Making progress on the unfinished list

I am working hard on my long list of unfinished projects.  Of course that means I bought yarn to make more projects.  LOL   When I die there will be a bunch of yarn at the estate sale!

I finally finished two pairs of socks that I started last year.  The red, grey and white yarn was very exasperating.  It had tons of knots  and tangles and frays.  The socks were going to be identical so each time I had to cut yarn on one, I had to cut the other one too or they would not end up alike.  I got so angry I sent a Tweet to the yarn company and they actually sent me two replacement packages! 

 

I also started a new pair of socks that are going to be a lot of fun to make and will not be finished until hopefully October.   They are called Crackerjack socks. (think of the lyrics to "take me out to the ballgame")  The socks will keep track of the K.C Royals season.  If the team wins a home game I knit a row of light blue, if they win an away game I knit a row of dark blue.  If they lose, I knit a white row.  Of course I hope the socks end up mostly blue.  Since I am doing the socks two at a time I use separate yarn for each sock so I am dealing with six packages of yarn attached to one needle which is an open invitation for tangles!   I put each group of yarn in a knee high hose and that has helped immensely.   The heels and toes do not count so they are knitted in yellow yarn.   It feels strange to only do one or two rows at a time but that also has helped with the yarns tangling. 

 

Soon I should be sharing pictures of a crocheted sweater I am working on that is very close to done.  It is Tunisian crochet which is a lot of fun to do.  I hope it fits - I may have to find someone a size smaller than me to give it as a gift.  :(  Hard to tell until that last seam is sewn. 

 

I also finished a brown cable hat that I totally love.  I want to keep it for myself but will probably add it to the ones I give to charity.

 

 

 

The Pi Shawl has grown also but wow - it takes a long time to do one row now!  It is up to 288 stitches in each row!   I love this yarn but think it isn't the best choice for a lace shawl.  The fuzziness of the mohair hides the lace pattern.  It might be ok after I block it.

 

 

I love having a variety of things to work on - each evening after supper I pick something to work on and like that I can change to fit my mood.  





Botanica

We had such a great day at Botanica today - it was the Tulips Fairies and Forts event they have on Saturdays in April.  I was concerned it would be too crowded, then when we woke this morning and it was only 26 degrees I thought it would be too cold.  But thankfully I was wrong on both.  We had the girls last night so met their parents there around 1.  It was beautiful weather and I think most of the kids in town had been taken to the zoo Easter egg hunt because there really weren't very many people there.  Each girl got a piece of paper with pictures of fairy houses to find scattered all over the park.  We found a few then got lunch - they had hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza at very reasonable prices.  The kids plate was a large slice of pizza, juice and a cookie for only $2.50. There were many empty tables and chairs to eat at which was nice.  We finally found each fairy house and the girls each got a sucker for finding them all.  The garden of course is beautiful with tulips right now.

 

I was proud of this bottom picture with the cardinal behind the flowers.  I am sure it could be better but thought it was pretty good.

 

 

Finished a project!

I realized the other day I have a bad case of startitis which is when you keep starting new projects before you finish the last project.  This is a common illness among crafters especially knitters.  But I went through all my bags and baskets and discovered to my horror (not really) that I had 14 projects started.  Some of these have been started for years and I either lost interest or just don't like them.  There are a couple I will probably just rip out and use the yarn for something else.  But I am not buying more yarn until I have a few of these easy ones finished.  This does not include the pi shawl of course - that will be a long term project!  But today I finished a simple purple hat that I started during basketball season - I would drag it out when K-State played hoping it would help.  Didn't do much good this year but there are several of us on Twitter that knit purple during the games to show support.  I've made a lot of hats for babies in the NICU during these games but this one is for a child.  I believe I will mail it to a young man that is a huge KState fan and has been fighting cancer.  He was in remission and just found out this week the leukemia has come back.  He was very popular with the KState football team and got to go out on the field and went to the bowl game.  He is only 10 and it seems so unfair for him to battling this for a second time. 

Pi Shawl

Thought I would add a picture of my progress  on the Pi Shawl.    At this point (only worked on it one day which was a very stressful day - see previous post) it has 72 stitches - using the magic loop makes 36 stitches on each side.  So far I have followed the pattern in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitters Almanac except I am using magic loop instead of the double pointed needles.  The next row is an increase row and will double the stitches to 144.  Then I am following the Gull Wings pattern from Ravelry.  By the end it will have 576 stitches.  Wonder what the date will be when I post the final picture.  Wonder if there will be a final picture or if it will be the project that goes in my casket.  I figure I never go on a trip without a knitting project so assume someone will put a project in the casket for my final trip.  :)

Pi Day

So today is 3 14 15 and is the biggest Pi day of the century.  Since I am horrible at math, I only know this because of Twitter and my daughter.  And apparently when the time is 9:26:53 it makes a very special moment in your life and you won't even know it.  :)  Unless you are on Twitter and I am sure it will explode at that time.  Or it did this morning and I missed it.

So in honor of Pi Day I decided to start the Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Shawl.  I've started it three other times and failed miserably and ripped it out.  Just the cast on is hard - you need to google it on You Tube and watch a video to figure it out.  And it is awkward as all get out to do.  But I did it twice with the very expensive Noro lace yarn I bought in Mesa as a special present to myself (shortly after husband bought a bunch of reloading supplies).  So the cast one went ok on the third try then I did row one.  Started row two and the yarn broke.  Just broke - right in my hand.  I discovered if you gave even the slightest tug it would break.  I checked on Raverly and found that others had the same problem with the yarn.  Upset doesn't even begin to describe how I felt.  This was VERY expensive yarn and I had two packages and a goal of a beautiful shawl and I am sitting there with fragments of yarn.  I called the  yarn shop in Mesa and the lady was very nice - she gave me some suggestions on how to deal with the yarn and also said if I was still unhappy I could mail the packages back and she would give me store credit.  So the yarn is in time out right now and I will bring it back out in a few weeks.  In the mean time I found some Mohair Glitter yarn in my stash that I believe the Pi knowledgeable daughter gave me for either Christmas or my birthday.  It is a sparkly blue and will make a beautiful shawl and I am now on row 18 of the shawl!  But I have miles to do before I am finished.

In other craft news I started a Tunisian crochet sweater for myself and decided I needed to practice this technique  before I went very far into the sweater so I found some bulky brown yarn and made two small rugs for the bathroom.  There was no pattern - just Tunisian (afghan stitch) with the brown and a double crochet edge with the multicolored yarn.  Was good practice and we needed the rugs anyway.

I am also making scent circles for the local NICU.  I use an old CD to draw and cut circles from fleece.  In the past I would just laundry them in scent free detergent after cutting but I read that they prefer they have a zig zag edge so will do that this time.  Then I will put them in groups of five in ziplock bags to take to the NICU.  They are given to mothers to sleep with a circle inside her nightgown so her scent is on the circle.  The circle is then put in with the baby in the NICU.  My daughter-in-law did this with the triplets and my understanding is that the NICU is always in need for more circles.  I saw fleece on sale the other day so bought some.

Keeping busy is important for retired people like me and I like doing different craft activities so between knitting, cross stitching, crocheting and a little sewing I think I am reaching my goal.

And that is why the house isn't as clean as it could be.  :)

February

If I get this typed today I will still have a post each month in 2015! 

We have had a fun year so far.  Spent three weeks in Mesa in January which once again was so nice.  Love being able to sit outside my brother's house and eat oranges off his orange tree!  We seemed to keep busy all the time and really enjoyed getting to be with him and his wife and my cousin Nancy and her family.  After a few weeks we took the camper to Texas to see our grandchildren in a play.  Had some mechanical problems with the trailer but got it fixed and made it home the beginning of February.  The camper is in the shop now getting repaired correctly as the repair in Texas was just temporary.  The repair shop called yesterday and said it was ready to be picked up but since we have about five inches of snow and it is still snowing it can sit there for awhile!

I have been keeping very busy with knitting, crocheting and cross stitching.  I made the girls each a white sweater for their birthday.  They picked out the buttons so they can tell them apart.  They turned out a little bit big but that is ok - they will grow in to them.  I also made them each a hat out of some bulky yarn that went very quickly.  The pattern was on the  yarn and I loved the pattern.  I may make myself one. 

I don't know why this came out in this direction - it isn't this way on my desktop.  Top hat is Izzy's, middle is Lily's and the bottom one is Audrey's.  They picked out the yarn.

I've also made many boot toppers and am almost finished with a pair of knee hi socks.  I am trying to get my nerve up to start an Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Shawl  I've actually started it twice and ripped it out in the second round each time.  But I will keep trying until I get it right! 

Maybe in the March post I will have a picture of the shawl to post.   Google Zimmermann Pi shawl and you will get an idea of my challenge!

January - really? 2015? wow!

So on January 1st I like to do resolutions that I probably won't keep but this year I hope to update this blog more often.  Of course if I do it twice in 2015 I think I will be successful as I don't think I posted but once last year.  I would love to say I am sooooooooo busy but I am not and if you know me you know that is true.

2014 was a pretty good year.  We went to Scotland and Ireland on a group trip through Village Tours.  Never would have gone except for my friend Jan suggested we go.  We had a trip of a lifetime - it was wonderful.  Going on a group is so interesting as the bus driver knew so much about the history of the countries and we loved listening to him.  He was also very funny and made the miles seem faster.  Having Jan and her husband on the trip made it more fun.  I am very grateful to her for suggesting the trip.

In June we took a trip with the camper to Mt Rushmore and Yellowstone.  It was made much more fun because my cousin Nancy and her husband G.A. went along in their car staying in motels in the same towns as we camped in.  They would pick us up and we would go sightseeing all day and come back to the camper for supper.   We really had a great time and saw sights we hadn't seen in many years.

In October my brother came back for almost a week and we had a good time together.   Spent a couple of days at the Trailerhood which of course was fun.   We had one more supper at Doc's Steakhouse which was a family favorite since I was little as it closed at the end of October.

We also took the camper to the Nascar race in Kansas City twice.  Once in May and again in October.  That was a very interesting experience.  I doubt we do it again.  I think there are Nascar fans (like us) and Nascar fanatics and the campground at the track has more of the latter.  I would like to go to a race in Talledega sometime and maybe Daytona but once is probably enough for each track.  We also went to a World of Outlaws race in Dodge City and the midget races in Belleville and to complete the racing series we took Jimmy and the girls to the drag races in Kansas City.  That was a ton of fun!  The girls really liked it and before the race we toured the newly refurbished capitol building which is beautiful.

I did a lot of knitting and crocheting in 2014.  Probably more crocheting than I wanted to do but I developed a Trigger Finger on my ring finger of my right hand and knitting was very painful.  I had surgery in August and it is fine now. I am much better now about taking frequent breaks and stretching my hand while knitting.  Maybe that will help me not have to visit Dr. Melhorn again.  He is a nice guy but after carpel tunnel surgery and this surgery I think we have met enough.

The year ended on a sad note as my aunt passed away on the last day of December.  She was 93 and had a good life and will be missed.  She lived in Wichita the last couple of years and I enjoyed getting to visit her and meet for lunch with her daughter occasionally. 

Hope everyone reading this (all three of you) have a wonderful 2015!