Felt Like Knitting

Brought to you by the letters B and C

B is for Beth's Brambler and C is for Clare's Chevron. 

                 

                                Brambler by Anne Hanson, Shibuiknits Sock yarn in Mulberry

            

          Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, Cherry Tree Hill and Great Adirondack yarns

Wow, two FOs this week!  Can you believe it?  In all honesty, the Chevron scarf was about done.  It's a few inches shy of the recommended length, but I'm happy with it.  (It's a gift for my friend Clare, who I now hope hasn't been reading my blog!)  I was a little tired of knitting it and I wanted to free up the needles.  I thought they were the size 3 needles that I need for Alhambra , but they're size 4.  My size 3 needles are in my Clapotis.  I'll bet you can guess what my knitting goal is for this week.  :)  And I'm  excited about Brambler.  I'll really enjoy wearing it when it cools down a bit.

May I ask a quick question of you?  Do any of you have experience with Facebook?  The kids and some of the staff in my daughter's school use it and I'm wondering if you feel that it is a safe thing for young teenagers to sign up for.  Thanks for any advice you can give me.  Navigating the teenage years can be challenging for a parent.  But I think it may be easier than going through it as a teen.  :)

WIP Wednesday - Brambler

            

My goal for this week is to finish Brambler.  I decided to change yarn, so on Saturday I went to a LYS and bought some Shibuiknits sock yarn in Mulberry.  I also bought some Bristol Yarn Gallery Buckingham in a beautiful grayish-blue color (picture coming later).  It's so soft and I thought I might opt to use it for Brambler, but I couldn't resist the beautiful berry color of the Shibuiknits.  The scarf is much farther along than in this picture.  It also has more dog hair on it!  This has been a fast knit and I can't wait to block it.

I know I'll be tempted to cast on for another lace scarf when Brambler is done.  But, I'm going to try to finish up a few things first.  I'm close to being done with the Bubble Bag and the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  Maybe I can have those finished by next Wednesday, too.

Fiddlehead Scarf

                 

                     Fiddlehead Scarf by Anne Hanson, yarn by The Woolen Rabbit, size 3 needles

I just love this scarf!  I ran out of yarn, but it still blocked to the proper length.  While I thought I'd like to make it a bit longer, this length is actually just right.  Don't doubt the designer!  :)

Another scarf had to be started right away and I chose Brambler (also from Anne).  This one is being knit from Berroco Ultra Alpaca leftover from my Forest Canopy Shawl.  I'm not sure this yarn is going to work and I'd like to ask your opinion.

                                   

This is pinned out to the recommended width and the pattern doesn't open up as much as I'd like.  (Click on the pattern link above to see what it's supposed to look like.)  This yarn is a DK/light worsted weight so it's a little heavier than recommended.  Should I keep going?  Should I start over with a narrower width so I can block it more?  Or should I use different yarn?  I'm torn because I'd like to use what's in my stash, but I want the scarf to look more like the one in the pattern.

Happy knitting (or crocheting/sewing/crafting/reading/...)!

Some flowers, a project, and six things

Recently, Lynne's beautiful flowers inspired me to plant some of my own.

                                  

It's so nice to have some flowers on the deck.  Since we've had rain lately, they're doing well.

In my last post, I promised something crafty:

                                  

I'm finally out of my dishcloth rut and I've been trying to finish my Fiddlehead Scarf.  Anne's patterns are great and this pattern is wonderful, too.  I'm really looking forward to blocking this.  The yarn is from The Woolen Rabbit and is left over from my Shetland Triangle Shawl.  I'm hoping I have enough for all of the repeats, but it's going to be close!

Have you all been enjoying the "six things" meme that's been going around?  I've enjoyed reading about everyone.  Iris and KM tagged me and I'm just now getting to my answers:

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?  In 1998, our daughter was four years old and we had all just moved to a subdivision in suburban Atlanta a few years before that.  So ten years ago, there were dance classes, preschool, little manicures and pedicures with some neighborhood friends, going to the pool, etc.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

1. Get my hair cut 
2. Take my daughter to an appointment for a volunteer opportunity
3. Knit (and possibly finish) my Fiddlehead Scarf
4. Take more garage sale items to the basement
5. Go to trivia night

3) Snacks I enjoy: Chips and salsa, chips and guacamole, anything chocolate, leftovers 

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Pay off my church's building debt and make building repairs, make a large donation to Habitat for Humanity, pay off my relatives' debts, helps some friends, pay off our house, improve our house, send my daughter to the college of her choice, let my husband retire early, buy a mountain home or farmhouse with room for alpacas or llamas, travel to places I love, ...

5) Places I have lived: Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia

6) Jobs I have had: Babysitter, newspaper route worker, swimming pool snack shop worker, library aide, kitchen worker/carhop at drive-in restaurant, greeter in dormitory, mail sorter in dormitory, chem lab assistant, paper mill intern, paper mill lab worker, paper mill process engineer, teacher.

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:  If you are reading this and haven't yet participated, please do!

Things I'm learning...

Hi everyone!  We were gone for ten days, visiting our families in Ohio.  While we were gone, we had a lot of quality time with the relatives, too much food, some reading and knitting ... we had a very relaxing time.  Now that we're back, I've been learning a few things:

-  Rain barrels need overflows.  If they don't have overflows, they will find a way to empty out where you don't want them to empty out ... like down the foundation and into your basement.  Again.  And again.  And again.  Now I am not complaining about the rain we're getting these days here in drought-ravaged Georgia.  I just wish we had had the foresight to put in an overflow before we inadvertently started a lake in our basement.  Today S bought the supplies for the overflow so as soon as we get some dry weather, we can fix the situation.

- A messy basement is a pain in the neck.  My husband has been after me to clean up the basement.  I started a garage sale pile about a month ago and it's still sitting there.  I'm considering buying sandbags to protect the pile from the new lake.  If only I had listened...

-  Windows XP updates can be bad, bad, bad.  Unlike me, S doesn't usually procrastinate.  So on Wednesday, his last day of vacation, he installed the new Windows XP update like a good computer owner.  Uh oh...  First the Internet stopped working because of an incompatibility with Zone Alarm.  He had that temporarily fixed when we noticed our new printer stopped working.  After several hours on the phone with Canon (the printer does work but it won't communicate with the computer) and Dell, it's been determined that we need to reinstall Windows XP this weekend.  Good times.

-  A messy computer is also a pain in the neck.  In addition to doing laundry and shop-vacing water from the basement floor, I also cleaned out old computer files today.  (There is no reason to backup unused files before we reinstall XP, so I'm finally cleaning out my files.)  I'm down to my last folder, but it's a biggie.  It's my school folder and it contains 20+ sub folders and 50-100 extra files.  Oh, this is going to be fun!  Then it's on to my favorite places.  I'm just glad those can be backed up, too.

Well, my break is over.  Time to check the lake before I get back to my file cleanup.  I just wanted to let you all know why I haven't been around.  Hopefully there will be some crafty content in my next post!  :)  Hope you all are well.