I didn't forget about you guys I promise...

Some of you may know what these are already. To those of you who don’t, they are pure heaven. They are Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses. You must immediately run out and buy yourself a bag and while you are at it buy another one for everyone else and hide your bag. Sams sells them in bigger bags so I actually recommend going there to buy them if you have one near you. They actually taste like those mints that come in a clear upright bag that are pastel colors with little white balls of pure goodness on the bottom.

I haven’t forgotten about you guys I’ve just been out of town for a while and running around with my mother the rest of the time. I swear anytime my family gets together our schedule is determined by food. As soon as we get up, hell before we even go to bed the night before it’s “Where are we going to eat breakfast?” Then as soon as it’s over we begin the “When’s lunch”, “Where are we going for lunch?” The of course starts the dinner questions. It’s like the whole time I was out of town the only thing we did was eat with a bit of driving in between. I haven't even considered stepping on a scale since I've gotten home.

I amazed everyone, while I was gone, with my Lady E. It really is a show stopper isn’t it? I took it foolishly thinking I would get some time to work on it. Well what with all that eating and all I of course didn’t even pick it up. Ok well once, but I think I only got a square done. Now that I’m home and slowing down a bit I’m ready to pick it back up and get this puppy finished. I should’ve had it done by now. I did however complete Knitty’s Sock Monkey Hat. My sister put in a request. She wanted to be unique when she hit the slopes in February. I don’t know how warm it will be but it's sure to get a few laughs. I couldn’t find a good tweedy looking yarn but this yarn with just a bit of fuzz and glitter I think works well. My mother, who by the way is peeking up from the bottom of the picture has since requested one also.

I also finished another pair of the Old World Booties like before. This time they were a tan and dark sage green color. They turned out well. I really just wanted to try out a different bind off.

Well I guess I can leave you with the latest shot of my Lady E, although I’m almost ashamed too since I haven’t made it as far as I should have. Sorry about the color it just didn't turn out right. I think I’m in the low low 20’s as far as tiers go. Good night everyone out there in bloggyland…

Turkey Day is over now on with the knitting...

Sorry about the delay folks. I've had family visiting so needless to say I've been very busy. My mother comes down a bit before Thanksgiving and leaves a bit after the first of the year. The good part about that is that she splits her time between my sister and I so when one of us is about to pull our hair out it's time for her to move on. Kidding Mom, it really is nice to have her come down and be able to stay for such a long time. She moved up North a few years ago so even though my sister and I both probably talk to her just about every day we don't get to see her that often. Anyway my mother flew in the Saturday before Thanksgiving and the shopping started that night (we had to go out in hunt of that illusive Nintendo Wii, which we actually somehow managed to get our hands on on Sunday morning at 10) and didn't stop until Tuesday night. Oh well actually it didn't stop stop, it just took a break til Friday so we could cook, eat and sleep. My sister came in on Wednesday night just in time for Turkey and of course the infamous Black Friday. Oh yes folks we are definately part of that crazy crowd that gets up at 3-4 in the morning to stand line after line in the dark and of course cold. All those who partake in this glorious adventure would agree though, it just doesn't feel like the holidays until you have gotten back home Friday evening bags of goodies in hand and shared you're victory stories and a few horror stories too with those who stayed snuggly warm in the bed until oh about 10, mainly our hubbies. Oh and is it just us but don't most of the gifts end up being for them, what's up with that. Hey to give the guys credit I did actually see quite a few men out there, it surprised me how many I saw, however not a one of them was my husband, he was one of those that stayed snuggly warm in bed until 10. So how was everyones' Thanksgiving, I hope you all had a good one? And how many of you hit the stores Friday morning and what bargins did you get? And for those of you who were smart and slept in, any good dreams ya got to share?

Well with all the chaos I haven't gotten much needle time in, now that everything has slowed down a bit I'm hoping to get going again. I am somehow up to the 20th tier on Lady E, no pics though. At first I was just so close to the end that I figured I'd just wait until she was completed to snap a few more photos. Now, however, it's taken me a bit longer than I thought, so part of me thinks I should show off what I have so far but the other part has asked for a new digi camera for Christmas and thinks that if I take pics of her now what am I going to have to show off when my new camera gets here. Realistically if this baby gets finished before Christmas there's no way I'm waiting that long to show her off, hell I'll have pics up within the hour of completion.

I ripped out all the purpley goodness that is the filing of Baby Tart. A few stitches slipped off the needles and well I couldn't figure out how to get them back on so I finally gave it up and decided to start over with it. I think I'm going to work on this one for a little bit and take just a small break from Lady E just so I don't get burnt out this close to the end, hey I'm just as surprised as all of you that I'm still trucking along on her.

And lastly I've convinced my aunt to try lace. I've ordered the yarn, which I'm hoping gets here today, and made her some stitch markers and a row counter. I figure I'll grab some lotion or hand cream/balm and stick in too. It's all just a little bribe to get her to knit this with me. We are going to do Liesel. I don't think it'll be too hard for her at all. She's finished a pillow with a basketweave stitch and she's made I think she said five pairs of those Weekend mitts that I posted about a while back. I sent her the pattern just a month or two back, I thought it'd be an easy quick project for her well apparently it was. She's giving them out as Christmas presents.

Tuesday's gone with the wind...

Well almost, technically there's still 3 and 1/2 hours left but close enough. Ok so another night without my hubby and I've been knitting away. My Lady E has been going very well. I'm actually impressed that I've gotten as far as I have without starting something new or giving it up yet. It's not hard really, its just that I have knitting ADD. Actually its not just limited to knitting it really covers all aspects of my life. I'm likin' working with the SWS. It feels really good. My husband and mother are both impressed with it. I've been trying to teach my hubby to knit but he's not having it. How great would that be though, I get tired of working on something and hand it to him. Somehow I don't think it would work out that perfectly even if he were willing to learn. Anyway back to Lady E I have just finished the 6th tier and am somewhere in my second skein. I switched to a new skein somewhere in the middle of the second one I was using so I really am not exactly sure how much I've used yet. So here she is. Notice the color difference from yesterday's pic. That's due to Sunday's frogging session I mentioned right after the pic. When I frogged it I changed skeins for some reason. And the weird thing is that even though they are the same color and even the same dye lot I kinda like Saturday's version, how picky is that. I do however like that Tuesday's version is up to tier 6 rather than Saturday's 1 or 2 (can't really remember which right now)

In case you cared here's the felted Old World booties. Aren't those bobbles cute? My sister really likes these. Well she really liked them prefelting she hasn't seen the postfelting pics yet. They are almost cute enough to make me want something to fill them. Just kidding Mom, not yet for this chick.

Monday Monday

So it’s Monday night and hubby is at work tonight. Leaves me plenty of knitting time in front of the TV. Although it’s Monday night and nothing really comes on on Mondays. I used to really like the whole wife swap and nanny shows but not so much anymore. I’m still a complete reality TV whore though. Project Runway and America’s Next Model are my two absolute faves. MTV’s Real World and those Real World/Road Rules competitions rank pretty high on my list as well. And what is up with those Real World people anyway. You know I thought that it was just supposed to be that they were on one show then goodbye, well then they came out with the competition so I thought well hey now they’ll stick around for one more show. No they have now made a career out of doing the competitions. But really, who am I to complain I’m completely addicted to them.

I saw one of my nieces’ scarves, or whatnot, this weekend. She hasn’t gotten too much further on it at all, but I’m surprised she’s still working on it at all. She brings down her basket and tells me she has a question about her knitting. Well she has a couple holes in it and wondered where they came from. I tried to explain that must have dropped a couple of stitches but I don’t think she got it. I guess I should probably try and figure out how to pick up dropped stitches and attempt to fix it but instead I just told her that it’s ok I’ll show her my first scarf and that will make her feel better about her’s.

So I finished my booties this weekend, actually I think I finished them Friday. They are all felted and everything. I haven’t gotten a picture of them all finished yet but here’s one of them prefelting. I’m pretty happy with them. I’m thinking I’m really going to have to look into other ways of binding off. Are there any out there that will still be kinda stretchy when done? That’s definitely what these needed. Truth be told I don’t even know if you could get a foot in, its so tight. Oh well they still look cute.

Then there's Lady E. I started her on Saturday and finished the first tier of triangles see... Then on Sunday I ripped her all out. Yep every bit of her, which wasn't too too much but it was still enough. Well off to knit...

Where were the Trick-or-Treaters?

So guess how many pumpkin bags I had left over last night? 2? No… 8? No…15? No… I had 20 left. 20, and I started out with 20 and still have 20 sitting on my table. We didn’t get one single trick-or-treater.

On the knitting front, I have one Old World Bootie finished. The sole is one color, mine is teal and the rest is another, mine a cream. Well the pattern says to switch the colors on the second. I can’t decide if I want a pair with one cream bootie with a teal sole and one teal bootie with a cream sole or if I want a pair with just two cream booties with teal soles. If I want? Ha I don’t have a child they won’t be for me. Actually if they were for me I would mind the different colors but I’m wondering what others would want. If they turn out good I think they’ll be going to my SIL that I mentioned before. I actually would have preferred teal booties with a cream sole but wasn’t paying any attention when I started them oh well.

You should be so proud of me too. I went to Hobby Lobby to get my nieces some scrapbooks and I didn’t even check out the yarn aisle. Don’t really know what I would’ve gotten but hey I still showed restraint. The scrapbooks, well some of them are 50% off right now. So if you are looking for a scrapbook that isn’t K and Company or Ek Success or a photo album run over and check it out. I got them a set each from Paper Studio. They are pretty cute and each have 12x12, 8x8, and 6x6 all for 20 bucks then with the 50% off I got them each a set for 10 dollars. I was proud of myself and I think they will like them.

And you have to check out the stitch markers I made this weekend. They aren’t as good as the pros but they are good enough for me. I’m in love the blue and teal colors, they remind me of the sea.

Where's the Trick-or-Treaters?

My pumpkin goodie bags are all ready to go. We don’t get too many trick-or-treaters, maybe 15 if we’re lucky, and since we don’t, we tend to toss several good handfuls of candy in their bags. This year I thought it’d be cute since we give out more than just a couple of pieces anyway to make goodie bags. I called my Mother to tell her I had them all done and can you believe it she’s going to her sisters out in the country so she doesn’t have to deal with the t-o-ters. Now let me give you a little background so you can understand how crazy that is. We used to live in this one neighborhood and I kid you not, we used to get more than 200 kids and more like 300. I remember making that special trip to Wally World to get a full buggy of candy. Every year it was the same thing too “one candy bar and a piece of gum or a tootsie roll for the little ones who can’t have gum”. Well we lived there for 12 years and of course the numbers grew as we lived there so we didn’t have any many when we first moved there. But then we moved and the numbers drastically went down. We went from oh 250 to 30 if we were lucky. She was devastated. The second year there our house was the most decorated in the neighborhood, still no more t-o-ters. The third year we had even more decorations than the second, still no more. She lives for the t-o-ters to knock on her door. I don’t get it folks but its true Momma’s place will be locked up and pitch black. Shame on you Mom, just think of those poor kids dressed up in all those great characters carrying that bag of candy. Well this year I’m sorry to say those bags will be a little lighter.

On another note my nieces, 8 and 11, are knitting, I’m so proud. I asked one if she wanted to try it again, her and her mother had tried to learn once before, and she gladly said yes. She’s doing quite well. The younger of the two was mad then because I didn’t have another set of needles on me or another skein I wasn’t in the middle of a project with. As a matter of fact the older was using a set of circs so I ran to Hobby Lobby and grabbed two sets of straights and a skein of a soft fun green yarn I knew the younger would like. They are both doing great with it. The oldest has a couple inches done in about two weeks however as the youngest told me they can’t knit during the week because they have school then if they knitted after school they wouldn’t be able to watch tv and they want to watch tv at least once a day. Then after I showed them my SIL said she wanted me to show her too, she took right off as well. I was/am very surprised how well they all did and still doing.

I can’t forget to update you on my own knitting. I got my dpn’s for the i-cord on my Booga bag and now all I have left is putting the i-cord/handles through it and I’m finished. I’m still working on Baby Tart, I’ve only gotten I think one row of bobbles done. A stitch, well three, came off my needle and I need to fix that before I can move forward on it. It was one of those knit or purl (can’t remember which right now) in the stitch then yo then do it again and again and again and again. Oh and this weekend I also picked up some SWS to start a Lady Eleanor. I’m waiting until I’m finished with Baby Tart to start it but while I was shopping I also grabbed some more felting yarn to try my hand at Interweaves Knits’ Old World Booties. I’m trying the Gold Bobble booties although mine are going to be teal.

Hello Once Again...

Ok so here I am back once again to this somewhat familiar place of bloggington. I visited once before. It was only a short trip though, didn’t get to do much sight seeing. Ok I admit it, I almost killed my blog. I didn’t mean to it just kinda happened. And if you promise not to tell anyone I’ll tell you the truth…I kinda saw it coming. Hell I knew it was coming before I even started. Want to hear another secret, I almost didn’t even come back, I was seriously considering just starting a new one. It’s like when to see starving puppy on TV and you almost have to look away. Well I didn’t even want to face the fact that I had completely forgot to love my blog and feed him and call him Hal.

Actually the real reason he is now near death is that I put down my needles for almost an entire…gasp…year. But now I’m back and going to keep it up. I’m really enjoying it this time. I don’t know that I didn’t before, but I really really am now. And yes that white baby blanket down there is still on my needles not yet finished, actually its just a few rows past where it was when I posted the pic. It’s about half finished I started it again but screwed it up somewhere so I need to frog a couple rows then I’ll be back whizzing away…

I have however tried my hand at a Booga Bag. It’s almost finished, just waiting on the set of dpn’s I ordered so I can make the i-cord, then felting then, I’ll be done. I used Lion Brand Wool Works instead of Noro though. It was my first project back after my absence and I didn’t want to invest in Noro to only have it still hanging off my 10 ½ circs next Christmas. After I finished the booga bag I started Baby Tart, of which I absolutely fell in love with even though I have no children to knit it for. I know a baby blanket and a baby tart and no child, I can only explain it by saying I’m strange. And no I’m not giving away that baby blanket I’m putting it up for my kid one day, the baby tart I am considering gifting it my SIL who’s preggers. So I am in the middle of it. I have the crust all finished just working on the filing that I’ve frogged for the second time today thank you very much. I’ve got it turned the right way and stitch markers now so I think I’m on the right track. Here it is so far. I’ve only gotten back up to the first purl row after starting the filing. Oh and don’t look at the bind-off edge (how exactly would you say that, bound off edge, binding edge hmmm?). I’m thinking I was supposed to do a different type of bind off, only I only thought of that after I had already finished this one and cut the yarn, oh well…..