New Dishcloth & Yarn

Since I finished the candy bag (see previous post) for Kaity I decided to start another dishcloth. 




This one is from the Aug mid-month Monthly Dishcloth KAL pattern.  It's called Shifting Sand.  The cables show better in person.  I need to work on my picture taking skills.

Next is the August installment of the Yarn Pirate Booty club. 




The yarn is BFL and the color is called Calamity.  I love it!  Pretty!

Candy Bag

I finished the Mandy's Candy Bag for NH Knitting Mama's contest.




I'll definitely be making more of these.  I knit mine Magic Loop instead of on DPNs.  It seems that I've pretty much been converted to ML, however you won't see me getting rid of my DPNs any time soon.  I made this one a little on the shorter side because it's for Kaity. 

There's sill time left to join in on the fun.  See details below:

There is a contest running at NH Knitting Mama and it goes like this:

1. Knit the candy bag

2. Post a pic of your candy bag on your blog and let Mandy know about it (with a link to the blog post!).


3. Your name will go into a drawing FIVE TIMES for some swag!

Don't want to knit Mandy's Candy Bag? That's okay! You can still participate, see how on Mandy's blog.

Deadline is Monday, September 3rd, 12:01am eastern standard time.

Toy Knitting

I gave the shawl a break and yesterday afternoon I started this:




This is Sheldon from the Winter 06 Knitty.  Well it's Sheldon without his legs and shell.....those will follow soon.  I have one leg on the needle right now.  I don't have the plastic eyes so I used some yarn for the eyes.  Lets just say I'm not very good at it.  I'll practice a little more before I make the next one. 
I don't want the plastic eyes because I want Bree to be able to play with it and small things like the plastic eyes are too much of a worry for choking on.  So I'll be sticking with the yarn eyes.

I need to go feed the kiddos some lunch.  For some reason they think they need food....I'm not sure who gave them that idea.   :~)

Time for a Change

I decided that it was time for an update.  Though I know some of you may read my posts through bloglines, google reader, etc I thought it was time for a change. 

I was getting a wee bit tired of all the pink.  I have no idea why I went with pink.  It's not my most favorite color.  I'm still not finished with the blog but more changes can wait for now.  For some reason the code went missing for several of my blog rings.  That's been fixed.  I'm thinking about taking out a few things too.   One of these days I'll upgrade so I can customize my theme anyway I want but for now this is good enough.

And since no post is complete without a photo here's a shot of my Forest Canopy Shawl.




The shawl and I had a few issues where I had to tink back a few rows....that was not fun.  I will not complain though because that's what I get for not putting in a lifeline.  This will probably be the last shot where I'll be able to spread it out.  Any other photos taken will be blob photos, though I may throw one in my posts from time to time...maybe, more then likely the next time you all will see this shawl is in the be before and after blocking shots....I don't think it's going to take long before I'm at that point.   

A Good Scare & Some Updates

Let me tell ya, nothing will get your heart pumping better then a good scare.  Which would be why I'm still up at almost 2am.

I damn near had a heart attack earlier when a spider the size of King Kong came flying across my living room floor at Sonic the Hedgehog speed.  Ok, ok, the spider (funnel weaver) was about the size of a silver dollar (counting his legs)....still really big and the boogers are super fast.  They are harmless unless you are a small child then you may have to worry about them carrying off with you....I really have to watch Bree and Zeus, though I think Bree is heavy enough and Zeus is the only one who has to worry!  Ok, so I'm maybe stretching the truth on that one too.  Well you all get the point, they're big and I hate them.

Since my heart was a pumpin' there was no way in the world I was heading to bed any time soon so I worked on a new project.  I started the Forest Canopy Shawl using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in the color Tuscany. 




I'm really liking it so far.  The shawl is a little less bright in really life....there goes my camera flash washing things out again.  The pattern is super easy and I think this is going to be warm, soft and cozy.  It's for me.  I've been wanting to start another lace project.  What better thing to work on during this move then this shawl.  If I don't finish it before the movers get here.

I finished the first Trekking Baby Cable Rib sock.




My sis is lucky I have another ball of this or she would sooooo not be getting these socks.  I'm loving this colorway.  These socks will not have matching stripes.  There is no way in the world I'm going to drive myself crazy trying to match these bad boys up.  I like my sanity just fine.  It would take an extremely calm, patient individual to match up these socks.

Lastly, we have the Mango stripe blanket. 




As you can see from the super boring picture, I've managed to put on another stripe.  I was way to engrossed with finishing the Trekking sock and starting my Forest Canopy Shawl. 

Well now that my heart is beating normal again I need to try to catch a few hours of sleep.  I need to finish the laundry tomorrow and who knows what else!

Happy Knitting All!

Blankie FO

I finished Blake's Blankie last night.




WooHoo!  Yippy! 




I used a pattern that I purchased from The Naked Sheep called Piggy Back Squares.  The blanket was suppose to be bigger, more like a throw, but I shortened it up a little bit.  I only knit 5 rows instead of the 9 rows called for in the pattern.  I used Plymouth Encore Colorspun #7117, also purchase from The Naked Sheep.

Truthfully I was beginning to wonder about the blanket.  With each square added it just looked ragged.  I was afraid that it was going to look horrible when it was finished but adding the border pulled everything together and it looks great.

Crazy me, after I finished this one I started another one. 




I'm making the diagonal blanket out on Bernat's website.  Bernat's has messed up their site so now there isn't a page for each pattern, they are all listed on the same page....thus no direct link to the pattern.  Go figure, gotta mess with something that was working just fine.  I'm using Bernat's Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes in the color Melon Stripe (Orange/White).  I'm not making this for anyone in particular, though Kaity was trying to claim it for herself.

My Yarn Pirate Booty Club shipment came in this morning.  The colors are gorgeous!  I'll show you all later, I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

Well I'm off to get the kiddos in bed.  I'm ready for a little Mommy quiet time. 

I'm Still Here

**Warning: This post mostly contains ranting!  Some knitting content located at the bottom.  I've marked the end of the rant!

I finally decided on a baby blanket pattern for my cousins baby.  Now she's having a girl but doesn't want anything girly girly or frilly.  OK, cool beans I can do that.  Will be a nice change from the soft yellow/green of Blake's blankie.  Not to mention all the friggin' pink and purple that Kaity always wants.  :~)

So here's the pattern.  It has some nice simple cables, all in all a simple pattern and will make a wonderful blankie. 
Next up, I needed to find a yarn to go with the pattern.  I decided on Knit Picks Swish superwash yarn.  Cool, they have heather colors now.  I'm tossing between the Marine Heather and Lemongrass Heather.  Now me being the smart knitter that I am, I say "Hey why leave anything to chance, I'll order the color card and go from there."   W.R.O.N.G!  Knit Picks is out of stock of the color cards for the Swish and aren't getting any in until 27 Sept.   So now I have to order one of each ball of yarn or wait until 27~friggin'~Sept.  Does anyone else see a problem with them having the bloody flippin' yarn but it's going to take them well over a month to get more color cards in or am I just getting my socks in a wad for no reason?  Ack!  Please hold on while I smack my head against the key board.   n n jdudrfdhsoijodfg

This isn't the first time I've had problems with Knit Picks.  You all remember my gripe with the shawl pattern, that they knew there was a problem with and hadn't fixed and of course they made up for that by giving me free super slow shipping.....woo~friggin~hoo they saved me a whole $2.79!  Wow wasn't that ever so nice of them.  I shrugged it off and said no biggie.  Which of course we all know turned out to be a problem too because once again 2 more skeins wasn't enough I needed more.  No biggie, Sue helped me out.  The still claim you only need 4 hanks to complete the shawl but everyone that I've talked to so far has needed one more making it a grand total of 5 hanks needed to complete the shawl. 
Then there was what I'm now starting to think of as "The Great Cotlin Debacle of 2007".   I finally gave up on that one.   I decided I didn't need the stuff that bad.  It's in stock now but I've already subbed it with other yarn.
Then I needed the US2 needle to finish my sisters tank.  When I went to order it, it was going to be out of stock for like a month.  Thankfully I was able to find a needle at TLE....Sheri to the rescue.
So now I either have to go with another yarn or I have to fork out $3.29 per ball for the yarn I just wanted a damn color card for.  So instead of it costing me $1.99 plus shipping it's going to cost $6.58 plus shipping.  I know it isn't much money but it's the point.

***End of Rant***

I've been working mostly on Blake's Blankie.  I have 3 squares and the border left and I'm done.  I'm aiming to have this completed by the end of the weekend.  I'm not going to bore anyone with another progress pic.  Trust me the pictures would be mega boring.  I'll take a pic when I have the blanket completed.
I put a few more rows on my sisters Trekking socks but once again that would be an extremely boring picture.  I'll post again when I have a little more done on them.

Bree is doing much better on her new meds.  The prevacid is doing what it's suppose to an no nasty side affects have reared their ugly heads. 
Kaity now has a spot reserved in one of the 1st grade classes in Great Falls.  Shawn contacted the school looking for a shopping list so we could get it done and out of the way.  The lady Shawn talked to also put Kaity into a class to ensure that she will have a spot when we get there.  The last thing I want is for her to get shipped off to a different school then the other kids on base that she's going to end up playing with.

I'll leave you with this:




And for all of you who have an interest, the top drawer in the background is part of my sock yarn stash. (click on picture to enlarge).  If it comes in a hank it's stored in that drawer.  The second drawer holds all the sock yarn that comes in balls like Trekking and Opal.    :~)