Month: April 2013

Knock Me Over

This is roughly a conversation that took place in my office this week.

Me:  Guess what Boss?  We had 16 kids show up for a Knitting Class at the school yesterday!  I’ve got 21 kids registered and I have to start a waiting list!  Who would have thunk?

The Boss:  You’re going to blog this, right?  I hope this makes the blog, because it really should.

So yes, the fact that I started a Knitting and Crochet class at the school and that it is wildly successful will in fact make the blog.  He also commented on the fact that he is now an enabler since my office closet is now overflowing with donated yarn.  Hee hee.

 

Remember These Things with Petals that Smell Nice?

In other news, it appears as though spring might actually come to the land of endless snow.  The rumor is that we might actually reach a temperature soon where snow will melt.  Whether we get any more snow… well that remains to be seen.

It’s been very hard to focus on all the things I need to do this spring when it still feels like February.  I’ve got 2 large events in May as well as all the smaller end of the school year things that happen and I’m starting to feel as though I’m behind the eight-ball on all of them.

And knitting… well knitting has been slow.  I started work on a small scarf because I wanted something springy.  There was just too much red sweater action happening and since one of the sweaters had progressed to a spot where I needed to only work on it at home when I had access to a chart, it wasn’t travel knitting any more.  If I can’t pull a project out and work on it at odd times when I have a minute here or there or am having lunch with friends, then it tends to sit and wait for large chunks of time that rarely happen.

This week it hit me that a very fancy dress up event was happening in 3 weeks.  I have a dress that I found a few weeks ago on sale.  Since it’s been so chilly I really wanted a shawl to go with.  My intention back in January was to make the Lumen shawl.  The event is called the Lumen Christi and I just like the idea of wearing the Lumen shawl to the Lumen Christi.  I’m funny like that.  However, the Lumen is a charted pattern and I’ve already established that I don’t have the time to work a charted pattern consistently right now.

Instead, I chose the Cameo pattern.  I’m fairly certain that I can whip out a basic garter stitch shawl in the time needed.  Of course, the problem with shawls is they tend to get larger as you go, so what seems like a fast knit to start with becomes a neverending endurance race as the rows get larger.

Cameo

I tossed the stash one night this week while my husband was at work (the safest time to really air out all the yarn from the different hidey holes that I stash them in).  I compared different shades of blues and greens against the dress and weighed the merits of each.  I was really hoping to use some green Madelinetosh that I had bought for the Lumen shawl, however it just didn’t sit right with the dress.  I finally decided on these two colors.  The Hazel Knits from a yarn club that I was briefly in and the MacKintosh yarn from a Stitches event.  It was kind of sad pulling out the MacKintosh as I bought 1200 yds of it with the intention of using it for a cardigan or sweater.  Once I saw the match up of the two yarns though, I am happy I did it.

Now, I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Saturday and hopefully spend much of it knitting.

 

 

Put One Foot in Front of the Other

Put One Foot In Front of the Other

I think that link is appropriate for this time of year.  After all, it’s continuing to look a lot like Christmas outside!

Just one of the snow piles that is bigger than Lily

(By the way, that’s a soy hot chocolate that she’s holding in the Starbucks cup.)

It’s one of those days weeks where I really need to see progress and relatively instant gratification.  In other words, it’s a list day.

  1. We are starting a Knitting group after school at Cathedral School.  I’m excited, really-really excited.  There’s a stash of donated yarn in my office closet.  The goal is for the kids to be able to knit squares for an afghan.  The kids will make garter stitch squares, the adults will knit complementary 4 leaf squares to pull it all together.  My sample square:

    4 Leaf Clover Afghan Square
  2. Since it looks like Christmas outside, I knit a Button Tab Hat over the weekend.  It’s out of leftover Socks that Rock Heavyweight.  I might even be able to squeak one more hat out of this skein.  The buttons are a gift from a friend which have been marinating in my stash for quite some time.

    Button Tab Hat
  3. The 2 red sweaters are still in progress.
  4. It’s Eat Downtown week in Duluth.  It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year.  I’m kidnapping a co-worker and we’re going for lunch.  The only hard part is deciding where to go for lunch.
  5. I wish I had seen this post from Crafaholics Anonymous before Easter.  The little rock chicks are so cute!
  6. And lastly, I want to take this class at Stitches Midwest next August.  I don’t know why.  I think making that much icord (unless I can use my fun icord toy) would drive me absolutely batty.  Absolutely, Seriously batty.  I would never finish it.  I would have really good intentions, but I think the icord would just be too dull.  But I would love wearing it.
  7. Edited to add:  Why do I look at food blogs when I’m already hungry?  This is bad.  It’s like grocery shopping when you’re hungry kind of bad.  I do have a pretty amazing list of food bloggers that I currently read.  It always amazes me how amazing their staging and photography is.  Clearly they do not work out of my kitchen with it’s 3 feet of counter space and poor lighting.  Course I’m sure the fact that my iphone is my go to camera doesn’t help matters much.