It Came!!!!

Every day I’ve been checking the front door as I come home wondering if this could be the day that my magic yarn ball will arrive. Well, yesterday it was! I had a long day and my husband met up with me to help me set up for a presentation midday and he came bearing the awaited box. Of course, I had to tear it open to take a peek, and this is what I saw.

Then, I made myself wait until my presentations were over before I took it home, looked it over, and giddily unwound my yarn ball. What fun creative treasures!

There is a ball of green yarn- I love green, some beautiful multi-colored silk ribbon, needle point protectors, a small stitch holder, two really interesting buttons, some green wool roving, some silver string, and a piece of ribbon with printed inspiring words. I couldn’t have asked for more. Best of all I’ve been pondering what kinds of creative lovely things I could make. I had to do a little looking to figure out who exactly sent it (I had a name, but no website or email address), and after a little looking and googling, I’ve found her at Uncoordinations . Thank you so much!

More Crocheted Flowers

I made a two more, one for me and one for my mom. She’ll enjoy wearing it to her garden club meetings. Each one gets a little quicker.

The trellis is pretty much finished. I need to put it together yet and pick up stitches for the collar. This is where I usually get, and then it sits stewing for a while until I get in the mood for seaming. Actually, a couple of days ago I was in the mood and I spent a couple of hours on it. The pattern has you kitchener the front sides to the back. Well, I did it three times but each time I didn’t like the way it looked. I’m not sure if there is a better way to do it, but I had stockinette stitches over the shoulder and I didn’t like how it broke the pattern of the cables. I finally decided to bind off the stitches and seam them and I didn’t check that I had the right side lined up to the back. Unfortunately, just as I thought I was done, I realized that I’d gotten them backwards. Needless to say I had to rip it all out. Maybe in a couple of days, I’ll be ready to give it another go.

Hedgie is done

I finished knitting this guy a couple of months ago, but he has been laying here faceless and unstuffed for about just that long. Now that he is done I can’t stop looking at him and smiling.

Pattern: Fiber Trends, Huggable Hedgehogs

Yarn: Cascade 220 colors 8686 and 8012 and some fun fur that I can’t find the band for anymore.

Needles: Size 10 ½ and 11- I recently bought the Boye set. It was a great deal at Micheal’s with a 50% of coupon. Now I’ll have every size I could need.

Notes: This little guy was fun to knit up. The pattern was very specific and had lots of stitch counts to make sure I was on the right track. The back of Hedgie took more than twice as much yarn as the yardage called for. I’m not sure if the fun fur that I used was bulkier and just took more yarn or what exactly happened.

Crocheted Rose

I saw these flowers on the front on knitsimple and they stuck in my head. Personally, I found it interesting that in a magazine for knitting that the cover photo is of crocheted flowers. I haven’t crocheted in a while so it took me a bit to get it right, but it turned out great. As best as I can figure out there is a small error in the pattern. The outer petal directions should read Row 1: Work 2 sc n 2^nd ch from hook and in the each ch to end-8 (10, 14). I also found that even the small flower takes 2 skeins of floss, not the one that they stated it did for the outside color. This rose is going to go on my magic yarn ball, so I’ll need to make a few more so that I can keep at least one for myself.

Small joys…that make me smile all day

My husband and I have a fun game we’ve been playing for a while now. We love to eat at the French Laundry in Fenton, MI. It’s a fun, quaint, yummy sort of place with the best breakfasts we have ever had. Back in February, we discovered that a table we frequently sit at has a drawer in it. From there, our adventures began. We left a rhyming note to see if anyone else looks in the drawer and if they would respond by leaving their own note. Each time we have visited since, we’ve found the pile of notes getting bigger. Several times now, when we’ve been at our table, reading the latest notes a waitresses will stop by and comment on us finding the hidden notes. It always makes us smile, since we were the ones who started it. So, since the notes were piling up, I thought that a fun journal type book to organize them all would be a fun new addition to the drawer. If you ever make it to the French Laundry, make sure you sit at the table for two just beyond the glass doors and check out our drawer of small joys.

Stitch Markers

I've been seeing all sorts of fun beaded stitch markers and decided that I need my own. I found small toggle clasps at Walmart that I used for the rings. (They were inexpensive, 16 for $1.88.) I started off wanting to put several beads on each one, but they ended up being too long and heavy. I decided that I liked them better, and that they just worked better for me with only one bead on them.

Trellis

I decided on the cream color for the Trellis. So, far so good. I'm getting better at cabling without a cable needle and my cabling stitches are looking more even. I like the detailed pattern, but it seems like I make a mistake every time my mind wanders...there has been lots of fixing along the way and I'm getting better at just dropping the stitches and re-knitting them. So far, I have the back and part of one of the fronts done.

Big New Fun...

It's my first swap...I've been wanting to participate in one, and this one looks like so much fun. Surprises as you knit along. It'll be so much fun to find lots of goodies to wind in that my match will find fun, not to mention the anticipation of the surprise that will appear in my mailbox.