Tuesday, October 4, 2011

FO's!!! In theory

Guess what?

I finished several projects in the past couple of days. Or weeks. I have had difficulty in keeping track of time (thank you retail!).

Pictures to come tomorrow, when I'm not all drugged- all completely legal and doctor approved.

Sleep now, new post later.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

An FO, plus UFOs, WIPs and the delivery of yarn

So I actually finished a knitting project. Actually I finished it again. Its Emmaline, from knitty. I finished it for the first time toward the beginning of August, tried it on and subsequently tossed it back into the WIP basket. It was too tight at the underbust and to short. I have since frogged back to the widest point if the bust and re-knit the piece. It fits better now, though I still have to weave in the ends and maybe do a bit of blocking.

My grma was visiting this weekend. We made a point of taking her and her brother (my great uncle) to the Minneapolis farmers market. It was fantastic. They grew up on a farm, but shopping at the farmers market was an entirely new experience. I ended up with the ingredients for salsa- canned five pints. Plus got fresh veggies to make a wonderful soup. Mmmmm..soup.

Any way, while they were visiting, I got out all of my various projects, the quilts I'm working on, and my knitting WIPs. the corrie fair isle vest, skew socks, and others. I even brought out my computer to show them my next big project- the Yggdrasil Blanket. I have some sort of sock ADD. It's not second sock syndrome, I'm working them two at a time on a 40" circular needle. Anyway, I think I need something that knits up nice-straight off the needles.

In stead of doing it in the yarn called for-Nature's Choice by Lion Brand- I got a deal on Comfy, in sport weight from Knitpicks. It will produce a smaller blanket than the pattern specifies, but that's ok. I can't wait to cast on....

...Because I got the yarn yesterday... whee!!!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

I've been busy...

Last night I sent my grma (that's how she spells it!) a text. Just writing that was wierd. My grma does indeed know how to text. I can thank my teenage cousins for that development. Anywho, all it said was "I've been busy..."

Oh, and it contained this picture:
From the left: pickles, strawberry jam, peach slices, strawberry-rhubarb sauce, blueberry jam.
Yup. I've entered the world of canning. It's actually kind of fun. As long as you don't mind standing in the kitchen with large pots of boiling water and cooking foodstuffs. Since I don't own a pressure canner, I've only been doing foods with enough acidity to preserve safely in a water bath. I'm kind of sad that I didn't start this sooner- when berries were in season. But as we enter fall, pears and apples will be abundant at the farmer's market. (That's where most of the produce originated, except for the peaches, they came from the nearest chain supermarket, but as peaches don't grow well in Minnesota you can't blame me for not buying local.)

And in the background is my birthday present to myself. A mixer. A five-quart bowl, assembled in Ohio, KitchenAid Artisan series mixer. In willow blue. :)

As I hauled it into the kitchen, I joked with my brother that I no longer needed to get married. I mean the whole point of marriage is registering for gifts, right? And as I now own the small kitchen appliance most requested by future brides, (according to Macy's anyway) what other reason would compel me to get married?

It's gotten quite a bit of use already, banana bread, zucchini bread, rhubarb spice cake... Wait until it's cool enough to bake cookies, or bread. I've been told that the dough hook does really well with kneading yeast doughs...

This might explain why I haven't accomplished much in the needlecraft department recently. Hmmm...

Friday, August 26, 2011

Failings... sort of....

Mostly I fail at getting my act together.

Case and point: I had grand plans to enter many of my knitted, sewn, and baked items into the Minnesota State Fair. I started thinking about this at last years fair when I saw a coat and thought 'my winter coat is more well constructed than that.'

So this spring came around and I looked at the information booklets concerning the registration, guidelines and judging of entries. I pre-registered for the baked goods categories (baked goods are required to be pre-registered) by the deadline.

......

However, everything went downhill from there. As I was baking my baked goods the day before they were to be entered, I realized that I missed the days marked for submitting needlecraft items. Then as I'm getting ready to walk out the door with my baked goods, I realize that I forgot to print out a copy of my pre-registration receipt. I don't have a printer at home, and it was too early to go to the library and use their printer.

What really bothers me is that this is a lasting symptom of the %&@?$?@ fibromyalgia. It is becoming a major problem. And I am so tired of always being late and behind. I want to live my life and participate in it, not hobble along behind, always a free steps out of sync.

Ba humbug.

I'll start planning for the 2012 MN State Fair!
Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

Monday, March 7, 2011

Startitis

I have come down with a wierd case of startitis. Actually, it's more like a case of designitis. The inability to stop designing things- followed by the need to immediately cast on. Except in the case of the quilt I should be designing. Suddenly the end of May is a lot closer than the last time I checked.... (Isn't it odd how that happens??)

All of my knitting projects of late have been on small needles, I have been craving a large needle project, but can't find anything in my ravely queue and yarn stash that make for an intriguing knit. On the upside, this frustration has propelled me back to my sewing machine- it's been neglected the past two months. I'm working on a quilt (not the one I need to be, but it's progress) and some more practical items: pants for mom, a shirt for myself, pants for me.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

A life without yarn...

...is no life for me.

A life wiithout yarn is close to what my actual life has been like recently. It's sad but true. I was very busy the first two weeks of Feburary. Feburary is the start of the fiscal year in retail (at least in my retail employer's calander) plus the department I work in is very busy for the first two weeks in February. The upside is that we did very well. Beat all the other stores in the area and came in second company wide when measured in percentage of sales over goal. My bosses boss came by on Saturday to congratulate us on our performance.

Aside from the insanity the is retail, life has been hectic. I am the principal grocery purchaser, meal planner and cook. While I enjoy this- really, I get to use recipies and ingredients that I've never had the courage to try before, it takes a lot of time. And when time is limited, cooking for a family of five takes priority over knitting for my own sanity.

Though my sister has recently come into possession of a serger, which she has graciously shared with yours truely. It will make sewing less time consuming and more productive. I have yet to use if for any major projects, but I have some slated. I keep telling myself that on my next day off, I will make a pair of pajama pants for my mom. Fabric bought and washed, pattern created, pattern altered, fabric cut and marked. Now all I need to do is place fabric, serger and myself in the same place for an hour. Tuesday- that is my next day off. It will happen then...

I have also started the design prosess for a quilt. I have not finished with the last quilt I blogged about, but I need to start the next one to have it done by the time it needs to be. I've already got the fabric for the background- batiks ranging from light grey to deep purple-y grey. I am still looking for a verdant green that would be a striking contrast to the greys, but no luck this far. In order to get the project started, I think I will postpone the search for the perfect green to get the rest of the quilt designed and pieced. Then I will find a green and applique it on.

Work continues on the fair-isle vest. Though between that and the current pair of socks (Skew from Knitty Winter 2009) (Forgive me, I'm to lazy to hyperlink to the pattern right now.) I craved a different project done on larger needles. The solution: a bag knit in worsted weight cotton on size three needles. That's only <b>one<b/> size up from the size two needles in the vest, or the size one needles for the socks.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Recent FO's

I haven't posted in a while. Between ongoing health issues, running a gourmet candy counter in a department store at Christmas, and trying to enroll in classes for the next term, I have hardly had time for knitting. Much less blogging about knitting...

Here (in no particular order) are some recently finished projects. Ok, these are all of my recently finished projects.

I've also made some progress with the fair isle vest. I'm off of work this week, so I hope to get the knitting done before I go back...
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5