Life

General Conference – Happy Easter!!

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I hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter Day.  I am enjoying it as I watch our General Conference with many wonderful spiritual lessons, such peace!

General Conference is televised on the BYU channel and on the internet link supplied above.  It is wonderful talks by our leaders on Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm central time USA and 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm (those times are for both days).  It is so uplifting.  General Conference happens twice a year, in the spring and in October.

While I am watching and listening, to keep my hands busy I knit.  I finished two dish clothes, In Thirds and a waffle stitch dish cloth I don’t have where I got it from but there are several on Ravelry you can chose from :).   I had started the dish cloths some time ago and never got back to and started another new born 2X2 ribbed hat.  I am using the beautiful heart stitch marker I purchased from Yarn Candy Studio and the beautiful enameled progress keeper that came with my order from Gretel Creations, you can also see the embroidered knitting bag I made myself.  What better way to spend these spiritual days than to knit charity gifts and listen to uplifting messages :).  Hope you all have had a blessed Easter week-end.

 

Typical Midwest Spring

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Spring 2018 We had a few days of warmer weather and anticipated Spring.  However, that is not how it works in the Midwest, sigh.  We had a snow storm that was from yesterday evening about 9:30 pm to about 4:30 pm today, we even had thunder snow last night.  Yes that is a real thing, it’s like a rain storm with thunder and lightning, it’s in the winter with snow instead :P.  We could get snow here into May, but hopefully not :P.

I’ve had a bout of not wanting to do anything, including knitting.  I need to finish those socks I’m working on and start another pair.  The problem with the ones I’m working on is that the heel is causing me some anxiety because it’s a patterned sock and I haven’t done the heel on a patterned sock so I’m afraid that I’ll pick up the wrong stitches and have to rip it out, as they have the instructions for knitting with magic loop method and I’m knitting on a 9″ circular, but hey what is the worst that can happen, that I’ll have to rip the heel out, so I’ll just have to bite the bullet and plow through the heels on this pair of socks.  Next pair will be plain vanilla :P.

Is it Spring yet? Apparently NOT!

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Installing Spring

I thought spring would be coming soon (tho’ it’s IA and yes we do have snow sometimes into May, tho usually March or April is normal)  I was hoping.  But nope, we had another snow storm today.  I tried installing a Spring App but no go :P,

I did buy a couple of things for myself last month.  One arrived the middle of Feb, the other I received today!  From Canada I purchased some stitch markers from Yarn Candy Studio, lovely markers! She also sent a great herbal tea, chocolate and orange! And some safety pin markers!  So excited.  And I purchased some Harry Potter progress keeper from Gretel Creations, in the UK,  love them!  She also sent a beautiful colored bird progress keeper.  These were both great purchases, they make me happy :).

February’s Reminder

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February 2018 Snow

February sent us a little reminder that yes, it’s still winter (actually this can go on through April here.)  The weatherman said we would get between 2 to 6 inches of snow and we got around 4 inches.  I didn’t resize the picture to be smaller so you can see the slow flakes coming down (if you look at the tree trunk or the garage doors across the road.)  My camera doesn’t take good pictures of snow fall, I wish that we could leave the picture smaller and that it would enlarge when you click on it like it use to on WordPress, if it still will I haven’t figured it out yet.  This was taken around 4 pm, the snow started around noon and continued until around 6pm.  The weather report says tho’ we will have little flurries here and there until Thursday, that there will be several more systems coming to drop snow on us on Thursday, Friday and Saturday with up to a couple of inches with each system.  So nice to be able to hunker down somewhere warm and knit or spin and watch “Little House on the Prairie” or “You’ve Got Mail” or any other show or movie you love to watch.

Diagonal Scarf Along – With a Friend :)

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I taught my friend to knit when I lived in TN and we use to have Harry Potter Marathons and eat popcorn.  Ahhh those were fun days :).  We have missed doing those things together, as I now live in another state, so we decided to have a Scarf Along.  We have picked out our yarn and needles and our plan of attack for the scarf.  I wish I could tell you where I got the pattern, I hand typed it out and have had it for years so no telling where the pattern was from originally so I can’t share it, but there are several on Ravelry that are Diagonal Garter Stitch Scarfs.

The pictures above are the yarns we chose, I neglected to get the brand of yarn she got for this project, but it looks like Lion Brand tho’ I could be wrong, I’ll check back with her and update this(**Yes it is Lion Brand yarn  Mandala, thanks Keri :).)  My yarn is Yarn Bee Aspyn from Hobby Lobby, it is 80% acrylic and 20% alpaca and very soft and is a bulky weight tho the pattern calls for a DK weight and a US size 5 needle.  We both decided the 22 stitches cast on was to narrow for us.  My friend, Keri cast on 44 stitches and went up 2 needle sizes and I will also be using the US size 7 and I am casting on 32 stitches.  We should have pictures of our progress to show soon :).  I am excited to get to do something with my friend again :).

I am coming along on the fingerless mitts.  I decided to add the 3rd color from the cowl on the top of the mitts because I was getting very nervous about the yarn chicken game with the navy yarn, lol.  So I will frog some of the top area of the mitt I am working on and add that 3rd color.  I should have one mitt to post a picture of soon as well.  I started with the navy, then added the beautiful turquoise color for the pattern area, then back to the navy and the top few inches will be the light speckled yarn.  It will be a perfect match for her cowl. 🙂

Year of Spinning

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This year in the Fiber Pusher Podcast on Ravelry we are working on spinning.  This month it’s getting things finished that are on our wheels.  I had finished the first spool of singles last year, and had started the 2nd spool so am now working on finished that 2nd spool.  I’m excited to see this 2nd spool finished and plyed with the 1st spool because I know it will be a beautiful yarn.  My yarn usually ends up being a light sport weight.  You can see the rolags I am spinning from, here.  I’m trying to commit to at least 20 min of spinning a day, but at the very least 3 or 4 times a week.  That way I won’t feel bad if I miss a day or two because of odds and ends unplanned things that happen in life.  Would love it if things never happened unexpectedly however…. :).  I haven’t decided what I want to make from it yet.

I will still be working on the mitts, but I have decided that rather than chance I will fail at the yarn chicken game (made me nervous to see the ball going down faster than I had hoped)  and I really did not want to have to frog two mitts to redo them with another color yarn, so, I am going to insert one of the other colors where the design is so it will be a two tone mitt and better match her 3 color cowl :).  I’ll post a picture when I have passed that design point and you can see it better.

I have also promised that I would finish the socks I am working on for someone for their birthday (next month) and I need to make two hats for two little ones as we are in the throes or a polar express here :).  We were at -21 yesterday (New Years Day and this bitterly cold weather started with the early afternoon on New Years Eve) with wind chills dipping from -30’s to -42 and it was still very cold earlier today, tho now, late afternoon, it’s only -2 with a wind chill of -14.  woo hoo, a warm up :P.  So I should have a very busy next few weeks with spinning and knitting :).

Another Snowy Day Before the End of the Year and I started Those Fingerless Mitts.

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More snow today.  They said between 4 to 6 inches today by the time it’s done later this evening.  I took this, this morning around 10am.  They also said frigid temps are coming in this evening.  For the next 3 days it will be -2F or so in the daytime (ambient temps, so wind chills will take it down they said to -20 to -30) and -17F ambient temps at night, so temps with wind chills around -30F and occasionally down to -40F.  BRRR, winter is here.  So I am staying toasty warm in the house.  I did remember to put “Heet” in my gas tank just in case I have to drive somewhere.

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I’ve started on the Te Ara Fingerless Mitts for my friend to help use up her left over yarn from the 3 Color Cowl I knit her.  I’ve made these before here .  They were fun to knit and I think they look very classic and elegant :).  I will be playing a little bit of yarn chicken with this skein.  Weight wise, I should barely have enough, but this is a little heavier weight fingering weight and I hate cutting things so close just in case.  If it doesn’t work out I will have to frog and use one of the other colors she had left over, but this was the one she wanted them knit out of.   Crossing my fingers.