YOP LIST 2023-2024

Thursday, February 24, 2011

A quickie

This is just a quickie note to let you all know that I am still here.

I am still working on my cardigan and have 3/4 of the back done.  I am enjoying the pattern on the top part of it.  It manages to keep me alert but is not so hard that I have to have total silence to do it.

On the back, I am going to have to put 35 stitches on a stitch holder for the neck area.  So the other day I was out at WalMart and thought I had better pick up a stitch holder that is larger than the 2 that I currently have. (Plus those two will be used on the front of the cardi.)  All I could find were stitch holders that came in a kit along with row counters, stitch markers, straight needles and instructions books on how to knit.  I saw no reason to pay almost $10 for that when all I needed was one item out of it.  So Hubby and I were shopping later that day and I told him what I needed.  He suggested my LYS and I started laughing as they are a bit pricey on things and told him, just the stitch holder would cost that much there.  So we stopped in at JoAnn's and I got the holder I wanted for........................$1.59!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was really happy and even did a little dance in the middle of the yarn section.  (Hubby just shook his head and walked away. He just doesn't get IT!)

So the crafting continues at my house.  And if my little dog would quit tearing up her toys I would have more time for knitting instead of doing suturing of doggie toys and beds!  I just wish there were more hours in a day so I had more time to run yarn through my fingers and onto needles and hooks.  Even the weekends are not long enough for me. 

Speaking of weekends............This weekend (Saturday) we are going to a dinner/auction for the school that is with our church.  This is their annual fund raiser and it is always a great time.  I have placed about 15 sets of jewelry (ones that I made) in the auction.  Last year my jewelry brought in a pretty penny.  I could not believe what people were paying for the stuff lovely sets!  Some of them went for well over $100.  Most of the things I make only cost me around $10-$15 to make and that is for a 3 piece set!  I have tried to sell them before but no one seems to want to pay $25-$35 for them.  (But give everyone a few drinks and they go crazy over it!!)

Anyway...................I will let you know how the auction goes this year.  I usually walk away with something I truly love.  Last year I managed to get a cedar chest for my grand daughter for a really good price.  Can't wait to see what I get this year!

Happy Crafting

Monday, February 14, 2011

Finished project

I did it!  My socks are done.  I finished them Sunday afternoon and I am so glad to have them off the needles and in my sock drawer.  Here are some pictures of them.  They are made with Panda Cotton (I am allergic to wool).  It is not my favorite yarn to use as it splits easily but I loved the colorways of it.  Also, I have several more skeins of this yarn to use up so I will just have to get over the splitting issue and be a bit more careful.

Here they are on the sock stretcher.  I wish you could see the pattern on them better.  The one in the back you can kind of see the diamonds on the top of the sock.  It was a fun and easy pattern to do.

It is really hard to take a picture of your own leg with a sock on it.  These feel so good and fit really well!

I like the heel on these.  There is not heel flap that you have to do at all.  It is one of the easiest heels there is to knit. 

So now I am working on my cardigan and have part of the back done.  I will continue to work on that until it is finished.  It will probably take me some time to complete but it is an easy knit so far.

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer08/PATTheyteach.html

Above is the link to the sweater I am making.  I am doing it in a medium gray and a very soft acrylic.

As for the craft room.................well it is about as far done as I can do to this point.  I did not get a chance to get in the corner of the room this weekend as I did not get the "down time" I was hoping for.  But it is in decent enough shape that I was able to sew 2 chapel veils on Saturday for my Goddaughter.  She had outgrown her other ones that I had made for her.  She was really pleased with the new ones too.  (No I didn't get a chance to take any photos of them.  Maybe if she wears this to Mass in the next week or two I will get a shot of them while she is wearing them)

On a sad note...................my little car is really sick.  It is at the doctor for new brakes, calipers, and timing belt.  We thought about buying a new one but when we figured it out it would be so much more economical to fix it up.  There is nothing wrong with the engine and the body of the car is great too.  I still have a couple other minor things that need fixing on it (speedometer sticks) but until they see it happen they can not diagnosis it.  So I will just have to wait until it happens again.  I also have a motor for one of the electric windows that needs replacing and the transmission fluid needs flushing.  All in all it will cost us about 4 car payments to fix it all up.  And since it is paid for I would rather do that than buy a new car and have that dreaded car payment for the next several years!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day. 

Happy Crafting!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Step Four and Five, completed

Ok, I got the sewing table cleaned off and now have a nice place where I can sew and serge to my hearts content.  I can not believe the 'stuff' I found on the sewing table either.  After all how much velcro does one household need?  Seriously, I think I found at least 7 or 8 packages of the stuff.  Amazing.  I don't even recall ever buying any.

So that is step four done.  And step five was cleaning out the lovely little cart that got misplaced when we got the new family room furniture.  That is also done.  I don't know what I am going to do with the cart.  Seems that there really is no room in my craft room for it.  I was so hoping there would be too.  So it is all cleaned out and everything put in it's place.  Maybe I will have to sell the cart at the neighbor's garage sale.  Jury is still out on that.

I also kind of did a step six too last night.  I have an older computer table in the room that I use to attache my knitting machine to.  I did straighten that up last night too.  But alas there is really no other place for me to put a lot of the 'stuff' that is on that table.  There are all my jewelry displays sitting there and since I am going to be needing them in a couple of weeks I decided that I will not disturb them until after the auction at our church.  There is of course all my bags of jewelry there too that I have made for the auction.  So I guess once the auction is over I will need to find a place for all of that to be stored.  (Maybe in one of the empty cubbies that I still have open)

So all I have left to do is one corner of the room where there seems to be a collection of books that my DH uses when he teaches classes at our church.  Those are going to find their way into our bookcases very soon.  Then I found a box in there from somewhere else in the house and that is going to be gone thru and emptied out also.  If I can get that corner cleaned out then I will have a place for my lovely little misplaced craft cart!  I really don't want to get rid of it as it is just perfect for holding patterns, finished projects, projects in the making etc.  But I feel so good when I walk into the craft room now.  There is a floor, tables, organization and the list could go on but I won't bore you with all of it.

I won't get to work on the room tonight as we have a meeting at our church.  Tomorrow morning might be a good day as DH is going to help a friend replace some porch posts and I will have some VERY quiet time.  Plus if he is out of the house I can get those books put away without any extra eyes watching me.   So I have until around 2 tomorrow to complete the job.  If I do it I will be posting some pictures on here next week of my favorite room in the house.

Happy crafting.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Step two and three, done

Step 2 is done.  I got the bags of yarn to the shawl ministry and it was so nice to have that done and off my mind.  Although I think they were a bit surprised when I brought in the bags.  I had told them I had 9 bags filled.  I think they thought I was talking about grocery bags.  I guess I should had told them they were the kitchen trash bags that were full. (oops)

I looked at the cubbies all bare and kind of felt sad that so much of my stash left the house but then this makes room for the type of yarn that I am using all the time. :)  (I know, not until I finish all my UFO's)  And speaking of UFO's.......I have counted that I only have 8 UFO's to my name!  That is pretty amazing to me.  I have about 30 rows left on my socks and they will be done and in my drawer.  I have 3 prayer shawls that are over half done.  I have an afghan for one of my grandson's that needs a bit more work on it. (ok ALOT of work on it).  My short sleeved cardi that I started about a month ago and the scarf that is to match my hat and mittens.  There is something else there but I can not remember what it is and since I am not at my home right now it will just have to be a mystery for all of us.

Step 3 DONE!  I cleaned off my beading table last night.  I got everything put into organizing containers.  I now have a lovely desk where I can sit and do all sorts of stuff without worrying about knocking something off and loosing it forever.  Infact I did just that as soon as the table was cleared off.  I mended 6 of my dogs toys.  She thinks she is a surgeon and is constantly "operating on the toys and removing legs, tails, eyes etc."  So I got them all fixed up for her.  She was so happy to have all her favorites back again in her toy box.  (glad I can please her so easily) 

I also started cleaning off the sewing table.  I have moved all the thread onto thread holders.  I have taken the material and put in on some of the cubbies.  I have wrapped up all the ribbon and put it in the ribbon drawer.  There is still more to do on that table but it is shaping up nicely.

I will not have time to work on the room tonight as I have to take the grand daughter to her dance lesson and then I go to Mass and then out to eat with some of our dearest friends.  But there is always tomorrow night as well as Friday night.

And if you are wondering.............yes my grand daughter was thrilled to be helping me in there again.  Although I did loose her to her polly pockets after about 20 minutes but she stayed with me the whole time.  Infact she helped with the repairing of the toys!

More pictures will be coming along as soon as I get it all done.  I don't want to spoil the surprise for y'all.

My neighbor will so pleased when I go knocking on her door.  She holds garage sales several times a year and I have LOTS to donate to her sale.  Maybe I can convince hubby to make a little trip over to her house sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Happy Crafting!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Step one done

The first step to making my craft room back into a craft room has begun.  I got the yarn cleaned out of the all the cubbies and rearranged all the yarn that I am keeping.

Here are a few pictures of what has happened in the past 1.5 hours.







Here are the bags ready to go to the ministry!  Nine bags full!

This is my sock yarn waiting for me to finish all the projects I have started so they can be made into happy feet for someone.

Worsted weight yarn that I will be making into hats, scarves and mittens for people I really really love.

A few orphan yarns that will be fun to let the younger generation learn to knit, crochet and loom.

Oh my, I have so much room left in my cubbies.  I can start to organize the rest of the room now and fill those cubbies up with all sorts of treasures.  Like material, beading materials, pattern books, needles and hooks, & looming accessories.  The list is endless.  I am so excited.

Of course there will be more pictures as I progress.

Happy crafting.

It's getting smaller

I am so happy!  I finally got a hold of the person in charge of the prayer shawl ministry at the local church and she was thrilled with the thought of donated yarn for their ministry.  She has no idea what she is getting.  (teehee)  So hopefully tonight I will have the time and energy to go into the pit craft room and go through all of the yarn in there.  I want to get it bagged up and out of my house ASAP!  After it is all gone then I can start on the organization again. 

You see we got new furniture for our family room and that displaced some of my crafting organization.  So that lucky stuff is just sitting in the middle of my craft room making it very hard to maneuver in there.  So once I get the excess yarn out of there I will be able to put other things in the cubbies and straighten up the whole room and move the organizer into it's own lovely spot.

I love my craft room and can spend hours at a time in there.  Sometimes I even forget how long I am in there until my hubby comes in and tells me he is going to bed!  Then I realize I have been in there for up to 4-6 hours.

You see, I have it decorated just for me.  I have my stereo in there, my religious artwork to meditate on, my beading, sewing, knitting, crocheting and looming in there also.  I have a place in there where the dogs and cat can come in and join me for some quiet time.  (I also have my treadmill in there but am unable to use it as there is no space to open it up right now)  I have everything I need in there to make the place a nirvana for me.  I don't think anyone in my family totally understands how important this room is to me.  It is truly MINE!  I know where everything is and what everything in there is for.  I know how to work all the machines in there and love it when I can go from one creative craft to another.

Hopefully by the end of this week I will have more pictures for you to see of the lovely room.  But I will not guarantee that.  Seems like when I have that kind of a week planned something always happens and then I am called to do other things and my room once again gets put on hold. So if not this week, maybe next week.

I do know that I will have my grand daughter in the evenings for a few days this week as her daddy is out of town (he normally picks her up on his way home) and her mommy works too.  But she loves to help me in the craft room.  She is the one that put all the yarn in the cubbies for me to begin with.  Not bad for a 5 year old, huh!  She is just a tad OCD but that is great when I need someone helping me organize something.  I organized her room this weekend and she was so happy.  She usually has everything in its place all the time when she leaves but she has had some help lately messing things up and then when her "help" leaves she gets frustrated that she has to do all the picking up.  I don't blame her either.  So I told her that we will not let her "help" leave anymore with out picking everything up from now on.  She was so happy with that too.  (it is so easy to please a 5 year old!)

By the way, if you want to see some thing really amazing I would have you go to another favorite blog of mine that I follow all the time.  It is http://yarnharlot.ca/blog/ .  Look for her post dated 2/7/11.  I will have you know that I do not have any where near that kind of collection of supplies.  I am planning on showing that to my hubby tonight to let him know that things could get out of hand!  Crafting is a very addictive hobby.  But I guess it is better than other addictive behaviours.

Oh, and by the way.................the Superbowl was the perfect knitting TV show!  I got several rows on my socks done last night while watching the game.  And since I was not at home it was even better because I didn't have to answer a phone, walk the dog, make dinner, or be distracted by a hundred other "household" things.

Have a craft day!