A Meetup! And Goodies!

As I'm sure some of you know, Brandy, Mary, and I met on Saturday! We had SO much fun! We've talked almost every day for several weeks and decided we'd get together one of these days and go yarn shopping! After all, what would three people who love to crochet (and knit) want to do when they meet up? Right!

Since we've talked so much, it was like meeting up with someone I've already known. It wasn't awkward or anything. (At least I thought so.) The first thing we did was exchange goodies. I had a bag for both of them, and Brandy had a bag for me. I'm sure she'll tell you all about what I gave them, so I'll let her do that.

But I WILL show you what she gave me! Brandy, you were too kind! Here's a picture of all of it together:













Wasn't she sweet to me?? She gave me a jar filled with Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Mix and topped with one of the beautiful jar toppers she showed on her blog last week.


Just look at all those yummy layers!!















She also gave me that gorgeous candle that she showed on her blog, too! When she first bought it I told her how beautiful I thought it was and when she got another one for her Secret Swap Partner, she decided to give this one to me!






And she made me the neatest basket out of fabric! She said what you do is cut the fabric into strips and secure them together and then you crochet with it. How cool is that? Isn't it beautiful?













Last but certainly not least, she gave me the most beautiful wool goodness. She met this lady in her town that hand dyes and hand spins her own fibers (lucky!) and Brandy bought this beautiful blend of Alpaca and we think Llama wool. I just love it! I'm going to be picky and find just THE perfect pattern to make with it.













After squealing and hugging over our goodies, we went on our journey to find fiber goodness in any and all open stores. Our first stop was JoAnn's Fabrics. We wandered around there for a while and then went on to Michael's.

Let me tell you, it's been a long time since I've been yarn shopping in my home town. Not since I was little and my mother and I would go when she bought yarn for her crochet projects. Michael's was, in a word, fabulous. They had SO MUCH to choose from! Some that I'd only just heard about. Fabulous.

One new kind of yarn they did have there was the Patons SWS (which stands for "Soy Wool Stripes".) This yarn is just spectacular. It's a self-striping fiber made up of 70% wool and 30% soy. I bought three skeins of the Natural Earth and I think I'm going to knit up a little drawstring clutch with it. We'll see. I want to just stare at it for a while -- it's so pretty!













After Michael's we went on to Hancocks, but after the glorious splendor that were the aisles of Michael's, Hancocks just couldn't compare. So we decided it was time for lunch. Mary wanted to go to Panera Bread, but Brandy wanted to try someplace new. I suggested Cheddar's Bar and Grill as it's one of my favorite restaurants. I had a great meal and I think they did, too. We had a nice lunch and sat and talked and talked about all kinds of things.

After lunch, we went over to Barnes & Noble where Brandy and I parked ourselves right on the floor in the craft book section and drooled over beautiful books with lovely patterns and gorgeous photographs. I can't even remember how long we sat there - Mary was with us intermittently. She wandered back and forth between the pattern books and the art books. A young artist is in the midst there! I hope she shows some of her work sometime.

From there, we went to Wally World, but their yarn selection was PATHETIC, especially since it was a Super W-M. Oh well. The day was winding down and it was getting late, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

I gotta say, though, I really had a wonderful time and I'm hoping to get together with them again soon. It was just so much fun! Thanks girls, for the lovely day!!

A Triceratops & A Turtle Walked Into A Jar

Look! A baby Triceratops. I started this a while back for my nephew and I just finished it yesterday. I think he turned out pretty well. I did have to change the horns though... the way the pattern reads just didn't work out for me.

I also added dimpling in the fan/hood on his head. My nephew is VERY into dinosaurs and can name off everyone of them in his sleep. I wanted it to look as close as possible to a real one.

I used Red Heart Symphony in gray and black size 10 thread doubled together for him. It looks a little like tweed but it's soft and that's what I wanted.

This little guy came out to be about 8 inches from nose to tail. I hope my nephew likes him!

Also, as far as little stuffed toy goodness, there's this turtle that I finished for my 7 year old earlier this summer. I don't know why I never blogged about it. Anyway, here's a couple of pics:













And here's a shot of the underside:













For him I used Homespun in Williamsburg for the shell, Rococo for the head, legs, and tail, and Sierra for the under-belly. T loves him! He's about 5 inches long from head to tail.

And finally, it seems that Brandy and I like to crochet together. ;) We did these jar toppers and she showed hers yesterday so I can show you mine today. (hee hee, Brandy!)


I did mine in pink thread. I haven't got any jars to put mine on, so I found a candle jar that it fit on. Whatever works, eh?











This went pretty quickly so I'd definitely like to make more. I want to find some Christmas colored thread and do some up for gifts. Not sure what I'll stuff in the jars. That dried cookie recipe will probably go in there, though!







I want so badly to show you pics of the purse I made for my Fall Purse Swap partner, but I haven't sent it off yet. I'm hoping to get it out in the mail tomorrow morning. I can't wait until she gets it!

Oh, and to those of you who are still waiting to hear all about my big news... Hold on to your hats! I'll be able to spill all sometime early next week.

Look! Pretties!

Aren't these colors yummy?

They are Joann Sensations Bellezza Collection Dolcetto Yarn in peach, yellow, lime, and blue.

I think I'm going to make the Booga Bag with them but I'm not quite sure yet. Either that, or a scarf in blocks of four. What do you think?

They're a wool blend, so I'm not sure how well they'll felt, if they'll felt at all. There's a reviewer on the Jo-Ann's link that said they felted, though thinly, so we'll see when I make a test swatch with them.

*** Update: here's the test swatch, which is being whipped and beaten in my washer by a couple of towels to really rough it up. And maybe b*tch slap it a few times or whatever it is they do in there to each other.

Pre-felting the swatch measured 2"w x 1 1/2" h.













And post-felting, it measured 1 3/4" w x 1" h.













***

I've been wanting to try this yarn for ages! I like the soft color palette and feel. Oh, did I mention that? They are super soft.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on here today. I'm almost ready to send out my Fall Purse Swap package. Just need to get two more things done and then that fat lady can sing her heart out.

Oh, By The Way

Just so you know...

Anniversary Operation: Paint the Town Red?

Success.

Little Devil? Me?

Tabitha said...

Embarrassed of what? You are soo cute there. You were suppose to pick an awkward stage, LOL. I'm sure you were far from a real devil, you look so sweet & innocent. Adorable! :o)

Thanks, Tabby!

I only have a few pictures of me from childhood scanned on my computer... and since then said scanner has bit the dust (ever so conveniently and promptly after the 1 year warranty expired.)

I'll see what I can dig up. Oh, and I was a little devil. My brother, who was older than me, was the prince - the perfect angel. He never did anything wrong, never stayed out later than what his curfew was, never sassed back, never yada yada yada. Perfect.

Me on the other hand, wow. I loved my mother dearly and miss her every day, but man when I was little I questioned her EVERY WORD. I wanted to please her and I did, but I had my own way of doing things. She always told me I was too smart for my own good and could exhaust someone with my incessant questions.

Oh. My. God. That's exactly what my 7 year old is like.
I'm DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

Doomed.

Anyway, the teen years were especially trying: I remember screaming matches between her and I over some trivial little thing I thought I was being denied (like going camping for a week with a friend and her parents or staying out a half hour later with a boyfriend when the movie ran later than we'd expected.) Though I was younger, I was the ground breaker in my family because my brother was insistent in his journey to be The. Light. Of. My. Mother's. Eyes.

Hmmmph.

I look back and laugh at it all now. My brother and I, despite the fact that I wanted to end him back then, are now the best of friends.

And I have daily conversations with my mother, though she's passed on, to tell her that her "curse" is working.

You know that curse. The Mother's Curse. Yes, that one. The one they say to you when you're younger and it goes like this:

"I hope when you grow up, you have a child that acts just like you do."

Thanks, Mom.

AJ Needs....

I saw this little meme over on Rebecca of Ewe Devil's blog. It's funny!

Go to Google and enter "(your name here) needs" and then list the top ten or so queries that come up on your blog.

Here are mine: (I used my real name for the search, but used my nickname here.)

AJ needs: help!

AJ needs: to know. (like inquiring minds?)

AJ needs: a psychiatric evaluation. (hmmmph.)

AJ needs: a crew of volunteers every day for a 3 hour time period. (Oh, Glorious! Will send off for that straight away!)

AJ needs: to find her way to the gate. (Off they run, whee!)

AJ needs: a rosette reality check. (bring it on, Brandy!!)

AJ needs: to establish herself as a hero in the eyes of the world. (like Spider-Man? Ok - I want to wear the new black suit.)

AJ needs: therapy! (ok, ok, I get it - enough already with the outside help suggestions! Geeesh!)

AJ needs: more bite if she's to play alongside the big boys. (WTF? I hold my own just fine thank you very much!)

AJ needs: to go. (*door slam*)

Happy Anniversary!

To me! Hubby and I celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary today!

What a lovely three years it's been, too. He's wonderful.

We're going out on a real date tonight sans boys to have a good time painting the town red.

Hmmm... how does one paint the town red, exactly? When I was little I used to imagine people going out with huge paint brushes slopping red paint over everything in creation to make one big drippy, sticky mess. I quite doubt we'll be doing that.

Surely it wouldn't hurt to wear a red dress, though?

I'm very excited: a proper date! We haven't had one of those in ages.

School is COMING!

Thank goodness!

We had school registration today for both the boys. Let me just tell you this:

I. Can. Not. Wait. Until. School. Starts.

Let me also say, I love both of my sons. They're good kids. But school is a blessing. My 7-soon-to-be-8 year old is starting 2nd grade and is very excited to go back. My 4 and a half year old will be starting school for the very first time in the 4K program. He'll go for half a day in the mornings and ride the bus in the morning with Big Brother and come home before noon.

So that means I'll have a half a day 5 days a week all to myself.

MYSELF.

Me. By myself. Alone. With no screaming children. No fighting, no running, no little boy noises, no constant asking for things they just asked for two minutes ago. No complaining about whose turn it is to pick something to watch on TV, no asking to play video games when they know it's not time for that.

Just me. *sigh*

Tagged Again!

This time by Lucy over at Folk-N-Fancy!

Six Weird Things/Habits About ME!

I. I prefer Roman Numerals to English.

II. I am absolutely terrified of food poisoning by eating bad food. I'm constantly checking dates.

III. I HATE bugs with more than 8 legs. If I see one of those suckers coming for me, I scream and run like a little girl. Yuck.

IV. I have a coat obsession. Seriously. It ain't pretty.

V. I HAVE to have a fan blowing on me when I sleep at night. Even in the dead of winter when we're bundled up under a pile of wonderfully soft and warm comforters. If that fan isn't blowing, I'm not sleeping.

VI. I like to do things in even numbers.

And a bonus one: I like to photograph eggs.

Another bonus: If given the choice, I will almost always pick watching SportsCenter over regular TV.

Ohhh, Brandy! You've got another one! And Yoooohoooooo! Courtney! You, too!

Tagged by Sue!!

I've been tagged! I haven't done a meme in a while so it's a welcome change!

Finish these 5 sentences:

1. The one household chore I don’t mind doing is - cleaning the living room/rearranging furniture.

2. The last person that made a surprise visit to my home was - goodness I don't know. No one ever makes a surprise visit here. We're so far out in the country that when we have visitors, they call first to make sure we're home.

3. I cannot comprehend - people who insist on putting someone else down to try and make themselves feel better. What a downer!

4. At this moment I wish - I was out on a cozy dinner-and-a-movie-date with my husband.

5. The last serious discussion I had was with - my husband on some changes that might be happening in our lives.

I'm going to tag:

Brandy!

Of course, if you'd like to join in and do this one, go for it!

Face Lift

I know, not the most interesting post, but I think it's neat.

I acquired this chest of drawers from my grandmother a couple of weeks ago when she moved out of her apartment. This bureau has been around since my mother was a girl. I remember when I was little and I'd stay the night at my grandparents; I always loved the bureau but hated the drawer pulls.

So when hubby and I brought it home I told him I wanted to go get new pulls for it right away. I mean, come ON, wouldn't you? Those gaudy white ceramic knobs coupled with those ugly used-on-everything-from-the-50s-to-the-80s pulls HAD to go.

We went to Home Depot tonight to go look at pulls and we found these. It's hard to describe the color... It's like a dark copper covered with very dark warm smokey gray. And they're brushed metal, too! I liked them in the store, but once I put them on, I REALLY liked them.

Amazing what a new set of hardware can do to really bring new life to something!

Addiction

(in the style of Bridget Jones's Diary)
2:25 pm. I need help. I'm addicted to Oceangram. Surely it's not normal to have a flash animation bring your emotions to sky high or down low?

But it IS addicting. I've sent oodles of messages and received oodles in return. Some are side splitting funny, some are lame, some are inspirational, and some are just ... well, you know.

I discovered this last week sometime and I've wasted away many hours of my days since. I've come to the realization that I simply must stop. I have to walk away.

2:28 pm. I wonder if I've got another message? Can't hurt to have just a little peek, right?

2:29 pm. No. Must have self control.

2:30 pm. Oh sod it. I'm going to have a look.

2:31 pm. Hurrah! I've got a message!

2:33 pm. Sent.

Score!

Well, my first experience with wool and felting was a success!!

Whenever I've gotten the chance over the last three days I've been knitting to try and finish this little beauty -- I so badly wanted to see how it would turn out!

Here's a picture of it before felting:

I crocheted the little flower to go on it for decoration but didn't sew it on before felting. I wanted them to felt separately in case it didn't turn out well. I'm glad I did it that way, because the flower didn't felt at ALL. The same thing happened to the sample swatch I made to felt first. I crocheted that and was terribly worried when I pulled it out of the washer and it looked the same and measured the same size.

But knitting with this wool felted beautifully. I mean, first try and I'm in love with it.

The bag before felting measured 11" wide x 13" high. The bag after felting measured 6 1/2" wide x 7 1/2" high. I think that's perfect!

Here's a pic of it after felting:

Isn't it cute? It wasn't fully dry when I shot this (and probably won't be dry until tomorrow) and when I put it down on my table, the bottom sides pooched out a little bit.

I just love how it looks. The idea of felting scared me a little bit - so many variables and wool is expensive! If it didn't turn out that's a lot of money gone.

But now that I've done it once, I want to do it AGAIN!

One of the biggest things I worried about was the red wool. I thought for sure in that hot water that those reds would bleed all over the place and that beautiful autumn leaves variegated wool would be ruined. But no bleeding whatsoever! YAY!

And here's a close up shot of the handle:

For the handles, I used a Knitting Knobby made by Susan Bates. That was so easy to do and I think the handles worked out great.

Speaking of cool handles, take a look at Brandy's bag!! Isn't hers gorgeous! I just love it. We should definitely "team up" on another one!





And finally because I'm weird and enjoy looking at pics of things from start to finish, here's a recap:

Wool!

Mmmmm look at the yummy fall colors.

Brandy's been knitting a gorgeous little purse with Homespun and I thought I'd try my hand at making one, too. But I wanted to make mine with wool and then felt it. It will be smaller, but I think it will be SO cute for a small bag. I can't wait to get started. It was ALL I could do last night when I got home NOT to start. I wanted to take pretty pictures of the beautiful fibre goodness before mussing them with knitting.

OOOoh! And I got some bamboo circs, too! I'm really excited about working with those.

So for the details :)

The red (which is a little more of a burnt red than the photo shows) is by Classic Elite and it's called Montera Llama Wool. It's so so soft. The variegated is also by Classic Elite called Paintbox and it's merino wool. Another soft soft fibre.

I've never felted anything before.. if anyone has any tips, I'm all ears!

Knitted Goodness

Look! *smile* I'm so excited to have gotten this far on my knitted basketweave pattern. I frogged the other one I'd started last week due to a mistake I couldn't fix and a border I was very unhappy with and started this one Friday. I'm about 35 rows into it and I'm much happier!

It's going smoothly now: knitting is getting faster and I feel good that I've accomplished learning how to do the basic stitches. My next project when I get this one done will be to learn some more difficult things. (eek!)

Here's a pic of the whole thing so far:

Caps Caps & More Caps!

I just love making these little hats! I'm up to 17 now.

The white one and the one on top I made on our road trip in the middle of the week and the purple/green one in the bottom right hand corner I did just last night.

They're so fun!

Doing a Little Redecorating

There's a new look to my blog! I've been doing a little work on getting things more the way *I* want them to be. A lot of the credit can go to Tara over at Tara's Doodles. She's got a great tutorial on how to change the spacers between posts. From there I figured out how to FINALLY change the title area of my blog so I could put in an image of my own.

The one I've got up there right now has some little pictures I got off the internet. I set up and shot something of my own this morning, but I didn't quite like it for a title pic. I expect I'll keep trying until I get something I love. For now, this will work. :)

Hear Ye!

Behold!

The Powers of the Knitting Gods have been good and kind and hath bestowed on me THE KNOWLEDGE.

I shall henceforth be known as One Who Can Knit.

Cap Goodness

Look at all the little baby caps! I've done 14 of them so far, 6 of them are new within the last couple of days. I'm still having fun coming up with different edgings and what not, though the front three in this photo *look* pretty similar.

Here's a shot of the most recent 6:













These were all done with Bernat Softee Baby in various colors except the greenish blue one in the lower left hand corner and the purple, pink, green, and blue one on the left hand side of the 2nd row. The greenish blue one was with Bernat Baby Fingering Weight yarn in green and blue doubled up together and trimmed with Softee Baby in white. The purple, pink, green, and blue one above it was done with a yarn called "Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby" which is D.K. weight and made in Turkey. It's a blend of 50% acrylic microfiber and 50% rayon. So soft. I found it at Ben Franklin the last time I was there. There are lots of other great colors and variegated shades that I'd like to try!

Well I think that's about it for now... nothing too special here. Just a smorgasbord of about a million projects that I'm trying to work on evenly so as not to leave any behind.

Have a great day!

Going to the Dark Side

Just kidding... No crochet vs knitting jokes here.

I've been thinking about this for a while. I LOVE crocheting, don't get me wrong, but there's something about the way knitted fabric drapes... I can't quite explain it. Anyway, to learn (or actually RE-learn) how to knit has been something I've wanted to tackle.

So yesterday I decided to finally take the plunge. I was out at Wal-Mart killing time looking at yarn and hooks and stuff like that, when it occurred to me that while looking at the crochet hooks and pattern books was fun, what I really seemed to be drawn to by some unknown force were the knitting needles. I thought that was my subconscious telling me that I was ready to try it. I picked up a pair of straight needles and a set of circular needles, both size 8 (which translates to my favorite H hook size in crochet.) I also bought some pink yarn because, well, my very first crochet project two years ago when I started back up again was a little pink afghan. I decided to continue that tradition.

I also bought Leisure Arts's book I Can't Believe I'm Knitting! which I've decided is absolute pants. (My book has a different cover, but same material.) The wording is ok, but the little diagram drawings don't do much for me, and I'm an equal parts visual and written learner. I NEED those pics. But I don't want little drawn diagrams. I want pics of real hands holding real needles and real yarn. I want to see the intricate twists of REAL yarn around the needle. So after a half hour of trying to cast on using the method in the book, I threw the book on the floor, stomped on it, sat back down, and tried to do it from memory how my grandmother taught me when I was around 10 or 11. (I figured if I could teach myself how to crochet with no book {and at the time I was doing it it didn't occur to me to look online for tutorials} then I could teach myself to knit with no book, too.)

It went ok, but apparently she taught me to double cast on using BOTH needles. I guess this is outdated because everywhere I've seen online shows to cast on in this weird method holding the yarn in your left hand curled around your fingers where it then does a little dance and laughs at you for having to contort your hand in such an unnatural way and THEN try to get the yarn to stay on a needle with nothing to really grab it with (like a crochet hook.) GRRRRR.

So yea, I cast on doing it the way I remembered, then started the knit stitch. Ok, we're rolling good, 20 stitches cast on, 20 stitches knitted, everyone's accounted for and all is right with the world.

Now we turn. Hmmm... I seem to remember my grandmother never turned her work, but simply just went back and forth. Apparently she was ambidextrous? I turned mine, because that's what the book said. Even though the book had led me wrong in casting on, but still, let's just give it another go, shall we? So we turn. And we knit some more. But wait.. why aren't these coming out the pretty braided look on one side and the ugly sideways loops on the other side? Why are the ugly sideways loops on both sides? YUCK! That's not how I want something to look!

Again, I delve further into the book and realize, oh yea. DOH! Purling. Ew. Just when the knitted stitch was starting to feel ok and my hands weren't ready to pretzel themselves, I have to do something even MORE cruel to them and make them work totally backwards to purl. Hmmm... So we purl a row. And though my hands and fingers were about ready to go on strike, we had 20 stitches purled, again everyone was accounted for and all is right with the world.

And we turn again, this time knitting. 20 stitches knitted: we're doing good. So I decide, ok, simple swatch thing is going all right, let's rip it out and try again. But after the horror of the text written cast on method, and my not-quite-sure-I'm-doing-this-right "remembered" cast on method, I decide to forage the wealth of splendid information available to me over the internet.

Annie's Attic stitching help section, which was SO VERY helpful to me when I was remembering to crochet two years ago, really let me down when trying to use it to help with knitting. It's almost like those little videos were snickering and making fun of me. Don't laugh!

So after a little further searching I come across a WONDERFUL site called KnittingHelp.com run by a lovely lady named Amy Finlay. Hurrah! I felt like leaping with joy across my living room. This site was simply that good.

First thing I looked up is casting on. Where I find there are like a million different methods to cast on. Wow. So I start with the first one, which looked similar to the dreaded laughing hands method in the Leisure Arts book, but not quite. She has little videos that show you exactly how to do everything and the neat thing about them is she TALKS and explains what she's doing as she's doing it. Fabulous! So we start. And hey look at that, I'm casting on using the one needle and curled yarn around fingers method and my fingers are no longer laughing at me - they're actually working the yarn on the needle! Life is good.

I then looked up how to do the knit and purl stitches on her little videos and found I'm a Continental Knitter (aka "German Method" and sometimes called "Left-Handed Knitting.") I found this amusing... A right-handed crocheter who's moonlighting as a left-handed knitter. Who knew?

Anyway, after this loooooong diatribe, I go back to the photo above. It's a simple basket weave. I cast on about 55 stitches, did a garter stitch for the first 5 rows, then knit 10, purl 10 across and alternating row after row. After about 12 rows, I switched it around to start the new set of boxes. What I'd eventually like to do is make a baby afghan with the pink yarn using this basket weave pattern, but I think for that I'll knit 20, purl 20 so that the boxes will be larger.

I'm in the process now of binding this off (after all that work I'm not going to rip it OUT!) And then I'll start the actual afghan after that.

And just to please my right hand, which is longing for a crochet hook instead of these blasted needles, I'll include this picture from two years ago of the very first thing I crocheted:













I remember when I was working on this and how awkward my hands felt holding the hook and yarn. It's good therapy because it makes me feel that eventually I'll stop fumbling over the needles and get better at knitting just like I did with crocheting.

Wish me luck!