Many Thanks

I want to thank everyone for their sympathies. It meant alot to me. The trip to Idaho was wonderful and sad all at the same time. Wonderful because I hardly ever get to see my family and sad because of the circumstances. My brothers and I picked on each other as if no time had passed between seeing them. Karolyn got to spend time with her "papa" and "gramma." Papa took Karolyn for a walk in the back yard where they picked grass. I heard it was fun. What was I doing you ask? Playing a good ol' fashion game of Risk with my brothers and Ray. I was in the process of taking over Asia. Ray was putting a damper on that as he had possession of Siam and was not giving it up. John, my baby brother that is getting married next month, had complete sole possession of North AND South America. Michael, my CSI LV (I'm not even making that up) brother, was trying to maintain control of Europe but kept having this little debacle over Iceland and Greenland with John. We ended up having to call a truce because it was 12:30 am and the plane left the next day. It was wonderful!

I am proud to say that we were not "those" parents on the airplane! You all know what I'm talking about. The parents with the screaming kid that kicks the back of your seat and will just not stop for the life it. Now while my little angel did get fussy at times, she did her colors and read books and ate for the duration of the flights. Even the flight attendants commented on what a good baby she was. Music to momma's ears!

I did manage to get some knitting done. I'll give you some sneak peeks.


Yes this is the baby blanket. All of the flying geese borders have been hand sewn in place. I then added corner sections and picked up stitches all the way around the perimeter of the blankie. Gartered that up a bit until I thought it looked good and then added an applied i-cord for the bind off.



I'll be done soon so you will see her in all her glory then. I'm not gonna spoil it early!

Questions Answered

Marie brings up an excellent point. She commented:

Hmm... you have me a great idea here. 20 gallon tubs instead of 12 gallon tubs. Does that mean I could claim having "less" stash if there is a lower number of tubs? ;-)

After careful thought and consideration I have to agree that this is exactly how it works. Less tubs means less stash. Right? I'm soooooo glad that you all agree with me on this one because this is what came in the mail this week.



10 ball of this stuff is a gift from my fairy yarn mommy. Its a merino/ acrylic blend that is wonderfully soft and just as warm. And you want to know the best part? It's machine washable!!! The girls are gonna have matching cardigans!



And this big box is my great deal from Herrschners! Berroco Hush and Lullaby! Enough for matching sweaters and hats! I'm soooo excited about this.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and concerns for my family! I greatly appreciate it.

Stash Enhancement

In case you have not noticed, the yarn diet is not going so well. I have enhanced the stash by 5 times the amount that I have knitted. I'm glad that I don't gain weight at this rate. Could you imagine?

I took a peek at the "How Large Is Your Stash" poll on the side bar and noticed that the overwhelming majority has several 20 gallon tubs full of yarn. I too have several 20 gallon tubs full of yarn and I could probably fill up a couple more so the snacking I partook in today really doesn't count much. Besides it was all under $2 a ball and how can anyone refuse that? Its cheaper than Red Heart for the love of God.

Wanna know what I got? OK I'll tell ya, stop twisting my arm. Herrscheners sent me the lovely "weekly sale" email and I fell hard. I only got snacking amounts and its for my girls so does it really count? I think not.

I picked up some Berroco Lullaby in a pale purple. Enough for matching sweaters for the girls. I also got some Berroco Hush in two different colors. Enough for a hat and scarf set for each of the girls.

Other news:

The travel arrangements to go the Grandma's funeral have all been made. Plane tickets, car, and hotel. I'm putting DH in charge of the dog sitter.

I went shopping for suitable clothes for me so I don't look like a monumentally sized pregnant ragga-muffin and spent last night hemming up my pants.

I still need to get snacks for the plane and dressy shoes for Karolyn. DH is all taken care of and his suit fits him perfectly!!!

Tonight I have to finish the laundry and work on cleaning the house so I have a clean house to come home to.

Big Grandma

As a little girl growing up the only way my siblings and I were able to not confuse our grandmas were to refer to them as "Big Grandma" and "Little Grandma." Little Grandma was my mom's mom, and the shorter of the two. Big Grandma was my dad's mom and the taller grandma, 5'2".



Every Sunday after church, we would go to big grandma's house and have breakfast. This picture of her on her wedding day was always in the same spot. On the far right corner of the china cabinet. A china cabinet that little girls were not allowed to touch. I remember this being my all time favorite picture of my grandma. Just the way my grandpa looked at her is priceless. It says that he is the luckiest guy in the world!



Breakfast was always the same. Dad's famous eggs, bacon, and grease toast. Dad would dice up and fry some onion and potato, then scramble in the eggs. Grandma's job was to cook the bacon. To ensure that nothing went to waste, Auntie Marilyn would dip white bread in the bacon grease, sprinkle sugar over the top and serve it up!



After the dishes were hand washed and put away, we would open up the record player, put on our favorite story, Jack and the Beanstalk, and listen while Grandma flipped the pages in the book.



We laughed at the funny parts and huddled together when the Giant kidnapped the Magic Harp from Happy Valley. We cringed when Jack eased his way down the rope into the Giants' pocket to free the Harp, praying he would not get caught. We then rejoiced when the Harp was returned the fine citizens of Happy Valley and life returned to normal.




After the story was finished, we would put on our coats and drive back home.

My dad called yesterday to let me know that Grandma died. I called my aunt asking when the funural was and she was not certain but thinks it will be next weekend. She could not give specific details as she did not know them herself. As of now, we are planning on going to Idaho for the service.

Thanks for all of the wonderful times and memories. Thanks for being a great Grandma.

A Little Distraction

One can only do so many flying geese before one needs a break. So I decided to cast on a very simple yet summery tank top. I'm actually knitting it out of the called for yarn (get out the history books, this hardly ever happens). Echo by Berroco. It happened to be on sale at Webs a while back and I picked some up.

The Geese Flew

All four borders are finally complete!

Ideas

Have you ever had a good idea? OK let me rephrase that. Have you ever had an idea that you thought was good? I get them all the time and then I have to admit later that most of them are brain farts.

It all started when I wanted to knit something really really special with my Christmas yarn from a fairy yarnmomma. Something that I would not only enjoy knitting but wear as well. And wear often. Something that I could put on my shoulders as I sat in my adirondack chair on the front porch and knit during the summer. So this made me think of a shawl. The problem is, I'm not really a shawl kind of girl. But I do like stoles. Alot. I think its the triangular shape of the shawl that I'm not all that crazy about. But the rectangle shape? I'm soooo there.

So I go and consult Barbara and found the fir cone pattern. Wanting to keep my options open, I went through all of the books but kept coming back to fir cone.



I charted out the pattern, re-arranged the stitches so I could get the yarn overs to fall in just the right spot. Counted the # of stitches that needs to be casted on and then re-counted them. I figured out how the stole can be knitted in the round and then have a seam in the middle of it. This would allow for the edging to be just perfect and I would not have to add on a knitted edge. I'm feeling pretty good about myself right about now. All this figuring and such, I'm thinking I'm on to something.

Then self says "Libby I really think you should knit a prototype."

Libby: "What? a prototype? I never knit prototypes."

Self: "Yes, but this is some pretty special yarn and we don't really have extra for your messups"

Libby: "Fine, I'll humor you. I'll prototype it in some Elann.com baby cashmere."


And its a good thing I did too. Please don't tell self or I'll never hear the end of it. The stitch count was right on, as was the general plan of it. The problem you ask? Well its not exactly a rectangle. Its more like an elongated square.


I know what I did wrong and if I want a rectangle out of it then I'll have to cast on more stitches for the middle section. So back to the drawing board. I measured the rectangle thing and figured that 8 repeats is about 17 inches. So I'll add 8 or 9 repeats to the middle section which calculates to about 163 - 193 stitch cast on (depending on how many repeats I decide on).

This morning when I showed Ray my latest creation he asked "Is that a baby blanket?"

"Well yes, thats what it is!" (Thats my story and I'm sticking to it)

The baby will have a personalized, made just for her blanket from baby alpaca/cashmere!

Diving

I wanted to share with you all my crazy wonderful husbands recent diving picture. They are diving off of Harsens Island where the water temp was at about 35F. Please notice the humongous freighter boat that is really there in the background and was not photoshopped into the picture for effect. Yes fellow knitters, that boat was about 500 feet from the dock (about 1 and a half skeins of yarn). Now is it just me or would you guys also decide to not dive and let the really really big boat pass before you jumped into the slightly above freezing water? I thought so too.

Happy Easter

Wishing Everyone a Very Happy Easter!!!

Kiri Pics

Last Christmas I made Kiri for my MIL. At the time, I couldn't post pics or even talk about it because I was not sure if she read the blog or not and wanted to be on the safe side. Well it is certainly past Christmas and I can safely share the results.


Kiri was a delight to knit. Very simple stitch pattern which translates to "easy to memorize." I did however make some modifications. The first being that I substituted yarn. Instead of using Kid Silk Haze the pattern called for, I used Austermann's Acapella, a lovely mohair acrylic blend. Secondly, I added beads to the edge. This addition really enhanced the shawl by leaps and bounds.



This is the first time that I have actually added beads to a knitted item and what a pain in the arse it was. You have to add all of the required beads to your yarn and then keep sliding them down as you need more yarn. In addition to sliding the beads every 3 yds, you have to make sure you are adding them in the correct spot. I chose to add them at the YOs and I couldn't figure out how to get them to be close to the knitted part and not the hole part. Of course I figured out the trick after the border was all the way done. Am I going to remember how I did it if I make this again? Probably not.

Baby Update

The bundle of joy is expected on July 23, 2007. However we are going to be having a scheduled C-section so the baby will most likely be a week early.

She has been kicking quite a bit today!

Ray and I still have not picked out a name. We do like the names: Audry and Joelle. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Huge Congratulations

CBM deserves a huge congratulations for getting her blog up and running again! Poor thing has been blogless for 504 hours (3 weeks). Glad to have you back!