sherriknits

It’s been really nice here.  Today after church, #1 son and his girlfriend had barbecue with us.  Afterward we sat around the patio table visiting and I knit a little on my 2nd byob bag.  I have frogged back the mesh twice now.  The first time I forgot to switch to the bigger needles and it just didn’t seem right.  For some reason now I can’t get 3 rows into the mesh without ending up in trouble with the pattern.  I did have to add a few stitches so the pattern would work out, but on the 2nd time around (twice) it gets off.  I don’t get it, but I decided today must not be the day for working on it (neither was Saturday).  After I frogged it, I left it on the table and I think we came inside to watch the Mariners, we actually won a few games! 

When it started getting breezy and clouding over, I thought I’d better get outside and get my knitting and I had to just stop and laugh at the sight.

My jumbled mess of yarn, my melted ice from my coffee and the birthday gift a friend gave me today at church…all exactly as I had left it.

I got the gift early because my friend is leaving this week for the east coast.  She wasn’t sure it was something I’d like but she kept getting drawn back to it.  She didn’t know about my “100 things about me” list, but one of the things was that I love to laugh but that I don’t do it enough.  What a great reminder.  I plan to put it where I’ll see it often!

Later both girls and their hubbies showed up.  #1 son-in-law bought cherries for me from the fruit stand and brought them over to share.  What a guy.  The newlyweds were out riding bikes and stopped in.  I love it.

The day was beautiful but this evening the fog rolled in and it got cold and windy.  We may get some thundershowers tonight and then another nice day tomorrow.  Hubby had to hurry out and put the roof up on the Jeep.

The dog thinks he was helping.

We were scheduled for the imp’s therapy session tomorrow but the OT is sick so the mama-to-be and the little imp and I are all headed out of town anyway to look at baby car seats.  We just won’t have a schedule to meet now.  We’ll meet back up with the OT probably in September because the only day she had open to re-schedule us was our anniversary…no can-do.

And now I am headed to Ravelry to figure out some baby knitting since I can’t get this bag right today.

I am almost feeling like I must be breaking my own record with posting so often.  I guess I’m not getting my words out these days so I have to finish up here to get them finished.

To start the day, I got a call from the new bride, she wanted to go for a walk.  It was pleasant…but she’s in better shape than I am.  I don’t think I held her back too much, though.

Hubby and I went to the funeral today.  I am most impressed with the legacy this lady left…she has a fine family following her and she was much loved and seemed to have great influence for the good on her family.  We got some of the fruit of that with our wonderful son-in-law.

On the way back to the shop, I had to make a little stop.

This could be called “I am bored at the stoplight that seems to be taking forever.”

People have asked how big this bag really is.  Instead of measuring, I’ll give you a visual.

It’s trying to hang off both ends.

That’s the last time you’ll see this bag here.

I had a great dinner date tonight.

We had his favorite, french toast.  He was good company, too.

Then flat loopy had to join us.

For those of you who don’t know about him, he came from Loopy Ewe and they want to see his summer ventures.  I really want to get one of the woolpet kits made exclusively for them.

I had a good friend stop over tonight with something fun.

Isn’t that cute?  The is the gift bag from Last Minute Gifts.  She figures it took about 6 hours to make by the time it was finished.  I love it!  I’ll take it to the shop for a sample, that’s why she did it.

And now that I have finished this post, hubby decides to go for a walk.  I’ve been talking to him and typing….now I am done, he is gone.  lol 

Here I am again an hour later.

I got the sweetest gift yesterday and I forgot to show it!  Out of sight, out of mind these days….it was in my Ravelry bag.  This is a friend that I will have fun when I get to wait for a grandbaby with her, too.  She has been gracious and fun waiting with me for mine.

The What if There Were No Grandma’s book is sooooo cute.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what kind of Grammy I will be and I hope to live up to some of the sweetest ideas of Grandma’s from children’s point of view.  We had a good time reading it together.  The Hugs for Grandma book is like all of those books are, wonderful and thought provoking.  Of course, anyone who knows me knows that chocolate is right in any circumstance….but I will really need it on the big day so I will see if I can keep it that long!

Thanks, Bunni!!!!

I am loving working on these byob bags.  This one will be a little smaller and a little different, the basketweave is borrowed from the designer herself, she has several variations on Ravelry and it makes me just want to keep making them.

The exciting thing is that I am finishing one thing and starting another, not bored. 

It’s hard to get a good picture when they’re on the needles.  This time I’m using Cascade Sierra cotton.

We’ve had a pleasant few days.  The breeze is really almost cold, but the sun is shining. 

Tomorrow we go to SIL’s grandma’s funeral.  He’s to be a pallbearer.  He’s such a great guy and I’m proud of him.

Ok, the bag is calling me.

The bag is finished.  I heard there was a KAL on knitty and I’ll have to go check it out, I am still mystified about the stitchmarker placement for starting the handles.  It was easy to figure out where to put the handles, but I don’t get why I couldn’t make it work following the pattern.  I am happy with the bag, though.  I do have 2 places where the openwork got off just on one stitch and isn’t it funny how it doesn’t show until you are taking it’s picture?

I have started another one.  I got finished with the bottom of the bag and realized I forgot to do the increases and decreases so the bottom won’t be shaped, but it didn’t bother me enough to rip it all out.  I am going to make this one a little bit smaller even though I think this one is a great size.  I am just thinking about window shopping and carrying the bigger bag.  Great pattern!

The SP12 question for week #3 is:

What would you consider the perfect amount of stash? 

How in the world do you answer that?  I think the perfect amount of stash is when you are satisfied with it.  I think the answer might be never, so I plan never to feel like I’ve achieved the perfect stash and just build and use to my heart’s content.  :)  Is that even an answer?   lol

The byob market bag is coming along very quickly…but when it came to the handle, I got the first one finished and held up the bag and it’s way out of place.  I don’t know how I didn’t notice it, but now it all has to come out.  I need to take a little break from it so I won’t start screaming.  I was so happy when I put in all the markers and there were the right number of stitches (always a nice feeling!) but I must have started from the wrong one.

It’s a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be but that’s nice when you consider it’s supposed to hold groceries.  I like the handles and I like the method the designer uses to attach them..it’s all short rows.

I’m, already considering what colors to do next.  My only complaint with the yarn is that every skein has had knots.  Some of them have fallen in good places, but some will be a pain to weave in.

Yesterday we had 2 events to attend…the chili feed fundraiser for the youth mission trip.  Son-in-law did a great job making the chili and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Then we had a graduation party to attend.  We knew the kiddo before he was born so it was fun to see all his accomplishments…he’s a great kid from a great family.

Today I had an early birthday party.  A friend takes another friend and I to lunch every year for our birthdays, which are 5 days apart.  I think my birthday is still about a week and a half away but Mondays are the only day we could do it and next week I have therapy for little imp.

We went to an Italian restaurant that started serving lunches today.  It was really good!  I had a chicken salad with raspberry vinegarette, my favorite.  The garlic bread with it was one of the best I’ve ever had, super garlicky.  We also had strawberry, key lime, and raspberry tortes.  Yum!

Our waitress was a young girl I’ve known for a long time and she was great.  I think they got a lot of their first-day bugs worked out on us.

We got really fun gifts.

It was really hard to photograph it, but it’s a little stand with a cute plate on it. She thought cookies would be cute on it..but the waitress brought out a torte and put it on it and that was really cool.  The plate is easily lifted off for serving.  I thought it would look really, really cool with little yarn cakes stacked on it…they laughed when I said it.

I have work to do tonight, I wish I’d been doing it instead of the handles on my bag…maybe I wouldn’t have made the mistake. 

I had a great last few days. Knitting is going well and I got a great gift in the mail today.

It was also a sad day, today, though….papa-to-be lost his grandma today and it was pretty unexpected.  I heard he was handling it ok, but he was probably a little bit in shock.  They were not able to revive her when the paramedics were called to her house and when the family gathered at the hospital there was a social worker there to meet them.  The kids are getting away for their first anniversary over the next few days, so the family said they should just go and enjoy themselves.  They can’t do anything here and there won’t be a service for a few days so they need the chance to celebrate.  As mama said to me, they were concerned she might hang on for a few days and they would never have left if that was the case.  Our kids are very sensitive and it’s nice that the family said they should go with their blessing because they need the opportunity to honor  their anniversary.  They have to cook for a chili feed fundraiser tonight so it will be ready after church tomorrow so he has things to keep himself busy.  It makes me realize the depth of love I have for my new kids and I’ve been concerned for him all day but they’ve had a lot going on so I haven’t been able to talk to him.

I saw the mama today.  I had the cutest book to give her.  

She was pretty tickled.

Ok…I wanted to show you what I won!

Frieda was asking for donations for her cancer walk in Canada.  She was walking in memory of her mother and mother-in-law and she was offering the shawl as a prize.  I won!  I didn’t donate because of the prize, but I am sure thrilled to be the winner. However, she was so incredibly generous because that isn’t all she sent me!

I had a really hard time capturing how beautiful this yarn is.  The amazing thing is I have been looking at this very yarn in this very colorway online. I could not be more thrilled.  She did such a beautiful job of knitting on the shawl, too, and I will really enjoy it.

I’m making good progress on my BYOB. 

I was only going to make this 3 colors but last night as I was knitting on the way to Olympia on our date, I decided it needed some more pop so I got the light blue.  What’s weird is, that color of blue may be my least favorite color, but it really seemed to make a difference in the whole thing.  I hope to get lots farther tonight on my knitting but I wanted to make sure to get pictures while it is still light out.  It’s on the needles and I couldn’t get it to lay flat (and of course about 10 stitches popped off the needles) but I’ll be working on it tonight and hope to have better pictures to show you soon.

Yesterday was the first day of summer and we had about our 3rd nice day of the year.  It was warm and beautiful but by the time I got off work, the fog was rolling in.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got out of town that it was actually very warm.  We love to eat at i.talia and never knew until last night that they have outdoor seating across the way from the restaurant so we ate outside.  I haven’t used my phone much for taking pictures but I thought it did a decent job.

And my knitting came with me:

The waitress was really interested in the bag. 

And now, back to knitting!

This has been an incredibly busy week.  I didn’t knit at all for several days.  Today I got ahold of the cotton-ease yarn I have been waiting for.  I have to confess, I never thought I’d use Lion Brand yarn, but this cotton is actually pretty nice.  I love how it looks and feels in the seed stitch.  I’m about 2/3 of the way done with the base right now…lots of seed stitch but it’s actually been quite relaxing to me tonight.

It’s quite a bit bigger than the picture (and greener), had to take the picture when it was still daylight.

I love that people are making bags and actually using them but I haven’t seen one that grabbed my attention like this one did.  If you haven’t seen it, go check out the new Knitty…. byob (bring your own bag). 

The little imp got to go to big sis’s this afternoon.  When I picked him up, he was playing some race car game on Wii.  Man, that kid can drive!  He does well against some of the older kids.  You know, he does think he is going to be driving a car at 16.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it in putting him off.  (heartbreak)  But on the Wii, evidently they earn their licenses so maybe that will count for something.  It’s awfully interesting raising a child who is many ages rolled into one in one body.  It was so sweet, though, when we left big sis asked him to come say goodbye to baby.  He gets embarrassed but he puts his hand on her tummy to feel the baby and then looks the other way and talks to it.  very sweet.

And now I want to head to bed.  I am so tired, saw daylight approaching before I fell asleep and did well all day until about 5.  I’d have gone to bed at 7 but it was only the imp and I home much of the evening.

Does anyone else out there use their blog to remind themselves of events in their lives that they don’t necessarily blog about?  I’ve done it occasionally and have found it to be quite helpful to me.

Today was a day I want to remember and a picture speaks more than a thousand words. 

The “rock” is the part I’m not going to talk about here, but it’s incredibly meaningful to me today. 

The bracelets I will discuss.  They are a little treat to myself and I love them.  They were cheap, too.  Aren’t they fun?

I haven’t knit in 3 days.  I want to but I’ve been tired and have had too much going on.  I want to work on Francie, but I can’t figure out where I’m at on it….ohhhhhh, I hope I don’t have to start tinking back until I can figure out where I left off.  Today I just don’t want to figure it out.  I could work on my shawl but I dropped a stitch when moving it over to lace needles and I don’t feel like figuring that out either. 

Tomorrow I will be getting some yarn to start the BYOB pattern from Knitty.  It is the first bag that has spoken to me in a long time.  I hope the fact that at least 3 friends of mine are wanting to start it gets me moving along on it, too.  I tend to get bored on bag patterns even though I love them.

Everyone is gone but the little imp and I…he’s watching every tv he can manage to get started (what is it that fascinates him about that?) and I have bookkeeping I really need to get at, but I don’t want to.  Hmmm, sounds like I don’t want to do much of anything, huh!

Ok, I’m cracking the whip on myself….see ya later. 

Well, actually…here the schools are not out yet…but SP12 has a new question of the week:

As a kid, what did you look forward to most about summer vacation/break/holiday?

It’s been a long time!  I think mostly I looked forward to long, carefree days.  We had a great neighborhood for kids to play in and I remember hula hoop contests, hiking in the woods up to the “pole” (which must have been some sort of power pole or something, I don’t think I ever really knew what it was).  We also dug for fossils..I took hubby once to show him where we did that and couldn’t believe someone had the nerve to build on that lot!  haha 

Speaking of swaps…I am also taking part in another one so I have started a wishlist at Kaboodle and it’s on the sidebar.  I’m finding it must be helpful to have ideas since I’ve been looking for things for my pal.  I’ll try to remember to add to the list as I go…I could never make wishlists when I was growing up and when my family asks me what I want, I never can think of anything so maybe this will help although it feels pretty weird to me.  :) 

And for fun, I saw this on Susan’s blog:

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISFP)

Your personality type is caring, peaceful, artistic, and calm.Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 8% of all women and 6% of all menYou are Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.