Ravellenic Knitting

My first Olympic knitting project was this Citron Shawl. I had entered it in the Works in Progress Wrestling event.  :)  I had started it a year ago, but quickly put it away, not sure if I liked the colors.

I took it out at the start of the Olympics and it is now finished.  I have to admit, that when done and blocked, I love the colors!  Who would've thought.

This spring I had purchased some cotton sock monkey brown yarn and sock monkey red yarn at Hobby Lobby.  I wanted to make something with it, so I found this tiny sock monkey pattern.  I had entered this little guy in the Toy Toss competition. 

 My third project was cup cozies.  I actually planned to make one, from the left over yarn above, but had plenty of yarn to make 2! Actually, I still have yarn, but it is in the stash with the other cotton yarns that I have. The cozies were entered in the Homestuff Hammerthrow competition.

I have one more project to go.  It is a stuffed teddy bear. It is started, but not near finishing.  I have 3 days to go.  Not sure if I will cross the finish line with this one, but I am going to try.

Kitchen Curtains, plus

When we moved into our house in the woods, I knew I was going to have "fun" with supplying window treatments for it.  For one, I really didn't want to take away the view of the woods, but then, I did want a bit of privacy.  Of course, those who have been here would say, "Privacy from what? The squirrels."  :)

The previous owner of this house, had remodeled the kitchen and dining room. He took out the wall between the two rooms, making one huge kitchen.  He also, put in three fairly large kitchen windows.  The view out those windows is great, but the western setting sun can be blinding when cooking dinner. 

We went for years with nothing at the windows.  I measured the windows and figured out how much fabric I would need for curtains.  Bought some fabric, didn't like it when I got it home.  Did that twice..........

Bought the curtain rods, LOVED them and The UPS Store guy put them up.  Then they sat empty. and empty. and empty. and empty, for what seemed like a year, maybe more....

FINALLY,  I had a brilliant idea! I have loved Early American, Folk Art, Antiques and now Shabby Chic decorating.  The idea for the windows incorporates those decorating styles and was embroidered dresser scarves! (Do you remember those?)

So, Rebekah and I went off to Canton(flea market), and voila! here are my curtains. :)  None are the same, but tried to make sure that each one had blue in them. 

There are three windows, so I took two pics. The center window is in each picture.

Another project that I have been working on, is a baby gift.  The UPS Store guy's cousin has had her first baby.  So, I thought that it would be fun to send something hand made for the baby to her.

I designed the shrug and hat. The flower came out of the flower book by Leslie Stanfield, that I mentioned in the previous blog entry.

Since I don't have a baby at my house, I have brought out one of my favorite baby dolls, that I used to play with, to model for us. 

Projects

I have three wonderful sisters-in-law.  Right now, one of them, Donna, is receiving chemo and fighting back hard to recover.

So, I decided that I need to make some soft and fun hats and a shawl. The shawl, even though it is a hot summer in the northeastern US, is helping in the air conditioning of the hospital.

I found the pattern for the hat below from LionBrand.com, it is a free download.  The pattern calls for fun fur yarn and another yarn to be held with it as you knit.  I used a purple worsted weight cotton.

The pattern for the flower is from the book 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet, by Lesley Stanfield. It is the Zinnia pattern.



 This crocheted green hat is a pattern that I found on Ravelry.  It is named, Ridge Hat with Brim,and written by Kool Stitch. The great flower on this hat is included in the directions for the hat.

This shawl is a variation of my pattern, that is named Terrific Shoulder shawl. I made the shawl longer than the pattern says to, and added a great edging to the bottom of the shawl.  Sorry that I don't have a picture on the mannequin, or a person.  :/ I forgot to do that.  I was so excited when I finished it and how the striping of the yarn worked, that I didn't think about an "up" picture.  The yarn that I used is Lion Brands Impressions, a bulky weight easy care acrylic. 

So, in the studio, I am working on a couple of new patterns, but also, trying to finish up UFO's (unfinished objects). 

I don't know about you, but with knitting, my mind can have it done tomorrow, but reality is that my hands don't work that fast.  :)  I have made a list, checked it twice and am going to finish the 20+ projects.  I will let you see them as I finish, I want the UFO's either finished or ripped out.

A New Pattern

I have been very busy working on some new patterns, and some family projects.  Today I want to show you my new pattern.

Its name is Ma Cherie.  I love this little shawl. It is quick, works up on size 19 US knitting needles and uses between 150 and 220 yards of yarn. There are now two sizes for it. One size, the shorter size, is shown in the top 4 pictures and there is a longer size, which is shown in the 5th picture.

 The teal and red ones are from bulky weight yarns.  The teal is a Bernat yarn and the red one is a Lion Brand yarn.

I have found this little shawl, great in air conditioned restaurants and I think it will be wonderful in the winter too. It adds so much to any outfit, really.

 This off white one, is made from worsted weight cotton yarn.

The off-white one below, is the longer version.  Some of the knitters, who tested this for me, wanted a longer one.  So, we added that version to the pattern, too.



This pattern can be found in my Etsy shop, here. Or in my Ravelry shop . I even have some finished ones in my Etsy shop, too.

Hero Rush

Hero Rush is, quite honestly, new to me. :) But, not my son-in-law(Tad) and daughter(Anna). It is a 5K obstacle course, put on by a local fire department, and it benefits mainly the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation of the USA.

Today, I had the pleasure of attending the Hero Rush in Irving, TX, to watch Tad, run the course. It was amazing to me and I wanted to share it with you.

Tad is the man in the white t-shirt on the top of the platform. This is the beginning of the race, they climbed the stairs and are sliding down the poles, while fire sirens are blaring in the background.

At this point they jog/run a bit and find their way through a few obstacles, one being climbing rope and then walking down from 100 feet in the air on what looked like a fireman's water hose! Then more jogging and eventually rewarded with this slimey pool, which was to simulate hazardous waste. :)  Tad said it was slimey and pretty gross feeling. Remember, firemen make this course to simulate their jobs!

There were about 5 more obstacles that I missed, because the trail for us to follow the participants, wasn't clearly marked and we had the stroller.

One that I did see, but didn't get pictures of, was each individual was having to hoist 2 connected car/pick-up size tires over and under the vaults. Apparently they weigh about the amount of a person.

When they came back out of the woods, the part I didn't see, they crawled through a smokey maze and then climbed a rope type ladder into these huge containers filled with soap suds(below). 

Then down the rope ladders. If you look closely, you can see soap suds all over the ground.

Everytime they started to get hot, there was another water challenge in front of them. This is a great idea, since it was about 90F when I was there at 10:00am. (The race had more start times all through out the day)

This challenge looked really good to me! Except, they had to climb up to the top, inside those black plastic tubes, on what was no more than pieces of wood secured to the wall, if I understood that right. Then slide down, and fall into a huge pool of water/mud. 

They then jogged to the ladder that took them into a burning building and across the building and down another ladder.  (I did wonder about this one, as we walked under it)  :)

The finish line!  But, just before it, you can see the smoke, another fire in a fire pit, that they had to jump over to get to the end.

He made it through and did receive a medal for finishing. The happy family.

I NEED chocolate! :)

Did you ever have one of these days? You wake up(Ha, should've known better), determined that it will be a good day, and you have 20 things to do?  Well, do you ever make it? OR does it go bust?  :)  My day today went bust.  :)

I just wish someone had been here to film this, cause I imagine it was pretty funny. Although, I wasn't laughing at the time.

As I was getting my ingredients out to make my blender cheesecake recipe, I was thinking that I should share this with you on my blog.  Yep, the cheesecake is sooo easy that everyone could make this. Until.......

So, here's the scene. I have all of my ingredients out, screw the base on my 38 + year old blender.(yep, wedding present) and put the first four ingredients in there and whirr it. Good, everything is fine, no problems. So, I cut up all of the softened cream cheese into tiny pieces, put them in there and turn it back on. OK, still working everything is OK and I turn my back to set the timer and WHOOSH!!!  The top pops off and as I turn around the glass pitcher goes flying off and lands on the floor!  Oh, and if that wasn't enough, the blades are still whirring at top speed, spitting milk, eggs, sugar, cream cheese all over the counter, cabinets, and floor! Ohhhhhhhhh, there went my day........

To make matters worse, The House in the Woods, is a fixer upper. The previous family put indoor/outdoor carpeting in the kitchen......... Not being MY priority, it is still there. How in the world am I going to get that mess out of the carpet?

I picked up the errant blender and placed it in the sink. Rolled up the throw rug and put that in the sink. Then found the dust pan and a small cutting board, for the firm straight edge, and tried my best at scraping this mess up. Then I scrubbed the carpet.  Oh, and I had to get if off the cabinets and off the counters, but those were easy in comparison. :)

I started to rinse off the blender and then said, NOPE. Off you go. I am not taking another chance with you. Everything was hooked up correctly and you blew your top.  Into the trash it went. Truthfully, I was a little upset in throwing it away.  It was like a friend.  I mean I used it for 38+ years.  I know the color isn't vogue, but it was my friend........

With that, I thought, crumb, now I need a new blender. ug.   AND just as quick I remembered, NO, I have a Ninja. :) Out the Ninja came and I made this chocolate pie on the other side of the recipe card. The directions say to put sweetened whip cream on top. I don't have that. After all I was supposed to be serving cheese cake.  But, I have ice cream!!  Ha!

So, today, instead of the easy cheesecake recipe, here is an easy brownie pie recipe.  :)

Impossible Chocolate Cream Pie
(it makes its own crust!)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 squares(1 ounce each) melted unsweetened chocolate(cooled)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup biscuit mix(calls for Bisquick, but I use Pioneer Baking Mix)

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease 9 inch pie plate. Place all ingredients in blender container. Cover and blend on high 1 minute. Pour into pie plate. Bake until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center, about 30 minutes. Cool completely. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

And yes, knitting is still happening!  I have joined a Knit ALong(KAL) with Jane Thornley. Jane is a knitting designer who thinks outside the box and doesn't follow a lot of traditional knitting rules.

I am working on a shawl. The upside down card is my color inspiration and the yarns are what I am using. All of my yarns are made by me.  One is an old silk garment, dyed and cut into strips.  The rest is handspun yarn. Some yarns are wool, some cotton and the off white one is mohair.

Oh, and I decided after having scrubbed the carpet and stepping on it and it feeling slimey(eeeew!) that I needed to steam the carpet. So, I took out the carpet steamer and have that portion of the kitchen carpet steam cleaned.

Fun projects and links to patterns!

I have been on a baby bootie craze.  I guess having a 5 month old grandson would do that to a gal. :) I wanted to make him some colorful booties. This is them! I used only 100% cotton yarns for these. The tie inserted at the ankle, seemed to keep them on. Shocker! The pattern I used for these is from Ravelry, found here. I did change up the pattern a bit, but my changes worked. :)



Next, I decided to have fun making dolls!!! I made these two dolls, one for each of our granddaughters. The pattern came from Interweave Press Knit's magazine, Summer, 2002.  The pattern is named Best Friend Doll, by Sandy Cushman. You will see my JoJo doll on my blog, she is knit from this pattern too. :) I must say, these dolls were a hit! The girls had fun with them most of the afternoon.
I made them to sort of look like the girls. One has blue eyes and the other brown. Then I used different brown cotton yarns, cut to be close to the length of each one's hair. Both girls wear glasses, so I fashioned glasses out of craft wire.  HINT: If you know a little/young girl with glasses, putting glasses on her doll is a big plus!
Pattern Here. The dolls are made from 100% cotton, but the clothing is a mixture of types of yarns.

Last, but not least, is Laurie's beautiful shawl. Laurie used her beautiful handspun yarn and made this shawl.
The pattern is a free pattern from Crystal Palace Yarns. The name is Fan Shawl.