Felt Like Knitting

Celebration of life

I wasn't checking in here much last week because some of our friends' daughter died.  This young lady had recently turned 18 and was medically fragile for her whole life.  She inspired many people - her mom became a special education teacher and her sisters are going into fields like pediatrics and physical therapy.  Think of how many people are/will be touched by her inspiration!  Her funeral service was truly a celebration of her life and was a very uplifting and moving event.

Steve was in the Dominican Republic over the weekend so I got some knitting and Olympic watching done.  The Hamamelis Shawl is almost complete!  I've really enjoyed knitting it and I hope it will be a comfort to my friend (different friend than the one mentioned above).  

I feel like there is more to say but I can't put it into words.  I'll get caught up on blog posting this week and things will probably feel back to normal.  I hope you are all doing well!

Sunny Monday

 

Hey everybody!  Did you have a good weekend?  Ours was wet and dreary so today's sunshine is very welcome!  We did have a great weekend, though.

Saturday was the state robotics tournament.  I didn't go, but heard that the team had a good day but were very tired by the end of it.  Twelve hours of tournament is a long time for little kids!  I will miss seeing the team each week but I'm also glad that I'll be getting my dining room, computer room, Tuesday nights, Friday nights, husband, and daughter back.  :)  

The youth group at our church had a service project lined up at the local food pantry/thrift store on Saturday morning and I helped with that.  It's amazing how many items come in as donations and go right back out as purchases.  

On Saturday afternoon I did some lesson planning for two of my classes.  It feels really great to have two weeks planned out!  Today I hope to work on the other classes so I can be a little ahead and not feel so rushed and unprepared.

After church yesterday we ate at Steak 'n Shake and I tried their new Guacamole Steakburger.  So. Good.  I wish I had another right now for lunch.  Mmm... When we got home I took a little rest on the couch while the rain pounded down.

While watching Pride and Prejudice last night, I finished the knitting on the Everlasting Bagstopper (Rav link).  I'm working on the bind-off now and am trying something new.  The pattern calls for Lucy Neatby's Modified Conventional Bind-Off.  Since I don't own that DVD, I Googled and found a video for the Russian Bind-Off.  It's not as stretchy as I'd like, but is better than a conventional bind-off.  After a little more investigation, I'm seeing other bind-offs being called the Russian Bind-Off.  So I'm not sure what this bind-off really is called.  What is your favorite stretchy bind-off?

I've decided to knit mittens for this year's Christmas ornaments for my nieces and nephews.  The photo above is the first attempt.  Cute and I love the yarn color, but it's a bit smaller than I'd like.  I've modified it and will show you the final product later this week (after I knit a second one).

 

Before the movie last night, I cut out a quilt for Haiti.  A friend is coming over this week to make quilt tops and I wanted to have a couple ready to go.  After seeing this photo, I can tell that the left column needs to have another light fabric in it so I'm going to do some moving around.  This quilt will look like this, but much larger.

Time to get back to laundry, lesson planning and some lunch!  I hope your Monday is going well and that you'll each have a terrific week.  Do you have anything special planned?  

Fun weekend

 

We had a fun, busy weekend! 

• Saturday was the "super regional" robotics tournament and the Transformers are moving on to the state tournament!  Go team!
• We went to church on Sunday.  The cold weather and still-icy roads kept a lot of people home.  But the message today was really good and I'm glad I was there.
• Emma and I were invited by one of her friends to go to the symphony.  It was wonderful and I'm so glad we went!  I've decided I'm more of a Beethoven fan than a Mozart fan.  (I did knit during the intermission but not during the concert!)
• That Alton Brown sure knows how to cook.  Last night we tried his recipe for Belgian waffles.  So good!!!
• I had two FOs this weekend - a pair of mitts for Emma that I knit in one day (fast pattern!) and my cowl.  I'm hoping to get photos tomorrow.

What did you do this weekend?

Monday, Monday

Hey there!  Today really feels like a Monday since Christmas and New Year's are over.  I am having lots of trouble getting back into a routine.  I've always had difficulty with that - once I get a break I want more break!

We had a fairly quiet weekend.  On New Year's night, I cast on for my January projects - a Palindrome scarf for OFA, a charity hat, and a pair of mitts for my SIL's Christmas gift.  I was so pleased with myself and went to bed feeling pretty good about my progress and organization.  The next day I ripped apart much of my sewing room to relocate my yarn stash.  I found lots of UFOs that I had forgotten about, including twelve felted bags that need to be lined or finished in some way.  Ugh!  More about all of that later in the week...

At least now all the fabric is in the closet and my yarn is out in the room where I can see it.  But I'm embarrassed by how much yarn I have.  (In my defense, two cubbies full of yarn were given to me.)  I need to knit faster, don't you think?  Even though I have already set my goals for 2010, I think emptying at least two cubbies worth of yarn is something else for which to strive.

Another thing I have a lot of is thread.  Left from the days when I sewed a lot (I seem to have tons of pink thread from when Emma was little!) or purchased for current projects...well, I shouldn't have to buy thread for a while either.  But now it's better organized and easier to get to.

You may have noticed that I still have the mural on the walls in here.  It's from when the room was a nursery.  At first I wanted to leave it because I thought it might help us sell the house someday.  But now I'm not so sure about that and I'd like to repaint it.  What do you think?

I hope each of you had a great weekend and are off to a good start in 2010!

WIP Wednesday - The me edition

           

 

We are all works in progress, right?  Just thought I'd share my new hairstyle with you.  I think this is the trendiest haircut I've ever had.  My old stylist left town so I'm trying someone new.  I really like the cut but may not be able to style it like she did.  I was thinking of starting to color my hair but with this new cut I don't think I will.

 

More important than outside changes are those on the inside, right?  KM recommended a book to me a couple of weeks ago called Crazy Love.  I bought it today and I'm really looking forward to reading this book and seeing how it may change me.  I also bought Forgotten God by the same author. 

 

What are you reading?

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Good morning, everyone!  If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day.  Today is actually (if I've counted correctly) the fourth day of Christmas and we're still in the midst of our celebrations here.  Some highlights...

-  My brother and my nephew were here for a week and we had a great time!  We visited the aquarium, went bowling, shopped, cooked and ate, worked on a puzzle, played games, went to our church's Christmas Eve candlelight service, etc.

-  My brother liked his mitts!!!  I'm really happy about that!  I made hockey-print flannel pajama pants for my nephew.  My brother is such a huge hockey fan that I bought more hockey material for a pair of pants for him, too.  In fact, his Christmas tree is hockey themed.  Any ideas for knitted hockey-themed Christmas ornaments for next year?  I was thinking of knitting a sweater that looked like a hockey jersey but there is probably something more unique that I could do.

-  My mom is still here and will go back later with my other brother who gets in this week.  We've played several games of Scrabble and are planning on making meatballs and sauce later today.  Yum!

-  I tried out one of my Christmas presents (a skillet) and made potato pancakes yesterday for lunch.  They were made with onion and garlic and were pretty tasty.

-  This is definitely not a highlight...  Emma was sick.  Fortunately, it was a 24 hour bug and she recovered quickly.  Steve's parents were going to stop back in yesterday evening but instead drove through Atlanta.  We were disappointed but also didn't want them to get sick.  I'm glad we got to visit with them earlier this month!

-  I'm still working on Christmas knitting!  Earlier this year I knitted a beret for one niece and am just now finishing up one for my other niece.  I just deleted the photos from my computer so I'll have to take an FO photo later to show you.  (Or there is a photo on my Ravelry projectspage.)  And I've decided that my brother and his wife each need a pair of mitts, too.  They might end up getting the yarn and IOUs wrapped up in boxes!

I'm really supposed to be cleaning for my family's visit so I'd better get back to it.  Hopefully I can keep up with blogging this week.  If not, I will see you soon!

 

Monday morning chat

Good morning everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  Here's what's been happening around here...

-  I may have already mentioned this...things are starting to blur together.  :)  Beginning last Tuesday, we will have different family members here until January 2.  I think they are placing bets on how long I'll remain friendly to them all.  :)  I'm very excited to have them all visiting us!

-  I decided to finish the mitts for my brother.  One is done (except for the thumb) and the other is 1/4 done.  He has seen me knitting on them but I didn't tell him that they are a gift or that he's the recipient.  It turns out he keeps his thermostat set at 53 and wears gloves while he's on the computer.  So he might really love these mitts!  Thanks for all your input on the decision!

-  My mom and I watched Julie and Julia last night.  I enjoyed it and thought it followed the book pretty well.  It makes me want to cook and blog.  :)

-  We hosted our small group on Saturday evening.  We ate fajitas, played Texas Hold-em and had lots of fun.  It's a good thing I don't try to make a living playing poker!  Fortunately we were just playing with chips and not money.

-  Have you gotten in on the Snuggie craze?  I personally don't care for them but Emma got one for Christmas and was very excited about it.  To each his own!

-  Going from the musical this fall to Thanksgiving to Advent prep and activities, now Christmas...well, I've had to let some things slide.  No Christmas cards going out (maybe after New Year's), no cookie baking except for that reception at church, no worrying about whether I have the right gifts for everyone, etc.  And I'm okay with it.  I can only do so much and it's more important for me to be here for/with my family.

-  Time's up.  I just realized that we left the drinks out on the deck Saturday night and we had a hard freeze last night.  Hmm, wonder what I'll find on the deck?  I'll leave you with some parting thoughts from yesterday's sermon at church:

The joy of Christmas is that Jesus showed up.  He didn't have to.  He could have stayed in heaven where everything was great.  But He chose to come to earth.  So whether you feel like expressing your joy by hugging those around you or by breaking into song... Rejoice!

Have a great week!

Make mine caffeinated, please!

I hope you all had a great weekend!  Today is "finish Emma's dress" day so I need to make this quick.  Hopefully you won't mind bullets again!

The robotics team had their competition on Saturday and did great!  They took home 1st place in Robot Performance and the 1st place Champions Award.  Yea team!  It was much easier to watch the tournament with Emma not actually competing.  (She's the assistant coach this year.) 

Saturday night we had a Christmas party to go to.  I stayed to help clean up and got home about 12:30 or so.  Then I blew up an air mattress for Emma because her friend was sleeping over.  I think I got to bed around 1:45 or so.  Do you think I got up at 6:00 Sunday morning when my alarm went off?  :)

Another very enjoyable event this weekend was a concert by the Beethoven Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Ludwig.  These middles school musicians are so talented.  There is no way I sounded like that when I played my violin in middle school!  Unfortunately I didn't hear much of the concert because I was preparing for the reception that followed.  30+ cookies were gobbled up in very few minutes.  :)

Last night I fell asleep on the couch.  And I found out that Steve's parents are coming tomorrow and I thought it was Wednesday.  My cup of tea this morning will have to have some caffeine in it!  Have a great day, everyone!

Mice in my stashes

We've never had trouble with mice, but I guess we were due.  I've stored food in the basement with no trouble before, so when I had to clear out the pantry for this summer's remodeling project I put all unopened food downstairs.  What I didn't think about was that the garage doors were open all day long for the workmen.  Food + Open Doors = Mouse Trouble.  We had a very determined mouse.  I threw away all the food in the stash that the mouse had been near that wasn't in cans, hoping that would cause him/her to leave.  No luck.  We finally had to resort to traps and did catch the offender.

Fast forward a few weeks later and we hear noises in the attic.  So Steve put some traps upstairs and came down the other day with another mouse.  Ugh!  I had no idea that mice are so repulsive to me.  It's almost the same reaction I have to snakes.  I feel like such a wimp...

On to a better mouse story... I was happy to use my yarn stash to make a felted mouse for my Dad's cat Lily.  This is my first knitted toy and I'm really pleased with it.  Knitting a toy isn't difficult like I thought it might be.  The pattern is from Ann Budd's Knitted Gifts, which I purchased last week.  The funny thing is that I don't really enjoy handling this project because of the other mice in the house.  Weird, huh?

  
 
 

Remember me?

It has been so long since I've posted that I forgot my Typepad password when I tried to sign in.  That's bad.  :(  I'm afraid I don't have any readers left and I feel bad about the blogs I haven't read.  But I'm hoping to be able to "reboot" and start up again.

So what have I been doing for the last few months?  Well, school started and Emma got involved in a local theater group that put on Bye Bye Birdie.  What a great show!  I signed up for the costume committee and it was a great experience even though it was a lot of work.  Most of the job involved finding and/or altering existing clothing but I did get to sew a couple of dresses for one of the characters.

  

I finished the dark pink dress minutes before the first show started.  That was too close and I don't like the workmanship on it.  But it is a costume and not a garment so I'm not worrying about it.  It's from Butterick 6582 and I love the style of the dress!  The other dress is from Simplicity 2591 but it was heavily altered and it doesn't much resemble the original pattern.  (You can see the dress this was modeled after at the end of this video.)  Drafting new pattern pieces and fitting to a person has given me confidence to make more clothing.

More later...  I hope I can start catching up on what you've been doing!

Beth