How many days until Christmas?

How many days until Christmas?

Hello everyone!

Are you all getting in the spirit of the season?

Have you gotten out your Christmas music?

Is your tree up?

How about those Christmas cards???

Yesterday I focused on my Christmas knitting – and yes, I am knitting diligently away on my holiday projects! 

But, lest you all think that I am doing nothing else to prepare for the season – I have enlisted the assistance of Ann to help me create my holiday cards! 

As you can see, I have paper and stamps and I even have an idea of what I want to do…

All that is left is execution! 

So Ann, Blogless-Mary, and I will work on that part on Friday night!  I will even make a bit of dinner for us all. 

So, stay tuned for the creative genius to emerge!

And you should really go listen to Jingle Bells soon!  I know that Bing and Perry are coming to my house today! 

Christmas is a comin'

Christmas is a comin'

Hello Everyone!  Hope your Thanksgiving Holiday was filled with much to be thankful for!  

Now, with Christmas looming LARGE in front of me.  I have visions of knits dancing in my head!  Many visions of knits!!  You see, I have this stash that is coming in quite usefully right now! 

Who knew!! 

Hint to all knitters – don’t ever let anyone give you grief over the size of your stash. 

 Tell them that you are saving up for a “rainy day”. 

No job = stash knitting!  Very happy stash knitting too.

Now, on to the photo’s!

I did spin up some pencil roving I got from Friends of Wool.  This is some nice stuff!  Merino – and it is a dream to spin!  This was a crazy orange, red, yellow colorway – boy, this is just my colorway!   I got another bag of some great greens – this will become the Chevron Scarf from Weekend Knits – for me!!  My handspun, hand knit up!  This will not be started until after the Christmas knits are completed though!

Now, on to the Christmas knits!  Here is a simple sock pattern – very simple people!  Knit time – 2 days – not knitting all day either.  Maybe a total of 10 hours of knitting.  So, these will be for my son – I did an “eye of the partridge” heel for a little difference.  Nice?  I need to block them and they will be done.  Ends are all woven in as well!  Yarn:  Berrocco Ultra Alpaca, just over 1 skein.

Next up, daughter #2 socks!  She loves my socks – LOVES them!  Same basic sock pattern – with a small cable up the sides.  I will do a W/T heel on these to keep the cable pattern running smoothly along.  This is about an  hour of knitting time – just over 4 inches completed.  Yarn:  Berrocco Ultra Alpaca.  These are such nice cushy socks!  And, knitting on size 6’s is not all bad either. 

On to daughter #1 – daughter #2 saw this hat on the cover of IK Holiday Gifts – and promptly said – that hat looks like Rachel!  So, last night – I found the yarn online, ordered it, and I am hoping it arrives soon!  This will also be knit before Christmas! 

Other holiday knits on the horizon…

a “Holland” color hat for Sam…

socks for Rachel…

an assortment of mittens for Heidi, Sam, Rachel, and some of their friends who have placed their request…

The mitten book arrived yesterday at Friends of Wool. 

So, what are you all knitting for Christmas?????

Have a great day everyone!

Thanksliving

Hello Everyone!

Are you traveling somewhere for Thanksgiving?  If you are – be careful in your travels, you will be traveling with the “masses” as all the news programs have told us. 

Also, as the newspaper informed me this morning, today is the “kick off” of the holiday party season – and the local police will be out in force tonight targeting druken drivers. 

Did you all know that Thanksgiving Eve was a night to party? 

It is one of the biggest nights for drunken driving. 

Really?!?

Okay, here is my question – aren’t they having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow? 

Who is cooking? 

I can assure you that I cannot imagine heading to my local watering hole tonight – I have WAY to much work at home to do! 

Now, that is not saying I might not have a glass of wine as I talk with family while I am working on “turkey feast preparation”! 

I obviously live a sheltered life as I was clueless on this front page fact!

That being said – it is with a very thankful heart that I end today’s post with some of the things I am thankful for:

Rose and Ruby for being there and listening to me.  Also, for making me feel useful – it means more than you could ever know.

Mary and Ann for being such good friends. 

My children for the blessings they bring to my life.  And, they are blessings even with the challenges that teenagers bring! 

My parents – I am so very blessed that I still have my parents – many friends no longer do, and I am thankful I still have mine here.

This blogging community and the friends I have found through it. 

My faith – without it I am not certain I could get through the day. 

And last, but certainly not least, Kyle. 

So, as you work on preparing for your Thanksgiving feasts tomorrow – my wish to you is that you will find much to be thankful for in your day.  And, may you take those blessings with you in your days following, that your Thanksgiving may become Thanksliving.

You are all in my thoughts – Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Weekends are for learning

Hello everyone! 

How can it be Monday already??  Especially when my brain is still back on Saturday processing all the information I learned from taking Jenny’s plying class on Saturday in Howell at Beth’s shop Three Sheeps to the Wind. 

Holy cow people – did I learn!!

I learned so many things that I was so totally clueless about!

I need to take some pictures of my class work – but the weather this morning is a bit grey and not very photo friendly!

But, I learned about ply backs, three ply (really multiple ply, but I only plied 3 singles), navaho plying, and so much more than I can possibly blog about at one sitting!

I also met some amazing women on Saturday!  Amazing!  The fellowship that existed in class was so incredible.  I have increased my circle of spinning friends – wonderfully so!

So, Jenny had me thinking and thinking when I left her class.  My goodness, there was so much information she shared with us!  I learned that I need to ply my singles sitting in a different chair than I have been – this was my light bulb moment on Sunday afternoon as I was plying some singles I experimented with.  I changed my chair and voila’ – my plied fiber suddenly was much nicer!  I also took a page from Jenny – I counted!!  And checked!!  And changed my count to get the twist I needed to match my ply back!  I know – can you barely stand it?  I can tell you that I am so thrilled with my outcome!

Now, let me tell you about my other “ah-ha” moment from the weekend.  On the drive home, Blogless Mary and I had much to talk about.  It was such a great weekend – we both agree that we want to go back and take a class from Beth, who truly was an incredible hostess on Saturday.  Her shop is lovely, welcoming, and filled with fibery goodness.  Incredible fibery goodness!  Abundant fibery goodness!!  My goal is to become a member of her Ravelry group – “I have slept in a wool shop”.  Yeah, I know – my pulse is racing a bit also! 

Well, back to my “ah-ha” moment. 

I had purchased some Zitron Unikat several months ago and knit a pair of socks from a skein of it.  I was not impressed with the fiber – it is not plied, and it was not fun to knit with.  It is a very unstable fiber – thick and thin – in fact, in some places, it was down to a fine thread.  Well, my brain was rolling around, digesting all that had been crammed into it.  At the end of the day, we all spun some pencil roving – I had never spun with pencil roving before.  Here is where the “ah-ha” comes in…. the Unikat was basically like the pencil roving. 

So, on Saturday night I spun the Unikat. 

On Sunday I plied the Unikat.

Wow, gentle reader – what an amazing change!  This yarn that I did not like at all was transformed into an incredibly beautiful fiber! 

I need to set the twist and finish spinning up the remainder of the skeins, and I think I will have some lovely yarn to knit some socks with!

I also got some incredible fiber from Beth on Saturday – photo’s will be here later.

I am off to head to the unemployment office – doesn’t that sound fun?!? 

Yeah, that is what I think too!

 Have a great day everyone!

And in this corner…..

Hello everyone – welcome to Kitty Rumble Central!  WWF has nothing on the rumbles going on here!  There was lots of hype surrounding “The Rumble in the Jungle” – well, I give you the Rumble in the Condo!

I’d post a photo, but I cannot get them to hold still long enough to snap one! 

I’d say Miss Noel and Madame Defarge are having lots of fun together!  LOTS of fun! 

I am not sure if the pups can stand much more of this – if they get caught in the “cross fire” one more time…..

They have retreated to my bed and are snuggled under the covers! 

Smart doggies!

No news on the job front yet. 

But, I do have lots of cheap entertainment! 

Have a good weekend everyone!

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