A Penguin, An Owl and a HUGE Ball of Yarn

February is another month of birthdays for our family! Our oldest granddaughter, Nicole, turned 16 this year.  Where has the time gone?   One day, when she was out on Pinterest, she saw a cute French penguin and she showed it to her mom. Her mom, showed it to me and the rest is history.  :)  I found a pattern for a similar penguin and then added the mustache, scarf and beret.   This little guy stands about 5 inches tall.

Then, on February 14, Claire turned 13!  She loves owls, and I wanted to make her a fun owl.  Lots of fun colors for her owl.

 

My birthday was in January and I have a very good friend, Debbie, who lives in Minnesota.  She sent me two gifts!!! One gift is this wonderful skein of her handspun yarn and I immediately wound it into a ball of yarn.  My swift doesn't hold the size skein that it was, so I put the yarn on two chairs and wound it by hand.  I love this yarn!!!! Thanks, Deb!!

 Here is the ball of yarn all ready to go.  This color below is closer to the real color than the one above.

 

The skein measured about 440 yards of yarn.  I have decided to make a crochet vest pattern that is from Lion Brand. Here's the link to the pattern.  The pattern was written by Doris Chan and she has some very beautiful designs.

 

These mittens are beautiful!! They are the other part of my birthday gift.  I absolutely love them! Debbie, you are an exquisite knitter and spinner.

 

Remodeling, Light Weight Gray Scarf, Every Last Yard

When we were remodeling the bathroom and laundry room downstairs, we put in pocket doors.  I LOVE my pocket doors.  But, to do that we had to rip out some of the old paneling on the walls, what a shame(not!). I don't miss that paneling one bit. :) But, in doing that, we ended up having to rip the carpet off of the stairs, darn(not!). I don't miss that either. Haha!

 

But, to my surprise, probably not my hubby's surprise though, cause he is very experienced in remodeling, having done it professionally, we didn't have a nice find under that carpet.......

 

First off, the crew that installed the carpet must have used about 2,000+ staples in the pad under the carpet and then about 2,000 nails in the carpet! At least it felt like that many, I don't' think we counted.  Of course, in ripping out the carpet those little buggers stayed in the wood.  Yep, for us to have to walk on.... Finally one night we spent a couple of hours and removed all of them. Yes, we. I helped. I do help with these projects, when I am allowed. LOL!! Sometimes my help isn't always help. LOL!

 

So here are the steps after the crazy staples and nails were removed. Hubby did have to sand the wood and make it pretty. Then we had to go to the big box hardware store for paint and sealer.

 

 

After painting every other step, so we could still travel down there, my studio is down there after all. He finished the painting. Aren't the stairs wonderful????  I am so happy with them.

 

I am having fun knitting, and crocheting, light weight scarves! Here is one of my newest triangle ones, listed on etsy.  It is made with cotton yarn and has glass beads along the bottom edge and 3 larger glass beads, one on each corner.

 

For me, I finished my Every Last Yard sweater.  It was designed so that you could use up all the yarn you purchased for it, by saving up enough yarn at the end to bind off and be done.  It is knit from the top down.  I love the lace pattern at the bottom of the sleeves and sweater body. Well, I did have an entire skein left over, but that is ok. I used Brown Sheep yarn.

 

Here it is! I love wearing it!