Fini & Congratulations All The Way Around!

Well they are done. All four have graduated from high school. YEAH!!!!!!! It was an absolutely beautiful day . . . . warm and sunny. Congratulations Ryan, Zachary, Maari & Krista. We are all very proud of you.
P.S. Two grad parties left to go . . . Pray for sunny skies!

Wow!

Ummm . . . Yes we did go. And yes we do have photos. But I am waiting for the camera cable from NK! We did have an awesome time at the Festival. I picked up some alpaca (600 yards for $24 x4) for a sweater. Alpaca, be still my heart. Three huge buildings filled with homespun and commercial yarn. We will definitely go again. It is a wonderful event!

CT was not able to attend. Her father in law had a massive stroke. It is an incredibly sad and stressful situation. Say a prayer for our friend and her family. Graduation, end of the school year all are looming on the horizon also.

Then we have ASJ, whose mother in law fell and broke not one but two hips! So ASJ is her tremendous patient advocate! ASJ’s husband needs to have back surgery soon, and her daughter fell and broke her tail bone. Again Graduation is looming.

My BIL was admitted to United on Friday, with blood pressure of 53 over 0 (I did not know that was possible), and kidney failure, he is 48. So I spent the weekend with my sister. Whew! Then there was a blood clot thrown in for good measure. They are both doing well. However I got nothing done at home. I am sure it will all be fine. Again Graduation is looming.

NK is the only one who did not have an immediate family member in the hospital. Thank God!. Graduation looming.

Graduation Party One is on Monday evening, Graduation Party Two is a week from Saturday. Graduation is on June 1. Graduation Parties Three and Four will be the following weekend, Saturday and Sunday respectfully. Yeah, we thought it was cool we all had seniors . . .

Oh yeah, and the cabin trip is on the horizon.

Mother's Day Weekend Trip

Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival! ASJ has wanted to go for some time now. Looks like she will get her wish! DETOUR. We were planning on Color Crossing, Yarn Garage & Borealis. But I proposed that we stop there first! Steven will be there, so that's a plus. There will be home spun and commercial yarn available, fuzzy yarn bearing animals, books & patterns, plus much, much more. So why would we not go, when we are travelling in that direction anyway?

I am looking for some yarn for my Island Project. Both ASJ & NK have there projects ready to go. CT and myself . . . not so much. I think I know what I will be knitting. But I have to pick up some yarn. Plus I will of course be taking sock yarn. My sock yarn stash needs to be bulked up bit. I am looking for some simple brown yarn for a cable sock pattern. Then for the heels and toes I have some very pretty variegated brown/pink/white yarn. Cables just look so much better to me when they are knit on a single color. Other wise it's gets too busy for me (Call me Plain Jane).

Project #2

I have finished my second project out of the dreaded blue sweater yarn. I think it turned out really cute. I knit it on larger needles and I made the biggest size, complete with the hood to try to use us as much yarn as possible. Look how much I still have left. I think I have enough for one more sweater. Yikes, I bought a lot of blue yarn.

I am really excited for our pre Mother's Day yarn adventure. What a great gift to ourselves. Time together as the Guild and yarn shopping, what a perfect day!

Give peace a chance

So this whole story started on The Island, our second trip to be exact. It was my first attempt at knitting a sweater. I began my first top down pull over on the Island, I knit and I knit and I knit. I got the sweater body finished and took it off the needles for a look. To my shock, the sweater was big enough to fit a size 2XL man. I was disappointed, but not defeated. I ripped the sweater and balled up the yarn and took it to Family Camp for some serious knitting sessions. I knit and I knit and I knit. I got the body of the sweater done and took it off the needles only to find that it was big enough to fit an XL man. At this point AJ, NK and the husband ran for cover as I threw the yarn, needles and sweater to the ground. To save his life, the husband quietly wound the yarn in to big balls and tied it in a bag, where it has stayed for nearly 2 years.

I took yarn inventory a week or so ago and discovered that I don't have as much yarn as a good knitter should. While taking inventory I discovered the dreaded blue sweater yarn bag. At this point I made my peace with the yarn. Since this disaster I have knit 4 top down sweaters, a top down vest and 2 top down baby sweaters. I have conquered the project, now it was time to use up the yarn. Knowing what I now know about yarn, the project was doomed from the start. The yarn was not the right weight (even though I was knitting 2 strands together) but enough about that.

I pulled out yarn and found a pattern for a baby afghan. I knit the World Ministries wavy baby afghan. It turned out really cute. I have lots of co-workers who are having babies, so an afghan is always good to give as a gift. Provided the baby is a boy! The problem is look at how much yarn I still have after the afghan. This is a lot of blue yarn. I think I will make a top down baby sweater out of part of it and MMT suggested I learn to make booties to go with the blankets. If not booties I think the yarn is fine enough that I could make socks for an adult.

I am counting down the days until:1) yarn shopping on the 10th of May 2) graduation (if they have one more senior skip day I am going to pop a vein. 3) the end of school and 4) THE ISLAND!!!

Health update: I did have to get an antibiotic for the brochitis, and I think I will be healthy soon.

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Rip it! Rip it good!

Ok so I thought I would be posting a picture of my two halves of my half sweater. As it turns out I was a little over confident. Post hospital stay NK was nice enough to give me a tutoring session in the half sweater. I knit all week on the 2nd half of the half sweater. I cast it off Thursday night and laid the halves on the floor. Excellent, I had a right and a left. But they did not match. I took Friday to contemplate how to correct the situation. The only solution was rip it back 30 rows (which is like a gojillion stitches). Last night after school I ripped it out and put it back on the needle. I made myself knit 2 rows last night, just to get it over with. I have knit on and off today, slow but sure I will get it done the second time. I know ASJ loves to rip and re-knit, but I have to tell you, it is not working for me. Also, I do firmly believe that once I get the two halves done, I will not be able to put the 2 halves together, so I will forever have 2 halves of a sweater.

I had a baby shower today, I am not very good at this events (so I made GBT come with me). It was completely stressful. The gifts were all piled in the corner and they were bloody huge gifts. And here I am with one little box, containing a top down hooded baby sweater. As luck would have it, my gift was opened LAST. So I had over a half hour to sit and squirm while the mom to be opened, strollers, pack and plays, bouncers and all sorts of large expensive gifts. It did work out in my favor, when she opened the tiny little box containing one hand knit sweater, the other guests were chatting and ready to move on to the lunch phase of the afternoon. A couple of quick, "did you make that?" and off to the food we went.
Note to self: drop off gift and dash next time!!!

4-15-08: The 1/2 sweater is no more, it is now several balls of yarn in a ziplock bag.

Yarn, Yarn everywhere Yarn

Well here is my post finally about the big field trip to the cities. Here is a photo of the yarn that I purchased on the trip. I just love all of the yarn I purchased. Even purchased some for KK1 so that she may make some fingerless gloves. I have already made one sweater out of the pink and purple yarn. Made a weekend cardigan. and am now starting a weekend pullover with the orange and reddish color yarn. As I was saying over and over again last night. I just love to knit with the wonderful feeling yarn. I do have a request for bulky mittens out of the orange yarn also. Some of the yarn just spoke to me and said take me home with you, I will look very nice mixed in with all of the other yarn that you have.

I have also been busy making stitch markers, since I am working on size 15 and 17 needles hard to find marker to fit the big needles. So I thought to myself that I could make those fancy looking markers that they sell in all the yarn stores. So I did figure out how to do it and am going to make some more since I like them and they do make my knitting look extra pretty.