Winding Yarn – Maybe?

I have found more yarn to organize for scarves using the Stash Dive Pattern  by Summer Lee Designs. I have been stash diving for bits, pieces and odd bags of yarn. This resulted in finding a lot of yarn that I did not know I had. Most left over from past projects or projects that were scrapped. I have already kitted up 4 bags for the knitting guilds Navajo Project and 3 for Operation Gratitude.  I have one scarf for each project on the knitting needles.  

Hopefully when all is said and done I will have 1 box of worsted weight yarn and another of sock weight yarn.  That way when I need to make more kits all I have to do is pull out the yarn and choose the colors.  I found this worked with the hats so well that when the basket is empty I will make more kits.  

This brings me to the organization part.  I am caking all the yarn in hanks and hand wound balls that won’t fit on the yarn butlers.  I made lackluster progress today.  I felt a lot like Jimmy Cricket dealing with  Pinocchio. Of the six hanks wound today, 5 required me to take the partially caked yarn and wind it into a ball before making the yarn cake.  I am not sure how the hanks of yarn became tangled while still in the hank in the original wrapping.  If you know the culprit please tell them to stop, it is not necessary. This is all cotton yarn.  For those allergic to wool and man made fibers.  The picture below is for the Navajo Project at the Old Pueblo Knitting Guild, the kids like things colorful for the most part.  

Projects 176 to 177

I forgot to add these hand woven scarfs to the last count. 

TGIF

It was a busy and wonderful day all at the same time. I got to spend a couple of hours with my knitting friends and even had time to go to lunch. A great big thank you goes out to John for this treat. He took care of Eric for a bit. Liz had made some very adorable hand knit critters, I personally think the bear was the cutest. I felt like a social butterfly at knitting, I got more talking done than knitting. Karen had knit a very large pile of wash cloths and was doing the finishing work. There were sweaters and scarfs in various stages. It is always so fun to hang out with a great group of knitters. I also like to see what every one is doing. Next week I expect to see a lot of the Uncle Harry Scarf Pattern going on. Everyone just had to know what the very complicated pattern I was working on. This is my favorite pattern for Operation Gratitude. So here is the pattern and please consider knitting one or two for Operation Gratitude.

Uncle Harry's Scarf Pattern

This pattern is named after my dear Uncle Harry. When he was in the Tucson VA hospital I would spend hours visiting him. I would usually bring my knitting and no matter what I was working on he would start chanting knit 1 purl 2, over and over to the point I had to rip out what ever I was working on. So I started making scarfs in this pattern. My only request was that he slow down to the speed I was knitting at.  It works with any weight yarn and any size needles. My personal preference is wool or cotton.

Cast on in multiples of 3. A typical scarf in Cascade 220 or Patton's wool is 30 cast on stitches. On US size 8 knitting needles.

the pattern is knit 1 purl 2* repeat this sequence all the way through.  Until you get to the last row and then cast off in the pattern sequence.

For Operation Gratitude they like the scarfs between 5 to 7 inches wide and 45 to 50 inches long. I usually use Patton's or Cascade wool in black, brown, dark or olive green and blue. One skein makes 1 scarf.

I also took advantage of John being home to run a weeks worth of errands this afternoon.  I did manage to get one commissioned scarf off the needles so now I just have to do the finishing work.

I manage to boil one batch of yarn and am just about finished with the spinning on another.

Well it is getting very late so it is time to say goodnight.


Uncle Harry's Scarf Pattern by Sheri Karobonik is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Day that Went On and On

After my post yesterday, the day seemed to go on and on. I was up until 3:30 am with Eric. It was one heck of a night. We had it all fever, chills, icky tummy, tears, almost eyrping, sinus infection and almost anything thing else you could think of.

My day started at 7:00 am this morning. Eric's aide left at 8:00 and was suppose to be followed by a nurse. I tried calling the nursing agency several times but could not get through until about 10. I asked where Eric's nurse was and they told me she was here. You just gotta love the system. NOT. It took them until after 1pm to figure out where she was and offer to to get someone out in a few hours. Yeah right his afternoon aide comes in at 4:45p and there is a 2 hours minimum. So much for the extra help today.

The phone also was ringing non stop today. One place even called 3 times to confirm the same appointment for John. By the third call I was really annoyed. I think tired was setting in. The very bright phone call was from Teri. Eric and I had a good time chatting with her. Eric was really animated and did a lot of signing and sending hugs through the phone. I really have to add skype to my ipod.

On the bright side I got a small pile of bills paid and 4 boxes labeled and out to the car. That includes 6 pounds of left over Halloween candy and 10 scarfs to Operation Gratitude. A special box for Teri. Since she reads my blog I will not divulge the contents. The last box was filled with some items from Handmade~by~Sheri for on on line auction to help a mom pay for some cancer treatments. I will include a blurb around the time of the auction so you can check it out.

I also got some knitting done. Although I can say with certainty that I don't knit as fast when I am running on a sleep deprived cycle. I also do a lousy job of matching colors in the middle of the night so I have 2 hats on the needles at the same time. Something that I really don't like to do with scrappy hats.  My hope is that Eric sleeps tonight and that we get him out the door by Monday.

John will bring home dinner tonight. You just got to love a guy who works all day but still brings home dinner.  I would like to spin but I am so tired my eyes and hands are not working together. Things can only get better from here. A few good nights worth of sleep for all of us will fix everything.

I hope my blog is not to incoherent tonight, but I plead exhaustion. Enjoy your families.

Halloween Candy

As of this morning I had still not bought the Halloween candy to pass out to the kids in the neighborhood. The house was not festooned with the usual Halloween decorations. All this had Eric very concerned. So John and I went and got the decorations out and got them ready for placement tomorrow.

While we were out we did finally get some candy. The good news was that it was half price the day before Halloween. I will have to remember this for next year. They even had coupons at the store for some of the candy.  The even better news was that they had sold out of the candy that I liked so that there is less chance that I will be eating any of it.

OK we are ready bring on Halloween.

So have a safe Halloween with your families. Please remember to be safe and wear bright colors. Bring your flashlights. Only go to houses with the lights on. But most importantly inspect your child's candy and throw away anything that looks odd or is opened. Feel free to buy back your child's excess candy, most children don't want all that candy and like a little extra money.



This year we are doing something different with the left over Halloween candy. We are sending it to Operation Gratitude to go into care packages for our service members. You can find out more about Operation Gratitude at the following web site http://www.opgratitude.com/index.php .

Have a great evening and enjoy your families.