Any Takers?

I am trying to create a local knitting group and I would love for you to join me. My very random thoughts on this group are as follows:

a) Meet one Sunday a month (or more if everyone would like) at my home in Moneta or perhaps another place in Bedford,

b) Everyone and all skill levels are welcome, and

c) You can bring your own project along and/or help with a community-based project, e.g. baby hats for the local WIC office or Warm Up America. (Please see www.cantlivewithoutknit.blogspot.com to see the WIC baby hats and www.warmupamerica.com to learn more about this organization).

If you're interested, please contact me via Comments or my e-mail address, soltanifamily@earthlink.net and I will reply.

(P.S. - The above pictures are "me playing." The names are just ideas and being my obnoxious self, the third is my favorite. Hope to hear from you soon! ) :) Dana

Sock Class

Last Thursday evening was my first sock class and in all honesty, I bombed. I had purchased two small skeins of Wildfoote and had visions of lovely socks dancing in my mind. In reality, my contact lenses were drying out, the Wildfoote kept splitting as I attempted to knit with the tiny size 1 circulars and my sausage-like fingers refused to work. To cap it all off, my head started pounding and I thought, "ENOUGH!"

Know thyself. I know myself well enough to admit that patience isn't one of my abundant virtues, nor is eyesight. That said, I reached over and grabbed a pair of size 8 circulars and a skein of Lamb's Pride (I'm in love with this yarn) and instead of a sock, I began knitting a Christmas stocking. It's the same principle and plan, however it's much more suited to blind, impatient, big-fisted me. :) So far, so good. The photograph colors look bizarre, but the main color is a bright, deep red and the stripes and Fair Isle knitting are in a deep green.

The Cables

The cables are coming along nicely. Unfortunately, I didn't buy quite enough blue or black Berrocco [sic], so I'm making one long blue & black Irish hiking scarf. I really enjoy the cables and never ever imagined that they would be so easy (thank you Jan for showing me how to "CSF6"!).

Knit Til You Drop

One would think that that was my motto this past three day weekend. When I left work on Friday, I had the best of intentions. I planned to scrub out the oven, scour the bathrooms, and make our house immaculate. Instead, I sat on my bum, served frozen pizzas for dinner and knitted my way through two pairs of clogs.

Oh well, there's always something to clean and while the housekeeping will wait, the holidays won't. Furthermore, it's gotten cold lately and I want a pair of slippers for me. :)

We've been busy

We've been busy gearing up for Christmas. In fact, the first cool day we had, I went into a frenzy of knitting that hasn't yet stopped. Here's a Manos del Uruguay scarf and below, a Lamb's Pride Supreme Purple and Oatmeal scarf. The Lamb's scarf was made from slipper and hat leftover yarn.

Andie's been knitting too. She's still working on her purple Manos (which I'm tempted to steal from her because a) she's not done yet and b) I really like the color - - it's grown on me). She's also working her way through a skein of Lamb's Pride Pink (bulky). Work and school keep taking a chunk out of our knitting time. :)

Exciting news....Sock class starts next week.

Irish Hiking Scarf

I stumbled across and new and neat blog site and it was all the better for these beautiful, cabled scarves. The pattern looks easy enough for even me and the photos of the end results are beautiful. Woo Hoo...Christmas '06, here I come. :)

Something New & Interesting

While blog surfing, I saw mention of "Red Scarf 2007." It sounded interesting to me and I thought you might like to see it too.

Andie's Knitting

Andie is now knitting and doing a marvelous job of it. She and I seem to be opposites insofar as I struggled with the knitting, e.g. twisted and dropped stitches, but was very comfortable with the cast on. Andie, by contrast, has me do her casting on, but she knits with such speed and uniformity; it's really wonderful!

Using her babysitting earnings, she bought her very first hank of yarn and chose a purple Manos del Uruguay. She's now working on a scarf and states that her next project will be a hat. I'm so proud of her!



This was her first scarf - - a light bulky weight New Zealand wool tweed.

What a Week...

While Mohamed was re-hospitalized last week and this week, I managed to get quite a bit of knitting finished. I had to laugh when I realized that my husband is a) very good for my creative output and b) absolutely awful on my nerves, equilibrium and sleep. ;)
Here's the finished products thus far....


This is my "wildflowers" scarf made
from Manos del Uruguay yarn. The picture in no way does the colors justice!


This is Skander's skull hat and no, it's not glow-in-the-dark...just a really bizarre photograph. And in conclusion,



Another Lamb's Pride winter hat being modeled
by
THE NEWEST KNITTER
IN THE FAMILY!
Yes, Andie is now knitting and I'll
post her projects on Monday.

Almost Done

This is Skander's skull hat. It's actually farther along now due to the lag time between the photo and posting. I'm on the K3/K2tog row now and I have to move it to DP needles to finish it off.

It's warm, soft, stretchy and quite large because of the skull. It may very well 'swim' on Skander's head, but we'll see. If it's too big, I'll find someone it'll fit! :)

Not-So-Sweet Liberty

On the Fourth of July, my daughter adopted a tiny, stray, gray kitten. Andie named her new pet "Liberty." Libby, as she is called, was incredibly shy, unassuming and frightened. Regular meals and lots of love and attention brought the kitten out of her shell. Little did we realize then that we had unleashed a beast!

A Lovely Sunday

Tired of being confined and feeling a sense of "cabin fever", we broke out briefly this weekend and it was wonderful. We visited the Peaks of Otter along the Blue Ridge Parkway and had a good time enjoying nature in all of its summertime beauty.

When we returned home, we went into "couch potato" mode (which was just what we needed after last week) and watched movies and relaxed together. I'm almost finished with Skander's hat, which I forgot to photograph yesterday, but will tonight. Have a great week!

He's baaaaack....

Let me tell you a little bit about a book I once read. In it, the heroine, who is in purgatory and attempting to earn her wings and rise to Heaven, is given various tasks to complete as part of a repentence plan. After her first assignment is successfully completed, her case worker tells her that it's now time for a bit of "punishment" and gives the heroine a choice. She can spend one week at home with three sick children -or- one day with a sick husband. The lady chose the vomiting kids....

Need yarn. Lots of yarn. I have sharp needles and am prepared to use them. ;)

Here's Miss Hannah in her as-yet-too-large watermelon hat.

Thank Goodness Knitting = Zen....

...because if it didn't, I'd be taking an AWFUL LOT OF VALIUM lately. :) After a positively superb birthday, my weekend concluded with my husband saying, "My chest hurts...my heart's beating too quickly...I'm having a lot of pain in my back and shoulders." No, thank you Lord, it wasn't a heart attack, but was, instead, episodic irregular heartbeats. Mohamed's heart rate would jump from 40 beats to 150, back down to 60 and then up to 140. The numbers jumped all over the place and it went on for hours.

We started out in the Bedford General Hospital Emergency Room and Mohamed was then moved by ambulance to Lynchburg General Hospital. All kinds of tests were performed and although we don't yet have a firm diagnosis, we do know that he didn't have a heart attack and doesn't have any blocked arteries or valves. Both are great news.

I've coped with needles in hand. When he slept, I knitted....when he was getting blood drawn, I turned my back and knitted...while we waited, I knitted...when he was shaved, I stood there and laughed my ass off like a braying donkey (you don't want to know and he'd KILL me if I told you!).

Well, Mohamed is coming home tonight (at long last!) and from here, we'll see what the doctor figures out. In the meantime, here's Trevor modeling his diaper and new slippers.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday and Oh! what a good one it's been. I had hoped to receive a couple of gifts and my family outdid themselves. I asked for a bit of yarn, a yarn trinket or a little bit of money to buy yarn. To my surprise and delight, I received all three!

First up is this bizarre contraption - - a wool winder. Only a knitter would go "Ohhhhhhh" when they opened a box to find this in it. I can't wait to break it in on the my second gift which was...


YARN, YARN and even more YARN!
You know you're an addict when you stop shopping by 4 oz. skeins and/or 50 gram balls and start looking for multiple pounds. As a an additional gift, I was also given the time to do whatever it was that I wanted to do. And that was.................

KNIT!
Beside my woman's size 10 foot is a woman's size 8 unfelted slipper.

Thank you Mohamed, Andie, Skander, Dad, Joan and Denise for making this the best birthday ever!

P.S. Next year, I'm going to be 40 and dreadfully depressed - - can we do this again, same time next year? LOL

Andie is modeling my first scarf, made with Malabrigo's "Velvet Grapes" yarn. It was an incredibly easy knit, the yarn was wonderful (kettle dyed in Uruguay) and it was the perfect first project. We gave it to Andie's History teacher last week as a "thank you."

Here's what I knitted up last night...

...NOT. ;) I found this picture on a website and just loved it. The apple and watermelon hats I've made (and enormously enjoy making) are too feminine for little boys, but now that I've seen "Tomato," "Boysenberry" and "Eggplant," I can knit hats for all of the testosterone victims out there.

That said, I went to Yarn Theory and bought a single skein of red Karabella/Aurora 8 to make a tomato hat for my nephew, Trevor. In the next week or so, I'll pick a deep blue for the boysenberry color.

On the needles now is a hat for my son, Skander. He will allow me to knit him a hat as long as it's 1) not itchy and 2) has a skull and crossbones on it. I bought some Plymouth Encore and found a skull pattern on www.domiknitrix.com (what a name!). Once the hat is underway, I'll take some photographs and upload them. P.S. The tomato hat pattern can be found at the Knit Chicks site, http://acechick.typepad.com/knitchicks_patterns/ Both patterns are free (thank you ladies!). Have a great weekend and happy knitting.

Here is my first pair of very small children's slippers. I set the box of Crayola with it for scale/perspective. It took about an hour and a half to knit the pair. Very easy, very cute! I didn't bother with double soles because kids outgrow their shoes so quickly, especially very young kids.

Before & After Felting

Here are two pairs of knitted slippers. The pair on the left could only fit Shrek the Ogre (pre-felting), but the pair on the right is a mens size 11. Both were knitted with the size 11 in mind and I'm delighted to have them completed. I figured I'd get the guy slippers out the way and then relax and do the ladies (so much smaller!) slippers next. In addition to the adult slipper/clog pattern, I also bought a children's pattern and those should be a lot of fun to do.

You've already seen the Playa del Uruguay in a previous post (yukky yarn!), but here's another hat with a different fair isle pattern. I've started my second watermelon hat and I really enjoy making these baby hats. It's relaxing and an easy knit-up that really turns out to be both cute and practical. I'd like nothing more right now that to run to the yarn shop and purchase half a dozen skeins of the Karabella, but they're going to have to wait. There's a better cause out there than my wool stash (but only slightly - - LOL - - just kidding).

If you can afford to knit, you can afford to donate.

Knitters Without Borders