#14564

Well I am #14564 on the Ravelry list. That is fourteen thousand five hundred and fifty six. Yes you read that correctly. AND there are ONLY 8452 people ahead of me waiting for their invitation to join and there are 4037 on the list after me. Apparently 31% of the list have received their invitations to join already. Will my invite come by Christmas? Will my invite be one of my pressies for Christmas?? Did someone once say patience is a virtue. HA!!!! By the time I get my invite I may have forgotten I joined and then wonder what this revalry is?

Oh yes my new or redesigned centerpiece. Have a look and let me know what you think?

Here is a close-up photo.


Look at all that sock yarn. HMMMM YUMMY!!!! There are two special skeins of yarn dyed just for me from Vigdis in Norway. The front yarn is Hawaii from Knit Picks and that lucious blue cake is a skein of Lorna Laces and is actually variegated blues and purples. The matching skeins are stored elsewhere. You will often find me taking out the containers of yarn and rolling in them, petting them and letting them know they are loved. I change the yarns in the centerpiece often. They all take turns in the bowl so none feel left out. The crystal punchbowl was a birthday gift from a friend who knew it would be a great gift as I was always borrowing one when I had small get togethers. Little did she know I was going to put it to work on a more full time basis. The table runner you see is hand embroidered. I found it in a second hand shop. It was very inexpensive. To put it bluntly it was cheap. Too cheap actually for the work someone put into it but I am not complaining. Maybe one day I will post other photos of what a knitters home looks like or should I say what my knitting home looks like. I am sure all yours must look similar. Now if I had a larger living space I guess I could put the yarn in an aquarium for all to see. All those colors. It could make you dizzy if you weren't careful looking at it. I guess I will stick with the punchbowl for now.

Knitting News
Everyone who has seen my Maisie Dobbs cloche which looks like a large beanie agrees it needs a flower on it. An icord flower has been suggested. So that is something I need to do. I also need to work on a project having to do with the whoduknit July book read called Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Picard and work on some of my socks. My whoduknit summer tag sale pal has contacted me anonymously. I need to answer her back and contact mine now, also anonymously. I called Knit Picks to see where my order is in the packing, shipping and delivery process and was told it was shipped on Monday. That is good news. Knit Picks does say delivery takes 5 - 14 days so it could be here by the weekend. YES!!!

I saw a friend today, Luna, I haven't seen since before Christmas. Yes she lives in the city but also out in the nether regions in Transcona like Cathy. I can joke about Transcona since I once lived out there also. Luna and I do speak frequently on the phone. We joked as the time passed it would probably end up being July until we got to see each other and VOILA!!! Here it is July and mid July. We had a lovely dinner. Spagetti squash with an Arrabbiata sauce, jumbo shrimp and then topped with grated old cheddar cheese. I made some delicious Chai Tea and poured it in a rimmed glass mug, topped it with frothee and a sprinkle of chocolate. The Chai Tea and Arrabbiata Sauce Mix (dry), Fireside Rimmer and chocolat sprinkling are all from Epicure another product I sell.

I hope I have time to knit tomorrow. I have a funeral to go to between 1P - 3P. My friend's partner passed away. I have to make sure I am home by 4:30PM as anytime after 4:30P my Avon could arrive. I have seven boxes of Avon being delivered. There is only one week to get these Avon orders out and money in as the this brochure's money needs to be in the Avon account by a week from tomorrow or Thursday July 26th. I will date my brochures for the Friday July 27 and since I put my orders in online I have until Sunday evening July 29th to get my new orders from C#18 in. These quick turn-a-arounds are awful!!!!

I have a headache starting so I am going to end this blog but today I am going to close it with a funny. Yes I am going to put some funnies on my blog. You may also find recipes on it and if I ever design anything I may even also put that on my blog. You never know what I will put on my blog so you will have to check it out frequently. Don't forget comments are appreciated.

I love this one!!!! Thank-you to the person who sent it to me.

When I was married 25 years, I took a look at my wife one day and said, "Honey, 25 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to sleep every night with a hot 25 year-old blonde."

"Now we have a $500,000 home, a $45,000 car, nice big bed and a Plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with a 50 year-old woman. It seems to me that you are not holding up your side of things."

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot 25 year-old blonde, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Another mid-life crisis resolved by a woman's logic!

Well What should I Call this Post

I don't know what to call this post. I thought of frustrations, no knitting I've been at the frog pond swimming instead or decisions decisions decisions.


Let's see why decisions decisions decisions? Remember those books on sale at Knit Picks. Yes, those all books that are 40% off. Well I wanted them all. Almost all of them anyway. AND I didn't think I was going to be able to make a decision and chose only one, a couple or even a few. Especially when they are 40% off. It was just terrible. I did finally get it down to only 11 books (there were over 100 to choose from) and them I was stumped. Remember I wanted them all. I paced, I thought while I paced, I crossed out one or two and then changed my mind and crossed a different one or two off and then would change my mind again. BUT finally I did make up my mind on which I would get for me and one for a swap. I also got some yarn for socks for me. Not that I need any more sock yarn. HEY what does need have to do with it anyway. I also got some yarn for a swap pal. I finished my order off with something else for my pal in one of the swaps I am in, something that was asked for. Last but not least I ordered the Baby Surprise DVD for me which I've previously ordered but wasn't available yet. HMM!!! I wonder if that will that help me finish the UFO baby surprise sweater I have in my LR staring at me. All it needs to no longer be a UFO is to sew up the two seams. Of course that is unless I want to add a collar and cuffs. It then will be ready to give away to someone. I also ordered some items from Knit Picks for my friend Cathy. One of the books she wanted wasn't available and if she wants it she will have to wait until next month to order it but they said it would still be on sale. So instead she ordered extra yarn. They only ship to Canada on Tuesday and Thursday. I hope it comes quick so I can add those goodies to my swap. It is funny. I called and spoke to someone in Vancouver Washington who took the order but it is shipped from Ohio I was told. I thought the sales rep on the phone said it went from Ohio to somewhere in NY close to the border and comes over to Canada that way. A very around about way but by doing it this way it is brokered through a craft company for a 10% fee and it is delivered directly to me with no customs fees or duty. Apparently the 10% covers any taxes and the extra $5.00 delivery fee charged when ordering from out of Canada. AND with the dollar so strong here it is even a better deal than it would have been a few months ago or last year even. BUT boy did I sweat over which book I should get. And as soon as my package arrives oh my some more knitting goodness.



Now why the frustrations and why I knitted very little. Last night I thought I would use up that last half ball of yarn on my Noro serape shawl and then put it away, unfortunately in the UFO pile until I can purchase some more Noro on sale. There I am knitting merrily along doing several rows of garter stitch for a while with no problem until I get to the pattern row and it doesn't work. YUP I was short a stitch. Now how could that be. I had to tink it back to fix it and when I thought I had it fixed and started to knit the tinked rows again after counting three times the correct number of stitches it still was short a stitch when I finished that first reknit row. I even found the original missing stitch that seemed to have been dropped but wasn't really running down the shawl which would have made it obvious to find without going to the frog pond and getting my feet wet. It was strange. I would count one way and it was correct but when I counted the other way I was a stitch short. I just wasn't getting anywhere. It was like when you knit and knit and measure and then knit and knit some more and when you measure you haven't seemed to have gotten anywhere. There must be a little knitting frog or elf somewhere above sprinkling some magical dust on the knitting and us just to make sure we do not get to full of ourselves thinking how wonderful the knitting is going along and what a great knitter we are especially when the knitting we are doing is a very easy pattern. So no knitting for me on Thursday. AND no knitting for me on Friday.

Friday I put three new items on ebay. I had to talk with the live chat computer ebay person three times. I had to clean out my history again and I had to install Firefox. I have to admit ebay was easier to list items with Firefox. I wonder if blogger will also work better with Firefox. Only it is something new to get used to. It has messed up all my favorites which were in alphabetical order. No I do not have an A personality, just check my apt and you will agree with me but it is easier to find what you are looking for when it is in alphabetical order. And it is difficult with Firefox to have my two yahoo email programs open. It keeps changing the one to the other leaving me with two screens of one email program. I also worked on my tote for the ITE4 this evening. I am putting a lining in and am fighting a mental block on it and the zipper I want to put in the bag. It is not that I haven't made bags and totes before or put zippers and linings in them. AARRGHHHH!!!!!

And now I can't sleep. BUT I better try again. I am going to visit by friend Cathy in the nether regions of the city sometime Saturday. While there and watching her walk (she had a total knee replacement about six weeks ago and will have the other done in a Sept) I am going to felt a hat for the whoduknot group Maisie Dobbs project and put Cathy to work on making me two pompoms for my ITE4 tote. Gotta keep Cathy out of mischief.

Solara who was bugging me while I was trying to make a test lining for the tote this evening says MEOW and will you get to bed already again.

Gotta say bye for now..

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell from the exclamation marks in the title? My blog has not only been read but there is even a comment which I responded to. Makes me feel good.

Knitting Goodness

There is always knitting goodness to report. Today I finished my cloche I knitted for the Whoduknit group I belong to after reading the June book called Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. I am looking forward to reading her next three books she has written about Maisie Dobbs and see how the character Maisie evolves. This is a very very very fun group. We read a mystery each month. We discuss the book the first two weeks in the following month. We do a project based on something in the book. I was going to knit some vegetables since in the book Maisie's dad is a costermonger but chose to knit and felt a hat. The story takes place in England just after WWI with some flashbacks to the war. Maisie wears a cloche. I was going to knit socks as her feet are always cold but didn't think I could finish them in a week with all my ongoing projects. I now need to felt the hat. I may put a flower on the hat but that depends on what the hat looks like after felting. As you can see from the photo there is some fancy yarn (Plymouth Eros) knitted along with the wool (Plymouth Galaway) both which came from my stash and with this fancy yarn the hat may not need a flower.

Thank-you Janice for modeling the hat for me. The color is a little darker than the photo shows but it is not navy.

A little more clarification about this group. The mystery we read in a specific month is voted on by the members of the group. We are not just told this is the book we read. Everyone in the group can nominate one book and we each get one vote to pick which we would like to read. The book with the majority of votes becomes the book we read. I am a new member and if I am correct the book with the second most votes is read in the following month. Only in August there won't be a specific book to read. It is a month to catch up and read books that were voted on but didn't get enough votes to be chosen to be read. The project we do also is totally our own decision. We post photos of the project we make on the Whoduknit blog and in the photo section of the yahoo group. There are also optional swaps. I love swap. I am so addicted to swaps. There is a new swap now in the group. It is a tag/garage sale swap. We can spend no more than $10 not including postage. We are to see what goodies we can find for only $10 but we can raid our own stuff. I have been given two items (read not part of the $10 allowed to spend) from my friend Genie that are perfect for this swap. One item was an ugly hat (90% wool & 10% nylon). I say was because I unraveled it into a ball of ugly yarn and the other is a knitting mystery I never heard of by Jill Churchill. It is quite old. We will get our partners in a few days and we have until the end of August to mail out our packages to our partner.

********Oh does everyone know Knit Picks is having a sale on their books? All their books are 40% off through August 17. This is going to be a problem for me especially with the Canadian and the American dollar so close.

As soon as I figure out how to link to another page on the sidebar I will list what I do have in my knitting library. Until then the list is in my head and the books are all over my apartment. I love owning books. AND the more pictures the better.

I heard from my swap partner Sharon in the weluvknitting group today (read Wednesday). She received the package I mailed her July 3. This is a swap where we have a partner and we send four packages to each other over a year. This was our second package we sent to each other. I love putting together packages as much as I enjoy receiving them. There is something special about trying to figure out what your partner would like, finding it and sending it to her. AND it is really neat waiting for packages and wondering what goodies your partner has chosen for you.

I had hoped to finish my Noro Silk Garden Serape Shawl by the end of July but it looks like I will have to wait until Ram has another good sale. I have about two skeins of yarn left but the colors do not blend well with what I have already knitted. The serape shawl calls for 10 balls of Noro Silk Garden but with two and a half balls left to knit my serape shawl seems only half completed. Below is a photo of what is completed on my shawl. I hope you are able see from the photo how large it already is. At this stage of completion it won't wrap around me and yet it is just shy a couple inches of the actual measurements given in the pattern instructions. I think when completed it will be like wrapping myself in a small blanket. I tried to take a close up photo to show the stitch pattern but it came out blurry. Oh and this photo shows the back of the serape shawl. When completed I promise to photograph the right side of it.

AND as soon as I put it on the floor to take a photo my knitting kitty Solara decided she should check it out. You have to admit she is very pretty even if she isn't a small and delicate kitty.

And I guess she figured well now that you have taken my picture on the shawl I think I will get down to business and clean my foot and where better to do that than on a partly finished knitting project lying on the floor.

I think that will be all for this post. Believe me I have much more I could write......