Thursday, December 09, 2010

Christmas is Around the Corner



We had a marvelous luncheon at Tersiguel's and gift exchange.

Everyone really had a great time. Wish all the knitters could have been able to come.

I am almost finished with Christmas knitting and sewing. Today I mailed my sisters box and just have to mail my aunts. I just received an email from a company that emailed me previously that the case for the GPS I brought my aunt was on its way, last night I received an email that it was not coming. No need to hold up her box any longer.

There is no more shopping to do but I am waiting for for my sons and daughter-in-laws gifts to arrive. I am having USPS package delivery issues at the moment.

I have the ribbons embroidered that I am using for name tags for all my gifts.

Every year, I try to do something different when it comes to name tags or gift wrap. This year, I decided to embroider the names on the ribbon instead of buying the name tags. I have to wait until the gift is wrapped to embroider the ribbon so I know just how much to embroider.

The only knitting I did this year was for my sister, niece, brother-in-law, and my son-in-law. I just had too many things for myself that I wanted to do.
My brother-in-law got the Berruti hat.
My niece said she loves wearing yellow so she is getting a very yellow hat and mitts
My sister loves green so she got a seafoam green cowl called the ruffle lace cowl by Cathy Carron that I love enough that I am making a cranberry one for myself. I also made her mitts call Mom's Cabled Mitts. Well, the basis pattern is Mom's Cabled Mitts. What happened is that I forgot which way the cable was going and made something that looked like a wandering vine so I went with it.

In case I do not get to post until after Christmas..

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Gift Exchange

On Wednesday my favorite sit n knit meets in Mt. Airy, MD, at the town hall at 10AM to knit and have their first gift exchange. Until this year, each person in the group brought a gift for everyone but the group has grown too large. We were given a limit of $20 to buy a gift and I believe we are going to draw numbers. At least I hope this is the way it will be. I hate dutch exchanges and do not think they are fair. There is always someone that brings a gag distasteful gift just for laughs.

I decided to make a project bag and embroider the name of the group on it, brought some great chocolate candy (you can't go wrong with chocolate) and finally purchased a skein of cotton yarn from my favorite indie dyer, Wolle's Yarn Creations. I even embroidered the ribbon with "Mt Airy Knitter".



As to how my Christmas knitting is coming along......don't ask. I have a hat for my brother-in-law, mitts and a hat for my niece (they just need to be blocked). I made this cute cowl hat thingy for my sister but it is too big. I may give it to her anyway and tell her it is a cowl only. I have the yarn for hats for my son and son-in-law that I will start today. My aunt won't get anything this year and at the rate I am going, my daughter will get the yarn and pattern to make something for herself.

I am not making anything for my new daughter-in-law because I have no idea what she would like without asking her.

Sometime within all this knitting and weaving, oh I forgot to tell you that I plan on weaving some dishtowels for gifts, I really do want to put up my Christmas houses.

Stay tuned

Friday, October 29, 2010

SEAWEED SHAWL is done


Yes, Yes, it is finished and I love it.


Great yarn and great pattern

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Citron is finished


This shawl has been a labor of love. I love the yarn by Wolle's Yarn Creations but I just keep tangling it if I put it in my project bag. The yarn is a made of 5 string no ply cotton. What I found( at the end of course) is that when I reskein it tighter, I have less problems.

I have another skein waiting be used so before I start it, I will reskein it.

Should be finished with the KAL shawl called Ocean Serenity that I am calling Seaweed, this week. It is using the same yarn but a different color. It is so pretty.


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Part 2-Rhinebeck 2010



I don't want you to get the wrong impression and think that I did not enjoy myself at Rhinebeck, I surely did. My daughter, TeAntae, and I arrived about 15 minutes before it opened at 10am on Sunday and left about 15 minutes before it closed at 5pm.

The fair grounds is fantastic. There are plenty of places to eat and sit, and the most important thing is ladies bathrooms that has more than 3 stalls. They even had ladies in the bathroom that kept the place clean and showed you to the empty stalls. Nice touch and very efficient.

This fairgrounds was made to serve numerous kinds of events. The Howard County Fairgrounds in Maryland seems to have been set up for livestock so it is not as nice. Now if I could just put the Maryland show in the Rhinebeck fairgrounds, we would have a yarn show made in heaven.

My problem with the show is that there was very little yarn. Lots of natural fiber but little yarn. I overheard a vendor say that the hardcore knitters came on Saturday. That made me laugh because in Maryland the hardcore knitters come Saturday and Sunday. You can not make me believe that all the yarn was sold out on Saturday and there was nothing but fiber left for Sunday. There was yarn, just not the amount I was used to. I think the size of the show is the same as the show in Maryland.
Waiting in line for pot pies. I am sorry to say that it was not worth it. The pies were dry and tasteless. I had such high hopes for these because everyone was raving about them and I was hungry. I ended up throwing most of it away. It is pretty bad when you wish you had Swanson's pot pie instead.


The Sheep to Shawl Contestants were working hard when we walked through the building. I had planned to go back to check out who won but the day got away from me.

Just like Maryland's Sheep and Wool show, Rhinebeck has a display of hand knitted and woven garments displayed with their ribbons. The items seemed more edgy and contemporary than what I see at the Maryland Show. Really liked most of the pieces.


Met these two ladies and had to stop them to admire what they had made. The shawl above is the Shipwreck shawl which is circular and beaded. She said it took her 3 months. If it had been me, it would have taken me a year. It was lovely. The lady below had felted and made her jacket and purse. I was quite impressed. She gave me her card and told me that she did give classes. I just might take her up on it. I saw a couple of other ladies in felted jackets throughout the day. I want one!!!!!!

All these people are meeting the authors in the book signing area. I thought that this was a great sat up. Authors with their books were on each side of the aisle and the cash register was in the front.

My daughter posing for me on thisbeautiful fall day in Rhinebeck, NY beautiful fall day in Rhinebeck, NY.

This pumpkin carver was fantastic. Never in a million years could I produce anything like these.

I guess you are wondering what I purchased, well I did buy a skein of yarn from Fiber Optics to make the Pagona Shawl by Stephen West. Her colors are brilliant and that is what I like. The blue is very jewel toned.

I also purchased patterns to make The Scoop and The Cinch by Nora Bellows of Noni designs as well as the 2011 Calendar of Patterns by Helen Hamann. Helen told me that she will be at the 2011 Maryland Sheep and Wool. I really love her cutting edge patterns and get her newsletter. However, I am sad to say that I have never made any of her designs. I just admire from afar. I think she will do well at the show and hope to have at least one of her designs made in time to show her that I am not just all talk. It seems that she will be putting out a call for an assistant to help her and she will pay in yarn.

New Totes and My Chef Daughter

This is going to be a two parter. I had a fun filled weekend and have lots to share.
My daughter and I went to Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival on Sunday but before we went, I had a chance to visit my daughter at the french country restaurant she works at, Tersiguel's. It is nice to go to a french restaurant were the founders are actually from France.I was acting like the proud mother while I watched her move around the kitchen with such ease. I have to admit that her mother can not cook. Well...I can make a meal for you but you won't compare it to your mother's.

Cooking just never interested me. I only wanted to stay in the kitchen long enough to get things cooked and I am happy with my microwave, NuWave Oven and crockpot. For me, that is the only appliances you need.

When we got back from Rhinebeck, I worked on totes to carry our Kindle's in. My daughter only carries a small purse and I have to stop carrying the purse I like because we found out this weekend that there is a magnetic strip in it that keeps wiping out my hotel keys. You can find the pattern in the September/October 2010 Designs in Machine Embroidery, the words are a free download on their site. They came out so great that I decided to make knitting totes as well. Can you say, "Christmas Gifts for knitting friends"!!!!!!!!

Friday, October 01, 2010

Roger's Wedding Day

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Sunday, September 05, 2010

SEAWEED SHAWL

I am in the KAL that is being put on by Wolle's Yarn Creations. This started out as a mystery shawl but I am so far behind that the last clue has come in. As you can see, lots of drop stitches.

Now that I have finished the first part and started on the center, you have to weight your ball and take that amount off of the second skein. Then you knit from the second skein, in this way you should end up with a mirror of the first half. The left over yarn is to be used for the edging.

I decided to call my shawl Seaweed instead of the the title given by the designer Christiane Burkhard. The original name is Ocean Serenade. I thought that the color I choice for my shawl looked more like the bottom of the ocean.
This is the finished shawl. At least that is what I am aiming for.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Travel Project

My son is getting married at Disney World in two weeks. My daughter, son-in-law and I will be driving down because we like stopping along the way, as well as that my son-in-law does not like to fly. Since this is a long car drive, my daughter and I decided to do a KAL. The project that we have chosen is the Citron shawl
(Photo courtesy of Theyarniad)

I am going to call my Citron, Sunset. I am using yarn purchased from Wollies Yarn Creations called Sunset.

So far so good, pattern seems easy and there are lots of knitters that have made it. We agreed to stop knitting on the shawl until the trip at the end of Section Three.

I have made us knitting aprons to wear in the car so that we won't lose anything. They came out quite cute and I will post pictures.

I am off to meet up with my daughter, son, son-in-law and his fiancee to go to dinner.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Traveling Scarf and Start of Christmas


On Wednesdays at 10AM, I love to meet with some lovely ladies in Westminister, MD, to knit, laugh and end with lunch at different restaurants around the area. The group is on Ravelry as The Mt. Airy Knitters. They love to do traveling projects. Everyone in the group knits a few rows on someone elses project and passes it along.

I was lucky enough this time to be a part of the Traveling Malabrigo Scarf project.
Everyone was to use only malabrigo to knit 4 rows on the scarf. The owner of the scarf starts out knitting 4 rows, you leave your needle in the scarf so that the person that is knitting on the scarf does not have to guess what size needle you used. Some of the ladies went to The Mannings on a field trip to pick their yarn. I have been a Malabrigo junkie for a couple of years so I had plenty of Malabrigo in my stash to choose from. When you received a scarf, you had 2 weeks to knit your 4 rows before you had to pass it on.

My friend, Sue, hostessed the party for the Town Hall group, that meets on Wednesday mornings and the Starbucks Friday night group, at her home on Saturday, August 14.
Everyone was to bring the last scarf they had last worked on to give to the owner as well as
some food or drink to share.

Not only did we have great food, but we had drinkmasters. Sue made Sangria, and Suellen made Pineapple Upside Down Martini's.

After we ate and drank a little, Sue gave out the packages which was a cause for OOH's
and
AAH's when opened.

Great party, good friends, good food, beautiful knitting and lots of fun.

In addition to all the knitting that I have been doing, I decided to work on some sewing, Christmas presents. I saw this in the sewing machine store when I went to get a part for my machine and decided to make one to see how would like to give it as gifts for Christmas. I have plenty of fabric but I found out I have no cups. I have been replacing all my drinking cups with hand made pottery in different shapes. I found one cup in the back of the cabinet that had been a gift. It was a little large so I could not close it in the back but I found that I did not need to so I
might not even bother putting
a fastener in the back.

I am heading off to the Dollar store to see if I can find some plain cups to get a head start on the sewing part of my Christmas. I plan on starting the knitted and weaving part this week.



Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Yarn Overload


I really think I am yarn obsessed.

My daughter, TeAntae, and I get together once a week when I am in town. Sometimes we go to farmers markets, unique shops, thrift /consignment shop crawls, or just knitting and watching travel videos. We also like to do yarn crawls and thought that we had hit every shop within an hour to hour and half area. On Tuesday we found out we were wrong.

I enjoyed the knitting shop in Newark, Delaware, so much that I wanted my daughter to see it. From her house, the shop is only an hour and half away. I met her at 9am and off we went, stopping for breakfast of course. We arrived at Stitches With Style to find that Tuesday's is there Sit n'Knit. We met with some wonderful ladies but but decided not to sit with the group this time.

The array of goodies is mind boggling but would you believe we did not buy any yarn. Found things we could not live without but controlled ourselves. I did buy the KA cable stoppers for the KA interchangable set that I had given my daughter. I had purchased them for myself but found that I knit on the tip of my needles and the join on those sets is larger than the cable making it difficult for me to get the yarn onto the wood. I loved knitting with then otherwise. The cable stoppers were not available when I brought the set. I also brought a couple of cables for my Hiya Hiya interchangeable set. I do not like the set because I have broke two cables and the cables come apart from the needle tip when knitting. I was sent grippers from the company that help, in fact I am using them on a project now and they have not come loose. I only use them in a pinch. With Knit Picks if you tell them something is wrong with your set, they send you a replacement. WIth Hiya Hiya, I have to send the broken part. One of these days, I will find the email and get the broken cables sent back.

We got hungry and decided to go to Tuesday Morning that was 3 miles away to see if we could find more of the yarn that my daughter needed for a project she was in the middle of. Found the store but they did not have the yarn. Went to Five Guys for lunch and talked about whether we should see how far Chadds Ford, PA was. I checked the GPS when we got into the car and found that it was 1/2 hour away. That was quite durable.

We arrived at A Garden Of Yarn after traversing a very windy road. I think that the GPS thought I wanted to go the scenic route. My daughter, TeAntae, posed for me as we walked in, and this is the owner of the shop.

This was such a cute shop, they even carry Malabrigo. They had a bulky malabrigo that had just come out at TNNA 2010. We pulled out our IPAD and Iphone to look for projects for it. We each brought one ball because that is all it took for a cowl that we both liked. Unfortunately, it called for a 19 needle. I will try to pick up one of those eventually.

It is difficult for me to get my head around the fact that not everyone that knits or crochets and especially shop owners is not on Ravelry. The owner told me that she had signed up but never gets on.

You will find a wide array of yarns from companies like Manos, Berrocco, Feza, Cascade, Malabrigo, Skacel, Trendsetter, to name a few. She also has yarn that is dyed exclusively for her shop. In one area you will find the Cafe. Okay, it is just a coffee pot with a sign above it that says " Cafe", I still think that was cute. There is also a small table that you can sit at to knit. She had a nice sale table that you will need to check out.

My daughter likes to make hats and she was thrilled to find the beautiful handmade flowers that were from Italy, I fell in love with shawl pins, flowers, and other accessories she had around the cash register area. I had a difficult time not to buy the yarn for a drop stitch shawl that she had hanging. She gives you the pattern if you buy the yarn. Trust me, the shawl is on my Christmas list to myself.

A few steps away is the most wonderous tea shop cafe, Special Teas Tea Room. They do not have a website, just the little info that shows up about them in the shopping center post. However, this is a marvelous shop. We went in to get some tea to drink on the trip home. I was not prepared for such a lovely shop. The shop is owned by two sisters. One of them makes most of the pastries (trust me the scones or delicious). When you first walk in, you come into the shop area that has loose as well as teas in tea bags. There are lots of tea strainers, tea bag holders, etc. What caught my attention was the Sugar by Sharon. When you have your next tea party or just feel like wanting to pamper yourself , you must have one of these sugars to drop into your cup. The sugar comes in a variety of stunning shapes - floral, seasonal, butterflies, roses, to name a few in pink, pale green, lemon yellow. And yes, I brought a pack of the ones shaped like roses to put in the package I am sending my spoilee in the Tea/Coffee Swap.

The cafe area serves soups, salads, hot and cold sandwiches. You can also have Morning tea which appears from the menu would be a cup of tea and scone or Afternoon Tea that runs $14.25 a person.

You would think that I was yarned out but the next day was the Mt Airy Knitters group sit n' knit. We were making a road trip this time. Susie (Susiewick) had organized the trip to Kent Island (Maryland) to a yarn shop there. When we met in the parking lot of the farmers market, we had planned to take 2 cars because there was 7 of us. However, Susie got a call from Jennifer (Kneadler) that she was coming and would drive her Suburban. I was happy that I did not have to drive and was amazed at how much room was in that big SUV.

We arrived at Island Yarn Boutique a little after the shop opened at 11. Sue, the proprietor, greeted us warmly and said that she would give all of us a 10% discount on anything we purchased that day. The shop carries your basic yarn brands but what I was not expecting was all the kits. She had a kit for all your needs from placemats to scarves. Sue also has stitch markers and other knitting accessories made by local artisans that make the shop a little unique.
I brought a couple of patterns, one was the mohair bias loop ( I have a lot of mohair from a binge that I went on a few years ago) and Barb's Koigu Ruffle scarf. I think that almost everyone brought that pattern. I have some yarn that I brought at the Midwest Fiber Show that I had no idea what to do with but loved the color, I think that I might use that. At least the weight will work. I did not notice that both of these patterns are from Churchmouse Classics until I got home. I went to their website and found a couple more patterns that I like. The last pattern I purchased was Starry Starry Night, a wrap made with fingering weight yarn (I really have a lot of that in my stash) by Jeanne C. Abel of NatureSpeak Knits. Jeanne, the designer is local, Annapolis, MD. I love buying from local designers and indie dyers. She has a Ravelry group that I plan on checking out as well as some more of her designs.

The shop is really cute, not one I would make a special trip to since most of the yarns are what you can get anywhere, however the owner is very nice and the shop is well laid out. There is no place to sit and knit. I was told that she has a place on the second floor that she holds classes. Maybe you could sit up there but that sounds very isolated. I can be isolated at home.

Again, I did not buy any yarn. I am getting so proud of myself.

We left the shop and went to lunch. I had a blackened shrimp quesadilla. YUM!! I make quesadilla's all the time just never thought of a shrimp one.

My TV is still out, my son will look at it this weekend. I am listening to podcast and watching Hulu or streaming movies from Netflix on my computer..... I want my TV back.