Yea! It's been a day!

What a fun, fun day. :)
I got to go to 2 birthday events to celebrate a good friend's and my birthdays. We had breakfast at one friend's home...a wonderful tea party. (I'm not a tea drinker....lol....but I still enjoyed it very much. My friends just can't convert me, I'm a Starbucks girl myself!)
Then another friend brought us both a Hawaiian lunch to my little shop...complete with flowered flip flops and leis! We had salad with some kind of tropical muffins and strawberries and cream. It was lots and lots of fun.
The fun didn't end there.
I got my Knit Lites in stock today! What fun! It was pretty funny trying to cast on the clear tips in daylight. I felt like a new knitter! I'm also not used to such long needles...but they are still pretty fun. Hubby and I went on our weekly date night tonight and I was pretty eager for it to get dark. I was knitting on a dishcloth as we came home and it was getting dark. My hubby said to me..."Wow! Those are a lot brighter than that head light thing you wear!" I DON'T wear a light on my head! haha. I DO clip a light to my seat belt or my shirt though. I did ask him ages ago if I had gone too far in my obsession! nahhhhhhhhhhhh
But that wasn't all!
I finally spent my Christmas money today! Yes...it took me all this time to decide what to do with it. I got myself an I-Pod! Right now I am listening to a podcast...so if some of this doesn't make sense...well, hmm. I may be sharing some of the podcast with you by accident. haha
All in all....it's been a fun day.

Yes, finally pictures

• 
  
  I haven't gotten anywhere on getting the last little thing done on the baby bolero but once I get the stitches picked up, it will go fast I'm sure. It has a little shawl collar ... isn't it cute?
  
  It was relatively easy as long as you take the time to read the directions (my downfall most of the time!) Here is a close up of the edging...I guess it isn't too clear but you get the idea.
  
  I used Sirdar Snuggly DK and so far, have only used one skein. I'm not sure if I'll get through the collar with what I have left but it looks possible. The pattern calls for 2. I think the pattern is adorable, but the only thing I suggest is to read carefully...some of the decrease rows get a bit tricky if you're not paying attention.
• Other knitting news: I am working on some HandJive Knits socks. I really like the yarn but the dye is coming off on my fingers. I haven't heard anyone else mention this so I am going to call the shop I got it from to see what they say. The yarn is definitely beautiful. I am still playing with getting the cast on right so I can't really take a picture yet. I guess I'm just enjoying knitting and not too worried about how quickly I get things finished.

Baby Bolero

I did take pictures but it's been so long since I have posted any that it appears my cord for my camera is not in my bag so I will do upload them when I get home tonight. I had all of the stitches picked up for the sweater edge and the center wasn't in the center at all, so I pulled it all out and will re-pick them up...no big deal, the loops are looser now. All along some of the edges it seems you need to skip a lot of stitches, then when you get across the neck edge, you add a lot. When I resumed the picking up stitches after the weekend, I decided to count to see how many I needed and it is off. Back to the drawing board...but it hasn't been much work to get this far and will be done quickly once I get moving on it. I am thinking it will be pretty cute.

It's awfully hot today so I just can't seem to stay at anything...I go home in an hour and I might work on it tonight, maybe not. haha

Another day...no pictures

Another day of no pictures. I am making a baby bolero which is very close to done, but I cannot get it to lay well with the needles in it. All I have left to do is the lace front and shawl collar...I'll try to finish and post tomorrow. Cute! I've also been working on my Socks That Rock but am a little confused on knitting with the 2 colors down the foot...I don't want a little ridge down my foot so I have to figure out where I should be changing. Interesting where they met up again after the heel.

I feel like I totally wasted this day. I went to church this morning but got sick and came home. Didn't do much more than sit on the couch most of the day! It was hot and everyone was tired. I did make myself a little banner but my computer for some reason crashes when I'm using Paint Shop Pro so I have to save what I'm working on every step of the way. It acts just fine on my old computer that is slower than molasses!

Hope to have pictures of knitting tomorrow.

Where did I go?

Long story. My new laptop died Monday. They will fix it but they sure aren't in a hurry to get back to me. My little son had oral surgery last week and then the therapist we have had for 11 years took a new job and we had our last day with her Monday. Needless to say, I'm drained emotionally...it would be nice to have my laptop but *oh well*. :( I'll be back w/knitting content, hopefully soon.

To the frog pond!

I decided to frog the socks. I am loving knitting with this yarn and I am not in a hurry for the socks. I want to like them when I am done. This time I am doing two rows of one color and two rows of another so it can pool all it wants but it isn't going to show the same way...at least I hope it doesn't.

Here is the frog pond:

Contrary to what my dear friend Bunni thinks...I do NOT like to just knit and then frog it all so that I can take pictures of the results!

I really like them better this way. The pink keeps them warmer looking.

We've got pooling

I love the Socks That Rock, and was pretty thrilled that I wasn't getting any pooling in all my experimenting what to do with the yarn, but alas....when I got to the heel, it really started to pool. One side is pink, one is green. I am trying to figure out what to do.

Sorry for the uncreative pictures. One of them was taken outside and when I realized I had deleted the green side, I didn't feel like going back out...and the one inside actually shows the colors better.

I got an email from my sister-in-law and she was very blessed by her new socks. I wrote her a letter and showed her a picture journey of all of the silly attempts I had made to get her socks. Who knows, maybe some day I will have the ambition to finish one of those pairs for her too.

Long, long night....long, long day

I got no sleep last night. I have no idea why. However, if it was a night not to sleep, this would have been the one. The neighbor's came and went and came at all hours of the night...and the yipping dogs were going berserk. I couldn't have slept anyway with all that going on. I missed church today and managed to sleep about 2 hours this morning. I did a little bit of knitting today. These socks are easy and fast. I love the feel of them. Not sure they show up clearly but you get the idea. Other than that, I am close to finishing the book I am reading.

Is this any surprise?

Ha ha.
Actually, it isn't a disaster at all. I am having fun playing with my new sock yarn (Socks That Rock) and just having a bit of fun deciding what to do with it. I knit a full cuff and after getting about a third of the way through the eye of the partridge heel, I realized they need to be more than just plain stockinette so I frogged back to the ribbing after playing a little with Openwork Rib from Sensational Knitted socks. It's actually quite fun to have some play time after the SIL socks.

20 min later.....lovin' this pattern! Quick, easy....and it looks great with the yarn. A little blurry but I'm sure there will be progress reports.

I am free!

I finished the sister-in-law socks today! They had to go out with their own last hurrah, though. I got the toe closed and lo and behold, there was a funny hole in the middle of the row. I tried to fix it but all the while was thinking since I have worked sooo hard on these socks to make them the best they can be, it just wasn't the way to end them, but you know that word denial. Then when I got them off the needles completely I found a dropped stitch about 4 rows from the end. I do not ever recall doing that ever before! I tried to fix that but ended up with this big mess that I didn't remember to take a picture of. I laid them down, made an appointment for a haircut and left the house to take a deep breath before I looked at them again. I spent about 45 minutes picking out all that mess and re-did them and they are just perfect. They match, they are her colors, and most of all...THEY ARE IN THE MAIL!

Now I am going to sit for a bit and dream about what I want to do now. I think I'll just sit and browse through my new copy of Knitter's Magazine. (the last thing I want to do is pick up any of those cast off socks I started for her! haha....some other day!)

Hope everyone gets a chance to get out and knit in public tomorrow. I have to sit in my little yarn shop so I won't be out there, but we have a group organized in spite of the rain. They are actually going to put up a canopy.

Be blessed and knit on! I am one happy knitter today!

A wee bit frustrated but not too bad

I turned the heel on my 2nd sister-in-law sock and realized the heel flap on the first one was one more row than I had done. Since these are a gift, they have to be right. It's not terribly frustrating to me, but I just spent half an hour trying to catch the 2 stitches that ran down a few rows. That's the one thing about using 0's....the stitches can pop out and get away from you. I am not going to bore everyone by posting a picture that looks just like the first sock at this same point but I do want to share a picture a friend just emailed me....I think this is sooooo cute! It's a Noni bag and I sold her the yarn and the pattern. Love it!

I think I'll be trying one of these patterns soon.

I plan to be sending off those socks this week and then do something fun for me.

Good things do happen

I finished my first sister-in-law sock. I could not believe it when I realized the very next logical color block to start at was the exact place I started on the first sock! They are matching up perfectly. After I spent what seemed like months (several days) on the heel flap, the rest of the sock was done in a day and a half! I started the second one today and knit in the car part of the 4 hours we were driving and got this far. I'm about 9 rows from the dreaded heel flap...but I have good incentive because I bought some sock yarn today that I am really excited to try!

It's really going to be a sock!

My sister-in-law might actually get socks one of these days soon. I am trying to hurry with them because she really needs some encouragement. Once I got off the heel flap, they are growing fast. I'm loving this yarn! I haven't decided if I am going to try to match them up or not. I would really like to but the repeat is really hard to figure out. I found it once...but I'm not sure it is worth it really, since the stripes are so small. I'm glad I am making them on 0's though...makes me feel good to give her my best. :)

Baby kimono

I finished it today, and it's so cute. See the nice new whole ball of yarn I get to use up now. haha

(I haven't really sewn on the ribbon today, but soon.)