Harry Potter & Other Things

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

 

I got to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with my daughter and grand daughter last night.  It was great!!!  The hat that Hermione is wearing in this picture is the pattern that I knit earlier last year for my daughter and grand daughter, you can see it on my Jan 7th entry.   You can find the pattern for free on Raverly if you are a Ravelry member or the pattern creator’s blog here .  If you are a knitter, crocheter, etc, Ravelry is a great place to check out, it is a free membership.

 

click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

This is a little shawl I am working on.  It is called Wisp .  I found it on Knitty and was intrigued with this light and airy lace pattern.  It looks complicated but is very easy.   This one is for a friend as a surprise.  She rarely reads my blog (she’s in her 20’s and has more important things to do :P) so I don’t live in fear that she will see this and spoil the surprise :).  Pink is her favorite color so I am sure she will enjoy this in the milder fall and winter temperatures there in TN.  I should be finished with it this week.  Then I will just have to find some light weight buttons that will match the yarn.  The yarn I’m knitting with  is some very pretty heavy lace weight my mom bought in Korea when she was there and sent to me.   I did the burn test and it appears to be an acrylic rather than natural wool fiber.  I’m sure my friend will be happy that it won’t take special care to wash. 🙂   I will make another one with some fiber that I will spin for it.  Something to wear to church for myself for a change.  Right now, I’m thinking maybe some white alpaca I bought a month or two ago, but some other fiber might be calling to me by the time I get ready to spin for it.  I’ll just have to see.

Hand Crafted Soap

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CD Spindles

CD Spindles

 

 

I decided to, as a fun project for the Activity Day Girls in my ward, to teach them to spin using a spindle.  I bought these from one of the vendors on my spinning list who makes and sells them.  The Activity Day Girls range from 8 to 11 years old and I thought this would be a fun activity.   I am sure the girls will enjoy them. 🙂  Hopefully I am training new spinners for the future :P.

 

Custom Soap

Custom Soap

 

It was time to reorder my smell good soap (one of the luxuries I decided I needed :P)  and I have to say that  Autumnoak  makes the most wonderful soap!!  She will even custom make soap for you.  She  loves what she does does and it shows!  I love her Sandalwood & Rose and the Lilac & Lavender soaps .  What wonderful smells and the soaps lather so nicely.  I also love the way the soap lasts and doesn’t dwindle away quickly.  You will have to go check out her etsy store and see all the wonderful soap smells she has for sell :). 

 

Punta/Wenslydale Wool & Mohair rovings

Punta/Wenslydale Wool & Mohair rovings

 

She also sells roving and I bought some of this wonderful Punta and Wenslydale Wool roving (the beautiful blue and white roving).  She also sent some very lovely Mohair roving for me to play with, I have never spun or handled any Mohair before and it is an interesting texture.  I am excited to see what the yarn will look and feel like when I spin it.

If you spin you should check out the very nice rovings she lists on her etsy site.  She is wonderful to do business with.

4th of July

/ LDSVenus
Let Freedom Ring!!

Let Freedom Ring!!

Happy Independence Day America – Let Freedom Ring!!! 

Please make your voices heard and count with your congressmen to keep the government from changing and distroying our precious Constitution that was written to keep us from being enslaved to a government, thus losing the precious freedom the founding fathers fought for and many died to put in place.  If our congressmen are not hearing us and we have little voice in the government, then those that we elect are not serving us, but we are serving them.

It’s That Time Again

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click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

 

It’s time again to embroider things for the Whippet Club my son belongs to that they give as prizes at the show they host every late summer/fall.  They still had a few items left over from last year so I don’t need to embroider quite as many :).  It’s a nice design and looks great when embroidered on the towels and blankets.  I’m sure the winners enjoy them.

 

Work is going well, just wish I had more time to knit and spin, clean and unpack, sigh.  I feel so time crunched.  Ever notice that when you are young time goes by so slowy and you are sure that it takes forever for anything, and then as you get older time seems to unmercifully speed up and you don’t have time for anything?  I think things should go fast when you are younger and slow down when you get older ;P.

Floodstock

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click on picture for larger image

 

My son and his friend Dustin invited me to go to the Farmer’s Market with them this morning.  It is once a month in the down town area.  I thought Farmer’s Market, ok, vegetables etc, plus I had seen people working on the item in the picture while driving home from work every day for the last several weeks (I will describe it better in a min.)  So I thought sure.  Well it was awesome, they had a rock band performing old Beatles songs, many vendors selling everything from fresh produce to meat, to crafts, baked goods, a guy who did some awesome items with those ballons you twist into shapes.  I’m going back next month and taking my camera with me, and more money :P.  So be prepared for an update next month.

Ok, the picture.  It is a sand sculpture, yep, I said sand!  It says Floodstock on it (yeah, a take off on Woodstock).  It’s celebrating the recovery from the terrible flood that they had last year that devistated the downtown area.  It’s a way of saying, WE ARE BACK.  There are still buildings in the downtown area that are being or need to be renovated, but the work is coming along.  The business I work at is right there in the downtown area and they just recently finished their renovation from the damage the flood caused.

Click on picture for larger image

Click on picture for larger image

 

This small hand embroidered pillow is what I bought today, of course because I spin, but also because sheep are just so darn cute :P.  Besides it was made by a friend of mine from my church who had a vendor booth set up there. 🙂  I also bought some turnips, because I love them and it was cheaper to buy fresh ones than the ones in the store that have the paraffin covering to keep them fresh.  

 

 

 I do have to say that Cedar Rapids has something going on all the time.  I wanted to go to the Freedom Festival tonight up at Kirkwood Community College because 3 Dog Night was going to be there playing, but there are too many things needing my attention.  I’m sorry to have missed seeing one of my all time favorite Rock groups.  Maybe next time.

Birthdays

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madison-1austin-2

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDI AND AUSTIN!

I really need to get some updated pictures from my daughter!!  Anyway we celebrate birthdays today for my daughter’s last two children which are 2 years and a week apart.  Since Austin will be 1 she figured it would be ok to celebrate them together since he won’t notice the difference this year anyway.   Anyway I get to go have fun at Chuck E Cheese today.  🙂

Amazing how fast children grow.  You have your own and then all of a sudden you have grand children that age.  But it’s much nicer having grand children.  You get to spend time with them and leave them with their mother and go home to peace and quite :P.

I’m hoping to be finished spinning with the green and red superwash merino this evening.  As soon as I get it plyed and set I will put a picture up of the skein (probably tomorrow or Monday).  Since I am spinning the two colors together and it already looks like green and red candy cane stripes together, I am wondering what the two plyed together will look like.  Someone at the spinning group, that I finally got to go to last week (it was fun), said they thought it might turn out looking cabled after plying the two singles together.  I look forward to seeing  :).  It’s an experiment anyway.

Spring Gardens

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These are some flowers from my son’s garden.  He has beautiful flowers in the front and back yards.  I still find it funny that these come from 1 of 4 children who hated to go weed the vegetable garden when he was younger :P.  His gardens are really beautiful. 🙂

Spinning Fiber

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click on picture for a larger image

 

This is some very soft fiber.  The content is Alpaca, baby Alpaca, Silk, Merino, Cormo and glitz from Twisted Sheep Fabulous Fibers on etsy.  It is very pretty and should spin up into a beautiful yarn.  As soon as I get finished with the green and red that I am spinning together, I plan on spinning this new fiber.  I really will finish the Christmas yarn (red and green), hehe, I just have not had time to sit down and spin, too much going on in my life, but I need to make the time to do it because I miss spinning.  With the weather still nice I should do that for 30 min or so when I get home from work to relax, before it gets to hot to spin out on my balcony. 🙂

Pay It Forward

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 You may remember the PIF (pay it forward) that I participated in about a year and 1/2 ago.  It was fun to do.  The person who’s site I signed up under had a very busy year and was behind in getting things out.  I was suprised and thrilled when I got something extra in the order I had placed  for some fiber from her etsy store.  I had totally forgotten about the PIF, but she hadn’t forgotten me at all and was very apologetic about the delay.  What she sent was this very cool pair of hand knit socks and some very pretty custom made stitch markers. 

 

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Click on Picture for a larger image

 

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the stitch markers, you’ll see the really pretty fresh water pearls on the bottom of beaded section. 🙂

 

 

I’ll post a picture of the beautiful and soft fiber I bought in a few days. 🙂

Memorial Day Weekend

/ LDSVenus
For those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom!

For those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom!

 

I just want to thank all those who are now serving or have served in any of the branches of the Armed Services, for your love of freedom and being willing to serve your country.  I give a special reverence to those who were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, for what they loved, a free and safe country.  May we always honor them in all we do to keep this country free and safe.