Month: July 2011

A Round Tuit – revisited

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

A Round Tuit

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Years ago I saw one and thought it was so cute.  I found this one on the internet and used it several years ago, and have found that I have had to bring it out of mothballs and use it again :P.

When my son was going to move in with me, I had to move the 1/2 room of boxes out of the spare bedroom and ended up putting some of it in my bedroom.  He eventually decided to stay close to his daughter (5 hrs away from me), and after his death, I just couldn’t make myself sort everything out and put away.  It’s finally time, and finding time to do it is not fun…. but I have some motivation to get it done because it’s time for the apt inspection the city does here every 3 years.  It’s coming up soon so I have to get that bedroom cleaned out.  I’m part way done and decided to take a little break.  It would be much easier if I had a week of vacation to go through everything and do it right, but I don’t have any vacation time until late this fall.  Sooo I will just have to do the best I can with what little time I can squeeze out to get it done in.  I’m much better at procrastination :P.

I’ve begun working on a comfort shawl for a co-worker who has been diagnosed with cervical cancer.  I’m about 1/3 of the way done with it.  It’s a simple comfort shawl, as I felt that it would be needed in a hurry and no time to work on something that will take a long time to complete.  I’ll post a picture of  my progress later this week after the apt inspection.

Well it looks like we will have football this year.  That makes me happy 🙂

It’s been hot as heck here and lots of humidity.  I will be glad when fall gets here for the cooler temps and less humidity, but that means winter is right around the corner, so fall is a 2 edged sword. 😛

Heat Wave and Harry Potter

/ LDSVenus

Ok, the ambient temp the last two days has been about 96 degrees, and the heat index, with the wonderful humidity that IA is known for, has been around 111 degrees.  I always tell people that IA has two season, cold & ugly and hot & ugly.  It gets hotter out west but they (except for TX which is also very humid) don’t have the humidity to go with the high temps.  You can have the humidity, I prefer the dry heat!!  The night temps have been in the middle 70’s,  sigh and my air condtioner is running 24/7.  I’m so thankful for that!!!  Suppose to cool down next week I think (I hope).

I got to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 on Saturday with my daughter.  I have to say it was AWESOME!!!  Yes, it is not exactly like the book, but it was very well done and I loved it!!  I have loved all the Harry Potter movies but I have to say this is my favorite of all of them.  If you haven’t gone to see it and you enjoy Harry Potter, it is a must see.

I’m working on the shawl I started to get the stitch count right for the Daisy Rectangular Shawl.  I mean you can’t have a started shawl and not either finish it or frog it.  I chose not to frog it, it’s acrylic yarn so it will probably go to my grand daughter because it won’t need a lot of care like the natural fiber yarns do and she can enjoy it and I won’t be worried about it. 😛  I need to be spinning on that Cria, but it’s been so hot when I get home that I haven’t been in the mood for it.

Daisy Rectangular Shawl by LDSVenus

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

2nd Comfort Shawl Finished 001

I have reworked the design to take care of some mistakes I made in the pattern. Bare with me as I am not a pattern writer.  I can read them, but writing them is a totally different subject :). I also increased the border to 5 stitches instead of 3.

I designed this shawl using an old Shetland lace daisy design.

Do remember I offer this pattern for you to make the shawl, but you may NOT give this pattern out to someone else or sell the pattern.  Please direct them to this site or Ribblr to share the pattern.  With that out of the way, please enjoy my design.

B = border = k5
k = knit
p = purl
k2 tog = knit 2 together
yo = yarn over – note yo twice is a double yo and on the purl rows you will knit the first yo and purl the 2nd yo.
ssk = slip, slip, knit  (see the following site  : http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/decreases )
* * = repeat between the *

The lace design will appear as a diagonal design rather than horizontal or vertical and by shifting the design on rows 13-19 you can probably accomplish a vertical design.  This is worked from side to side so the cast on is the width.  I used approximately a fingering weight yarn and  size 7 needles.

This is not a hard pattern but you need to pay attention on the yarn overs to make sure you have two between the two decreases so it doesn’t mess up your stitch count (it can be easy to drop one when you do the ssk), and on the pearl row that you knit the first one and pearl the second one.) A life line might be nice :).

The k2tog is a right leaning decrease and the ssk is a left leaning decrease, I knit combined continental and the way I do my stitch decreases might not give you the lean you need, please feel free to do whatever decrease gives you the correct lean.

cast on 116 stitches.
Knit 5 rows for garter stitch border

Keep 5 stitches on each there after for garter stitch border through out.

Knit one row and purl one row keeping border in garter stitch before beginning the pattern.

The pattern ends with row 24

Rows 1, 5 and 9:
B, k6, *k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k14*, end k6 instead of 14, B

Rows 2 and all even rows: B, p to last 5 stitches, B  (please note above in the stitch abreviations how to purl the double yo’s)

Rows 3, and 7:
B, k4, *k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k10*, end k4 instead of 10, B

Row 11:
B, knit to last 5stitches, B

Rows 13, 17, 21:
B, *k15, k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k14*, end k15, B

Rows 15, & 19:
B, k13, *k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k2 tog, yo twice, ssk, k10*, end k13 instead of 10, B

Row 23: B, knit to last 5 stitches, B

Row 24: B, p to last 5 stitches, B

Repeat these 24 rows until the shawl is the desired length.

End with 5 rows of garter stitches (the border should be already established with the garter stitch you are knitting) and bind off.

I did not notice any errors in my writing when I re-knit this, I used this printed page to knit from.  If you have any problems following my pattern please drop me a line and let me know so that I can help you.

2nd Comfort Shawl is finished!

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Finally Finished and Blocked!

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Well, it is finished, blocked and given!!  As you can tell it is a diagonal pattern.  I orginally wanted to do vertical however that is just not the way it worked out.  I still have to figure out the correct number to cast on (had a little extra on one side and when I discovered it I was a bit too far to want to frog and begin again) and to cut the width down.  So give me a few days as I work this out and then I will post the pattern in My Free Knitting Patterns page for you to enjoy.  This Alpaca yarn drapes very nicely as a shawl and I’m sure it will be well loved.  I’m sad that it is a discontinued yarn tho, as it was lovely to work with and very soft.  I can now get back to spinning that wonderfully soft cria (baby Alpaca).

Well my children almost got to either come visit me in the hospital in the critial unit or to the morgue to identify me yesterday.  I was on my way to my daughter’s new house to get some steak and hambergers that were left over from her birthday party on Friday evening and as I was driving on a major street at 3o mph, a driver from a cross street didn’t stop at his stop sign and he was going about 40 to 50 mph.  I saw him out of he corner of my eye and knew he would not be stoping so I slammed on my brakes (fortunately there was no one behind me) and he came barreling out across the street and I missed hitting him by about 6 inches.  Hope it scared him as much as it did me.  I drive an older small sub compact car and the engine would have been sitting in my lap as I would have broadsided him.  Thank goodness for quick reactions and promptings from the Spirit alerting me to the other car.

Happy Birthday USA!

/ LDSVenus

.I love my country and couldn’t let my country’s birthday pass by without saying “long may my country live and long may her flag fly”.  The freedom, this country affords anyone who is here legally and who is honest, is beyond what many in the world experience.  For those who don’t agree, this freedom affords you the right to speak your mind and disagree – try that in a country without the constitution and/or who has a dictator as a leader and see how much freedom you are afforded there.  HAPPY BIRTDAY USA!!!

I love this video of Red Skelton – one of my favorite old time entertainers.

http://youtu.be/TZBTyTWOZCM