Fall - It Came and Went

Hello and welcome back. Actually you haven't been gone but I certainly have been. I have been gone much too long and fall is over with nary a post. We have had a bit of family illness of the parent variety with several trips to the emergency room including one ambulance ride and a few days in the hospital for Jerry's dad. My mom had a total knee replacement. Her knee is doing great but she had some other complications that has made recovery a long, slow process. All of this has lead to lots of impromptu over nights by various family members, canceled plans, last minute changes of plans, etc. I know most of you have been there. To top it off blogger has eaten two very nice posts. I have no idea where they are but if anyone finds them please let me know. I think they were some of my best posts ever.

We have had some fun and there has been a fair amount of knitting going on. So, let me entertain you with a few of the highlights of fall.

We went with Jerry's daughter and her family to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.
We had so much fun. We did face painting but on the arm so it could be seen and enjoyed by the one painted on.
We got to know some very lovely sheep.
We looked through holes in walls simply because the adults told us too. They thought we were soooo cute.


Grandpa bought us flower shaped fairy hats. It was a day of making memories. I am printing a book of all the pictures from that day as a Christmas gift.

I knit this pattern back in August and love the pattern. I have started knitting it again in I Love This Cotton! from Hobby Lobby. It is so soft and yummy feeling I am truly enjoying knitting this little baby blanket. There are several babies baking and will need sweet little things knit for them. As soon as I get done with Christmas knitting I will be back to this blanket.

Speaking of Christmas knitting..... I have three granddaughter's under the age of 6. They are each getting an outfit for Christmas. I am knitting the vest and buying jeans and matching shirts. If time allows there will be a belt and/or headband. The pink and green is for the youngest and the pink one is for the oldest. I have yellow and lavender on the needles for the middle child. One front is complete and almost 1/2 the second front.

I keep a prayer shawl on the needles all the time and this is the most recent one. These multi-color, multi-yarn ones have been very popular.

I have talked about this shawl before but I like this picture much better. A dress form opens so many more opportunities for making a shawl look like something. I love the textures in this one and there are just hints of colors that the light picks up.


While talking about scribble lace shawls this is one of my favorites color wise. It is made with cotton crochet thread so isn't as slick and drape able as some of my others. I actually prefer it as a scarf.


Finally the mega afghan/blanket is complete. In case you have forgotten it's humble beginnings you can see it here.


I attempted to take a picture of my son with it before he left on Thanksgiving but I didn't have a memory card in the camera. Relatives took pics for me but I don't have them yet.

Congrats to KU in their win over Mizzou today. Thanks to the Olpe Eagles for a great season. I am so proud of you for making it all the way to state playoffs and for playing a good game against Smith Center.

Pizza or Turkey?

7/27/08

I made homemade pizza with all the fresh veggies from the garden. There is onion, green pepper, garlic and tomatoes. It was the best pizza I have made in quite sometime.

I love my baking stones. The handles on this make it much easier to get in and out of the oven. My old one had a rack to set it on but I was always forgetting the rack. It was passed on to my son so I could justify this one.

7/28/08

This turkey has several siblings that "hatched" last fall. I knit up three or four of these guys for gifts in a short amount of time. I chose this pattern to knit for the household items category at the fair because it was an easy but visually interesting knit. I knit the first 1/4 of this cloth several times and finally cut the yarn off and threw it away. It was beginning to resemble a well worn piece of string rather than yarn. Once I got past the half way point I didn't have any further problems thank goodness. There is one very obvious error but of course I didn't see it until I was blocking. I'm sure the judge will see it as well but I enter more for fun than for the ribbons. Too bad I didn't remind myself of that when I was having so much trouble knitting this thing. After the fair he goes into the mail to an Internet friend who has mentioned she would like to have a turkey.

In addition to this dishcloth I took a scribble lace shawl, my misknitted Everlasting Bagstopper shopping bag and a preemie hat. There were other projects I had planned to take but it is best if they are completed before entering them in the fair.

Today I cast on a pink dishcloth that I am test knitting for a breast cancer calendar fundraiser. More on the topic in the weeks to come. I have tested some patterns for quilt designers before but this is the first time testing for a knit designer. I hope I am up to her standards. She does beautiful work.

This and That - Has Spring Finally Sprung?

4/5/08

It was a cold and blustery day.... We were at the park photographing a high school senior and these balloons were stuck high up in a tree. I want to believe it was a balloon release at the end of the party to celebrate. My fear is they escaped in the wind and there were many tears shed by the birthday child.

4/6/08

I officially started the Mystic Light KAL. I keep reminding myself this is my first true lace, my first real cables and my first KAL. The KAL part isn't turning out so bad. Of course I would like to be keeping up with the clues but that was never a real part of the plan. I simply don't have that much knitting time and truth be told, I have way to many projects on the needles at any one time. As of today I am all the way up to Row 17 but I have an uncrossed cable 2 rows back. I need to talk my courage up to tink those four stitches back and fixing the cable. Something I have never done. Wish me luck.

4/7/08

I married out of a family that doesn't cheer for any team past the local high school level into a family of diehard Kansas Jayhawk fans. When the Jayhawks and the Wildcats play each other I cheer for the Wildcats and become rather obnoxious about it just because it stirs up so much trouble in this family. But when the Hawks are playing anyone else I support them 100%. The final four was particularly exciting this year. This is a screen shot off of my TV. I did a fair amount of knitting during those games but it had to be mindless and on big needles.

4/13/08

The 13th was my birthday. One of the big ones that everyone seems to dread but I was kind of excited about turning 50. I'm not sure 60 sounds so hot but I have 10 years to sneak up on that one. For my birthday I chose to go to Manhattan, home of the K-State Wildcats, where my two kids attend school and/or work. My son works at a printing company and has a new press that he wanted to show us. He handles all those buttons quite well. What he was printing surprised me a bit or rather seems quite odd. He was printing door hang tags for a famous pizza company. They use them for when they deliver a pizza and the person isn't home! It reads some thing like "Sorry we missed you. Call the following number and we will redeliver your pizza". Do people order pizzas and then leave? He was doing a run of several thousand so this must happen at least occasionally. While in Manhattan we ate at Old Chicago, met my son's girlfriend (very sweet girl. She gave me a bouquet of flowers for my birthday.), had ice cream at Dairy Queen and in general enjoyed the day with my kids.

4/14/08

I won't go into the long story of why my husband has to dig this area out to fix a leak around the sewer pipe but it involves two dead squirrels and rain. We need to relandscape the front of the house anyway so here he is tearing out the bushes. What does he find under the bush he is working on here? Four newborn kittens. Mama had been at supper the night before but not at breakfast so I wasn't surprised that there were baby kittens but now what? I put them in a cardboard box and brought them in the house while the digging was going on. When he finished I sat the box back where he had found the kittens. By 11 pm they had all been moved to an undisclosed location. I am pretty sure there are more than four as Mama appeared to have swallowed a medium size mixing bowl and she is historically a rather prolific Mama. Would anyone like some cats? Please.

Mystic Light Swatch

4/2/08

I haven't started knitting the Mystic Light shawl yet but I have reknit the swatch a couple of times. This is my first attempt at what I consider real lace, my first provisional cast on and my first time reading a chart. I missed a cable, changed needle sizes a couple of times and made a few unintentional design changes but other than that I think I am ready to start knitting the shawl. I found in knitting the swatch that I need the house quiet and maybe even empty to do this very well. That may mean this is a very long term project.

Comfort Shawls

Anna, my college freshman daughter called last night. She loves school, tolerates her job and I miss her terribly. From day one my internet name has been kidsnwork because my kids and my work were my life. Between those two parts of my life there wasn't much time for anything else. My kids were my inspiration to wake up every morning and know that there would be some adventure about to take place.
Shortly after I started knitting almost two years ago I joined the Prayer Shawl ministry at our church. I use a simple K3,P3 pattern and make long rectangular shawls for those experiencing hardship or celebration. During Anna's senior year in high school she asked for a shawl to take with her to college. I knew that I would also make a shawl for Kelsi, her best friend, college roommate and my daughter #2. They couldn't be regular shawls and they couldn't be from the regular yarn.
One day I ran across the pattern for the Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/shawls-shrugs/
feather-and-fan-comfort-shawl. htm
and I knew that was the pattern.
Another day I ran across Mystical Creations Yarns http://www.mysticalcreationyarns.com/
and after drooling over many yarns chose one color way for each shawl.
I had not done anything this detailed at that time and was in danger of wearing the yarn out from frogging Kelsi's shawl. Once I got the hang of it I fell in love with the pattern and immediately after finishing Kelsi's cast on Anna's.
They had been at school about a week when I went to visit and deliver their shawls.