Knitting

Current Projects & a Tease of Spring

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Another Pair of Cabled Gauntlets

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Lest you think I haven’t been doing anything – tho with no current blog post or picture I can understand why you might think I wasn’t doing anything ;).  Anyway, I just finished another set of my cabled gauntlets, found on My Free Knitting Page here .  I use the 12″ circular needles to do them because I really don’t like working with double pointed needles (I will if I have to, but I try really hard not to have to :P.)  They always turn out nicely on the short cable circular needles.  I hope my friend will like them.

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2nd Comfort Shawl

This is the start, or restart, really it’s the 3rd restart of a comfort shawl I am trying to knit for the other mother who lost her son (to cancer) last fall.  It’s a rectangular shawl, unlike the one shown in the link a little farther below, I’m just using the daisy stitch for the shawl.  You can see the nest of yarn because I started it and didn’t think I had enough stitches so I had to frog it (rip out rows at a time) and cast on more stitches, only to find out I had enough to begin with, was just reading the chart wrong (I have to write charts out because I can not read them very well, thus the error in translating it to something I can read better) so I had to frog it again.  But the pattern, the daisy shawl pattern,  is pretty and I’m not one to give up when I start a knitting pattern.  This one has a double yarn over, which isn’t hard to do, but I’ve discovered that the purl row after the double yarn over is a bit confusing, so I’ve gone to my knitting list to enlist some help in how to purl a double yarn over and still have two stitches that are open and lacy when I’m done.  I may have to tink (take out stitches one at a time) the last row I knit, hopefully I wont have to frog two rows.  I’ll follow up when I figure out what I’m doing wrong and get a bit farther with the shawl.

We had beautiful weather Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week, was awesome!!!  40’s and even middle 50’s.  But it’s just a tease of Spring, because Winter isn’t really over here in the Midwest until late April or early May.  But hey it was a week of 30’s to 50’s instead of teens and sub zero weather, and I’ll take it!!!  Come on SPRING!!!

Happy Birthday to my 2nd Son

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Tim

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON!!!

This is my 2nd son.  Of course he’s “a bit” older now, but isn’t he a cutie?

I was looking at my daughter’s youngest (my only grandson) the other day and thought oh my goodness, he looks just like my son!  He’s a cutie too. 🙂

Comfort Shawl

 I finished the comfort shawl that I have been knitting on for the last several months.  This is as it lay blocking.  I didn’t get a chance to get a better picture of it on someone before I gave it to the intended recipient.  I hope that it will bring her the comfort intended. 

I have begun the next comfort shawl that I wanted to make for the other mother in my church who lost a child last year.   Last year was a hard year.

 

We have gotten quite a bit of snow from this storm.  Blizzard winds today and forecast for tonight (about 40 mph) – we’ve got about 5 inches of snow so far today and it’s suppose to keep snowing through the night.  I’m suppose to call a number in the morning to see if we will go in at the regular time, late or no work at all.  Guess you know which one I am hoping for :P.  

Ok I’m a klutz!

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 This isn’t me (and yes it makes me feel less embarressed to know there are other klutzes out there too) but this was the gist of what happened Friday morning after leaving my apt and just starting down the stairs to the lobby of my apt complex as I was off to work.  I missed the first stair and the rest was all “down hill” from there ;).  I have bruises down my right side and sprained my left ankle (not sure how that happened) but yes, I am a klutz.  This accident is making me stay mostly on the couch with my feet up (the other ankle was injured but not as badly as the left one), so I have lots of time to knit until I go back to work on Tuesday – I should have the comfort shawl finished and blocked by tomorrow – I’ll post a picture of it when it is all blocked.  Yes I went to work on Friday and they let me leave 2 hr early to go home and put my foot up and I went to the Dr yesterday morning and they sent me for x rays, which I haven’t heard rather it is just a sprain (as I suspect) or fractured (which I doubt), so for the most part, it’s feet up girl.  I’m glad I work for a bank and have a paid holiday on Monday!!!

My “little” sister has begun a new blog journey.  I loved her old blog and was sad when she let it go, but I’ve been pestering her for a few years now to restart it.  She has and it looks like it will be even more wonderful than the last one.  She is quite a photographer, into paper making, fused glass, mosaics and other things.  The name of her new site is “Eat It Anyway” just click that link, I hope you will enjoy it – she’s awesomely talented :).  I’ll also put this link on my blog roll ;).

Back to the couch for a while to put my feet up.

Winter Weather & Thor

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Christmas Tree 2010

.I put my tree up the first week-end after Thanksgiving.  It’s a lovely little fiber optic tree that I bought from someone at work about 4 years ago.  I love the color changes and that it’s small enough to fit in my apartment.  Brings back memories of my mom’s first favorite tree.  It was one of those silver aluminum trees that had the color wheel that you put close to it, and the sliver aluminum branches would pick up the changing colors.  Later in her life,  she had a beautifully flocked artificial tree that looked as real as any I’ve ever seen, and the skirt was a beautiful alpaca fleece, it even looked soft in the pictures.

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Evening of Snow Storm

 

Next Morning

Well, we had a blizzard yesterday evening and through the night.  However because the snow was heavy and wet it didn’t blow around in the up to 40 mile an hour winds, so we were spared that part of what most people experience in a blizzard.  This was our second snow of the season and the snows are coming late this year, tho I’m not complaining, we will have plenty yet to come.  We didn’t get very much, certainly not as much as those north of us. 

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Can I come out now?

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Thor is doing well and is such a joy in my life.  He has been such a blessing to me.  He only expects food, water and time with me.  Well, and an occasional treat that I can’t resist giving to him.  He’s getting older, he will be 5 next spring which is getting old for a ferret.  I’m blessed that he has been and continues to be healthy, but I know the time will come when his health fails, then he will need me to be a good mom taking care of all his medical needs, which I will do with as much love as he has given me. 

I’m still knitting on the comfort shawl, it’s about 3/4’s finished now.  I’m also finding time to work on spinning the cria fiber, I love the softness of it as I spin it.  I’ve found that working on the comfort shawl for someone else who lost a child and spinning that wonderfully soft fiber has been comforting to me this Christmas season as I find my self missing my youngest son so much.

Christmas Cactus – First Bloom for 2010

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1st Bloom for 2010

1st Bloom almost fully open

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They bloom fast once they get going.  I missed getting the picture of the bloom opening.  They are very unusual but pretty.  I love the hint of a very soft pink they have on them.

I’ll get another picture when I have several of the blooms open.

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click on picture for larger image

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Another update on this comfort shawl, which really should have been finished by now.  It doesn’t look like it, but it is half way finished.  By the time it’s blocked it will be much longer and wider than it looks.  I love knitting with Alpaca, it’s soft and squishy and it should be a wonderfully soft and very warm shawl.

I have several shawls in the wings after this one, so I best get my bottom in gear!!!

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My supervisor at the temp job I am working let me know this week that they will be hiring me permanent full time in Jan.  I am very happy to know I will finally, after 3 years of working part time or temporary jobs, have a permanent and full time job and it will be nice to be paid for the holidays they take and will make my financial situation a little less precarious.  I know we are given trials to learn from, and it has been a learning experience.   I hope I learned everything I needed to learn because I certainly hope I don’t have to re-learn anything in that experience again.

I Hope You Voted!!

/ LDSVenus

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I hope you all got out today and voted.   I did.  My son and I tease that we cancel each other out.  But that is alright, it’s our civic duty to vote, what an awful state we would be in if we didn’t have that right and opportunity!!  Guess we will see in the morning who will be in control of the House and Senate and our state.

lsfiberadventure has posted a picture, of the PIF I sent, on her blog. 🙂  You can see it here.   PIF’s are fun to do, they take time and a little bit of money :P, but they are fun.  I think the most fun is waiting to see if they will like what you sent, and well, yes – the excitement of getting your own PIF package in the mail ;).

Comfort Shawl – New Update

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Click picture for larger image

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Well, I’m not knitting it as fast as I should be, but here is an updated photo.  I lost track of my rows one day and did a wrong row and didn’t feel like frogging or tinking back so I corrected the row below each stitch as I knit the next row.  Slow going I admit, and it probably would have been faster to frog the row and re-knit it and then go on, but then that was what I chose to do. 😛  I’m hoping I won’t be sleepy tomorrow so I can work on it some more.  When I’m sleepy and I start knitting, it makes me even sleepier until I can’t hold my eyes open anymore.  It is a little more than a 1/3 of the way finished.  I really need to put more time into it and get it finished.  Maybe I will have a bigger or finished picture to put up next week end. 🙂

Well the Cowboys can’t decide if they are going to play well or kill themselves with penalties.  I’d like to tell them, if you can’t do those things well that you are trying to get away with, stop it!!!  You are beating yourselves with them.  Tho I have to admit, there were a couple of questionable calls in the 1st half that even a Viking fan admitted to.  Even tho they are at the bottom of their division I will still root for them and hope they get rid of their penalty prone ways.

I finally got that call that all members of the Church anticipate with some intrepidation.  Yes, I will be giving a talk in Church this Sunday.  It’s a bit scary getting up in front of the congregation and talking about what ever spiritual subject the Bishop or his counselor have given you to talk about.  It’s similar to giving a 15 min mini sermon for those not familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons for those not familiar with our formal name.)  As part of  my talk I decided to give an experience I had this Monday while driving to work just before the sun came up.  The Lord gave me some spiritual pause when I saw it.  I will share that experience below.

This last Monday as I drove to work, at 7 am when it’s not quite light yet, as I turned onto a street off of a main road just outside of town, I saw a car to my left on the shoulder of the road.  The people were standing outside the car looking to the right side of the road.  I looked over and saw a doe that had obviously just been hit by that car.  Because it was not quite light yet, I wasn’t able to see the damage to the car but the doe was just lying in the grass (not flat on the ground, but with her feet gathered under her), still alive but obviously injured and I knew she would probably be put down.  My first thought was, as I looked at that beautiful creature and tears started to well up in my eyes, “oh you stupid deer, if only you had just stayed off the road, you would still be running around.”  I wondered how many times she had crossed the road with no problems until she had become desensitized to her natural instinct for fear and danger.  Then I thought how often do we not heed the counsel of the Lord and his servants, or the promptings of the Spirit when, like the doe, we see no danger or do not understand the danger, until we too become desensitized to it, and like the doe, who paid a physical price, we pay a spiritual price.

Comfort Shawl Update….

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click on picture for larger image

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The gauge wasn’t coming out right, so I frogged it and decided to go up to a size 9 needle from a 7 since I was doubling the yarn (one strand too light a weight, 2 strands a little too heavy but closer than the 1 strand) .  The pattern called for a size 8 needle, but I was using a 7 since I knit a little bit more loosely than others and generally have to go down a size needle to get the correct gauge.  The gauge is now more correct and the 10 skeins should make the shawl, tho it will only be 58 to 60 inches in length instead of 63, because I will run out of yarn before I get it that long.  But it should still be a nice length.  This yarn is very soft, which is why I wanted to use it.  A comfort shawl should bring comfort in every way possible.  I’m almost done with the first 2 skeins so I am about 1/5 of the way done.

Off to bed, 5:15 am comes awfully early.  Will be soooo happy when we get that hour of sleep back when they turn back the clock next month, which is almost here!!!!  I love that as much as I do football :).

Scarf Finished

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click on picture for larger image

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This is the hand dyed (Wilton cake icing coloring – Purple), hand spun and hand knit scarf that I have just finished.  It was interesting to see the colors the food coloring broke into.  The last time I used the purple Wilton cake icing coloring, it turned out different shades of purple and no blue, you can see it here.  This time it had a beautiful pastel blue in there as well, see it here.  You just never know when you use the Wilton colors what you will get.

I wish it was longer, but I mis-judged the amount of fiber I dyed and because I can’t match the color, it is a bit shorter than I had intended to make it.  I’ll be more careful to weigh the roving before dying next time. 🙂

I originally had different plans for this scarf, but felt prompted as I began knitting it to give it to my neighbor who has been graciously giving me her Sunday paper every Sunday so I could look for work.  She’s a very nice lady and it will be a simple thank you gift.   Now I will have to chose a different fiber to spin on :).  Think I will begin spinning more of the cria (baby alpaca), it’s so soft and soooo relaxing to spin. 🙂

Comfort Shawl Started

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Comfort Shawl

I finally made my choice  and started this shawl today.  I decided on something simple and quick, but elegant looking.  It’s called High Effect Feather & Fan Shawl.  This is for an acquaintance at Church who lost her oldest daughter in a car accident about 6 weeks ago.  I hope it will help her to know that others feel her pain and care.  I tried to lighten this picture up but it’s a navy color and just very dark.  It will show up better (I hope) when I get more knit and have a larger project to take a picture of.  I wanted a lighter color but this was the only color I had enough of  in this alpaca yarn, which has been discontinued, and I wanted it to be soft and warm.

The Cowboys played the Texans tonight, and did not do well at all.  They were very sloppy on the field.  Only consolation is that it is still pre-season games.  I hope they look much better on the field when the regular season starts.

I’m still knitting on the scarf, but there is no hurry and it’s something I enjoy working on during my lunch hr at work.  I am enjoying my new job.  It’s very busy and fast paced, but has all the things I enjoy doing.  I’m  looking  forward to being permanently hired and having that financial security that temp jobs just can’t give.

The weather here has been really nice this week.  Still a bit warm but much better than last week when I felt like I was going to melt.  I much prefer the hot DRY weather out west to the hot HUMID weather in the mid-west.  Winter has never been my favorite season, so you can understand that I also prefer the warmer winters out west too :P.  I could so be a snow bird :P.  But we just have to grow where we are planted.