Tree Catcher

I'm through row 83 of the border for The Queen. You can see the full miter in the corners and the spiders marching around.

I'm just starting the lace mesh now (top holes.) It still seems like a billion stitches per round but, for me,  it's better than knitting 4 separate borders, then sewing them together.

"hear ye, hear ye... all hail the Queen!"

"Poser! I've been wearing the real crown since the beginning!"

"Kamati, your crown doesn't have jewels! You're the poser!"

"Hey! I thought I was next in line for the crown!"

"Smoothie, you're a smurf... I mean surf. You'll never wear the crown."

Yep, everyone wants to be royalty, because royalty rules.
In reality, the crown fits the lamb because she has the biggest head. :)

Tomato News

Look at Topsey! See all the flowers?! AND the huge tomato!!

There are 5 tomatoes and lots of flowers. Can you believe it?!

Not to be outdone, Planter has lots of flowers too, and a tomato!

Can you believe it?! We might get salsa this summer! :)

How to Catch a Tree

Mr K is catching trees at grandma's house. It's a bamboo pole. I think he looks like Brother with that baseball cap on. I'm sure Corey can't wait to catch them too.

It reminds me of when we were little and Dad had us practicing our casting. We had real fishing poles, and never caught a tree. :)

That last picture is your classic pee shot (if you ask me.) lol!

Happy Knitting!
I hope the sunshine has arrived at your house.

Happy Hibiscus

"Wooly, will you take my picture?"
"Sure, what do I get?"
"You get to take me to lunch... make me lunch... take me shopping?"

Hibiscus Cardigan - Anne Featonby

Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift

3mm + 3.25mm needles

size 6 AB crystal beads

size 38.5" 

I knew I had to make this at first sight. Pink & flowers! I added beads to the center of the O's just for fun, It adds a little surprise & shine.

I think this would make a fun first fair isle project. The only shaping is for the neckline. You learn steeking & knitting front bands (no buttonholes) and it's PINK!

Beautiful design, Anne! I love it! :)

Meanwhile...

Wooly and I went to the store and the bill was exactly $10. The cashier said to Wooly, "WOW! I guess you get a hug!" I was thinking, "Hello. Standing right here." Wooly totally missed it because he was staring at the display - '$10.00'

Then the cashier say, "I guess you need to buy a lottery ticket!" Wooly says, "I already have. If I win, I'm coming back and giving you $500. See, we're willing to share, so there's no reason why we shouldn't win." We left giggling because nobody believes us, when we tell them that. I told him to we should give her $1000.

Day after the lottery drawing, Wooly heads back to the store and buys another ticket, picks up more grocery and says to the cashier, "Well, we didn't win. I bought another ticket. 'The Wife' says I get to give you $1000 dollars if we win this time." She says, "I bought one too, so if I win, I'll give you $1000" (notice how she said 'you?' What about me?)

Needless to say, Wooly really likes this girl now and tells me he thinks she's Cuban... Latino.

I tell my Mom this whole story...

A few days later we head to my parent's house to drop off the yearly Mom's Day fuchsia basket and gifts. We're chatting it up with them and I say to Wooly, "Why is there green glitter on your mustache?" Wooly says, "Huh?" and wipes his mouth.  Mom says, "Who have you been kissing that's wearing green glitter lipstick?!"  Wooly says, "hey, are you really worried about it?"  I say, "Aren't you glad I pretend like I'm worried about it?" Wooly says, "HEY..."  I say, "Was she Latino?!"

Mom and I died laughing. What I wanted to add is that 'hay is for horses' (right, Malcolm?!) LOL! He really had green glitter on his mustache. *sigh*

Did you know, it was also Auntie Michele's Day?!

Corey is 1 and Mr K is 3. Are they not the cutest ever? OMG.

I celebrated by buying geraniums for my planters. Different shades of pink & coral. Mom gave me 2 red ones. Looks a lot like my Hibiscus Cardigan!

Then again, every day is Michele's Day. ;)

Now I've got the win the lottery...

Happy Knitting!
Next time we'll see who's wearing The Crown... :)

Crowns All Around

"Take a Crown, pass it around... no wait, it's 'beer'... never mind."

I'm on row 60 of the border now and have Crowns all around. I'm following Q-knitter and doing a Full Miter. She knit her borders separately, then sewed them together. I refuse to sew, and am doing YO, K1(center stitch), YO between borders and knitting all 4 borders at the same time in the round.

I've got a few spiders knitted now (top, looks like eyelets.) Boy are they fun to knit. :)

I'm very happy with how it's going and rather obsessed with it.

I've gotten to row 100 on my Hibiscus. Still adding beads to the center of the O's. Eleven rows away from the neck opening. I love this knit too. :)

What Would You Do?

Wooly is asleep in his chair. I'm watching tv. I see something moving across the carpet and scream. Wooly jumps up, looks at me pointing and screaming, grabs a napkin, dives on the floor and says,

"Holey moley! You could throw a saddle on him and ride him to work!"

"AUGH! Hahaha, ride him to work. That's the hugest spider EVER!!!"

"What would do if I weren't here?!"

 "I would grab this ball of yarn (pink Lacey Lamb) and throw it at him!!! (I throw it as hard as I can, right were the spider was, and watch it bounce into the tv stand.)

"But, that wouldn't do anything."

"I would grab my shoe, and wack him with it!!!"

"Then you would have spider goo on the carpet."

"I don't care!!!"

"Would you pick him up and throw him away after you wacked him? or would you just leave him there and wait for me to pick him up?"

"Wait for you!!!"

"Haha! I wonder where he came from?! Under your chair?!"

"I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT!!!!  UGH! Good thing you're here."

Tomato Experiment

 Wooly saw the Topsey Turvey commercial and decided he wanted to try it. We decided to buy 2 plants and do an experiment - one in a planter & one in the Topsey Turvey. Both plants (Bush Early Girl) were the same size, same planting soil, same fertilizer, same amount of sun & water....

The Topsey Turvey has 2 flowers blooming, but looks terrible. It's trying to lift it's head up. I'm wondering if it can photosynthesize through the underside of it's leaves. It looks stressed out to me.

The Planter has lots of buds, but no flowers blooming. It looks relaxed.

It's fun, because it gives us something to watch. On our walks, we look for other Topsey Turveys. There's a house with strawberry turveys, so we'll see if they get fruit.

I told my friend Tracy that we're just a garden gnome away from being in a trailer park... She died laughing.

I just want some tomatoes...
No spiders. No beer. No garden gnome. Just tomatoes.

And I want to be Queen. Where's my crown? ;)

Happy Knitting! Watch out for spiders.

It's All Looney

I picked up 1604 stitches for the borders. I find humming a tune helps distract me. I Ktb of each border stitch so their legs would be crossed, like a proper Shetland shawl.

I'm knitting in the round, so knitting odd rows and purling the even row. I was worried about purling in pattern, but found it's just a little slower. Glad I'm doing it this way. I hate sewing pieces together.

Through row 20 of the border. You can see the 'crossed legs' in the middle of the picture. Those are some huge jewels on that crown. Don't be too critical, in the Wise Words of Wooly, "It always looks like shit until you block it..."  Gotta love him. :)

It's ALL looney

Wooly has been having his own drama. I kept telling him we don't need drama. That's why I didn't blog on Wednesday... drama! I was relieved to go to work on Thursday until I got on the elevator & Helen told me that we have to stay at our desks unless we're on break & absolutely NO visiting... WTF? Sure enough, opened my email & there it was in black & white. They even have a bitch on patrol. So now I'm getting angry. Deep breaths.

We've been doing monthly furlough & were scheduled for one on Friday. We get an email that there's a 'crisis' so no furlough, you ALL have to be here tomorrow. WTF? Not that I care, I didn't have plans, but some people were heading out of town for the 3 day weekend. Cheryl shows up running her mouth about how we should be thankful we're needed because they could send us all on permanent furlough... Patricia, in her calm voice, was trying to reason with her. I said, "Yeah, you tell her Patricia!"  which led to Cheryl wagging her finger in my face while standing over me & bitching me out. I stood up. Threw my pen down. Put my hands on my hips and very calmly ripped her a new one without swearing or raising my voice - yay me! Pauline told Cheryl to leave and Patricia was leading her away and I said, "Yeah, walk away Cheryl. Go back to your desk. I guess the 'no visiting/stay at your desk' rule doesn't apply to everyone!" All the while, she was still running her mouth. My neighbors nervously giggled and said, ""Geez Michele, we've never seen you that mad.... ever! You got my back?!" I said, "Absolutely! Sorry guys! I'm sitting down now." Then I saw a Supervisor walk by & look over at me, I nodded at her and could tell she was going after Cheryl.

Right before we left, we got an email saying there's no crisis, so we get our furlough. Which was great, but too late. I was stressed out. My neck was killing me. I didn't knit that night.

The next day, Wooly hands me this...

I love my friends! I laughed so hard! and still do every time I look at this. Notice how she is very excited but well behaved and he... is not?! HAHAHAA! Kinda looks like me & Wooly, eh?! LOL!

I told them I'm showing this to everyone I know. We all need some levity.

So, don't let the 'turkeys' get you down! The sun it out today!

Love you all! Maybe next time I'll have a crown to show you! :)

Spring Fever

Just to give it a shiny surprise, I'm adding crystal AB beads (size 6) to the centers of the O's on my Hibiscus.

It makes me smile and the colors are fulfilling my Spring Fever. I wore my capris yesterday and wished I had this sweater done so I could have worn it. :)

"Let's help her!"

"STEP AWAY from The Queen you two! She's coming!"

I've got 188 of 208 edge points done on The Queen. Twenty more to go... I can smell victory! I'm not looking forward to picking up 1200+ stitches for the border. But, The Princess had ~864 stitches in it's border, so what's ~400 more? Don't answer that! lol :)

I still love this color and Phoenix yarn.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of this

I got my copy of The Wedding Ring Shawl. It came with samples of yarn. I'm really glad I didn't order the Gossamer Cashmere. It's super fine. I'm sure I could snap it just by blinking!

I'm probably going to use Phoenix. I want to dye it myself, so I'm thinking of colors. I'm still in love with Collete's red silk one that she dyed. But, I also love turquoise... and you can't go wrong with a pale lilac... I just know I'm not knitting it in white. I learned my lesson from The Princess - you gotta love the color cuz you'll be staring at it for months! The fun is in the planning and I won't be starting until I get The Queen done, so I've got lots of time. :)

The gargoyle is back. This is Mama. She's the original feral cat that our neighbor brought in pregnant a few years ago. After she delivered four kittens, they got them all fixed. I think it's just Mama and Pachino (black scruffy) left.

I like this photo of her. It reminds me that I need to get off the fence. I can't always be a spectator.

When I moved in with Wooly, I brought my dog with me. She passed away in 2006. Now I want another dog, but Wooly says no, not until you retire... he will be my dog. So, my Rottweiler & I have been walking around the neighborhood 4 times a week. We noticed a lot of houses for sale and found out they're mostly foreclosures. There was a real cute rambler by the park that we've always liked, so we looked in the windows. The next day they were doing an inspection & the following day it was sold.

It's hard to be content. I should be happy I've got my health, my job, my friends/family, my knitting projects, my Rottweiler.... Then again, I think it's all part of the human struggle of always wanting something better. Or maybe, it's just Spring Fever!

Oh, and we saw a coyote in the backyard on Sunday! Urban wildlife. Gotta love it!

Happy Spring!
I gotta go knit some more edge points... :)

Knitting Olympics GOLD!

 

Dale of Norway Fox Sweater Kit - $$$

Days of 2010 Vancouver Olympics - 17

Virtual Gold Medal - PRICELESS!

 

Dale of Norway Fox Sweater

Dale of Norway Falk - Black, Copper, Natural, Tartan Green & Flame Red

2.75, 3 & 3.5mm needles

So, you remember Stephanie put out the challenge. She got her crew neck Whistler finished. It made me happy to see her wearing it. :) It was a mad dash for me to get done too. By Sunday night, I had the body finished and was sweating getting 2 sleeves + finishing done. Wednesday night I asked myself if this was fun? (NO!) and if I wanted to quit? (no.) Friday night I had the sleeves done. Saturday I sewed & cut the arm holes, sewed sleeves in & knit the neckband. Sunday I tacked everything down & steamed. 

 

I made the sweater shorter by leaving off the ribbing on the sleeves & bottom. I folded up, like I did on Whistler. I also made it narrow, only have 5 foxes per side. I had to ignore my 'critical eye.' I don't understand why the wrist pattern doesn't match the pattern on the bottom edge of the sweater.

 

So here are Kamati & I watching the Gold medal hockey game. I know nothing about hockey. How many periods in the game? (3) You broke your stick?! Are you kidding me? (It happens often.) Why are they fighting? (It happens often, you heard the joke... I went to a fight & a hockey game broke out...) How come they're always by our goal? Where's our goalie? Where'd he go? How come no one is helping? (ZZzzzzzz...) I think I wore Wooly out. Did you hear me screaming when we tied it up 2-2?!

Remind me NOT to knit a sweater for the next Olympics. It was a struggle. I want to watch the Olympics, not knit. But, it's done. I got my gold medal (see sidebar). And I think my Fox rocks! LOL! ;)

I'm officially NOT knitting for a week, or two. I got burnt out. I ran Spindrift over my finger & said, "Ewww." Now that's a shame. I do have a shawl I want to make. And want to make Wooly a Dale (I'm forcing it on him.) and was measuring his tummy. He'll have you know his chest is still bigger (by 1/2") ! lol!

Happy Knitting! I'll be joining you soon! :)

Whistler Gold

My first visit to Canada, I was around 2 yrs old, we were at Stanley Park (Vancouver BC) and I ran around collecting all these maples leafs that were everywhere on the ground. I showed Mom who said, "Wow Michele, those are some big maple leafs! They're bigger than your head! Look at the flag... it has a maple leaf on it. We're in Canada..." My eyes got big... I love Canada! Maple Leafs - YAY!

 

When the Knit a Norwegian KAL started, Whistler was an obvious choice. Some of the events will be held at Whistler for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics...

Dale of Norway Whistler 2005

Dale of Norway Heilo - Black, Cherry Red, Natural & Goldenrod

2.75mm, 3mm & 3.5mm needles

size small

 

It is my first Norwegian sweater. It wasn't easy. I called it 'My Project from Hell.' 

I had problems with tension. I figure I knitted it twice. It killed my sewing machine, so I had to borrow my Mom's. I ended up with at black collar instead of red because the pattern was wrong - the symbols for red & black are switched. I noticed after I sewed in the zipper & tacked all the facings down. Now I like the black better (do you really want the black plackets pointing at your chin/nose?!)

I need to thank the members of the KAL who were so supportive, encouraging & sympathetic. And my Mom for the use of her sewing machine. Without you, I would have gave up.... instead...

Look at the maple leaf! It's bigger than my head! The hat is a bonus. I love my sweater & hat. :)

My goal was to be finished in time for The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics! YAY me in pajama pants! Why is Kamati guarding the yarn? Why is Smoothie staring me down?

 

Whoa, now it's getting interesting. What are those things made of? Are they totems?

I joined the 2010 Knitting Olympics. I will be making my Dale of Norway Fox sweater. I get to start when the Olympic Flame is lit and have to be done before it's extinguished - 17 days. Why am I doing this? I'm Going For Gold! The YarnHarlot - Stephanie is putting out the challenge. She will be knitting Whistler! I'm sure she will finish in time. She's super speedy, skilled & Canadian. :)

 

Yay! The flame is lit! (Wooly went to sleep, so I had to take the picture.) It's past midnight. Why? Because they aired it on a delay. Jerks! So I casted on & went to bed.

This morning I woke up early & got this done. 

Going for Gold baby!