Sans Souci

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We sure did. This year I made the turkey with a rub instead of injecting it with a butter sauce. It was wonderful. Of course we have tons of left overs which has become Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli, Turkey Pot Pies, and turkey chili.  The rest I will turn into lunch meat. 
Black Friday shopping was quite successful if I do say so myself! While the majority of Michiganders were standing in freezing weather waiting for the stores to open, I was inside staying warm and cozy clicking away at my computer. Click, click, click, eat my pumpkin pie. Heaven! All of my shopping is complete with the exception of my husbands big item which I will pick up at the store as soon as the crowds have desipated.

Yesterday Ray went diving.  It has been the longest time sense he has been diving with his buds and I'm glad that he was able to go today.  He dove off of Harsons Island near Sans Suchi and the weather here was not the best of conditions.  It was raining all day and that means that there will be next to no visibility.  Imagine being under water with a tank of air strapped to your back, knowing that is your only life support system, and being able to see about 5 inches in front of you.  You can't see your computer, if you are lucky enough to have one.  You can't see your dive buddy, you just trust he is there.  You can't see your air pressure gauges, you just guesstimate how long you have been under water and just guesstimate how much air you have consumed.  Basically you are blind under water.  You have to be a very confident diver, know every aspect of your diving style, know all of your gear, and plan for the worst case scenario.  Heaven forbid.

Naturally Ray took his goody bag with him.  He told me of all of the cool things he managed to see and dig up and put into the goody bag.  Old beer bottles, beer cans, an old rusted out garbage can lid under the bottles and cans.  Its appears that someone actually dumped a garbage can full of beer cans and lids into the river.  Then as he was ascending to the surface his goody bag gave way and he lost all of his loot.  Which totally sucks because I have no picture to share.  Such is the life of a Michigan Diver!

My Helper



Happy Thanksgiving

Black Friday

This time if year, I'm on the hunt for the Black Friday deals and this year is no exception.  I've been scouring the adds for Toys R Us, JC Penney, Kohls, Sur La Table, Kay's, Walmart, Art Van, Home Depot, and Best Buy.  Researching the web for the Black Friday websites and deciding where I'm going to spend my money.  There is no standing in line for 10 hours tailgating in front of the stores with the rest of the crowd.  I'm all about the online shopping.  While the rest of Michigan is outside braving the blistering cold, snow and wind, I'm inside clicking away eating my pumpkin pie! 

During my research, I've noticed something very alarming.  I'm not seeing many Black Friday ads for the yarn companies.  Sure JoAnn's has their sales along with the rest of the big box stores, but it's not the yarn at JoAnne's that I'm after.  I want some Blue Sky Alpacas, Malabrigio, Woolmeise, and other high end yarns. 

I did manage find some specials:

Elann.com usually has a Black Friday sale however I'm not seeing any such notice on their website.

Paradise fibers has some White Shetland Spinning fiber, Kollage square circular needles, and Lantern Moon needle cases.

Discontinued Brand Name Yarns is offering 15% off with the coupon code "NoTurkey".  They have some lovely Mission Falls Cotton I have my eye on.

Yarn.com has their Holiday Gift Guide published.  TONS of needles and other fun stuff!

Happy Shopping!!

Toothless

A very exciting event took place at the Grant household.  Karolyn lost her first tooth!  She could not have been more excited.  She is now among the first graders with missing teeth.  A rite of passage for kids her age.   For the longest time she has been telling me who lost a tooth and how long it was loose for and how much it hurt when it came out. 

There she was sitting at the kitchen counter eating a bagel, I was making dinner, and she announces "Mom, my tooth came out!  See."  She looked so adorable with her missing tooth.  I asked her where the tooth was and she didn't know.  We looked all over the kitchen for the missing tooth but could not find it.  We think she swallowed it.  The tooth fairy left her a note on the table explaining that even though she didn't find a tooth she left her some money anyway on the kitchen table. 

On the knitting front, the second sock is almost complete.  The heel is turned and about one inch of the foot portion has been knit.  All that is left to do is to finish the foot and turn the toe!

36 Days

There are 36 days left until Christmas and I only have one sock completed.  I'm feeling the pressure here.  Just sayin'.  I still have to knit 1 more sock for Ray, 2 sweaters for my girls and some slippers for my sister. 

Every year my family has drawn names for Christmas and this year is no exception.  The difficult part is that we all live in a different state.  I live in Michigan, my sister Mary is in Louisiana, my brother Mike is in Nevada, and my other brother John is in Florida and mom and dad are in Idaho.  Like I said, we are all over the country.  So as you can imagine, the drawing of names has its difficulties.  What if the person drawing the names doesn't actually like the way the names were drawn and decides to switch them?  OR decides they don't like the person that they got paired with and just switches their name?  It's been known to happen.  There is no one to police the drawing of the names.  SO to try to make it honest and on the up and up, Mary decided to use an online name drawer.  She said that you just assign each name with a number and the program will tell you who has whom.  This year I have Aaron, my sisters husband. 

To spice things up even more, we decided to make the gifts we are giving.  Yep you read that right, we are making the gifts not buying but making.  And I'm not finished with the already Revised Christmas List.  What's a girl to do?  I can't very well revise the list again and I have to make something or I'm gonna be that person that didn't make something.  I'm gonna have to do some serious thinking about what Aaron will just love.  I'm guessing that gluing Popsicle sticks together and calling it a napkin holder is out of the question.  LOL

Meeting Santa

This last Sunday was the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at one of the local outdoor malls.  They advertised free cider and donuts, lighting the tree, and meeting Santa.  The girls were all about meeting Santa.  They could care less about the tree lighting and cider and donuts and being around others, they just wanted to meet the big guy himself.  Karolyn needed to tell Santa that she wanted some makeup and Sydney, not wanting to be outdone by her big sister also wanted makeup as well as anything to do with Rupunzel.  We got to the mall early, walked around, window shopped and then found out where Santa was going to be.  After careful consideration we chose to skip the tree lighting and stand in the Santa line.  We were the third in line after all and that does have its advantages.  40 minutes later, the girls were very happy to see Santa being escorted in the store by a marching band and ballet dancers! 

After leaving Santa, Sydney asked why she didn't get a present.  I told her that Santa was just taking orders and had to go back to the North Pole to make all of the presents to be delivered on Christmas Eve.  She seemed to be satisfied with the answer. 

Ray's Christmas Socks

After knitting so many kid garments, I decided that I needed a change of pace.  The next item I'm going to nock off the list is Ray's Christmas socks.  Naturally I do not have a pattern in mind but I do have the book entitled "Sensational Knitted Socks" by Charlene Schurch.  The book truly is a must have book for avid sock knitters.  While it does not have any one sock pattern spelled out for you, it does have lots of stitch patterns and charts for you to decide exactly what you want your sock to look like in the yarn of your choosing.  The book also contains feet measurements for various shoe sizes ranging from children to men and women in narrow, medium and wide widths.  Invaluable. 

First did a gauge swatch in sock yarn on US1's and found that I get 10 stitches to the inch.  I then found my husbands shoe size the finished measurements.  Next, I decided on a 5 stitch ribbing pattern which called for 90 stitches.  Because I want my socks to match when its all said and done I need to cast on at the same point in the color run for both socks but I need to know what my color run is.  I started pulling out the yarn from the center of my ball and wrote down the colors until I had found where the colors start repeating themselves.  My yarn has the following color repeat: leaf green, blue, brown, blue, forest green, blue, light green, blue, tan, blue, light green and brown.

As mentioned above, I do not have a pattern so I got out a piece of paper and wrote down all of the essentials for the sock.  Gauge, stitch pattern, number of repeats,  length of the leg portion, the total length of the sock, where in the color run to cast on.  Stuff like that. 
Now that the hard part of is out of the way, all I have left to do is knit them.  Easier said than done because my husband wears a size 13.  Wish me luck!

The Kitty Cardi

I've decided to knit Alana's cardi first because her present needs to be shipped across the country to New Orleans. 

With the yarn already picked out, I just need to make the correct gauge.  The stated gauge of 6 stitches per inch was easily achieved with US4's and I cast on the correct number of stitches.  The pattern instructs you to knit the cardi from the top down and I was on a roll until I got to the underarm at which point you are instructed to switch from stocking stitch to the lace pattern.  I didn't think much of it as I've successfully knit plenty of lacy items.  I just kept on knitting as instructed and 3 rows into the lace pattern I thought it a good idea to count my stitches.  The desired number of stitches is 209 and I managed to acquire over 240.  Oh dear, this is a problem.  I tinked the entire last 3 rows I had just knit and re-knit the lace row.  Having learned from my initial mistake, I counted my stitches after I finished the row.  207.  I ripped it again and re-knit that same row.  Again. 

The lace pattern isn't all that hard. Knit 2 together twice, followed by a yarn over knit one combo which is repeated 3 times, yarn over, and knit 2 together twice.  The stitch count remains constant with 4 stitches being decreased and 4 stitches being increased.  Like I said, the pattern is pretty straight forward and yet I was still unable to knit it correctly.  After the fourth try, I knit that lacy row successfully! 

All in all the cardi is a fast knit and I'm quite pleased with the results.  The only modification I would make would be to add sleeves, which I plan to do for my girls' cardi's provided I have enough yarn.

Revised Christmas Knitting Plan:

My family:
Ray: socks
Karolyn: Kitty Cardi
Sydney: Kitty Cardi

My sisters' family:
Mary (my sister): slippers
Alana (niece): Kitty Cardi = complete
Bryce (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete
Jacqueline (niece): Clara Dressy = complete

My brother John's family:
Trenton (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete

Kitty Cardi Colors

Now that I have the cardi picked out, its time to pick out the colors in which to knit the cardi.  To increase the odds of the cardi ever being worn, I'm going with the girls's favorite colors.  Karolyn's favorite color is a sunshine yellow.  Sydney's favorite is pink and Alana's favorite is purple. 

With the yarn stash totaling over 9 bins of yarn,  I was astonished to discover that I do not have a suitable sunshine yellow or a non-baby pink yarn in a fingering weight to knit up the Kitty Cardi.  The purple I happened to have.  To remedy the situation, I scoured the internet in search of the perfect shade of yellow and pink in the correct weight.  I looked at all of my favorite sites to no avail.   There simply was no sunshine yellow or pink to be had in the middle of November.  And with good reason,  who in their right mind is going to stock yellow and pink with winter approching?  The Loopey Ewe, that's who! 

With Benne's help, I should actually call her Momma Benne because she always knows what I need,  I was about to locate the correct shade of sunshine yellow and pink my two angels would love.  Benne steered me in the right direction and told me about the Loopy Ewe.  I was able to search by colors, a feature my go-to internet yarn shops seriously lacked.  In the end, I found what I was looking for and placed the order right then and there. 

Now I'm Sick

Now that Karolyn is better, I'm sick.  Completely congested and unable to stop coughing.  Its times like these that I'm grateful that I live in an age where we have over the counter medications.  My current drug of choice is Theraflu.  Stuff works great, I'm somewhat uncongested and the coughing has decreased to a minimum which means that I'm not rendered completely useless. 

Mother Nature sure has thrown a monkey wrench in to the Christmas Knitting Plan.  Taking care of a sick child as well as being sick myself has definately caused the knitting to come to a halt. Or at least a very slow crawl.  So changes must be made to the Christmas Knitting Plan if everyone is going to receive their handknit gift. 

The original plan included designing a sweater for the girls.  I've done a fair amount of work on this: sketched out the sweater, determined what yarn to use, sketched out 3 separate yolk patterns, swatched one of the patterns and decided that I didn't like it, and re-sketched out another yolk pattern.  What I've not done is: re-swatch the new yolk pattern, do a gauge swatch,  crunch some numbers (aka determining how much to cast on and off as well as when and how many stitches to decrease so it will fit my angels), and knit the actual sweater.  As you can see, there is quite alot left to do before I can even cast on the sweater and with Christmas being less than 50 days away, I just don't see this project as one that will get completed in time.  Maybe for Valentines day?  Afterall, the design is loaded with hearts.

The new plan is to knit Kitty by Heirloom Stitches.  I saw the pattern when I was at Stitches South in Atlanta earlier this year and thought it would look just great on my little girls.  I bought the pattern and it has been sitting in the stash for a good 6 months waiting for me to add it to the Revised Christmas Knitting Plan. 

Revised Christmas Knitting Plan:

My family:
Ray: socks
Karolyn: Kitty Cardi
Sydney: Kitty Cardi

My sisters' family:
Mary (my sister): slippers
Alana (niece): Kitty Cardi 
Bryce (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete
Jacqueline (niece): Clara Dressy = complete

My brother John's family:
Trenton (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete

Happy Birthday Karolyn

Happy Birthday Karolyn

I love you sweatheart!

Another Pembroke Vest

This last week has been quite hectic.  Karolyn came home from school sick, we took her to the Dr. and she was diagnosed with croup and an ear infection.  Needless to say she is currently on antibiotics.  During the course of her being sick and coughing excessively, she had an accident on the couch.  We cleaned the couch with the special carpet cleaner and still the stink remained.  And I can't stress enough how I detest that smell.  So I googled how to clean up that stink and the results said to use a diluted white vinegar on the couch.  And I did just that.  Sprayed those couch cushions so all I could smell was the vinegar.  When my husband came home from work, I could hardly contain myself with excitement about my accomplishment.  To which he responded: "So what you are telling me is that we are full of piss and vinegar!"

Despite the week being hectic, I am proud to present another finished Pembroke Vest. I always have such a feeling of accomplishment when I complete an item no matter what the size. Granted a child's garment is a much different feat than say a man's aran sweater but it is still an accomplishment none the less. Imagine, that vest was but a ball of yarn just a couple of weeks ago and now it is a vest that will keep my nephew warm. I only hope he has as much fun wearing it as I did making it.

The Christmas count is now:

My family:
Ray: socks
Karolyn: personal design
Sydney: personal design

My sisters family:
Mary (my sister): slippers
Alana (niece): personal design
Bryce (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete
Jacqueline (niece): Clara Dressy = complete

My brother John's family:
Trenton (nephew): Pembroke Vest = complete