

Some days you have an "ah ha" moment...

And then you just have to kick your own butt... like between yesterday and today I spent hours uploading pictures just so I could show my trip to Rhinebeck. They looked lovely on my site, but then when I went to brag about my shots show my friend my blog, all you saw were these tiny boxes where my pictures should have been.

How ANNOYING is that???

So I got really pissed off and shut down the page and didn't give it anymore of my time. Then, as I was sitting here doing something entirely unrelated, it just came to me. Ah ha! That was the problem...

So, I've corrected the stupidty problem on my end and my pictures in my Rhinebeck post should now be visible. Tell me what you think...

On the Road to Rhinebeck

I’d been thinking about going to Rhinebeck since the first time I heard about it at my Knit ‘n Stitch group. My daughter jumped right on the bandwagon with me and we decided to do it. Even the cats were excited about it and couldn’t wait for me to print out the directions…



Well, I just knew we had to go. After all, I've been hearing about RHINEBECK for the past year and how wonderful, exhilarating, glorious, and every other adjective you can think of to describe it, so on Saturday, my little girl and I set out for our adventure.

I'd heard there would be petting zoo stuff and Halloween stuff and other things to keep her interest (someone promised her that if we went to see the Llamas, one would spit on her and she was very excited and looking forward to that!) so I knew she would not be bored awestruck by the whole thing, but would possibly hopefully enjoy the day with me.

So, we got on the road and we saw this:



and I was so happy with the scenery and the prospect of getting there reasonably early, that I started to do this:




But recently having to deal with a speeding ticket caused me to be more cautious and I brought my speed back down.

Then, we got here…



and I knew we were only about ½ mile away from the main gate, but look what we had to deal with next (insert HUGE sigh here):



and it took us about ½ hour to go ½ mile… talk about frustration, knowing that all that glorious yarn that was just screaming my name could potentially be gone by the time I got into the fairgrounds and parked.

But when we got inside, I could not believe how crowded absoultely beautiful it was there and I just had to take another picture just to show you:



So we walked around a bit and my kiddo went into the haunted house (no less than six times, mind you) and had a blast while I sat freezing my ass off waiting outside for her like a good mom!

I ran into some of my knitting buds in the middle of the day and was awed by the things they bought, but I didn’t yet see anything that absolutely screamed out for me to take it home, so I kept giving it a fair shot… and then I spotted this at The Fold (thanks, Toni!):



This was a second choice for me, but by the time I got to Rhinebeck, 2 ½ hours after it opened, ALL the Socks That Rock, with the exception of two very questionably colored skeins, WERE GONE!

So, I continued ambling around and decided on this:



to make a couch blankie for myself.

All in all, the trip was lovely, the scenery was beautiful, we had a nice time and it wore my daughter out. I spent the 2 ½ hour drive home singing the score of Rent at the top of my lungs while my daughter did this:



Would I go again? I don’t know. I found it overwhelming, way too many people (though, as a class of people, I truly do love other knitters) and not enough in the “new and exciting” department. I’d have to give it some thought. But those who know me know that I do anything to feed my yarn addiction, so would I go again? Probably, if I’m honest with myself.

Some very exciting shopping...

Well, today a friend and I went shopping and man did we get a great buy... We found a yarn store that, as we were about to leave, announced a sale on yarns in the back of the store. The owner had just moved to a new location and had too much stock to fit her new location, so she had these large 72 quart Rubbermaid containers filled with a wide variety of yarns. Her thing? Fill gallon ziploc bags with as much yarn as you could stuff in them for $15 a piece. Well, we really went to town. We got fabulous angora, and cottons and silks and so much more and spent so little. It was really an exciting day...

So, I came home and decided that my library of knitting books is simply not large enough and my music collection could use a little filling in and, oh, by the way, there are some books I'd like to have, so I put together a little (yeah, right!) wish list on half.com because the holidays are coming. So, to my family and friends, if the inclination strikes that you want to buy me something and don't know what to get, here ya go (I can't believe I've actually compiled this list). Little by little I will be chipping away at it, but it was certainly fun making it. Here it is...

My wish list

One of these days I will learn how to hide a link behind a word that you can click, but until I do, I just have to do it the old fashioned way... hahahahaha

What kind of knitting needles are you????

What kind of knitting needles are you?

You are interchangeable.Fun, free, and into everything, you've got every eventuality covered and every opportunity just has to be taken. Every fiber is wonderful, and every day is a new beginning. You are good at so many things, it's amazing, but you can easily lose your place and forget to show up. They have row counters for people like you!
Take this quiz!

What time of day are you?

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

What Time Of Day Are You?

More about the blanket... and the sweater!

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, the blanket is finally finished. Have I mentioned how crazy great it is to be me sometimes? I can sit in the same place, doing something for hours, with something right in front of me and, without moving or doing anything else, it simply disappears? That's typical of my life.

Here I am, ready to put the buttons on the baby sweater, knowing exactly where they were put (for safekeeping, naturally) and now, when I go to my safe place to find them, poof! They are gone. It's surreal magical. Hahahaha. Hopefully they will turn up, but it remains to be seen. Anyway, this is the blanket...




If you continue down, you will might see the matching baby sweater (having trouble getting more pictures in here now... huge sigh), sans the adorable buttons I have for it somewhere in my house. Yanno, I know I'm jumping all over the place here, but I left for Mexico having finished the baby sweater completely and only having about six inches done on the blanket. When I left, my life-long girlfriend's husband was painting my house, building shelves for me, rearranging furniture, etc., etc. (He could NOT believe the amounts of yarn and books on knitting that I have, but he empathizes. In the things he loves, he is a true pack-rat kinda person, so he gets it, but he "spreads the wealth" around in his collections. Me, I'm truly focused. All yarn, all the time.

And here it is!!!!!



Anyway, I digress. When I left, I knew where everything was. It was a mess, but it was my mess and I could lay my hands on things right away. When I returned, my house was in GREAT shape... walls painted in my choice of colors, shelves on the walls where storage crates used to be, acrylics in large bags on the way out for a yard sale so I could make more room for the good stuff now that I've got shelves to put yarn on, you know... but I don't know where anything is now (like those damned buttons!) so I have to search things out now. What fun... NOT!

Here's a side view...


I would have liked the set in a solid color that would have made the stitches pop, but this was the choice my close friend made for her great granddaughter. It really is cute, but I'm so glad I'm done. Now I have to finish two tiny bits on two sweaters for my daughter, work on the socks for my secret pal and then I get to do something entirely new and exciting...

Make something for me!

Well the interminable blanket is DONE!!!!!

I finally finished the baby blanket while in Mexico and all I have to do now is sew the buttons on the matching sweater and off this goes to my friend's great-granddaughter. I have to say, when I first said I'd make this for her, I never thought about what I was volunteering to do. The blanket turned out beautifully, though, as did the sweater, and I will post pictures later this week.

I have already moved onto a couple other projects. While doing the blanket, it was the only thing I'd let myself do (that was a HUGE mistake). The blanket was so complicated and required such a huge amount of concentration that I would not let myself do any mindless knitting, but maybe I should have.

Now that I'm free, I've got two pair of socks on the needles, about to start a 3rd pair, and I want to start a bag for myself that I want to design as I go and felt when I'm done (never done that before, but I'm looking forward to it). I also want to teach myself to dye yarns. I have a boatload of Henry's Attic waiting to be dyed and I bought about 21 different color dyes to play with.

Thank G-d I'm on permanent disability so my former job (high level executive assistant for an international corporation with branches in 22 countries) does not interfere with my hobbies! What would I do if I could not knit anytime I felt like it?

Anyway, time for bed, but I just wanted to get my progress report in.

And to my sock-ret pal, the 3rd pair going on the needles tonight is yours. Hope you like 'em!

Stuff my sock-ret pal should know about me...

The basics:
How long have you been knitting? on and off for 45 years
Do you consider yourself a beginning sock knitter, an intermediate, or have you been doing this so long you could probably knit a pair in your sleep? I'm only (right now) working on my second pair of socks, but feel comfortable doing them and find them very relaxing

The measurements:
While your pal may ask for some additional info to ensure a great fit, please provide your shoe size, or any other fitting related info you think is pertinent. I have a very, very wide foot (due to medical problems) but the shoe size is 8.5"

(fiber related) Favorites: merino and 100% pure wool
What colors do you love? vibrant ones
Do you prefer solids or variegated? I like 'em both
What fibers do you most love to knit with? anything soft with wool for a basis
Who do you consider your favorite yarn vendors? Makalu
What projects (other than socks, of course*S*) do you most enjoy knitting? sweaters with cables... lots and lots of cables

(fiber related) Dislikes:
What fibers can you not stand to knit with? the cheaper acrylics
To wear? the cheaper acrylics
What colors would you never wear? yellow, melon, fuschia

The Tools:
Plastic or Metal? Bamboo or wood? bamboo or woods
Circs or Straights? circs
DPNs or Magic Loop? dpns
Are there any knitting accessories you don't have in your collection but would like? needle protectors for really tiny needle points

The Extras:
Do you have a wish list? If so, please share the link! Nah, no wish list
Do you like sweet, sour or salty? (or all of the above? *S*) sweet and salty
Do you have any allergies your pal should know about? (Certain foods, smoke, pet hair, etc) nope
Favorite scents? vanilla, musk Scents you can't stand? most florals
Do you collect anything (other than yarn and knitting toys of course)? office supplies, pens
When is your birthday? (month and day is fine!) March 21
Do you spin? Dye your own yarn? No spinning (unless you're talking about telling stories, then I've got a million of 'em). I just bought about 21 colors of dye to try and dye my own, but I have yet to do it.
Your favorite author/band/vacation spot, anything you think will help your pal know you better... My favorite author(s): Jonathan & Faye Kellerman, James Patterson, Richard North Patterson, Perri O'Shaughnessy Band: old time folk singers: Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc. Vacation spot: California coast, Florida, Alaska, Jerusalem

Mexico was great...

... but I'm so happy to be home! I missed my daughter more than I ever thought I could miss anyone. Thankfully my friend pulled through her surgery and we spent a lot of time together talking about our aches, pains, dreams and wishes... it was nice. The flight home was a pain in the ass... who wants to be on a propeller job? Not me! They called it (the plane) the "Dehavilland Dash" -- yeah... because you miss the plane if you don't dash through the airport!!!

Oh well... it's good to be back!

I couldn't help myself...

I just had to give in and start a pair of socks. I've tried. I've really tried. I just couldn't bring myself to knit one more stitch on the ongoing, never ending, hardly seeing any progress, baby blanket.

Don't get me wrong. I love the blanket. The pattern is beautiful, the fabric is coming out really nice. It's becoming very pretty. I only have 20 more rows to complete the FIRST round of four, though, and it's taking forever...

sooooo...

I caved. I was looking (drooling actually) over my sock yarn stash last night and I was feeling pretty damned creative, so patternless I decided to pull out a skein of opal and my size 2 doublepoints and here I go. It's a simple design, really, and I don't know yet where it's going to take me (since I've only ever knitted one pair of socks prior to this) but when I get to the end of the cuff maybe I'll post a picture. Or, I may rip it and try a different design I have floating around in my head.

I love toying with the idea of creating something totally from scratch with no pattern to follow and see where it leads me...

A Positive Person Who Motivated Others -- Nicholas W. Brandemarti

Well, I joined the 2996 website and was assigned Nick as my person to commemorate for the September 11th project.

Now, we're not supposed to post our tributes until that day and then bloggers all around the world are supposed post our stories on that day. The only problem is that we are short members (we need more bloggers to fulfill the 2,996 names on the list and, as of the time I signed up, we are short 800 people) so if you are reading this, and are a blogger, please go to http://www.dcroe.com/2996/ and sign up so you can participate too.

My memorial is for Nicholas W. Brandemarti, a young man who lost his life on tower 2 on September 11, 2001. I've researched him and found that he had a very loving family: His parents, Nick and Nancy, and his brother and sister, as well as extended family and friends that loved, respected, adored him and miss him very much. The following was written about Nicholas after the towers came down:

December 31, 2001

After recently finishing Pat Croce's "110 Stategies for Feeling Great Every Day," and countless other books on motivation and leadership over the years, inspiration, guidance and just being a friend came easy to Nicholas Brandemarti.

Appointed a student coach of the Fordham University football team in his senior year, the former fullback who was sidelined because of numerous concussions used his new position to help teammates who needed academic tutoring or advice, his mother, Nancy Brandemarti, said. "He would always be there to offer help, and was always so compassionate," she said.

Brandemarti, 22, of West Deptford, N.J., an analyst for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods on the 89th floor of the south tower, is presumed dead in the terrorist attacks. He was last heard from shortly after the first plane hit, his mother said.

He had called home out of concern for his father, who had undergone triple bypass surgery a few weeks before. "He called us to find out how his father was, and to tell us that he was OK," his mother said. "He said they were waiting to be evacuated."

He was born in Voorhies, N.J., in 1979, and his family moved to West Deptford when Brandemarti was still a child, his mother said. He graduated from West Deptford High School in 1997. Elected captain of the football team in his senior year, Brandemarti took the job to heart, his mother said. "He really used it as a way to motivate people," she said. She credited her son's high school football coach, Clyde Folsom, with teaching him how to balance academics and athletics early on.

Always the youngest in his class, Brandemarti graduated from Fordham's College of Business with a bachelor's degree in finance in May, at age21.

Brandemarti was like a sponge, his mother said, absorbing as much as he could about everything. He took scuba diving lessons, juggled a successful academic and athletic career, and read voraciously.

She said she misses her son's smile.

"He was always a really positive person," she said. "And it rubbed off on everyone he met."



I did not know Nicholas, and I will, most likely, never know his family or friends, but I can tell you this... he is missed and he is thought about, even by strangers. You cannot be the type of person he obviously was and not be missed. He was special and who knows how far his talents would have taken him. He was a life cut short.

We have a Jewish saying... may you go from strength to strength. That is my wish for those of you who knew and miss and mourn for Nicholas. May you be blessed with love and knowledge that you did a great job with this young man and may you find peace.

I bow to the G-ddess... (well figuratively, anyway)...

...that is my sister. She is always there for me, no matter what time of the day or night, no matter what my questions are. She can talk me through anything computer oriented or knitted when I can't conceptualize what it is that I'm trying to do. She makes me believe all things are possible. I adore her... and she's mine... all mine... nyah, nyah, nyah!!!

Wanting to get a little artistic on my blog...

Well, I added buttons to my blog just for more interest (I think they are so cute!) and, thanks to my sister (see above) was able to make them go where I want them to. I tried and tried to figure this out on my own but was unsuccessful... Do you have to be a programmer to do this?

I found these really adorable buttons and they were free and I wanted to use them, so here they are (see left hand side bar).

Thanks!

Well, I'm baaacckk...

Sometimes I'm an Idiot!

I don't post for such a long time that I forget how to do it (just click on blog this! you dope!) and then, after I do this long winded post, I forget to post my picture in the same post, so I have to go in and do another post...

Oh well, here's the picture (cute knees, huh?) but it's so fuzzy, you can't see that the top yellow square has a sailboat on it, and the bottom yellow square has a leafy tree... huge sigh. I tried. It was a really cute blanket though, and did not take a long time to make at all. I may make another one, one day, with better colors, for me.

Digging out from under

Can't believe it's been so long... again...

Well, here I am, almost the middle of August, and here I'd promised, back in the beginning of July, that I'd post more frequently.

Well, the hugs and kisses sweater picture won't be posted because I don't have it anymore to show you. I gave it away to my friend's husband (out of disgust when I realized how very large I'd made it... I know, I know... gauge swatches and all that... huge sigh). Anyway, when I'd finally tried it on, the sleeves came down past my finger tips and the body just about reached my knees... not bad if I was going for the look of a dress with really long sleeves, but really!

Anyway, I am working on a couple of new things lately... I finished a baby blanket in primary colors for one of my grandnephews (probably never see him again due to problems I have with his grandfather, but c'est la vie... at least he's warm... hahahahahaha. The picture is below (I hope, once I upload it).

I'm working on a matching baby sweater (complete except I have to sew on the buttons) and blanket. I just love the way it's coming out, but the blanket is taking forever! Instead of working on it in 3 panels (it's a 72 row repeat 3xs with changing stitches on almost every row... talk about tedious...), I had the brilliant idea to throw all of the stitches on the needles and work all three panels at once! Well, let me tell you, I'd be a panel and a half (1/2 way) through the blanket by now if I had worked the panels separately, but NO! I didn't want to sew the danged thing together once I was done, so here I sit, 43 rows into the 72 rows... plodding along, perhaps doing two rows an hour. I'd like to stick a needle in my eye right about now, 'cause I've got all this gorgeous, glorious, lustful, outrageously beautiful stash of yarn that I've just been itching to get at for months now, but I won't let myself start anything new until I (1) finish this baby blanket so it can wind its way to Florida; (2) finish my daughter's striped sweater that I started for her 2 years ago and should fit her this season that's coming, and (3) finish my daughter's denim cabled sweater that I started for her 3 years ago that I had to upsize mid-way so it COULD fit her this season, hahahahahaha... oh well.

On the other hand, I want to make myself a new afghan for my new bedroom in my new house; I want to make myself a felted purse (or 2, or 3), and I want to make myself a sweater that I've been drooling over since the spring when I bought the pattern... I'm hoping, by the time I finish my three current projects, I'll still be interested in knitting for me!

I leave for Mexico mid-September for 10 days (my close friend will be having surgery there, I'll be her moral support)... do you think I'll be able to knit on the plane in both directions? I hope so... that's 8 hours in airports and planes in both directions going to total waste if I can't knit onboard, but now they're not even letting us bring bottled water on board, how will they feel about knitting needles (any terrorists around that I can stick needles in the eyes of?)

Anyway, I'm off now to upload the picture of my blankie...

Until next time.

Can't believe it's been so long...

Well, I finally checked my blog (I've been quite busy for several months) and noticed that I have not posted since March. Wow! So much to say and still no time.

I will attempt to upload the photos from my digital camera in the next few days so you can see what I've been up to (as well as tell you what's going on in my life outside of knitting)...

Thanks to Angel for reminding me about how long it's been since I've added anything. More to come real soon.

Finally... an update!

I haven't posted progress on my projects in a few weeks now, but I keep knitting. I take some time off occasionally to do other things... yanno, like cooking and laundry and other drudge stuff, but I always come back to my projects.

I'm almost done with my first pair of socks. I see now that if I had stuck to it consistently, I would have finished them during the Olympic challenge, but life got in the way. They were so intimidating in the beginning... I could not imagine working with five needles at one time, thinking I was too much of a spaz to have the coordination to do that, but I fooled myself. It's easier than I thought it would be and loads of fun. In any case, I've been trying them on Zoe periodically as I go along and guess what? They fit her like they were made for her! Ooops! They were. Hahaha.

I want to get right back to the sweater I was making her when I put that down for the knitting Olympics, and expect I'll be able to do that by the weekend. My sister's coming to visit (yea!) though, so I don't know how much time I'll spend knitting, unless I knit while we watch a couple of movies... hmmmm... sounds like a plan...

I'm considering taking my memory card to Walgreens just so I can post the pictures I took of my socks and the hugs and kisses sweater. Who knows when I'll unpack my stuff and find my cable for my camera... sigh...

Anyway, gotta run. Knitting calls and I have to leave to meet my Friday group.

Super Bowl Sunday...

Well, I'm not a daily poster yet but you never know when that may change. Not enough time on my hands to dedicate to writing when I could be knitting.

I hate football, though, so I'm having my own super bowl here. I'm knitting through the super bowl. I figure I'll flip the channel to ABC periodically to see if the game's still on or not and I'll start when the game starts and finish for the day when the game ends. Should get in a nice bit of knitting that way.

Friday I met with a few knitting peeps at our local Barnes and Noble. We've got a lovely little group of very friendly women and we meet periodically. It's a varying group but it's a great group. I would love it if we had the same people (plus some new ones) all the time because I'm finding that I LOVE to be with other women that knit (men are welcome too, but there don't seem to be any male knitters in this area). It's difficult though. Pesky things like jobs, housework etc., just seem to get in the way... Now if we could be paid for all the time we spend knitting, that would really be something.

Anyway, we are participating in the cast-on party coinciding with the winter Olympics and I'm looking really forward to it. Although I've been knitting on and off for over 40 years, I've never tackled socks before. I've been watching quite a few women making socks now and I've become intrigued by the whole process. I've decided that a pair of socks will be my project for the cast-on party. In preparation (and because I know how I am) I've been investigating the various sites out there that demonstrate the mechanics of making socks and I actually think I'm "getting it." I'm the type that has to be able to visualize and conceptualize before I can actually do something. The shocking thing (to me, anyway) is that after about four hours on these various sites this morning, I actually think I get it. I now understand heel turns, gussets, etc. and can't wait to start my socks. I think I'm really going to like this.

And, to top things off, I actually did my first EVER gauge swatch last night. I wanted to see if the gauge of the sock yarn would actually drive me crazy or not (I'm used to working with aran and other thick yarns). I'm into instant gratification when I knit and I thought it would take me eons to see any progress on the sock yarn... well, it took no time at all and my swatch worked right up into the gauge that it called for, so I was not only impressed, I was very happy about that.

For my first venture into socks, I'm going to be using Knit Picks "Dancing" with its interesting blues, brown, black, etc. I'll probably make this first pair for my daughter. Poor kid, the two sweaters I made for her recently are too big for her. Hopefully the socks will fit and she'll have something I've made for her that will fit.

We live in hope, ya know?

My hugs and kisses sweater...

Well, I finished my sweater and got many, many compliments on it, but I was seriously disappointed. First of all, I never designed something before and that, in itself, was a major challenge for me. Then I've got this body dysmorphic thing going on, where I see myself larger than I really am, so my sizing is off in my head. I made this sweater to fit an extra large man, when I should have opted for a medium, but I was fearful that it wouldn't fit, so I went full steam ahead with the wrong size and now, rather than rip it out, I gave it to my girlfriend's husband. I must say, it looks awesome on him.

I will have to take a picture and post it here so you can see how good it came out. I'm just disappointed that my very first design wound up being for someone else.

I'm now working on a GORGEOUS Rowan design for my daughter. I chose eight different colors for stripes, even though I had serious doubts about them working well together, but they are coming up beautifully and my daughter can't wait for me to finish it, so I'm working on it quite a bit.

My girlfriend (whose husband I gave my H&K sweater to) now wants me to make something for her, and for her dogs. I have to find a cute pattern for the dogs because they are beautiful animals and I would want to do them justice.

I just have to remember to pace myself. If I start too many things at once, I wind up not finishing anything at all. Very frustrating...

Just me...

 

Well, this is my first post to my new blog. I'm almost done with my sweater, one of my own design. Though I've been knitting for over 40 years, on and off, I've never had the nerve to create a sweater of my own before. I don't know if I'll be able to recreate it either, because I have not been the best about writing down the pattern as I go, but I'm trying.

I call it my "hugs and kisses" sweater. I've made it super long (about 30") and it's made from Lion's Thick and Quick (really chunky) yarn. It keeps my lap really warm while I'm knitting, so I expect it will keep me warm when I wear it. It's so thick, I don't think I'll be able to wear my coat over it.

Once I can figure out how to post a picture to the blog, I'll put up a picture of me, my daughter, and my projects.

Happy knitting to one and all. Thanks for checking me out.