Knitting on FIVE things! Yippee

Wow....what a week.  How has your week been?  Mine was good.  I have been binge watching "Orange is the New Black" on Netflix and I really like it!

Well, let me jump right into it.......with stash enhancements.  Do you remember when Darlene went on vacation last year (and I almost died without her)?  Well, if you remember that, do you also remember the awesome yarn she bought me that I talked about here?  Well, we were going to make an Ink Cardigan, but now we are making Boxy with it....we each ordered a little bit more yarn in our colors so we have enough with Boxy.  Well......this yarn is so awesome, I got some more!  Beaverslide Dry Goods has more colors now than they did a year ago in this 1 ply sport weight yarn.  I got some Barley Heather (yellowish) and Thimbleberry (pinkish) and I LOVE THEM!  The yellow is really hard for me to photograph, so the 2nd picture is from their website.

I also got another bag from Darlene.....a long time ago I bought some sheep fabric.....then, she got me a needle case for my birthday out of the same fabric....then, I bought some sock needle cases out of the same fabric......so, she made me a medium bag with that material.....I love it!  Thank you Darlene!

Well, that is all I have for stash enhancements.....I've had lots of stash enhancements the last few weeks, and I really need to curb my spending!

I knitted on a bunch of things this past week!  I started a new shrug.....my friend from HiyaHiya asked me if I would hostesses another Shrug KAL on FB for her.....and of course I said yes.  I still have not finished the last shrug, but I have not frogged it either....I am really loving this one....probably because I am using awesome yarn for it instead of just acrylic....I am using the Thimbleberry from Beaverslide that I just got....I am really, really, really enjoying knitting this shrug...the yarn feels great to knit with.  I do hope you can join us here for a chance to win some awesome prizes.  Here is my progress so far

Then, I worked on my secret project (yes, that is a lifeline).....shhhhhhhhh

I also worked on my Miss Babs Ves Project

And....Yup, there is more.....I worked on 2 pairs of socks.  My Loopy Academy socks:

And another sock KAL for the HiyaHiya group.....these are colorwork....and I think I have decided that I do not dig colorwork that much......I just knit too tight....these will never fit me...and I am NOT starting over.....also, the pattern called for a STH (Sweet Tomato Heel)....but that required far too much concentration and I was just not feeling it.....so afterthought it is.  I know on the leg it is hard to see the colorwork because there is not much contrast in the yarns....but I am getting to the orange where there will be much more contrast on the foot.....and then I think there will be a lot of contrast on the 2nd sock too.  If you want to join us...the KAL is here.

So.....that is 5 things I worked on this week!  I hope I get to work on all of them again this week!  I have another pair of socks I want to get started for another HiyaHiya KAL...but I think I need to finish a pair of socks first....LOL!

Well, that is all I have.....Have a great week!  I leave you with some awesome Longhorn pictures a friend of mine took....her name is Vicki Meldrum and I just love these pictures!  These just make me thing of SPRING!!!!!!!!!!! She gave me permission to post them.....and she said she thought of me the whole time she was shooting the pictures!  SQEEEEEEEE that makes me feel great!

Happy Happy Knitting!

HAPPY SUPER BOWL!!

Yes, I know that not a lot of knitters are also football fans...but you guys know me...I am a football fan and MY TEAM WON!  It is not that I am so much a Patriots fan, but I am an anti-sea hawks fan (sorry sea hawks fan)!

I knitted on my socks during the Super Bowl....I just need the ribbing on the cuffs on both of these and I am done.  I hope to finish today so I can post it as my last FO for Down Cellar Studios Podcast Pigskin Party.

Last week I told you that I had a small surgery scheduled.....everything went fine and I have had some extra knitting time....not as much as I would have liked to have...but I am knitting more and more each day it seems.  I was pretty far behind on my 'A Day to Remember' Shawl....so I redid the numbers and was till behind and I am almost caught up...I think I have 8 more rows to be completely caught up....I am at about 56.9% and need to be at 64.18% by the end of the day....we will see how that goes.

I worked just a little b it (maybe 30 min and 3 rows worth) on my 2nd weigh it shawl

I also cast on something new....but in order to defend myself (yes, sometimes I feel I need to defend myself), I want to tell you about a new knitter to our lunch group of knitters....I knit with 4 other ladies at lunch and sometimes we are asked if they can come and knit with us (most need to be taught how to knit).....yes, we vote them in (everyone has to agree).....so our newest member to be voted in is Marla....she is super sweet and has really picked up the knit stitch very well.  I started a hat for her since we were not ready to teach her to purl yet, so I cast on and did the ribbing (but no, this is not the item I am defending having cast on):

She has already knit 4-5 inches on this hat and is doing awesome....she saw that Darlene and I were knitting socks in self striping yarn, so she really wanted to try that....I did not want to throw her into Judy's magic cast on or kfb stitch...so I cast these on for her too (no, this is also not the item I am defending having cast on):

Marla and Darlene came to my house during lunch on Thursday of last week...they wanted to see how I was doing after surgery and Marla wanted to see my messy stash....well, she also went shopping in my stash....over $200 of shopping in my stash....I was fine with it...some of the yarns I will replace with the exact yarn and others I will not....Guess what happens after that?  Knit Picks has their Biggo yarn on sale......well, since I was on a yarn diet, I kind of thought up in my head that if I sold $200 worth of yarn, I could buy a little yarn since it was on sale...so I got 11 skeins of biggo in black (and broke my yarn diet after 29 days)....I have always wanted to make the Chateau Shrug with this yarn but did not want to pay $8.49 a skein for it....the shrug will take 8 skeins, and then I have 3 more to make another gaptastic cowl for me, and I already had 3 in my stash for a gaptastic cowl for Paige or Bizzle....now, I do not have the yarn I just ordered yet, but since I had 3 skeins in my stash....I cast on the Chateau....yes, this is the item I am defending for casting on....

Then, do you remember back in July when Darlene got me that Beaver Slide Mule Spun Yarn and we were going to make the INK cardigan?  Well, I did cast it on and I did like 3 or 4 rows.  Darlene had gotten much farther than me...but she was not feeling the yarn for the INK Cardigan, so she told me she was going to rip it and do the Hitofude Cardigan.  Well, I have one OTN in Black, but I love that cardigan so much, I want to do a second one and I will use the same yarn that Darlene is using...so I ripped out INK, did a tiny gauge swatch, and just barely did the cast on the other day and this yarn is awesome!

I also gave myself a new goal....now this is all Darlene's fault...she had to show me a picture of a sock drawer on Instagram of all hand knit socks and now I want to have a drawer like this for myself...so I think you will see a lot more sock knitting from me.

I have a few stash enhancements to show you....I got a new case for my new sock needles.  This case is from Graces Cases and it holds the 5" size 0-3 interchangeable set.....it is pretty cute.  I have some material like this with a sheep on a balloon.....super adorable!

I also got some magnetic board, a magnifying ruler, and a long piece of magnet I want to cut up for my Knitters Pride Pattern holders....

Well,  I think that is about all I have....I did make 3 dishes of Lasagna for Super Bowl and I have lots of left overs too.

I leave you with a few of pictures that have a theme that remind me of my few days past and I hope it is also what my future has in store for me....PJ's, my fur babies, and my darling grandson too!

Happy Happy Happy Knitting!!

Moving Weekend!

It seems like it was not that long ago that I was moving from one house to another and it kicked my butt!  Now my daughter moved out into her own apartment and it kicked my legs this time.  See, she moved into a 3rd floor apartment and there were two sets of stairs to each floor...so you would go up stairs, turn on a small landing, go up stairs and you were on floor two....repeat and you were on floor three.  By the time I was done going up and down just 4 or 5 times, my legs were jello!  That was Friday night when I took groceries to her new apartment to surprise her.  Then on Saturday I do not know how many times I went up and down those stairs...but it was A LOT!  My calves were killing me by mid day.  But we got all the heavy stuff out of the way.  Now she just has a few small things to come and get.  She took mostly all her furniture from the house except the dining room table, we did not have an extra dining room table so I got her this one....The first pic is from an advertisement and the second and third pics are of the table in her actual apartment....that is Arran (Jaime's youngest) in the picture.

See all the circles in the legs of the table and the backs of the chairs....well, those go perfectly with the placemats I am making her for this table....no, I am not done.....and yes, I should be.....so sorry!  I made the first one during the Memorial Day weekend....I am almost done with the second one....just one more side to go....it has cables that form circles....she picked out the pattern and the table so she can obviously match better than her mother can!  The pattern is called Sunday Brunch.

Paige said that Antonio did really well his first night at the apartment.  He has his own room there but she still woke up with him having had crawled into her bed at some point during the night...she had put up night lights so he would not not get scared....here are two pics...one with then waking up together and one with them having a doughnut at the new table (with no placemats yet).

I do miss him already, but I bought some stuff for her new apartment yesterday so she came by to pick up the stuff and I got to see him and we played a while.

In other big news.....I finally got to see Darlene after 18 miserable days without her.....she is so wonderful...she got me an awesome Harley Davidson Shirt from Cody, Wyoming (she always gets me one when she is on vacation and I LOVE them)!  Thank you Darlene!

She also rode her motorcycle by Beaver Slide Dry Goods Ranch in Montana where they sheer their sheep and have the wool mule spun.....Darlene got me a cone of yarn from them and I love it!  She got herself one too and we are probably going to make the Ink Cardigan with this yarn (when we finish the other billion things OTN)...it is 1700 yards of complete awesomeness!!!

Speaking of Darlene....she will have some new bags in her shop soon....She has a new sized medium bag that I have shown on my blog before....it is the perfect size right between her big size and small notions size. They are 12" long, 7" tall, and 4" wide.....

Now, she has taken that perfect size and put a dividing zipper pocket in it.....she is just so awesome....now this bag is going to a good friend, Paula H.....I am so jealous she is getting this bag...I hope Darlene has already shipped it because if not, I may steal it.....I know I will be buying some of these bags when she has them ready!  I am in love with this bag!

Okay....well, as far as knitting goes....all I really worked on was Paige's second placemat which I posted a picture of up above....oh, and the Hitofude Cardigan....Darlene told me that one of the girls from the Stockinette Zombies did the whole cast on with Judy's Magic Cast on...so I had already done the provisional crochet cast on and then I tried to pick up the stitches and it was a mess, and I tried again and again with no success, so I tried JMCO and I had a couple of errors so the last time was the charm (and it was also the last time because it finally worked)...I only have like row 1 of this cardigan done, but I have done row 1 like 4 or 5 times.....finally!

Lastly, I have two stash enhancements.  I saw this big skein of Katahdin on the Miss Babs website in colorway BFF a while ago and they only had one skein, I could not afford it at the time but I told myself that if it was still there when I could afford it...it was mine....and it was still there.  I love this colorway.....I have no clue what I am going to make with it, I just know I love it!  I wanted it to have more black, but it was the only skein and I still love it.  I also got two small yummy toes skeins in the same colorway for a pair of socks!

Well, that is about all I have.....I know it is not much knitting...but I hope to have more for you next week....since on Friday I can start my Camp Loopy #3 project and I am anxious to start it!

Since I got a little bit of exercise this weekend...here are some of my thoughts on exercising

Happy Happy Happy Knitting everyone!