Dances With Yarn

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Okay, so it's been forever since I've blogged, but maybe that's because it's hard to blog when your blog is new and nobody's really reading it yet. Or maybe it's because blogging seems to take me forever (am I doing something wrong? And WHAT is up with the right side of my blog???). Or maybe it's because I've been swamped with other "high priority" issues lately. We (my husband, my 16 year old son, and myself) just finished tiling much of our downstairs floors. I fell in love with Wendy's floors (which I happened to spot in one of her pics) and "stole" her idea of tiling the high traffic areas of our house (in addition to the foyer, kitchen & breakfast room). I emailed her about her floors and would you believe she actually sent me more pics of her floors??? What a gal! Sooo..... 900 square feet later, this is what we have. We still have to have the carpet professionally re-tacked down and finish the trim work, but this gives you an idea. Another high priority issue has been re-vamping my entire website. This has proven to be a huge undertaking and my girls are enjoying the extra over-time hours they're getting by helping me to get it going. We're even working today (SATURDAY!) to get it launched by next week (we hope). Anyway... it's huge. It's been quite a while since I've been able to do any "real" knitting, but a couple of weeks ago I finished another One Skein Wonder. This is my favorite (of the five I made) by far. Oh, and I finished one of my Sally's Fixation Socks that's not made out of Fixation. I just have to stitch the toe together... and then knit the other one ;-) I still do not own a single "pair" of knitted socks. I have about 8 socks, but not a single pair. I am about halfway done though with my second Mountain Colors sock, so it could be the first official "pair" of socks I've knit. Or will it be the Sally socks??? Hmmmmmm....... Other high priority issues have been medical crud. Some of the medical "news" is good and some is "yet to be determined". The good news is that after 2 echo cardiograms, we finally found out that my 12 year old son's heart is okay. No bicuspid aortic valve as the doctors had originally thought -- turns out that my son merely has a "functional" heart murmur and is "A-Okay" to play football (all 70 pounds of him). The pediatric cardioligist couldn't believe that was Anson's "sport of choice", but he has a big 16 year old brother to emulate... Here's a pic of my 12 year old son (yes, he has long hair and looks more like a girl in this pic) napping with Pedro.

And here's his big brother.

And lest we forget about sister...

Other medical ick is that since January I've been in and out of doctor's office with breast lumps. I have very very lumpy boobs... fibroadenomas (benign tumors). Had one removed in 2000 and have the others monitored closely. Seems some of them weren't looking right and after 2 mammograms and 4 ultrsounds (since January), they've finally decided to biopsy a 4cm mass (due to spotting some microcalcifications in the last mammo). It's going to be a stereotactic biopsy which is where I have to lie completely still on my tummy (the table has a hole in it for the breast to come through) for at least 30 minutes (boob compressed the whole time) while the biopsy is performed. I think drugs will be necessary for me to get through this one ;-) I asked the nurse if they give Valium prior to the procedure and she said that they didn't but that many patients "bring their own". Cool. A BYOV party. Either that, or let me knit while they poke. Now THAT would be interesting.

I got a call today from a friend of mine who suggested we play hookie from our church dance class and go see these guys instead. It didn't take too much convincing... so I loaded up two of my three kiddos (the eldest had to work) and we drove to the Chick Filet parking lot, met up with a bunch of friends, and jammed for a couple of hours. Awesome! On the knitting front, I've cast on for yet another One Skein Wonder Shrug, making this one my fifth! This one is being made out of Patons Brilliant (doubled) in Cream. It's beautiful! I'll post pics when it's done. I also decided to start another sock (yes ANOTHER sock) in the Samantha's Fixation Sock pattern. I started it in Fixation, but didn't care for the colorway and decided to try it in a cotton blend that matches a sweater that I'm also working on...

so now I'll have a matching sweater/sock set, if I ever finish them ;-)

Well, I'm back and recovered from my trip to see Glamaw in Florida.

The traveling part of the trip was horrible due to multiple gate changes and delays (2 hours) out of Houston. Then, more delays (2 1/2 hours) upon arriving back into Houston due to a terrible lightening storm which caused everything in the airport to shut down. We landed safely, but then had to wait the additional 2 hours for our luggage to be unloaded off the airplane. The upside of this was that I got a lot of sock knitting done while I waited. Seemed like I was about the only person in the entire airport who had something to keep them occupied... what is WRONG with these people??? If they would only learn to knit.... While I was in Florida, I managed to finish 2 socks (I know, I know, they don't match) and my first One Skein Wonder by Stefanie at Glampyre Knits.

Unfortunately, my gauge was off on the One Skein Wonder and it turned out too small, but I'm already nearly done with my second attempt. I'm thinking about frogging the ribbing on the first one and adding more rows to it which should make it fit -- that way I'll have TWO (one to keep and one to give away, of course!). The sock on the left is made from discontinued Patons Look-At-Me in Electric Blue and the sock on the right is made from Mountain Colors Barefoot. I can't even remember the colorway for the Mountain Colors sock but I think it's been discontinued as well. Finishing these two socks makes a total of 5 socks that I've made and none of them match. HOWEVER, I'm several inches into the mate for the Mountain Colors sock (thanks to the lightening storm) so I should have my first actual "pair" of socks soon! Glamaw really liked her partially finished NBaT and decided that she DID want the Coco Chanel logo on it after all. I'm taking a bit of a break from the NBaT though since I don't have to have it finished until she comes to visit in mid July. My goal is to make a couple One Skein Wonders as well as finish at least one UFO before I go back to Glamaw's NBaT. And if I manage to do that ahead of schedule, I'm seriously thinking about making something from my Loop-D-Loop book... I have another quiet weekend ahead of me, so hopefully much knitting will get accomplished!

Do not put sunblock on your eyelids to prevent them from burning -- it does not work. Second note to self -- do not attempt to knit after putting sunblock on your eyelids. I am not a "sweater". I do not sweat easily. When other people are complaining about the heat, I'm usually quite comfortable, which is frequently an issue between DH and myself. Everybody else in my house likes the thermostat set at about 5 degrees cooler than I do, so I'm usually freezing and bundled up in sweaters or blankets while everybody else is comfortable. HOWEVER.... on Saturday when I decided to soak up some of our South Texas rays and when the temps rose to the high 90's, I have to admit that I must have "glistened" a bit, and when I did, that's when things began to get ugly. I had this great idea that I would work on Glamaw's NBaT outside since the sun was shining and the thought of staying inside on such a beautiful day just wasn't working for me. So, I put on my bathing suit, put some sunblock on my already sunburned eyelids (from last week's outdoor "tanning" session), grabbed Glamaw's NBaT and headed outside. Things went well. For about 5 minutes. Then (evidently) I began to sweat a bit somewhere near my eyes. This led to the sunblock getting INTO my eyes, which led to my eyes watering because sunblock in the eyes STINGS! This led to me rubbing my eyes which not only got sunblock all over my hands (preventing any future successful knitting) but also removed ALL of the sunblock from my eyelids! So I was back at square one with no sunblock on my eyelids. Actually, I was worse off than square one since I now had slippery hands that could NOT hold onto knitting needles no matter how hard I tried. Lesson learned. I am now 50% done with Glamaw's NBaT and the back (plus one sleeve) is currently drying on the blocking board. I didn't get as far as I'd have liked this weekend, but will try to work on it as much as I can before I leave for Florida to see Glamaw on Wednesday. My goal was to get the back, both sleeves, and most of the front done before I left so that Glamaw could decide if she wanted a motif on the front or not. Since Glamaw sells Chanel Cosmetics at Saks, my original thought was to include the Coco Chanel logo on the front of her NBaT, but am now thinking that it might look more like a work uniform than a regular sweater. So we'll leave it up to Glamaw to make the final decision. I'll be doing good to get the front of the sweater cast on before I leave (am currently working on the second sleeve), so obviously I'm running a bit behind on my goal. No worries though, it will be done by mid July (at the latest!) when Glamaw comes back to Texas for a visit. My Loop-D-Loop book arrived from Amazon on Saturday. This is a really great book and (in my opinion) is well worth the twenty bucks that Amazon is charging for it. This book will be serving double duty for me, functioning not only as a pattern book, but also as a nice coffee table book as well. While not every pattern in the book is one that I can see myself wearing, I definitely will be making several of them in the near future. The book is just a nice change from almost every other knitting book out there, so expect different. I'm also really excited about Stefanie Japel's (AKA Glampyre) new "One Skein Wonder" shrug pattern. It's adorable and I've already bought, downloaded and printed the pattern. This one may just get started when I get home from Florida! Shrugs are still very popular here and since (as mentioned above) I am usually chilly, I think this one will come in very handy!

Well, it's Saturday morning, the kids are at their dad's, and DH is working 'till 8:00 pm -- time to get some serious knitting in! Which is a really good thing since I'm quite behind on "Glam"aws NBaT. 

 

I'm drudging through the armholes and hope to finish at least one sleeve today! OH! And here's a pic of my first freeform scrumble. I have a question though -- is it still considered a scrumble if it's big? Or do scrumbles have to be small? Anyway, here it is (notice how the colors work with the colors of my other pillows). 

 

I know it's a tall order, but I really think this scrumble is going to become an afghan one day! Okay, here is my latest soon-to-be project! Since I'm a fairly new knitter, I know this will be quite a challenge, but look how gorgeous it is!!! The recommended yarn has been discontinued, so I'm going to try it in Plymouth's Softer since it's a suggested alternative. Okay, time's a'wastin'!

... is freeform crochet. I've seen it numerous times before and in the past, I have to admit, it's never really done much for me. Until today. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because I've been crocheting for so long that the idea of doing something totally new with crochet seemed refreshing or maybe it's just because. Regardless, after spending some time on Prudence Mapstone's site and joining several freeform crochet Yahoo Groups, I decided to give it a whirl. I had an absolute blast! For crocheters who have never tried freeform crochet, it's like coloring outside of the lines. And the worse you crochet, the better the end result looks! It's quite liberating. Not only that, but you also get to use up tons of scrap yarn! I've decided that my first freeform crochet project is going to be an afghan for the kids' playroom with matching (well, as matching as freeform can be) pillows. I have no idea how long this new project will take me -- I worked a couple of hours on my first "scrumble" and it's about 12" X 12". I'll post pics tomorrow... Other than that, I'm still working on my mother's NBaT. I don't know if I'm so bored with it because it's my second NBaT, if it's because I'm having to make the largest size (mom's busty even after a reduction, unlike moi), or if it's because it's not for ME!!! Either way, it's taking me forever to get through this one. I'm just beginning the armholes of the back, and at this rate it'll be quite a while before it's finished. I really wanted to have almost all of it done before I leave to visit mom in Florida next Wednesday so that she could see it "almost done". The reason I don't want it completely finished before I leave is because I want her to tell me if she wants a design on the front or not and will finish it after she decides. And since it's a surprise I can't ask her in advance... Anyway, I should be able to get a lot done this weekend since the kids are with their dad and my husband is working all weekend. Ah... peace and quiet and knitting!

... but I just finished a project and I'm ready to show it off a bit.  I just finished my first NBaT made out of TLC Cotton Plus.

 

I've already started on my second NBaT in black for my mum.  I hope she likes hers as much as I like mine!  The TLC Cotton Plus was really easy to work with, is super soft and washes great! 

I also thought I'd take this opportunity to show off some of my crocheted projects.  Click here to see my crochet thread bears.

Well, this is my first post in my new blog and since I have no idea what I'm doing, I'll be lucky to even have it show up on the page! My purpose in starting a blog is to (hopefully) motivate me to complete some of my (many) UFO's. Eventually, I plan on posting pics of each UFO and hopefully will have figured out how to include a progress chart for each one. Some of my UFO's include: Cast On's Pink Sweater. I've completed the entire back of this sweater with Plymouth's Fantasy Naturale in a beautiful sage green AND have nearly finished another back of the same sweater with TLC's Cotton Plus in hot pink (very similar to the pink in the photo). So in other words, I've got two backs of the same sweater with no fronts, sleeves, etc. I love this sweater though and plan to finish both of these UFO's. Other UFO's include two cable knit pull-overs (again both the same pattern) -- one made of Paton's Shetland Chunky in a nice dark taupe and the other in red Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky. Both of these sweaters are about 1/4 of the way done with the fronts. Another UFO is an apple green summer sweater made of Plymouth's Fantasy Naturale. If I remember correctly, the back is complete and the front is about 1/4 done. It has no sleeves, so hopefully I'll pull this UFO out and convert it to a FO soon. And socks... oh my gosh, socks. Well, I love making socks... it's just that I hate making the second sock of the same color so while I have several completed socks, I have no completed "pairs" of socks. My problem is that I'm so curious to see what a new yarn is going to look like when knitted up that I completely ignore the mate to the first sock and move on to something new and exciting. This is terrible and I'm really going to try to work on this UFO issue. Other UFO's include a knitted poncho made from a beautiful cream colored Plymouth Yukon yarn -- it's probably about halfway done, another pullover sweater which probably has about 1/4 of the back completed, and my most recent UFO is a NBaT sweater made out of light rose TLC Cotton Plus (I love this yarn, btw). So far, I'm doing pretty well on the NBaT and actually think I'll get this one finished. I was just about done with the back of it when I realized that the body of the sweater was really several inches longer than I thought it would be and since I really wasn't very pleased with the hem either, I just decided to start completely over. I'm now done with the (second) back and am about 3" done with the front. I am determined to finish this project if it kills me! Actually, so far it hasn't been too bad and I really hope to make a couple more of these for my mother and my daughter. Just not sure if that will happen before the other UFO's or after them... Now that I've confessed all (or at least most) of my UFO issues, I'm hoping that I'll be more motivated to complete some of them and post my successes here! Photos of each UFO will be added as soon as possible. Of course, there have been many FO's too and pics of those will be posted as well. Until then...

... and with my busy schedule, who knows if I'll ever have time to blog here ;-)