T Minus 7 AKA Week 45

 

Hello one and all.  How did it become Sunday afternoon already?  This is what happens when we go to Mass on Sunday instead of Saturday.  Because, after Sunday Mass you really want to go and have breakfast with your BFF's and then you need to go to the hardware store and the grocery store.  Then.....BAM.....It is 1pm and you are just sitting down to write your blog post.  This post will be picture heavy, so sit back and relax for a while.  That laundry can wait!

I do have finishes this week.  There was a mid week post but I know most of you only read the Sunday posts.  So here is my first finish of the week.

They are finally done and have been worn twice already.  He loves them and is already asking when the next pair will be done!  I haven't even cast on another pair yet.

My next FO is the Mimic Shawl.

I took several different angles of this while it was blocking.  In fact, it is still on the blocking boards.  So here are all the shots I took of it.

It ended up being 6 feet long and 24 inches deep.  It will be perfect for our places that love to run their A/C super cold.  And now, you know what I use our pool table for LOL.

I am now perusing patterns to find a sweater pattern to use up some of my copious amounts of DK yarn.  So far, I have found one I love but it is a cropped sweater and knit from the bottom up.  I have only knit top down sweaters in the past.  That style of knitting suits me quite well.  I can try on as I go and make adjustments as needed that way too.  So, there is nothing on my needles or hooks other than a dishcloth.  Shocking huh!

The main reason there is no activity in my yarn is the busy week we have had.  This being Josie's last year at her current school, there has been so much activity going on there.  I already wrote about the May Crowning on May 1.  That evening we had a BBQ at her high school she will be attending this fall.  We were there until well after dark.  It was a very long day for this MiMi.  On Friday, I went to her school assembly where she was presented with Student of the Month.

So proud of her.  Can you tell her mom is pretty proud of her too!  I also did 4 loads of laundry Friday since I had not had a chance to do any laundry all week.  I am telling you, this past week has been one of the busiest in a long time.  

Saturday we had Confirmation and First Communion at our church.  As we had several people we knew receiving these sacraments, we went to that 2 hour service.  After wards, we were invited to a lunch celebration with one of the families.  When the delicious Italian feast was over we headed over to our son's house to continue the celebration and to let the kids swim for a while.  Another VERY long day for us.  I slept for 10 hours last night!  

Today, hubby is smoking a brisket even though we probably will not eat it until tomorrow.  We are so full from our breakfast.  I am going to go back through knitting patterns again looking for a sweater pattern that speaks to me as well as probably cast on some short socks.

I have one last photo for you.  My husband loves to give me flowers.  His favorite thing to do is give me potted flowers and watch me tend them and baby them to make them grow year round.  Here is the latest flower he bought me.

It is called Orange Star.  It is so pretty.  It has been blooming for over 2 weeks now and still has many more buds on it to open.  Not much info came with this one so Google and I are going to be best friends.

OOPS..........One more photo...........I promise this is the last one.

My fur babies.  This bed is in the room with the pool table.  I was blocking my shawl and looked down and there they were.  Needless to say, I am seldom alone in a room.  The male dog is always by my side and the female drops in to say hi from time to time.  

I hope your day is blessed.

Until next time....................Happy Crafting!!! 

May Day

Happy May Day.  Do you remember leaving May Baskets on the door steps of your neighbors?  When I was child (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), mom and I would make May Baskets out of pretty colored construction paper, put a few pieces of hard candy in them and top them off with some pretty flowers from our garden. 

I would go and lay it on the doorstep of our neighbor and knock on the door (or ring the bell) and then go and hide to watch the face of the recipient.  It was so much fun to be a secret giver.  When my Mom moved to Arizona, I had our local Grand Daughter continue the tradition of the May Basket.  My Mom loved it so much and it brought back so many lovely memories for her and I.  

Today is also a special day for Catholics.  May is the month of Mary.  Today, the school children have a crowning of the Blessed Mother during Mass.  Our Grand Daughter sang the Psalm during Mass today.

She did a lovely job of it.  It is not easy to get up in front of your entire school as well as parents and other people of the congregation and sing.  We are quite proud of her.

Since we had to get up early to make it to Mass, I now have extra time today to do an update AND some crocheting.  

Yesterday I finally completed hubby's socks.

Nothing else got attention since Sunday.  I was getting tired of seeing these things hanging out by my chair and staring at me.  Hubby is quite happy to have another pair of socks in his drawer.

Well, they were in his drawer until this morning.......he wore them to Mass today.  I truly love the Hermione Everyday Sock pattern.  It gives the sock some interest and keeps me a bit more alert than plan vanilla socks.  It also, does not disrupt the self striping feature of the yarn.

Today, I am going to concentrate on my Mimic Shawl.  Fingers crossed that it will be completed by this weekend.  I truly want to move on to something else but refuse to cast on anything until the shawl is completed.

I did find an interesting idea on Facebook the other day.  It made me think of one of my fellow YOPers, Becki of Field Lilies fame.

Becki, makes beautiful doilies.  Isn't this a wonderful way to showcase them?  Make a table runner with them!  I have just a few of the doilies my Grandma made and was thinking of doing this with them.  They would be so pretty on my dining room table with my candles on top of them.  Hmmmmmm.

I best get busy on that shawl.  Today, I am picking up the grand from school.  Tonight, the grand, her mom and I will be going to her high school for a welcome BBQ.  I will not get much time to work on the shawl then.  

Until next time...........happy crafting!

DOWN TO 8 - WEEK 44

Hello everyone.  Welcome once again to my little blog.  Not much to update this week.  Same two projects as the past several weeks.  

The HES socks

Not much done on them other than making them caught up to each other.  I have no idea why the foot of the sock takes me so long to do.  It is the same length as the leg and the leg is normally completed in a week or two.  (That is for both socks!)  I know hubby thinks I have forgotten about them.  I have been focusing more on my shawl.

The yellow dot is where I was last Sunday.  You can now see how the angle of the shawl is becoming trapezoid.  I love working on this and am seeing the end of this project in about 2 weeks.  I should have enough yarn for 2 more "V" stitch sections and one more linen stitch section after the one I am working on now.  And.....to answer a question from last week....Yes the yarn is Scheepjes Whirl in Blueberry BamBam colorway.

Since this is the last Sunday of the month it is time to show my dishcloths..............once again, there are nada, nil, zip, zero to show.  This is bad.  Those quick knit projects are what keep me from getting a bad case of startitis!  I am getting antsy with only doing these two projects and dream of starting something else.  Like a spring/summer sweater or a blanket or Christmas ornaments.  I refuse to succumb to this whimsy.  These two projects need to get done and ready to wear!  I do want to thank all of you who gave me the Rose City Rollers idea for short socks.  That is now in my library to do.

Since my crafting is stalled, I will fill you in on my week.

Monday I went to my Rheumatologist to get the results of my hip x-ray.  NORMAL!  So why does my thigh and groin hurt so much?  Well, without an MRI they can not tell me more than what they see on the x-ray.  Her best guess is my RA has gotten into my spine and is causing presser on nerves that go to my leg.  She has given me an RX for physical therapy to see if it will help.  If that doesn't then she said I might have a labral tear of the hip but that only shows up on an MRI!  I am Mrs. Claustrophobic and they would need to sedate me HEAVILY to get me in an MRI tube.  Then my BFF informs me they have standing MRI's that are totally open!  Now we are talking.  So, will do the PT and see what happens after that.  In all actuality, the pain gets a bit better each day.

Tuesday I got up early and completed 4 loads of laundry before noon.  The clothes were even folded and put away by then too!  That gave me the rest of the day to play around with crafting and decluttering.

Wednesday saw me get a huge burst of energy.  I had an early morning appointment for my nails and then came home and did kitchen work for an hour while hubby cleaned part of the house.  He had Church duties that evening and while he was gone I completely cleaned out my side of our vanity in our bathroom.  I have 2 drawers and a DEEP cupboard on my side.  I threw out a 13 gallon trash bag of 'stuff' and got the top of the vanity cleared off other than my 3 crystal bottle from my mom.  What a difference it made.

Thursday was pretty much a day to do little stuff around the house.  There was the watering of the plants and moving items for hubby so he could mop floors quicker.  There was a haircut involved in this day too.  I had been trying to grow my hair out since August and nothing much was happening with it.  So off to the stylist to get it back into an undercut pixie.  So glad I did as out temperatures have already hit 100F this week.

Friday I decided to clean out hubby's side of the vanity.  Another 13 gallon bag of 'stuff' was thrown away.  There are also items that will be given to charity.  It feels so good to have that area done.  Next week I want to pick another area and focus on that.  I do not want my children to have to deal with 'stuff' after we leave this earth.  

Saturday was a fun day for us.  I made an early morning grocery store run since we were having our Grand and her friend spending the night.  When teenagers are coming over you need things in the house like cookies and chips and dip.  We obtained the girls after Mass and took them out to eat.  When we came home they went swimming for a couple of hours and then played cards until around 11.  I even played Rummy 500 with them for a while.  It was so much fun and there were plenty of laughs. 

Today, we will take the girls out for their coffee and donuts.  Their parents will be by to pick them up at 10 and 11.  The house will be so quiet after they leave.  Hubby is going to smoke a rib eye roast today for our dinner tonight.  YUMMY!  We are trying to smoke some meat twice a month.  It feeds us for several days which makes meal planning for me a dream!

That pretty much covers my week.  It is about time to go and wake up some sleeping girls so they can have time to eat and drink their breakfast.

Until Next Time.............Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Then There Were 9....YOP Update

Running a little later than normal today.  We went to Mass this morning and that makes my 'day' start 2 hours later than normal.  We normally go on Saturday but, last night was Easter Vigil.  It the night all the new Catholics are Baptized, Confirmed and receive their first Communion.  The service lasts anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours.  Since it didn't start until 8pm, we knew we would not be home before midnight.  We are OLD people!  So after 20 years of attending the Easter Vigil, I finally attended my first Easter Sunday Mass.  Glorious!  

This week has seen me working quite a bit on my Mimi shawl.  Here is where I was last week.

Here is where I am as of 15 minutes ago.

The extension part of the shawl has been started.  This is such an easy crochet project....as long as you count!  I have a feeling my yarn is not going to last as long as others say theirs did.  My crochet is not tight and in fact, I am a fairly loose crocheter.  If needed, I will order another skein of this colorway and work it backwards colorwise until I get the size shawl I like.  You all know I am always worried about playing yarn chicken though so, this might just be me letting that little fearfulness creep in again.

The HES socks only got love when I was out and about.

Someday, hubby will get these socks in his drawer.  I have another Dr appointment this week so the socks will see some love for sure that day.  My Dr is ALWAYS behind schedule so I will have plenty of knitting time while there.

I am starting to peruse toe up sock patterns.  It has been a couple of years since I have attempted toe up socks.  The idea of that technique is appealing to me again. The other thing I want to do is make 'no show' socks for our sneakers.  Have any of you made 'no show' socks and do they stay up?   Socks that slide down the heel make me a little crazy.  Let me know and what pattern you used or do you just wing it?

We are getting ready to head out for Easter dinner.  This year we decided to go to a restaurant.  There has been so much illness in the family over the past 2 weeks, it did not make sense to expect anyone to cook and clean up for 8 of us.  We will be happy to pay someone to do it!  After dinner we will head to our son's house for a bit of relaxation, game playing and possibly a bit of swimming.  (Not me....the water is still a bit too cool for my liking)

So I will leave you with this message:

Until next time.........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!

WIP Wednesday

Hello everyone (waves).  I hope you are having a marvelous Wednesday.  It rained here last night so it is nice ans cool today.  The air is so nice and clean.  We had horrible winds yesterday that kicked up all sorts of dust, so the rain really helped clean things up.  Well, other than my freshly washed car which now needs to be washed again.  I get a free wash though, because it rained within 24 hours of the original wash.  How sweet is that?

I have been busy these past few days.  Monday I did a load of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, took care of a plant that had fungus gnats, and got an Amazon package ready for return.  Then I spent the next part of my day out and about. 

I finally got an x-ray of my painful hip to see what is going on there.  Naturally, I won't know anything until I see my Dr next Monday.  UGH!  That will make it 1 month since the pain started.  

After the x-ray, I got a haircut, turned in the Amazon package for return, and got my car washed.  Luckily for me we had already decided to have leftovers for dinner because, by the time I got home I was barely able to walk.  Those x-ray techs love to twist and turn you in positions that are NOT natural!  

The rest of the evening was spent working on the  shawl to see if I could make some progress on it.  By 10 o'clock I was too tired to even try and count stitches anymore so I went off to slumber land.

Tuesday dawned bright, sunny and cool.  Once again I did a load of laundry to keep us from doing it all on the weekend.  Then I sent hubby out to do some errands for us so I could do some kitchen work.  I air fried a couple pounds of bacon up for our BLT sandwiches we were going to have for dinner.  It is one of our favorite meals to have when we have a busy schedule.

I picked up the Grand from school and she looked so sad.  Come to find out her entire class went to a funeral.  It was for one of their classmate's mom who passed away from breast cancer.  She was only 36 with 3 children the oldest being 14 and the youngest 2.  (Josie goes to a Catholic school which is why they were able to stop classes for the funeral)  Since she was so sad and still a little weepy, I decided some retail therapy was just what she needed.  Off to a couple of Thrift/Consignment shops we went.  She was able to find 2 dress and 2 shirts to make her feel better.

After I got home and ate dinner, I picked up the shawl and worked on it while hubby and I watched some of our recorded shows.  Let me show you where I am at now.

See that Yellow dot?  That is where I was on Sunday for my update.   The counting of stitches happens on every row as I am crocheting them.  There have not been anymore issues since I have started doing that.  The yarn is making me quite happy.  Gradient yarn is so fun to work with.  Watching the colors blend from one into another makes a tedious project seem to go by much quicker.  There are 9 more rows of the linen/moss stitch and then I will start on making this triangle turn into a trapezoid.  How fun this has been once I learned my lesson about assuming I did not need to count stitches.

Today I will be doing a load of laundry, picking up the grand from school again, going by my BFF's to see her new counter tops being installed and then going to dinner with our DIL and grand, and playing some trivia with them.  That should make for a full day for this old lady.

Tomorrow starts our 3 high Holy Days of Holy Week.  We will be busy with church and other religious activities until after Easter Mass on Sunday. SO.....................

Until next time..................happy crafting!!!!  

Let the Countdown Begin T-10 Weeks

 It is week 42 of this years YOP.  We have 10 weeks left to complete all those projects we talked about in July of last year.  I so love this challenge we put upon ourselves each year.  It has really helped me to improve my knitting and crocheting skills.  This past week was a tough one craft wise for me.  Let me give you a little photo story of what happened.

Last Sunday I showed you where I was on the Mimic Shawl.

I talked about the fact the top edge was kind of uneven and was hoping it would block out.  Well,  I realized I had not counted stitches for a while.  I actually was further along than the photo above when I decided to count to see where I was.  OOPS!  Someday I will learn to keep track as I go along and not 30 rows too late.  Yup, I was way off on my count and had been since the first pattern section.  So, what do you do?  

You do this:

Frog it all the way back to where the stitch count was correct.  It hurt so much to take all that out but, I could not figure out a way to make the count correct again.  I could not add enough extra stitches in a row without it loosing its triangular shape.  Adding extra rows to catch up was not an option either because of the yardage used in this shawl is exactly the yardage I have in my skein of yarn.  I just sucked it up and did the painful job of ripping it back.  

I have worked on it a bit since that great sad day.  At first, I was so distraught I did not want to even look at it but decided it was not going to crochet itself.  So here is where I am as of this morning.

Nice straight edges on the top.  That ball of yarn is what is left from my frogging.  Once that is all used, I will be where I was last Thursday morning.  Hopefully, that will happen yet this week.  The V stitches are the easiest since the chain 1 spaces are much easier to see LOL.

As for the HES..................they saw a tiny bit of love.

As you can tell from the progress keepers, they only got a tiny bit of love.  That darn shawl took most of my attention.  Here is something that might help me with the socks......I bought a new purse this week that is large enough for me to carry one sock in it at all times.  This way I can grab it and work on it whenever I have a few spare minutes.  I normally carry a small handbag,  After realizing how much time I spend waiting, it dawned on me I could be using that time to be productive instead of just hanging out.  It only took me how many years to figure this out?  

Last night we got a gift.  We had a sleep over at our house with our Grand.  She is so much fun to have around.  She and I played card games all night.

We played several games of Rummy as well as Phase 10.  By 11pm I was all tuckered out so off to bed we went.  We got up bright and early this morning and have been watching the Masters Golf Tournament.  We did go to Dutch Bros for her Golden Eagle Freeze (With whip) and then on to Dunkin for her Strawberry frosted doughnut with sprinkles.  She has been sitting next to me while I have been working on this blog post and has been showing me some hilarious dog memes.  It is always good to have a few good laughs in the morning.  As soon as I post this blog, we are going to play more rummy.  More fun!!!!

Until Next Time...................Happy Crafting!!!!

WIN SOME, LOOSE SOME

This header actually says it better.  It has been one of those days.  It started with me getting up early.  Well earlier than normal.  My DIL has been sick since Monday.  She finally got a Dr appointment for 7am this morning.  I had the privilege of taking the Grand to school this morning. (Daddy is out of town on business)  I actually enjoyed to time we had in the car to talk about things that interest her.  The early rising also gave me a chance to enjoy some early morning cool air.  It was lovely.

This is the day hubby cleans the bathrooms and kitchen.  I get things moved out of his way so all he needs to do is vacuum and mop without having to move a bunch of things.  It took a bit longer since my hip/leg is still acting up.

I did make a call to my Rheumatologist and left a message about the pain in my hip/leg asking if I should get an x-ray to make sure I am not bone on bone or worse scenario, have something broken.  It has been 2.5 weeks since the fall that led to the pain.  I can walk, but it is with some pain and I have a very noticeable limp.  Not normal for me at all.  It is now almost 5:30 and I have not heard back from the Dr office.  I will call again tomorrow.  If I do not hear from her I may just go to urgent care and get the dang x-ray done on my own.  

I did make a loaf of bread today.  I tried a different recipe this time and man, it really got big!

That is a 2 pound loaf.  Look at what it looks like inside.

I used 1/2 spelt flour and 1/2 bread flour.  It is so yummy.  Hubby even liked it!  Finally, I have homemade bread he will eat.  Spelt flour is a very hard grain to make bread with due to the small amount of gluten in it.  I refuse to us xantham gum or gar gum.  They are both GMO products and that pretty much defeats the purpose of me making my own bread with natural ingredients!  This was my win for the day.

My loss learning for the day was on my Mimic shawl.  Remember this photo?

See that uneven top edge?  I thought it was just a tensions issue.  NOPE!  I was working on it all week and today when I counted stitches, I was WAY off.  Not a small amount where I could just add a stitch here and there to make it right.  So here is where I am now......

Yup, ripped it back to the very beginning of the first pattern repeat.  I managed to work 10 rows of linen/moss stitch only to find a mistake AGAIN in row 3.  I just finished ripping it back again and was working on it and am once again off in my count.  This time I am only 1 stitch off on one side so I will be able to  fix that as I crochet along that side without it being noticeable.  Thank goodness this shawl is meant for me.  There is no big dead line on getting it done.  I would like to have it by Mother's Day to wear when we go to Las Vegas. Those casinos have cold and hot spots in them.  If I do not complete it by then, I have a couple of others that will work just as well.

It is time for me to go and start our dinner.  Bacon wrapped chicken thighs cooked in the air fryer.  Then cut them up and they will be laid on a bed of lettuce with other veggies surrounding them.  It has become salad weather here in Arizona.

Until next time................happy crafting!