Ravelry - I'm In! - And how do you Felt?

Well, after waiting since July, I have officially joined Ravelry. Now I am starting to see what all the talk has been about. The only downside I can see is spending too much time on the computer. This is going to be so much fun!

I finished my felted bag (the Pipes and Braid bag from http://www.she-knits.com/) . Now looking at it, I wonder if I should have felted it a little more. I think it will be okay though. When I ran it though the washing machine I forgot to see how long I set the cycle for. I think I went on automatic pilot and set it for how long I usually wash clothes for. I used a regular pillow case and just knotted the top, and used a hot wash, cold rinse cycle. I will say I loved this pattern. The directions were easy to understand, and it knit up so quickly.

When my daughter made pot holders last week we didn't want to put such a small amount in the washer, so I tried felting them by hand. I am not a patient person, so when it didn't work after a few minutes, I put some hot water in my Kitchen Aid bowl, stuck the potholders in it, then felted them with the Kitchen Aid, using the dough hook attachment. What can I say, it worked.

The cooler weather here is really getting me in the mood to knit. Last night it actually snowed! If that's not a sure sign to get those needles out for me, I don't know what is!

Ravelry.com - I'm almost there!

When I put my name on the waiting list to get on ravelry.com, there were something like 18,000 people in front of me. Yesterday I checked to see where I was on the waiting list to get on, and there were 900+ people in front of me. This morning I checked and 445 people were in front of me. Tonight I checked and only 45 people are ahead of me. Maybe I will get invited tomorrow!!!!

Holiday KAL-CAL

I have joined my first KAL. Who knew the internet could be this much fun? Anyway, I wanted to post the link to this KAL-CAL. It's put on by Marly (yarnthing) and Sharon (She-knits), both of whom have podcasts that I listen to (see their links to the right). The KAL-CAL officially starts on September 22, so if you need a little motivation to getting your holiday projects finished, sign up! Here's the link: www.holidaykalcal.blogspot.com

Musings from a parent of teenagers

Somehow I seem to always be behind. I'm never caught up on my laundry, I'm forever rushing to get the kids to school, I never seem to get to bed on time to get enough sleep, and I am rarely, rarely on time to work. With life as crazy as it is, any little extra activity can really throw me off. This week was one of those "off" weeks.

It started out on Tuesday. I was taking my younger daughter to the library. As we were walking in, the wind caught her hair and I noticed something glittering on her ear. This should come as no shock to me, but she has pierced her own ear (with the help of a friend, as I find out the next day) - the upper part of her ear. I think what really gets me is she didn't tell me about it. At the point I am speechless, and all I asked her was if she sterilized the needle before she did it. We get done at the library, start to drive away and we see my dh driving toward us. He tells us that our oldest has cut her lip during her color guard practice and may need stitches. I race home - pierced ear all but forgotten - to meet dd. I am envisioning her being driven home, with a huge gash on her lip and blood gushing from the wound. But no, she drives herself home, gets out of the car with what appears to be a little cut on her lower lip. The bleeding has stopped, and I think this is great, she's going to be just fine with a little ice. then I look closer. And closer. No, this is not going to be fine with just ice. The cut is deep, we need to go to emergency.

A quick - quick, ha! - trip to the emergency room. Before rushing out the door I grab my Don't Leave Home Without It items - camera and knitting. While we waited I was able to get quite a bit done on my sock, and I got some great pictures of our trip to ER. I even got to take home tweezers and scissors home as souvenirs. Did you know they are disposable? The nurse asked if I wanted them, since they just throw them away. And to think what they are going to charge me for them. . .

The mate to this sock is what I am currently working on, and what went with me to the ER. It's a striping yarn, using a very simple sock pattern. I love this kind of pattern, since I don't have to think too much when I knit. I am knitting them as a Christmas gift for a friend who loves the Harry Potter books - Gryffindor's colors.

This started my week, but there's more. This story is going to need a post all its own.

I opted for a change of pace this weekend and put my knitting down to work on this page layout. I started on Friday and finished it up this morning. Lots of inking required - much more than I usually do on a page. I was having a major scrapbook block for a while, but this page got me back on track. The patterned paper and diecut embellishments are from Bo-Bunny.

My List

School starts tomorrow. It is after 10:00 pm here and the house is so quiet. All the kids are in bed and - I think - asleep. Starting tomorrow I will officially have all three kids in all day school. The last time our two oldest were in all day school I got pregnant with our youngest. It's a joke around here that I tell about our kids being in school and NO! I am not pregnant! Although if I knew I was going to have three children and was younger, I might have gone for a fourth. Five in a family is just an odd number. Think about it. Lots of rides at amusement parks are for two people. You can't pair up evenly with five. Four people fit much easier in a smaller car than five (thus the SUV we bought a few years ago). That's ok though, I love having a family of five, too.



Some of my mom's family are in town. We had a big barbeque at my mom's house last night. Two of her sisters are here and her niece. We had more family over last night, too. It was fun, but I arrived a little late because I worked at the scrapbook store yesterday. As soon as I got there it was time for dinner, and then it seemed that everyone left shortly after that. We've decided that we need to have these get-togethers on a regular basis. I've thought of having theme dinners when we get together. Any ideas out there? I'd love to hear them. This would be new to me, so I'd love any help I can get.



Before any kind of get together, though, I NEED to get my craft room organized! The craft room is now called the crap room, because it seems to be the room where all the stuff you don't know what to do with gets stuck. Yes, a lot of it is mine, so I need to get working on that. That is high on my list of things to do when the kids are at school and I have a day off. I think I'm going to work on it, and then reward myself when I'm done by spending a day at the scrapbook store and cropping all day with no interruptions.



I've started a new pair of socks - again. I'm working with a striping sock yarn by Cascade Yarns in a superwash. The colors are similar to Gryffindor's colors from the Harry Potter books/movies. I got it at my lys. I also recently bought some yarn through Etsy. It is yarn from Fearless Fibers, superwash Merino colorway Midnight Passion, which is shades of purple. I love the yarn. I I have an idea for this, but I'm not going to mention what it is because it is for Christmas and you just never know if that person might happen to lurk here! You can check out her Etsy shop at: http://www.fearlessfibers.etsy.com/ She has some delicious looking yarn. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I am getting a little sock crazy. After this pair is done I want/need to go on to something different. Something easy, something quick. Any suggestions?



On my list of things to do this week are. . . First, you should know about my list. It is a big white erase board on which the left side I write down things that need to be done around the house - basically chores. On the right side of the list I write down the things I'd like to do once the list on the left is finished. As I am finished with that chore/project, I erase it. Rarely does the whole left side get totally erased, and even more rare is the total erasure of the right side. This week on the left side of my list I will have to add working on my craft room and go through the paperwork on my computer desk (it is pushed next to my hard drive, and is slowly taking over and becoming bigger than the tower!). On the right side of the list I need to add: work on my current socks, and make at least one, and clean the scrapbook junk off of the treadmill. Even though this has the five letter word "Clean" in it, I am still putting it on the right side of my list, because believe it or not I do enjoy cleaning my scrapbook stuff. I just spend more time making it a mess than I do cleaning it. Once the treadmill is cleared, I will have to add "Exercise" to the....left side of the board.



Enjoy the last week of August!

Pictures of socks!

Ok, I'm attempting to add these pictures without the help of my kids. If all goes well the first picture is the "Spiderman" sock I'm knitting up for my 6yo. The second picture is the finished pair of jigsaw socks.