Monday, July 30, 2012

A Busy Day

It has been a very busy non-stop day for me. It took me most of the day, all 5 hours of it with out Eric to get through the top 5 items on my to do list. So to save time tomorrow I wrote my to do list tonight. That should save a good 5 minutes, which might be useful tomorrow.

I did not have much time for knitting or spinning. I still did find the time to get 1/3 of the way through the first fingerless mitten. I really think the person who picked the yarn will be happy with them. All I can say is the merino/silk combo is just yummy. John says my new found fondness for small projects is that the row count for the 1 million row challenge will go fast.

Well it seems that my boss has settled in for the night and I have another very busy day tomorrow. it's time to say good night.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Back Home

I am back home after a week of helping Teri. Yes I did leave her with a freezer full of home cooking. We do have to wait until November for the bar results. Which is going to be hard because I want to know right now.

While I was gone John got the washer fixed, the leak in the roof fixed. Also had Eric home sick for the entire week, and still managed to get into work. Isn't he just awesome? No I am not going to share him.

  I spent the day recouping, doing laundry, unpacking,and redoing the linen cabinet. Tomorrow will be scouba, bills, pictures. I will see how much I can get crammed into 5 hours.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Teri Time

As I write this blog post, Teri is on day 3 of her bar exams. There are a couple of things that I found out about myself this week. The first being that I can not knit for more than 6 hours a day. I packed way too much fluff, Teri has been very calm and has not needed to zone out to the spindle just turning around endlessly. The new clothes I bought for Teri's graduation are all getting longer and the waists are getting looser.  I though I would be more nervous so I brought a lot of snack food. The good news for me is that most of it is staying with Teri and her roommate when I leave. Most of the packages have not even been opened, including the chocolate covered almonds.

Teri is doing well. I am so pleased how she has turned out as an adult. I have enjoyed spending time with her this week. I hate the fact that we have to wait until November to to get the results of this weeks test.

John has been doing very well considering that Eric is giving so a run for it. Well It is time for me to go pack up Teri's stuff as we have a 1pm check out.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

1 Million Row Challenge

Well the washing machine is officially down for 2 more weeks and I will be making twice weekly trips to the Laundromat. I don't think I could stand doing it once a week and doing 20+ loads at once. As it was I used the jumbo machines that hold between 2 and 4 loads each today.  I still had 6 full wash loads today. I brought along a wool cowl to work on today and now understand why people in hot humid climates prefer cotton for summer knitting. Did I mention that the Laundromat has a swamp cooler.  It was at least 85 degrees and 50+%  humidity outside today, this is not what the cooler was designed for.  I still did manage to get 3 rows knit while doing the laundry.

We are up to 57 members in the 1 Million Row Challenge .Just use this link if you would like to join us. Remember we are there to have fun and use up our old and newly acquired stash yarn. Yes any yarn that crosses our thresholds is considered stash yarn. I wounder if any local yarn shops would like to get involved, by hosting knit ins or party's? After all having a bunch of fiberholics around is sure a good way to add to our stashes. Did you really think 1 Million Rows would reduce my stash by much?

We are crossing our fingers that the leaky roof is now fixed so that we can tear out the damaged wall board and replace it. Then repaint. I hope the carpet decides to dry out with out any mildew otherwise we will be replacing that too, but not with white. Beige or brown would be my first choice, after all it does not show the dirt. Which of course would leave me more time for knitting and spinning.

Next week will be my official spin/knit-a-thon week. I have heaps of projects lined up from wrist warmers to shawls. I also have my drop spindles and braids lined up.  My goal is to have as many projects done as possible by next Saturday. I will give my row/skein count and show pictures next Sunday.

I wonder if I have time for a quick nap?

Thursday, July 19, 2012

One Million Row Challenge

Last night I decided to share the One million Row Challenge with my fellow knitters and crocheter's on Raverly.  We are using the hash tag 1 mil rows to identify the projects, I would like to thank Melissa for coming up with the hash tag. We have also found a counter thanks to Annette & Alexander and here is the link to The Ticker Factory .

If you would like to join us in this journey just follow this link to Raverly 1 Million Rows Challenge . As of this blog Post we have 32 people going at their own pace, trying to bust their stashes. We all plan on having a good time doing it.

Have a great evening of knitting and family time.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Million Row Challenge

The guys are very creative in thinking up ways to get me to use up my stash yarn.  So tonight they came up with the million row challenge. Its suppose to be knit entirely from stash yarn. I am not sure if that includes new stash yarn that just happens to land in my stash. You know how those stash fairies can be. They did not say if I should count the newly spun yarn, after all once it is spun it is technically stash yarn. They said I could choose any patterns I wanted to do, with any stash yarn I had. The goal is to knit a 1,000,000,000 rows.

They also threw in a bonus that I could count the shawl I am working on now for the challenge. This is a good thing because I am already 100 rows in. Which leaves 999,999,900 rows left to knit.

What I am looking for is a good row counter for the blog. So any ideas would be wonderful. Also does anyone want to join me in this endeavor? I would love some company along the way. In that train of thought do you think I should start a Raverly group? Who would like to join the group, if I started it?

Well it is getting late and I have dragons to slay tomorrow. So Good night all.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Getting Organized

I spent the weekend zenning the house. I decided to put all the kits together (this should read that I lost some yarn and a pattern that I wanted to start knitting). I found projects that I would no longer be working on and recovered the knitting needles and project bags. The yarn has already been passed on. I found at least 18 pairs of needles and circulars. Which is very good, it means that I don't have to go buy knitting needles for the projects I have lined up for my week of knitting.  I have a week coming up where I will have 9 hours a day to knit and spin, so I want to see how many me projects I can get out of the way.

I did find that my spinning projects had less UFOs that were stored. Well one to be exact. Looking at the fleece I can see why I had stopped spinning it. So today it went through the carder twice and is now a fluffy mass without a lot of VM in it to spin. It may not match the first 2 skeins but I am OK with that.

I did manage to put all the raw fleece in separate bags by color, breed and animal. It is all piled under the carder for some play time. I think I should probably put the roving by breed and color too. The sewing machine is now recovered too so I see some sewing happening soon too.

The more I clean and organize the better that I feel. I am also finding more time to take part in my favorite creative endeavors. I am having an easier time letting go of things too. Well it is getting late and it has been a long day.