Tag Archives: Knitting

Wired and Tired

I am sitting here tonight a bit wired and tired at the same time. 
I am wired for a few reasons:

  • Work was just busy enough to keep me busy and needing some time to unwind
  • I have a four day weekend starting Friday, which is now today. This is the most time off I have  had at one time since returning to the work force a little less than a year and a half ago.
  • An order  from Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Company arrived today. New fibers and patterns tend to excite me.
  • There is a lot to do in the next few days and I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed by it. There are  lots of fun things to do in addition to the usual household chores.

I am tired  because today has been long and busy. There has been lots of activity both at home and at work.

Thanks for listening. :)

Knitting/Crocheting and Blogging Slump

The past month has seen me in the worst blogging and knitting slump in ages. I am also way behind in email. There has just been a lot of activity in my life, most of which is not exciting. It took a couple of weeks  for my household to fully recover from the flu that hit us in February. Somewhere along the way I have had a flare up of arthritis in a knee which was injured as a teenager. It tends to happens a couple of times a year and never fails to wipe me out. This time was no exception. As of yesterday, the knee was feeling much better.

For the first time in ages, a computer time slump and a knitting/crocheting slump have hit at the same time. I am finally starting to snap out of both of them in the past few days. Yeah!! I will be spending time this weekend doing an assortment of knitting/crochet  and computer related activities. I have some ideas, but will have to see how much gets done.

Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!

Rough Week Over

It’s been a rough week in my house to say the least.

I, who very rarely get sick, developed pneumonia.  Our teenager got the flu and  my husband  had a very bad cold.  For a few days  There was an unusual  amount of sleeping going on, day and night. My favorite words seemed to be "When did you last have a drink?" and "What is your temperature?"

Thankfully the worst seems to be over. My husband returned to work today. A call to my employer informed me that I am not due back until tomorrow. I am able to knit and do a few household chores without wanting to lie back down. My favorite teenager decided to play a computer game today. We are on the mend. Praise be to God!

Knitting needles were pulled out today with the result that a couple of dishcloths on the needles got completed. I made a pile of recently knitted ones, only to discover there are a lot more waiting to be photographed than imagined. That project will have to wait until another day.

For now, the sun is shining, it is 34 degrees F. outside with a bit of a North wind. February is more than half over and there is the promise of Spring in the air.

Have a great weekend and may God Bless!!

Grounded

Since I am normally a fairly healthy person with lots of energy, it takes a lot to get me down. I have caught what seems to be the local Flu bug. :(  Oh Yuck!! I have the classic symptoms of coughing, sneezing, body aches, elevated body temperature, weakness and being tired ( wiped out ). My truly wonderful and loving husband said "You sound terrible" A call to my friendly physician yesterday resulted in her calling a prescription for antibiotics to my pharmacy. In the fifteen or more years I have been seeing her, this is the first time she has ever called in medication for me without having actually seen me. She is a stickler about such things. Bless her wonderful heart and extremely high sense of ethics!

Not only that, but she has grounded me from yesterday through the weekend. My first response was that she was over reacting a bit. I should have known better. She was wise in doing so. I still feel lousy.  She was right in making that decision. This Lady who sees herself as " just an average physician"  has extraordinarily high standards of ethics, practice and care.

Of course, I am doing all of the right nursing measures: forcing
fluids; extra vitamin C; plenty of antioxidants; extra sleep; extra
rest; Tylenol and taking the antibiotic as ordered. I do feel badly for
my employer, since that means one less nurse on a tight schedule. But
with a high temperature and the symptoms I am experiencing, it is a
violation of conscience and good health practices for me to go to work.
I would much rather be working than home with this stuff any day.

Under the circumstances , what is a person to do? I pondered this question for a  very short time yesterday and came to what seems to be a logical conclusion. I should knit, of course! It keeps my mind and hands busy; does not take much energy; and makes me feel good about myself. In addition,  I like doing it. Yesterday, in a burst of energy, I wove in loose ends on some dish/wash cloths, and completed two more that were almost done. At this point today, there is not the energy or motivation to take pictures of them, but hopefully that will come in a couple of days.

Thank goodness for the ability to knit, knitting needles and a large stash of yarn, threads and patterns. Once again all of those things are holding me in good stead.  Today, I have  done some work, which is really play, on the Building Blocks cloth  by Sue Schaefer. It can be seen just a little bit down the page. She undoubtedly one of my favorite designers and this pattern is no exception. It is working up quickly and easily without using too much concentration, which meets my need today.

 

Another thing for which I am very grateful on days like today is the Internet and email. I can talk with with  family and knitting friends; download free patterns and work ( it is really play ) on my blogs.  These are fun things to do that don’t require much energy and I can stop whenever I choose.

It Is The Weekend!!

Can you tell I am excited? I am so glad this week is finally over. Nothing is wrong except that it has been a busy week. Work has been super busy which means that I am normally completely exhausted at the end of the shift. Conversations with some of my colleagues tell me I am not the only one to experience this. I come home, take some family time, to a load or two of dishes or laundry and sleep. It is not very exciting. Some days there has been  knitting or computer time.  At other times, the best I can muster is family time.

This brings me to another subject. As you may or may not know, we are a homeschooling family. We made this choice several years ago for a variety of reasons after a considerable amount of research, discussion and bit of prayer. We have reached the point in life where our families needs are increasing for educational and parental time with our offspring. That not to say we are lacking in this area. It is only meant to say that my husband and I are seeing the need for more of our time to be devoted to this area of our lives.

Because of this, I have withdrawn from some of groups of which I have been a member for quite a while.  The list owners have been notified privately of this, but I have decided to discuss this here. If you are part of any of those groups, please be assured my decision was strictly based on the need to give my family more time. Children are only young once and I want to keep my priorities in the proper order.

Having said that, please let me tell you about some weekend plans.  We will do the usual errands such as shopping for food, going to the bank, cleaning the house, taking the recyclables to the recycle center and laundry. We are also including lots of individual free time. We are all basically introverts and need time alone to recharge our batteries. It helps all of us to get through the busy times. My time is going to be spent doing fiber related activities.

Here are some of the things I want to do, listed in the order they come to mind:

  • Add links to my dishcloth blog. My files are full of them. My goal is to get up early each morning to do this. It is much easier to do before my family awakens. A side benefit to doing this is that the washing machine or dishwasher can be run while I am working at the computer.
  • Print out  and begin knitting patterns from some of my favorite websites. The one I am most anxious to print patterns from is K1, P1, Keeping You In Stitches Studio. Maile is a super designer in my opinion and has some  lovely patterns posted. I will also print some from the Peaches and Creme web site. There is a delightful assortment of patterns from which to choose, including bookmarks and dishcloths among other items. I have been wanting to take the time to print the patterns from these sites for a long time and have just never gotten around to it.
  • I will put the patterns I have printed into protective covers and file them in their respective note books for future use.
  • There are three dishcloths in varying stages of completion that will be worked on and hopefully finished this weekend. There are also three more waiting to have loose ends woven in. That job will also be done. These will most likely be done after my family is awake simply because I can do them while talking and listening.
  • I will print out patterns, both free and purchased from Harvest Moon Designs. Sue is one of my all time favorite designers. Knitting her patterns is always pleasant.
  • I will also try to work on two afghans that are in various stages of development. There are no promises on how much progress will be made on those.
  • Depending on how much time there is, one of my goals is to take pictures of the finished cloths and post them here.

Have a great weekend!

New Year

The holidays are over and life is settling down again.

Here are some of my knitting goals for this year:

   * Knit two dishcloths a week or more.

   * Somehow use more yarn than I buy.

   * Learn to do intarsia.

   * Finish up some partially done projects.

   * Learn to read charts. I want to learn to do this so I can

     translate them into words due to some visual issues.

   * Play around with knitting cables.

Except for the first one, these are not in any particular order.
When the second one was posted to an email group, I was completely serious about it. After thinking about it and being faced with such details in life such as yarn sales and new yarns, I have come to realize that this goal is unrealistic.
At the end of last week I took advantage of a 30% of most yarn sale at Michael’s and bought enough yarn for making the Ribbons of Life Scarf found here. Prudent knitter that I am, extra yarn was purchased to insure enough to complete the pattern. There is now an additional 200 gr–7.0 ounces of yarn in my overflowing stash. I have not used nearly that much in the past week. 

More Dishcloths

I never did any pictures of the first big snow that hit our area about 10 days ago. Life decided to interfere with other priorities. It came quickly and seemed to leave almost as fast as it came. For this area that is typical.

I have spent as much time as possible in the past couple of weeks knitting. There was a challenge on one of the groups to which I belong on Ravelry to knit 10 dishcloths before Christmas. I met it, but just barely. The last two cloths were finished a couple of days ago. It was fun and did prove to be a bit of a challenge. Here are pictures of some of what was done:

Limestrpehv
This first one started out as a smaller cloth but grew into a large one
very quickly. It is for my Sister in Law who likes the cloths I make
for her. It is made with Sugar and Cream Lime stripes. I used my own
Hills and Valleys pattern partly because it is easy and partly because
I like the way it feels when it is wet.

Victrnhv_2
This is  the same pattern made with  Peaches and Creme Victorian yarn. My original goal for this  year was to  make a bunch of Christmas looking cloths for my home. I did not succeed, but there were other priorities.

Rnd1_2
This one was an experiment. I had never made a round dishcloth until this one. The pattern can be found here. What a treat it was to do. I was a bit worried to say the least about being able to follow the directions correctly for finishing it. This turned out to be an easy process. The cloth is not perfect, but the pattern is printed out and bookmarked for future use.

Smfclth These  next two cloths are part of my first experience of knitting with Chenille yarn. This is a bright pink made by Crystal Palace. The wash and care instructions say not to dry it in the machine. Ooops!! It got dried with the other cloths but other than being a bit smaller than originally, seemed to be all right. For this one i just used a basket weave stitch with a couple rows of garter stitch in between.

Spaclthbysschae_2
This cloth is made with the same yarn only using the Spa Cloth pattern from Sue Schaefer at Under a Harvest Moon. This is the pattern where using the Chenille proved to be a real learning experience. I learned almost immediately about the need to watch my work and the amount of tension placed on the yarn. I am now making a third cloth from the same yarn and am finding that it is much nicer to look at because of the                                   experiences I had with this one.

Fun Day

What a fun day this has been. It has been snowing almost all day.
Our area has had it’s’ first real snowstorm of the season. The weather forecasters originally said we were going to get about five inches this weekend. In the past few hours that amount has been increased to an estimated nine inches. 

We originally had plans to run some errands today, but changed them once we saw how hard it was snowing. This has been a perfect day to get some knitting done. So far today I have :

  • Finished two cloths except for weaving in the loose ends. They are both knitted on the diagonal and are about 8 inches square.
  • Started another cloth. This one is on the diagonal and will be about 6 1/2  or  7 inches  square at the most. 
  • Frogged one cloth and started another in its place.

This is doesn’t sound like much on the surface. This has all been done
in between: spending time with my family; doing a bit of housekeeping;
reading and answering email; two fairly long conversations with my Mom.
There was also time for a mid morning nap. That was a real treat.

I will try to get some pictures taken of cloths and snowy weather in the morning so they can be posted here. By that time there will hopefully be another cloth or two done and another one started. There is some cotton Chenille calling my name.

Bugs and Knitting

    This is my second day in a row to be home sick with a bug. All right, so that’s not very professional sounding. What else could I call it? I can think of some things like: The stuff everyone else at work or their families has or has had?  The creeping crud? A virus? The flu? A sore throat?  It all depends on your perspective…There is a list of  symptoms with which I will not bore you, except for one. I have little or no energy.  It is strange to feel like this since I am the resident Whirling Dervish on a normal day. Most other days you can combine that with Energized Bunny to describe me.

    If there are any psych nurse or health care workers, I am not  depressed. It’s just a bug, which should  hopefully  go away quickly. In the meantime, I am doing all of the right nursing measures like forcing fluids; resting; making myself eat; and knitting. Yes, knitting. :) It is good for the body, soul and spirit. Can you tell I think it has healing properties? Besides, it keeps me busy and from going totally stir crazy.

    So far here is what has been done:

  • Most of a washcloth for a CNA at work. It was ready for loose ends to be woven in when I discovered a dropped and live stitch about three fourths of the way down. It was tinked and is now about 3/4 of the way re-knitted. The pattern is my own from here. It is made with Baby Pink Peaches and Creme.
  • All but the last 10-12 rows of the  Ecru dishcloth in the Holly Kitchen Set from Elmore Pisgah. The pattern is easy to follow and works up quickly. This is one that will be used again even after the yarns from the kit are gone.
  • I have gotten caught up on three days worth of rows for a KAL.

    It has not been much, but it has helped keep me from being totally bored. I will try to post pictures this weekend.
    

Delightful Adventure

    Today is my day off in the middle of the week. I decided to take advantage of the good weather late this morning and go to the newest yarn store in our area, Knitting Couture.  I went looking for some cotton yarn, knitting needles  and ideas for what to learn next. I had heard good things about the store and had decided that if only half of it was true, then it must be a good place.

It  was all true and more.

    Upon entering the store I saw a lady sitting at a table reading knitting books. The table was nestled between two low setting book cases. Love at first look. :) I took off my coat and began browsing the shelves. There are  all six of Barbara Walker’s books, several by E. Zimmerman, some by Meg Swansen and others. The books alone are enough to draw me back to this store.

    The owner, Thi, was quick to greet and welcome me to her shop. The next thing she said was to " feel the yarn". And so I did. I spent at least an hour looking at books and yarns, including the swatches she has placed on a cabinet within feeling reach. Each yarn is more beautiful than the next, each with their own unique qualities.  Mixed with those activities was a wonderfully delightful conversation with  Thi and other customers.   

Thi very graciously answered my questions about making lace with needles. I examined several books about making lace before choosing to bring home Harmony Guide:Lace and Eyelets .
She also told me about the the Knit Along starting in January. The project is Elizabeth Z.’s Pi shawl. It sounds like it will be fun. I will keep you posted.

I left this store with a renewed sense of the fun of knitting. 
This was a delightful and wonderful adventure. :)