Projects 121 to 128

The next seven projects include 5 hats and 2 scarfs.  I hat snuck out of the house without a picture being taken.  I bet you did not know that hats could be camera shy.  These remaining hats and scarfs are headed to The Flowing Wells School District Clothing Bank.

An Uninvited Guest

An unwelcome guest stop by to visit Eric this week. Considering that he has had 2 different colds in a 2 week time span we were not at all surprised when a secondary infection popped up at the house. Eric is on his second day of medicine for the secondary. We have been working hard to clear his lungs out. I have been doing percussion until my hands feel like cement. This does not bode well with getting a lot of knitting or spinning done. I am lucky to finish one hat in a day. I am back to wearing fingerless mittens to keep my hands warm at night, it helps alleviate some of the stiffness and pain.  With any luck we will be through with this by the time Teri comes for her visit.

My cleaning has come to what I call fine tuning. For the most part this involves areas of less then one square foot. Shelves are emptied and re stacked. Papers gone through. You would be surprised at the amount of unnecessary paper that is leaving  the house. If I keep going like this it will be hard to believe that an artist lives in this house. The picture below is really my craft room and it is hard to believe that it is even neater than in this picture.

I will keep adding items to my etsy shop as time permits and hope that some of the items actually find new and loving homes. Things will get pretty eclectic for a while.

Well the guys are asleep so it is time to either start cleaning or wind down and get some sleep.

My First Hand Knit Sweater

This is my very first hand knit sweater that was knit on Wednesday. One of Eric's Elmo's is wearing it. I would like everyone to know it only took me 10 years to get one made. If you need a sweater for a beanie size friend I think I can now handle that with some ease.  Thursday  I also completed a second sweater for one of Eric's friends.  I think that I am on a roll here. 

I have got to go now. I hear the laundry calling my name. Hopefully I can get more than 10 loads of laundry and cleaning done this weekend. I need to get my 35 grams of fiber today.

The last Monday of Summer

Today was a very mixed day for me. I got off to an early start a 6am with a lot of energy. I got 3 loads of laundry washed. Then packaged and addressed 2 parcels. Wrote a slew of checks and got them addressed. By the way in case you missed the last postal rate increase like I did the current 1st class letter rate is 47 cents, not 46 as I had thought. It must be a common problem because they had an envelope of penny stamps at the post office for that very reason. I also did some house cleaning on top of all the other activities.

By 10 am it was nap time which lasted until lunch time. Followed by a little more cleaning and a trip to the post office. I still had an hour before I needed to pick up Eric so I walked around the Brandy Fenton Park. I spent a little time in the butterfly garden. There were a few butterfly's. Then a lap around the rest of the park. I have decided that the water play area is nice and I need to borrow a friends son so I can go play in it. She suggested that we find a way to cover Eric's chair because we do not have a stroller for Eric to get wet and that he might like it too. I just hate to see what a stroller would cost that would fit Eric.

Eric and I watched the new episode of Sesame Street today. I think that they may have up graded their cameras over their break. I also did some finishing work and row counting so that I could update my counter for the 1 million row challenge. I added 970 rows to give me a total of 16,931 rows.  Here is a picture of one of the blankets that I did. Don't look for the pattern because it is a one off and I did not write the pattern down as I went. This one is a favorite and will go to a local hospital for a preemie.  After dinner it was more knitting and watching TV with John. For those keeping track of the World Challenge walk, I did manage to get in my 10,000. steps today. Well it is getting late, everyone else is asleep so I should be too.

Trying to get on Track

The new dryer finally arrived today. All I can say is thank goodness. Right now I have the 4th load of the day in the dryer and I hope to have a 5th load in there before bed time. With 6 loads done all together, the first one of the day was a line dry load. The answer to the question is no this will not in any way shape or form mean that I am caught up on laundry. The reason being is that I took a 4 day vacation from laundry. The guys were getting tired of lined dried clothes. Even with the use of Downy, the jeans were like wooden boards. The clothes off the line reminded me of my clothes during the 1960's when we put the clothes on the line to dry. Every thing was stiff.

On the knitting front, I made more progress on my socks and purple shawl. No spinning took place today. Although I have bribed someone with hand spun yarn so she needs to come over and pick the fluff she wants me to spin for her.  I will have to spin it up very soon. By the way spinners, hand spun yarn makes a very good bribe for a knitter.

Eric is still home and I am really hoping to get him out the door sometime this week. I am so far behind on every thing. I will play more catch up tomorrow. As for the plans for today, they went out the window at about 2 am, when I finally got to bed this morning. Considering that I was running on 4 hours of sleep I feel that a lot of work got done today. I have yet to figure out why I can accomplish so much on so little sleep.

I think it is time to say good night because I am falling asleep while typing this post.

Were Still Here

We have not fallen off the face of the earth. I got Eric to school on Monday and Tuesday. Needless to say I got in as many errands done on those 2 days as possible. I meet with the girls to knit.

Tuesday I even went to 2 different stores to get my holiday shopping done. Not everything I needed was at Trader Joe's. Although I did score my turkey breast at the 1st stop. So a trip to Basha's after my eye doctors appointment seemed like a strategic move. They are right across the street from the eye doctors.

Wednesday with both Eric and John home I did some of the prep for Thursday. I made homemade cranberry sauce from scratch if you want the recipe let me know.  And kept very busy. Thursday was spent with the guys, watching the parade on TIVO after my nap. Then there was more cooking while John and Eric napped.This was the first Thanksgiving in I don't remember how long that I was able to do all the chopping and cooking all by my self. It was one small victory over my arthritis.

Friday I left the guys at home and meet the girls for knitting. I had lunch with Nancy and then went home. We hung out and watched a little bit of TV.

Today Nancy and I went to the Reid Park Arts Festival. I came to the conclusion that art shows in the park were not going to be my thing. First of all a lot of the scarfs were made from polyester most were $15.00 or under. They were not my kind of knitting. I left wondering how they were going to break even let alone make any money. Yes they priced their items to sell, but the fiber artist should not have to sell handmade quality at discount store prices. We need to educated the public about the value of handmade and the need for the fiber artist to do more then break even or sell at a loss.

We stopped by Kiwi ( one of our local yarn shops ) to support a local business today. We stayed and did some knitting and chatting too. By the time I got home I took care of Eric's immediate needs then took a nap. John and I made it to Cafe Ole for dinner. Another one of our favorite locally owned restaurants. Dessert was curiosity of Frost another local Tucson favorites.

Well it is time to get Eric to bed for the night .

Hump Day

After a long night with Eric, I decided to take it slow today. Actually my body did not give me much of a choice. Even fully caffeinated Eric and I managed to take a couple of naps today. To clarify I had the caffeine and not Eric, I am not that brave to try and give him caffeine.

More napping than knitting got done. On Eric's 3rd nap of the day I did manage to do some finishing work. If the nurse does not show tomorrow I will spend the morning taking pictures with Eric. I have incorporated some of my own hand spun in 2 of the hats.

When the mail came today Eric decided that he wanted the t-shirt that I had won as a prize from Pepsi. So I told him if he really wanted it he would have to take it out of my hands. He  really surprised me by reaching over with both hands and really giving it a tug. So now I would like to thank Pepsi for the new t-shirt for Eric from the Pepsi Refresh Project. As a reminder for everyone. Eric is still collecting tabs for the Ronald McDonald House here in Tucson for his charity work. He Just loves it when you send tabs his way.

I know the blog is rambling tonight so I guess this means it is time to go to sleep. Night all.

On and On

We are now at the beginning of week 3 of Eric being home sick this time. Yes really this is week 3.  We are on our second round of medicine. His sleep is still very erratic.  I have continued to master sit down and take a nap at the drop of a hat. Which means not much is getting done around here but the essentials. By the way are clean laundry and home cooked meals really essential?

There are plenty of things on hold such as working out and test knitting new patterns, listing the few finished things I have in my on line shop, cleaning, spinning, sewing. The one thing I have been able to do in bits and pieces is knit. I have been going through yarn at a good clip. The hats are getting very creative. I have started mixing commercially and hand spun yarn in the same hat for some really neat texture and color combinations. I also have finished a few cowls.

I hope to have Eric out the door to school by next Monday which will give me exactly 2 days off before he is home for the holiday weekend.  Before I ramble any more I hear laundry calling my name.

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.

And Today Is?

It has been another long day of sick child care. This morning while we were in the living room I did the finishing work on 6 scarfs and 2 hats. I tagged them and put them in the rather full bag destine for Vermont. They also wanted woolen socks, gloves and mittens, but you know that I don't do those. It would mean that I had to pay attention to what I am doing. So a very large bag of scarfs and hats are going to be headed their way.  Some is better than none and I think these will still be useful. If you would like to send some hand knit socks or mittens let me know and I will send you the name of the contact person, school and address.

After lunch I finished 1 more scarf and started another one. I spent the majority of the afternoon being a chair back for Eric to he could breath easier. So not a lot of knitting got done, but breathing is better than knitting. I want to try to get a little more picking up done before John gets home so I am going to end the blog here tonight.

On Ward and Up Ward

On ward and up ward would have to be today's theme. After a long day yesterday followed by a long night  last night with Eric, John spent the morning with Eric so I could go to knit with the girls. It was a very productive morning. I got to talk and relax. I finished 2 UFOs, both were scarfs. now I just have to tag them and put them in the right charity bags.

I would like to thank the good people at Einsteins on Shannon for making lunch for John and I.  By the way we are also having bagel sandwiches for dinner. A Perfect bagel day. Bagels for breakfast lunch and dinner. Nom nom nom.

After lunch I spent some time working on my latest weaving project. I stop working when I start making mistakes because I just hate unweaving. There has to be a better term than unweaving. Then it was off to the cleaning stage of my day. I was very successful in my humble opinion. 3 baskets of recycles out of the house, all the small trash cans emptied and the kitchen trash filled.

I went through my box of handmade items from my studio and sorted everything out. I have one box that is going to charity with woolen scarfs and hats. All the stitch markers and earrings are sorted out by price and bagged. I went through some of the mess in the craft room and made a first cut.

You will never guess what I found when cleaning today. Well you know the scarf that I started 4 years ago to go with my holiday outfit and never finished. What about the socks that I started when Teri and I went looking at law schools. Turquoise yarn that I bought for Teri a few years ago. Well you might have guessed that I found that bag. I will finish everything in the bag starting with the holiday scarf and then the socks.

The question I have for every one tonight is: will the socks get done before Teri finishes law school. In other words can I finish one pair of socks in 3 1/2 years? This one will have a prize so please send in your answers. The winner will be picked by a random number generator. The prize is yet to be determined but it will be good. The drawing will be on September 26, 2011. By the way please leave a way for me to contact you if you win. 

Tour de Fleece

OK I know its been a week since I blogged but I thought I would share the first bit of fleece that I finished. This is ready to be wound into usable balls for knitting. Yes I swear that they are all from the same 4 ounce braid. With no different dye lots.

The dyeing of the braid was done by Cloudlover
The colorway is Sakura.
It is 50% Moreno , 50% Silk. Yes I did find the silk a challenge to spin, but isn't that what the Tour De fleece is all about.

Since I plan on using a different vendor for each item spun in the tour I will give you the link to each shop as I show the photos. The is the link to Natalie's shop  Cloudlover . And Just in case you were wondering this will be made into a top down shawl for me.

Currently on the spindle I have Easter Egg BFL and It is a dream to spin. I like the long staples of the fibre. I like everything I have gotten from Rachel so far. Don't forget to check out her soap, even my fussy skin likes it.

I have one more batt lined up after that by Kathy, of Unique Designs by Kathy Sky Blue Batt. I am also a fan of Kathy's hand spun yarn.

I am still practicing on the wheel but I have a while to go before I am happy with that yarn. Right now that wheel spun yarn is suitable for rugs, place mats or coasters. So if you need something for those projects let me know and we can work something out.

Well it is time to get back to work. Laundry and cooking await me.

A Busy Weekend

It has been a very busy weekend around here. On Saturday Eric was under the weather so it was UFO day and I did manage to finish 2, and there are more where they came from. They will have to wait though because I got a repeat order for 3 more knitted caps. The first cap is halfway through and I still have 12 days to get them finished.

Today was laundry and a trip to the hardware store. I decided to put off more deep cleaning until they pick up the recycle bin tomorrow, after all you can only put so much stuff in before they say it is too full and they refuse to take it. We talked to Teri today and she got an award for having the highest grade in one of her classes. I did forget the name of the award but it is really something and I call the bragging rights even though I did none of the work.

It is now very early on Monday morning and I am really hoping that Eric is asleep. His room has been quiet for 20 minutes. He has been very fussy for the last 2 1/2 hours and I was ready to go to sleep hours ago.

Well here is to a few hours of sleep and a very peaceful week. Enjoy your families.

Addemium- I did not get Eric to sleep until 3:30 this morning. Ugh I can't believe that I am awake.

Getting Ready

Today was spent getting ready for the Tucson Wool Festival. Yes I did go to knitting today but spent the morning working with lovely hand spun yarn that Kathy Withers not only grew with the help of her lovely farm friends. She also processed, colored and spun the yarn herself, now how cool is that? If you would like some of Kathy's yummy yarn or finished items, here is a link to Kathy's Etsy shop. http://www.etsy.com/shop/uniquedesignsbykathy?page=1

I think various shows are just another way to get craft  people to clean up and organize their work spaces. I spent the afternoon organizing and packing what I will need for tomorrow. Some how between this wool festival and the last I misplaced the 96 quart box with all my bags and some of my display materials. How I did that, well those of you who know me well will know, but please explain it to me. I just know it has nothing to do with my motto "I will get it done promptly no matter how long it takes".  I know that I am not the most organized person in the world but..

I have a strong hunch that next week should really be the start of a fall cleaning spree. I promise to be very grumpy by next Friday if I get all the work that needs to be done finished. So please put up with me as I get this work done.

That lovely scarf that I knit this morning and of course the stitch markers I have been working on will be available for purchase tomorrow at the Tucson Wool Festival at 4010 West Palo Seco From 9 am to 3 pm. . There will be farm tours at 9 am and noon. If you have ever wondered what a sheep looks like after a hair cut this is the place to go. I hope to see you there.

Have a great evening and enjoy your families.

Getting Ready

I have been busy getting ready for the Tucson Wool Festival at the Withers Ranch this Saturday. Just in case you need more information. the location is The Withers’ Ranch 4010 W Palo Seco. It is from 9 am to 3 pm. with farm tours at 9 am and noon. Even if you are not a fibre person this is a great learning experience for the family. There will be all kinds of fibre demonstrations. and a lot of one of a kind items for sale. There is no cost to come to the Tucson Wool Festival. There will be a charity raffle and various vendors.


 I have been making stitch markers like mad. I hope to have at least 1 more gallon zip lock bag filled with finished products by late Friday. I have also been knitting a few items to show case using wonderful hand spun wools and mohair. The great thing about buying a handmade item from hand spun yarn is that you can sometimes track the wool or mohair back to the ranch were the yarn is produced. In this case I will have a number of items ready that are totally local. Kathy Withers raised the animals, had them sheared, processed the fiber, dyed the fiber and spun the yarn. How lucky am I to be able to say that I actually got some of this fabulous yarn to knit with.

In case you can not make it to the Tucson Wool Festival I will include a link to Kathy's Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/uniquedesignsbykathy

Well I have to get back to the stitch markers. Have a great evening and enjoy your families.

The New Cable Works

I let John use my camera cable for the greater good and was very nervous about using the new one he got for me. The good news it that the cable appears to work just as well as the old one.  So without further ado here are some of the new pictures of my knitting.


Barbara is our Guilds Chairwoman for Project Gratitude. She is modeling 4 out of the six scarfs I have made for members of the military this year.

Barbara M. With 4 of My Project Gratitude scarfs.

Have A great Evening and enjoy your families.



4 hats for Charity , 1 Project Gratitude Scarf, 1 Charity scarf.



I Love Small Knitting Projects

I love small knitting projects. They make me feel like I have accomplished something. With laundry and child care that never ends it feels like I am doing something concrete with my life. The hat I started yesterday was finished today. Then another hat was started. I have a lot of odd balls of yarn left over from other projects.  I try to blend the colors and yarn weights together to come up with unique colorways. I love to do hats with odds and ends of yarn I just never know what I will end up with. Since my Art Fire Studio is full stocked with hats I will be sending them off to kids in colder climates.

We had a nice slow day today. By the way did I mention I got some knitting done?  The weather was cool for this time of year only in the mid 80's but the humidity was near 30% all day. We were graced with a very small down pour tonight and a nice show of lighting.

We it is time to go put Eric to bed so have a great evening and enjoy your families.

This Weekend

I was so hopeful after summer camp when Eric managed to make it through the whole summer and missing less than 1 week of camp due to illness. The school year is not going as well. Eric had 2 days of school last week and missed the second one due to being sick. Well so much for our summer streak. I might just have to go to school and shadow him for a day to figure this out.

We have had a very busy weekend getting Eric back on his feet but I think we just might make it. He did manage to sleep through the night. After a full 6 hours of sleep for me, a lot has gotten done around the house this morning.

On the bright side I have knit just over a skein of yarn a day this weekend. Most of it was charity knitting, but I have come to the conclusion that I need to do more knitting for me and learn to be a bit more selfish with my time. Yes I know the need for warm weather items is going to be great this year, but I have all this nice yarn and so many patterns lined up for me. There are only so many hours in a day.

I only have a few minutes left of quiet before I need to get everyone going this morning so have a great day and enjoy your families.

Another Fundraiser on the way

I had a request from Eric's camp, people want to buy my wash cloths and what knots from the kids. So I will be making up a batch and put everything else on hold till I knit/crochet up a basket of odd ball yarns into what knots, wash cloths, scarfs and what every else I can think of that is quick and easy.

I just wonder why; if they like them so much they just don't go to my web site and buy them direct. I price them the same. Oh well I just have to look at the donation as goodwill and a nice tax deduction. Also it is a good way to get the odd balls out of the house.

The current count 7 wash cloths and 2 what knots done.  Not bad for 2 days work. Maybe I can get it all done before the July 4th weekend.

Well I am off  to do something non productive. Have a great evening and enjoy your families.

A Blanket Update

I started this blanket as my Raverlary Olympic project. I know what was I thinking. A queen size blanket done that quick is never going to happen.

So here is the blanket by the numbers so far. It is 100 inches wide, yes I have allowed for shrinkage. To save Teri the horrors of the blanket shrinking I will wash and dry the blanket before I send it to her. Your welcome Teri.

I have completed 3 full rows of blocks. Which measures 12 inches high.

I have used 17; yes that is 17 skeins of yarn. Each skein only makes 3 modular blocks. I figure I need to kint at least 34 rows of blocks before I add the border.

I had origianly started this as a stash buster project, but considering that I only had 24 skeins of this yarn to start with I have had to buy more. I do hope that I have enough yarn to finish this without having to buy more yarn. I am mixing up the colors of the blocks and going on an angle so yarn form differnt years  land in the diffrent sections.  Cotton grown in diffrent colors vary in color from year to year.

Let me know if you want me to write this pattern down when I am finished and I will add it to my Art Fire studio and Raverly.

Have a good evening and enjoy your families.