Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Happy Tuesday everyone!  How was everyone's weekend?  Seems like I have two weekends I need to catch up on.

On the weekend of the 20th, I went to a wedding in Kingsland.....it was a gorgeous wedding.  My sister has a lake house not far from there in Granite Shoals, so I stayed with my sister and her family at her lake house.

Here is a picture of the beautiful bride and groom and a picture of the bride with her brother.


Then, for this past weekend....I had another great weekend, but my knitting has suffered for it.

On Saturday, my sister invited the whole family out to her lake house and it was a blast....but Antonio really wore me out.  On top of it, Marble Falls (on the way to lake house) was hosting a triathlon for athletes....and it caused TONS of traffic.  Being stuck in a car going .3 miles per hour with a cranky toddler is NO FUN!

However, once we got to the lake house, he had lots of fun getting wet and playing with my cousin's son who is about 2 1/2 months younger than Antonio.  We thought it was so cute that Antonio was dressed in Longhorn clothes and Nathan in ATM clothes (My cousin went to ATM but we all still love her....LOL!)



In the knitting arena....I have worked on a couple of things.  Mainly the Viajante and the Reverse Pinwheel Blanket.....and because I am not crazy enough already....I casted on more item.  Now wait before you laugh and make fun of me....I have a really good excuse!  My grand daughter Celeste will be a big sister this week.  Thursday the 2nd (unless her mom goes into labor earlier).  I needed to make a blanket for her baby sister.  So this past Sunday, I cast on this pom pom blanket:


Now, because of casting on this blanket.....my 'schedule' was a little interrupted.  Remember that calendar I made with how many grams of yarn I need to knit per day and where I should be at the end of each day?  Well, I am behind.  By the end of today, my skein of yarn should be at 173 grams....and this morning my skein was at 192.....so I am 19 grams behind.....boo!!!

But it is looking good.  I still have it on a 32" circular so you cannot quite see how much the increase side is growing...but I am not ready for a longer needle (yet).



The reverse pinwheel is coming along (I need to get moving on that too...baby due May 7th):


So, I know I am terribly behind on my goals...and I swear there is never enough time to knit....but have no fear.....I am going to an annual knitting weekend with the Lone Star State Knitters.....one full weekend of knitting and friends....I cannot wait....so have no fear...I should get lots of knitting (and chatting) done this weekend!  I will report next week.

Lastly, I leave you with my cute photo of the week.....I know I am biased because he is my grandson, but sometimes he is just so darn cute, I cannot help but share his pictures with you!!  




That boy lights up my life!  Happy Happy Tuesday and Happy Happy knitting everyone.....have a great week this week!


Friday, April 19, 2013

Happy Happy Friday....it has been too long since I have posted and I am sorry for that.  The time has gone so quickly I can hardly remember what has happened in the last 10 days!

There is a contest where you can win free yarn for life.....well, 20 years, but hey...who does not want free yarn?  You can enter here:

http://ck.upickem.net/r/A3hVb833cFA?r=46353

I have been knitting mainly on 4 things......even though I have about 30 things on the needles.  One of these 4 things is a new project.....Yes, I just could not help doing a cast on of something new.  It is a Sleep Sack o' Baby and it is designed by a good friend of mine, Danna (her blog is here), and I wanted to test knit it for her.  Her deadline was May, but she said she would be a bit easy on the deadline....which is a good think because I have a KAL due May 31 that will take everything in me to complete in time.

Here is the (barely) start of the sleep sack...I love my new ChiaoGoo needles, but the cord is not the best choice for Magic loop....but that is ok, I am making it work!


The Viajante is the KAL that is due May 31st.....I measured my skein of yarn this past Tuesday and I still had 257 grams....since this pattern is the kind of pattern that says "Knit till you have 20% of your yarn left, start this lace section, then bind off" I really do not have any way of seeing how far I am or how much I need to do except for weighing the yarn.  On Tuesday, there was 257 grams of yarn, and 46 days left (inlcuding Tuesday).....with doing the math, I figured I need to knit 5.6 grams per day in order to make May 31st deadline...there are approx 1740 yards per 300 grams on a Wollmeise Lace Skein, so that is 5.8 yards per gram and again with math that means I need to knit approx 32.48 yards per day.  I made myself a little calendar that says how many grams my ball should be at the end of each day:

Tuesday: 251.4g
Wednesday: 245.8g
Thursday: 240.2g
Friday: 234.6g
etc.....and so for (for 3 full days) I have been able to stay on track....wish me luck...I will need it.  Here is the ball and the viajante so far:




I did knit a little bit on the reverse pinwheel baby blanket (if you look close enough, you can see I am just starting my second stripe of green):

The 4th thing I have been working on is the KAL with Michelle Hunter. I was a bit behind on Clue 1....but I caught up all of clue 1, finished clue 2 (the black lace part in the middle) and now I am working on the decreases of clue 3......Here is my progress.  I have about 18 1/2 decreasing repeats left to go:


I will be out of town most of the weekend for a wedding, and spending the night at my sister's lake house (close to the wedding).  I have a brush collection on Monday, so I have yard work to do.....but I hope to get some knitting done while in the car on the way to and from the wedding (no, I am not driving).

Here is my cute picture for the week.....it is a small part of the definition of yarn.....Enjoy, Happy Friday and Happy Knitting!!!


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I hope everyone had a great weekend!

I got some bad news yesterday so today I am trying to shake it off and be cheerful.  I asked a friend if he had any words to help cheer me up.  (I am not trying to push religion on anyone, that is not what this blog is about, so please do not take offense!)  He sent me scripture from Psalm 118:24:

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

So.....there are my words to help me be positive and optimistic!!!

Now on to the good stuff.....KNITTING!  I had a crazy weekend so I did not get as much knitting done as I usually do.  I did have SNB this past weekend, but it was wild.  I had my grand daughter, Celeste, and another lady from SNB brought her grand daughter, Lexi.  Celeste and Lexi play well together and had a good time.  Antonio was also with me so I had more kid duty going on than knitting.

In addition, my stepson and daughter in law, Mario and Amanda, came over for dinner Saturday evening.  Amanda is expecting and is due May 4th.  Thankfully they also took some bulky baby things of Antonio's to use for their baby, soon to be Alexxis Maranda Ramirez.  Mario and Celeste had a great time playing with some blocks!


















I worked a little on the reverse pinwheel blanket I am knitting for Alexxis and I was able to show it to Amanda.  She loves the colors.  I am glad because I was a little worried about the pink in this blanket.  When I ordered the yarn online, I thought it was more pink, but when I got it, it is really more mauve-ish.  But it is looking good:


I also got my April shipment of the Barking Dogs Sock Yarn Club.  It was originally called Celery, and they changed it to Rye....but I like Celery better....it is gorgeous!


The newest Michelle Hunter KAL started this past Thursday and it involves color work.  So this is a little slow going, but I think the shawlette is going to be beautiful when done!  It is called Ridgely.


I worked a little bit on Viajante early last week and I really need to get those needles clickin'!!  I am way behind if I want to finish in time for the two KALs I am in!  I am happy that I frogged the stockinette part and redid it...it is looking much better and I have a little over an inch done in the stockinette.



Now.....Last week I think I told you that I got the small interchangeable knitting needle set by ChiaoGoo.  Well, being that I have a serious addiction to yarn, bags, and needles....I bought the large set too.  I should have just bought the 'whole' set that comes as one but no.......I had to start to be reasonable and say to myself "You just need the small set" and then after purchasing the small set, all my reason flies out the window and I bought the second set:



Lastly.....I think the biggest news of the weekend is that a new yarn store opened very, very, very close to my house.  It is called Inskein Yarns.  They had their grand opening on Saturday and they had a knit together  (they call it "The Asylum") on Mondays.  I went to the grand opening just before SNB on Saturday and two skeins of yarn followed me home.  I knew everyone that was there except the owner, and that was a really great feeling!  I met the owner Shannon and she is super crafty...the store is great.  I went to "The Asylum" last night and I think I will be spending many more hours there....even if just to knit (and not spend money)!



Again, Happy Tuesday and Happy Knitting!

Monday, April 1, 2013

Happy April Fool's Day to you all!  I feel like a month has gone by since I last posted, but no....only one week.  I hope everyone had a FANTASTIC Easter!  Now to recap this past week.

Well......remember the baby blanket, where the needle broke, I had to frog it because too many stitches came off and ran down?  I was not sure if I was going to restart it or not.  My biggest complaint was the cast on of 820 stitches.  So......my friend, Darlene, did the cast on for me and I started knitting it again.  This time with Addi's because I was still waiting on my Signature needle replacement.  What do you think happened?  YUP!!!!!!  You guessed it, the cord broke.  Luckily, this time it was the cord on the left needle instead of the right needle and none of the stitches ran and I was able to get them all picked up and kept knitting....now on a brand new set of ChiaoGoo needles.  I do not know if it is just because there are a ton of stitches I need to keep moving around, but I try to be ever so gentle when moving the stitches.  I took this past Thursday and Friday off to go to the lease with Jaime and we picked up the RV to bring home.  Jaime has it at his house and will give it a good cleaning.  This is why I was able to get so far on the baby blanket (again).




Speaking of ChiaoGoo needles, I bought a new interchangeable set from The Loopy Ewe.  I have a friend that has some and they are awesome.  I got just the small set (size 2-8).  I really like them.  I figured they will come in handy with all the different needle sizes I will need while making Nuvem and Viajante.

The Loopy Ewe also had Wollmeise go on sale (my kryptonite)....so I got two skeins of lace.  One is called Bussi (the red one and I absolutely LOVE IT) and the brown one is called Golden Pear.....so pretty.  Here are pics of the yarn and needles:


Now.....about Viajante.....I was knitting on it all Saturday evening....I knit it to 207 stitches (instead of the 167 the pattern calls for) and joined in the round and followed the pattern.  I did not like the way the increases were going...and there were other people in the KAL's on Ravelry that did not like it either...






So what did I do?  Yup, I frogged it.  But just back to the part where it is joined in the round.  I will re-join it tonight and see how it goes with kfb instead of backward loop increases.



I think I have frogged more in the last week or two than I have in the 4 years I have been knitting.  I cannot believe it has been 4 years since I learned how to knit....and I am completely addicted and obsessed!

Lastly, I leave you with my ADORABLE grandson and his first Easter egg hunt (he was only 5 months around this time last year).  He was very excited and really enjoyed it.  Most of the eggs were confetti eggs since Paige does not like for him to have too much sugar:











Happy Monday, Happy April Fool's Day, and Happy Knitting!!!!!!!