sherriknits

This is my second time here today.  Mama-to-be brought her little hat to me because her camera battery was dead.  Nothing exciting, just a plain little hat to go with a little sweater.

The set

And this was rather humorous.  She did not even realize she wasn’t holding the sweater with her hands.

Baby was kicking up a storm today while they were visiting us.

I had a nice date with hubby tonight..a little shopping, a little reading and coffee drinking makes for a nice evening.  I even bought a book.

I liked the pictures and what I read.  I gave hubby a test on internet lingo but he miserably failed…. LYS, Blog, FO, UFO, tink, frog, WIP 

Tomorrow is WWKIP and I’m excited.  The coffee shop we are meeting at already has it on the marquis.  We have a new street market on Saturdays so we should have fun if we have nice weather.  I hope everyone has somewhere to knit in public!  I will be leaving that early tomorrow, though, to attend a good friend’s graduation from nursing school.  I am so proud of her for making her dream come true…way to go, Nurse Bunni!  She’s an RN!

Late yesterday afternoon, I started a little hat.  I knit while I visited with friends.  Then I went on a date with hubby.  When I got home, I finished the hat…good feeling.  A sweet pea hat for my little Sweet Pea.

I think I might have taken a picture of our rhodie a day or two late…but we need something to remind ourselves that it is actually spring.  The weather continues to be cold, windy and rainy.  It’s getting a little depressing.  I don’t really love hot weather, but it would be nice to at least not be freezing cold.

That bush was tiny when we moved into this house.

I always love this time of year across the street.

Today I had a wedding to go to.  Hubby played guitar during the service and little Sweet Pea danced in mommy’s womb. I laid my hand on her tummy and enjoyed.  That little one will fit in this family just fine.  It’s grammy is the only one not musically talented, but I enjoy it all so that’s all that matters.

I raced back to the shop after the wedding where a friend was watching things for me.  I started a new project.

Same pattern as the first attempt with the yarn I didn’t end up liking.  I think it’s going to be really pretty.

After the shop closed, my friend was going to go look at a couch so I offered to go with her.  What fun.  We had to practically climb through all of the furniture  in the window to get to it but it was really worth it.  The couch is big, comfortable and round.  It is so perfect for snuggling up with knitting or a book.  She took the cushion home to try it in her living room and I walked over to a friend’s shop.  I couldn’t believe what I found.

The hat kind of goes, but I might knit another one and match the colors. 

So that’s it for me today…I have a little bit of a headache and am going to try to deal with it.  I think I didn’t drink enough water today…

Technorati Tags: knitting

Almost the end of a mixed-up week…I’m ready.

I have an FO!  I love it, too!  I am not thrilled that it is looser than I like, but really…as a friend said:  “it’s a hat”.  Its a good idea to get perspective sometimes.

Can you see the little spray of white tassel on the top?  I will take another picture later, but how cute is this?  We visited our favorite little spot tonight so hubby helped me get a picture but we couldn’t get rid of the shadow because it was hard to get it to hang off the fence.  I think he wasn’t too thrilled taking pictures of knitting but he’s a good sport.

I made good progress on the pink hat.  It’s going to be really cute, I think.  Soft, fuzzy pink…old-fashioned, I love it. 

We got a call from the newlyweds that they were at the bookstore and we were just heading there.  It was fun meeting up with them but the only table was under the domed ceiling so we could barely hear each other but I bet others heard every word we said. I hate that part.

When we got to the car, look what I found!

My beautiful white baby yarn!  And even worse than that….the car door was unlocked and my keys, camera, and cell phone were sitting in plain sight on the seat.  I sometimes get in trouble for asking if the door got locked but maybe I need to do it anyway.  haha  All was well so no problem.  I need to get some of those things back into my purse anyway so I accept responsibility there. 

Ok, headed to Ravelry to see if anyone is playing there.

Technorati Tags: funny, knitting

Yesterday was almost miserably hot.  It was 92 outside and 90 in the store.  It is a mystery to me how it could be so cold (snowing 3 weeks ago) and nothing in between even though we warmed up a bit after the snow.  Today started out really warm but the temperature started dropping this afternoon as the marine air started coming in.  It’s still beautiful out tho.

Even though I had no sleep and baked all day, we still went on our date.  It’s kind of hard to miss that.  Hubby wanted to take the Jeep so picture this.  I actually wore a skirt to work yesterday and getting into the Jeep was not a pretty sight. haha  We had the top down and it was really quite a pleasant drive.  We ate dinner at Red Robin, split a hamburger and ate outside. Peaceful. 

Since I was so tired, I didn’t have the energy to do anything so we headed to B&N.  I found this beautiful magazine called Artful Blogging.  I decided to bring it home and so I bought the little imp a book on Prince Caspian, too,  since he was going on a date with big brother and girlfriend tonight to see it.  They have a tradition.  (we’ve heard all week how many days and knew that yesterday it came out but that he’d see it today.)

Anyway, he woke up at 6:45 and was on his bed talking to himself about Prince Caspian so I got up and told him to go get his book and sit on his bed and read that until everyone else had to get up.  We’d gotten woken up twice last night by the Jeep alarm blasting.  Sometimes if a car drives by too close it goes off.  That was at 2:45.  I realized that I was awake for good so I got up and took my Bible out onto the porch to read awhile, then I brought my laptop out.  I looked up the magazine I brought home and was shocked (!!!) to realize I had paid $14.99 for it.  Don’t ask me how I could go purchase it, sign the slip, and not ever know how much it cost?  I guess I really was tired. Oh well, I will probably not buy another but I have a lot of good reading to do.  Mostly it reinforces what I’ve been thinking about how blogging really does change your life and what I read was good.

I didn’t last long last night, we headed home early.  It was the perfect time to be driving towards the coast.  The little bits of wispy clouds were so pretty with the setting sun turning them kind of a cantaloupe color.  The air was so fresh and sweet. I love the smell of pine needles on a warm day.  I felt so at peace and full of gratitude.  I was able to pray about my frustrations I’ve been feeling and felt so positive about knowing all is well.  I really have been feeling such love from so many people and that helps, too.  Thanks for the emails and comments, it means more than I can really say.

I knew today would be really quiet at the shop, our first really nice Saturday in a long time and shopping don’t really mix.  I did have some fun people in today, though.  One was a friend of a friend and we had a great visit.  I had one friend come knit with me and I had another friend bring her granddaughter in so I could french braid her hair.  I used to do her mama’s hair when she was the same age.  Now that feels weird.  Regretfully, I couldn’t find my camera because I wanted to take a picture of her mostly because I didn’t have a mirror so she could see the back of her hair.  When I got home, hubby said he saw me put it in my purse last night and it was indeed in my purse.  oh well.

I made a little progress on my Francie sock.  I started the heel this afternoon.

I guess it isn’t visibly much farther than the last time I showed it, but it is longer and I had the heel out of view….too late to go take another picture tonight.

I left the shop for a bit this morning and bought myself a portable external hard drive for my laptop.  I have got to try to clean this off a little bit, it is so slow and I have way too much stuff on it.  I cleared off 2,700,000 kb just getting rid of some mp3s and pictures.  I plan to get the rest off here after I am sure the drive is working.  I do hope that helps some.  It was on clearance and I had a coupon so it was a really good deal!

The little imp went to spend some of the day with the mama-to-be.  They sat in her new pool for awhile….she bought a kiddy pool last night because heat and pregnancy wears a body out.  She said she went inside and when she came out, he was sitting in her willow tree.  A few minutes later she couldn’t see him but she could hear him.  She hollered for him and he said he was “right here”.  She looked up and he was quite a way up the tree!  She asked how he planned to get down and he got a little nervous.  I said, “I bet you didn’t feel much like climbing up there, did you?”  since her hubby was not home.  She said no, she didn’t feel much like trying to catch him either.  She talked him down but it’s funny how doing things in reverse was a lot harder.  When she started telling me about it, I did ask if his feet were on the ground before I heard the story.

I can only laugh.  If I had been there I’d have probably made him fall out of the tree when I started freaking out.

I’ll probably post my next installment of my 100 things tomorrow.  I just read my first to hubby.

Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: imp, knitting

Well, I re-blocked the shrug but I am not sure it is going to be what we want.  It is definitely smaller but still big.  I am giving myself a few days to ponder it and I think it will definitely be something she wears, but maybe not for the big day.  We like it, but we liked it better before we blocked.  It was such a fast knit that I am wondering whether I would just be better off to just re-do it.

Here’s where we were before blocking (but the thing that I didn’t like then is how uneven the lace looked from stretching it this way and that.  The other thing that seemed a little weird to me is that the color changed a little bit…it seemed to take on a blue tinge.  I think it was still a good color, though.

We liked where the sleeve fell before and I had considered doing a simple edge on it but she wasn’t sure she wanted that.  Now the sleeve is longer.  It’s so hard to figure out where it is all going to end up on something like this.  Not disheartened here, though…this was fun.

Tonight was date night and we had a nice Italian dinner and then went to the pet store for a co-worker to buy doggy toys, then to Barnes and Noble where I found 2 new books.  I actually bought them and plan to order some for the shop.  I purchased them because I wanted to knit out of them.

I ripped out the cuff of a sock I started this afternoon because I didn’t like it and started one of the stitch patterns in the book…I think I really like it.

And we ended up having some visitors sitting next to us in the cafe.

(the bride and groom to be) 

At this moment, hubby was walking around the store talking to my FIL regarding the re-naming of the fire station in his honor.  We are still so proud.  Evidently at practice the other night, however, they had to take trucks out to some meeting and someone had left the hood unlatched on the tanker he was driving alone and the hood flopped down and the lights were straight down on the highway.  I think they won’t let that happen again.  lol

Off to bed…work tomorrow.  My lunch and the doggy toys are safe in my car for tomorrow.  (I’m trusting it is cold enough outside to warrant leaving my food out there so I won’t run off and forget it like I always do.

Oh…tomorrow I will show you the cute sheep I bought at Safeway today.  Every spring their floral department gets in some kind of sheep and I always have to get them for the shop.  They’re really cute this year!

Technorati Tags: Knitting, DateNight

I woke up to beautiful sunshine.  I knew it was supposed to rain today but it was so nice and dry out.  I turned on the news while getting ready for work and all I heard was … storm coming, if you have anything to do outside, get it done early; flood warnings; wind.  Living in the Pacific NW, it is believable.

We haven’t seen much wind yet, but rain we did.

In case that looks like blue sky…

I’m watching one of the last Mariners games…I hope  a certain person doesn’t have on her Mariners socks because we’re ahead!

Today was one of the most fun days at work.  It was busy all day (yea!) and I had 2 calls within minutes of each other from old friends who live out of town and were driving down and wanted to stop in.  Fun!  I also had some other friends stop in.  It was the kind of day I love having a business.

I did get started on my 2nd Lucky Lurker sock but didn’t get too much time to knit today….too much visiting. 

Last night #1 daughter and hubby asked if they could meet us at Johnny Rocket’s in Olympia.  They wanted milk shakes.  It was not the greatest of experiences but we had fun meeting them anyway. 

She and I ran to Best Buy and she got one of the new Nano iPods.  It’s really cute.  If you’ve been reading here for any amount of time, you may remember my horrible experience with my iPod and Circuit City.  Best Buy has an extended warrantee that if you have any problems at all, you bring it in to them and they replace it IN THE STORE ON THE SPOT!  Guess where I will shop from now on.

I am off to do some knitting and watch the rest of the game.

Before I leave, I’ll share the results of a quiz I took today:

You are a Knitter, with the capital K.You are never found without needles and yarn in hand. Your favorite place is the yarn shop and you can never seeme to leave without buying needles or wool or a pattern or those fantastic stich markers. Darn yarn fumes.Your stash of yarn is the kind that spills out of closets and is taking over the house. And it’s still growing. Beware of SABLE (Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). You may need to bequeath yarn to people in your will.Knitting is a lifestyle for you, not just a hobby. You do it for fun, to make presents, or to cool off. We need more of your kind in the world. Go start a knitting club at your school or local coffeshop.
Take this quiz!

Still working on the Lucky Lurker sock…progress is good but I got a little off this afternoon and stopped for awhile.  I didn’t get much knitting time in today but was too busy talking so I decided to work on the sock later.

I did start a ’swatch’ on a sweater.  For all the knitting I do, I have nothing to wear other than socks.  I am not going to put pressure on myself, but I fell in love with the Minimalist Cardigan in Interweave Knits and tentatively started it.  I love this deep red in Cascade 220.

(yes, I was too lazy to go find somewhere to take the picture so I just did it in my lap.)

Lauri started a group in Ravelry for Fly*dyed Fanatics.  She graciously let me be a moderator.  I went over to her house tonight and we made a banner and a badge for the group.  There are others out there because within no time, 3 people had joined the group.  The other day I started a group for my shop, too.  There is no end of fun over there at Ravelry.

Before I started my sweater, I spent an evening looking at all the sweaters others have done, read their comments, looked at what yarns were used and what people liked and changes they made.  It’s amazing how people will share their experiences and how easy it is to find the information!   Oh!  And until October 15, you can order the Beta t-shirts!  My order is in!

It was a beautiful day even if it was cool.  We were supposed to get rain but it never came.  Of course, I forgot again to get a picture…but the moon really was beautifuly tonight!

It wasn’t quite dark even though it looks like it was.

We had fun last night.  The bride-to-be and fiance and #1 son and girlfriend all met us in Olympia for dinner.  We had pizza and fun.  We were finishing up and who should walk in but the fiance’s family….he comes from a family of 9 kids.  They had just been to the movies and had never been to the pizza parlor we were at.  They had seen our car on the street and thought we were at Pizza Hut next door and they thought they’d just go to Brewery City Pizza and let us be.  It’s funny because our kids had never been there either.  (good pizza and nachos!  great salads, too.)

Yesterday afternoon, 3 of us at work decided on a whim to go get our nails done rather than lunch.  Two of us went over first because they scheduled us for 3 and 3:30.  I went 2nd and he started on mine and buffed a bit and then said I needed to soak (remember my taking off my nail tips myself a few weeks ago?  and remember I said it wasn’t a good idea?)  He got out a bowl, filled it with stuff and stuck my hands in the bowl with a towel over the top and left me to go do my sister’s nails.  I felt like I was in trouble.  He indicated to my sister that I was.  lol.  Sooooo…they got their nails done and there I sat, learning my lesson, and they got to sit and talk under the drying light while I got mine done.  :(  I opted to get tips again and then when they get to the point my last ones did, I will have them removed (properly) and give my nails a rest for awhile.  I love the tips and wonder if I should ever have gotten started on it. 

I was hoping to get the 4th clue finished before I go to work today so maybe I can knit on something else for a day.  I may accomplish that, but wanted to post before I get myself moving along with other things.

It is breezy today so I did the best I could do to get a picture.  Some people take the time to pin them out nicely, but I don’t think I care to have dog or cat hair on my unfinished work…

Last night, hubby and I were on our mini-date and as we were driving home and I was knitting, I was telling him about talking with a lady who was wanting to start some heirloom knitting to be passed down through her family.  Her grandmother had started a tradition with each grandchild as they were expecting their first baby.  She made white bonnets with a ruffle and pink rosebuds…whether it was a girl or boy.  Their family has now started a family tree that has expanded to over 500 people taking part.  As they share their stories of different family members on the tree, a story that comes up repeatedly is regarding those bonnets.  Even the guys treasure theirs. 

I kind of went through regretting not knitting the bride a shawl of some sort. If I had started early enough I could have done it but when I started wishing I had, there really wasn’t time and my family didn’t need to deal with me trying to meet a knitting deadline during wedding preparations!  She isn’t really the shawl type, but just the gift of it might have been nice.  I guess what kept me from pursuing it is that having 4 kids…3 of whom will certainly marry…I didn’t want to get myself into something that caused everyone a lot of stress. 

What I CAN do is make some special baby gift for my grandchildren to come.  Even though I wasn’t really considered a knitter then, I did make each of my babies a special hat to come home from the hospital in.  I need to dig those out one of these days and see what I did.

I was blessed when hubby said my stole was beautiful and remarked on the detail.  I have seen him get a bit frustrated a few times when I was so buried in finding a mistake that I couldn’t talk.  He does appreciate what I do, though…and encourages it.  Since I went back to knitting from the chart, I have been able to be better company so I haven’t seen any frustration for at least a week. 

The next post should be of the completed clue 4!  Tomorrow clue 5 will be posted and we’ll know the theme.

The last few days are a blur to me.  Good blur, though.

The other day at work, the noise and activity continued across the street.  It is very fun watching this grand old theater getting dressed up again, even if the constant warning signals from the equipment is very annoying.  They are giving her a new coat of paint.

 (that’s my reflection in the window…lol)

I could NOT believe it when I left work and saw what they put on the roof!

 (Do you remember the one from the wedding that my son and my then-to-be son-in-law made it appear everywhere I went after I said it would NOT be part of the wedding!)  Do these plastic things fly?

Yesterday was the big game day.  We left town at 12:15 pm to make it to the 7:05 game.  Sounds silly for a 2 hour drive, but by the time we got there with our two cars, we barely could find a parking place on the street.  We did get to park within a block of Safeco Field, though.  We were probably the last ones to get a spot.  We didn’t have much time before they opened the gates at 5:05…we had to make several little stops on the way.  Next year, I will set the goal of leaving at 10.

Here’s my handsome little man waiting to go to his first major league game.  My kids didn’t get the sock picture at all.  However, the newlyweds thought it was not at all silly to take pics of themselves!

It was early when the Fox Sports Network had their cameras rolling.

It was really cool to see them interviewing some of the many guys who were knitting. 

I took my Jaywalkers to work on as a mindless knit.  Last year I had been working on a Nancy Bush sock and it was way too hard to concentrate on while trying to watch the game.  We had 18 people all together in our party and I couldn’t even count the 7 stitch repeat.  (maybe the fact that there was a lady behind us who talked non-stop, we all began to wonder if she ever came up for air…)

So, I switched projects.  In no time at all, I did the typical-for-me thing.

How’s this for pretty?

The bride actually agreed to knit…she hadn’t touched needles in about 3 years and then had only learned because when she was class advisor in her school, she had gotten the kids started  knitting wrist bands for a fundraiser.  Her little sis and a friend had taught the group of kids to knit but when they were constantly coming to her later for help, she had to break down and learn herself.  Soooo…in the car on the way up to the game, I gave her a quick lesson in knitting continental-style as opposed to throwing…and she just started knitting!  (a natural?)  She, like me, is left-handed…I was impressed with how easily she got it.  We do knit right-handed.

She has about 2 inches of a dish cloth started!

Everyone else seemed to have a great time, too.

I did make good progress on my sock.

However, I got that far to realize it was way too big.

The Mariners lost, but we had a great time so we won.  I got to see some good friends there…my friend who owns Village Yarn and Tea and one of my rep friends from Skacel.  I did buy a few things from Village Yarn and Tea.

 I’m just a sucker for bags and they had it in my current favorite color.  The yarn matches!  Actually, I am so enjoying lace knitting that I bought this SuriBlue and got their shop pattern as well as a pattern called Stole-n-bases. 

I also got a belated birthday gift!

Those are chocolates and very short needles that I’ve wanted to try.  Thanks, Lauri!

I couldn’t resist taking a pic of the brothers-in-law.

The ride home was something else.  #1 son was driving the Jeep and got ahead of us once we hit the freeway.  We were rather horrified when we saw him take the Renton exit by accident.  Traffic was heavy and we couldn’t get over.  I called 3 cell phones before one of them answered and hubby told them how to get back to the freeway since they didn’t take the easy, obvious route.  Shortly after the phone call, we got into the worst traffic mess….5 lanes of freeway going in to 1 lane.  The kids got on the freeway ahead of us and ended up home at least 20 min. before we did.  It took us ages to get thru the slow-moving or stopped stretch of the freeway.  I am now thankful for practicing knitting in the dark.  I turned on the light while we were stopped and frogged my sock up to the ribbing.  I then decided to do a wider rib of 6×2 and did this in the dark with no lights except once when I couldn’t get the last purl on the needle to work.

I actually knit back to where I had been.  Notice the closeup of the clock

Can you see what it says?  12:47…and we were an hour from home.

Are you still with me?  We did get our date tonight…since we were pretty tired, we just went to our favorite place for a bit.  The roses have been cut…I can’t remember if they re-bloom, but it seems to me they do.

We have a wedding tomorrow, then I am headed to Seattle to spend the night so I can take a class from Cat Bordhi at 7:30 a.m. Sunday. 

Last night was date night and did we ever need it.  We haven’t been getting our regular ‘down times’ and I notice it.  We got a pizza and drove out to our favorite place.

The roses are coming to their end but they’ll come back if the lady is taking care of them, which I’m sure she must be.

I took a little walk on the dock.  These rocks have significance to me and they’re really here just for my own remembrance.

Today I made progress on my MS3 and actually passed where I was last weekend.  I’m glad I started over, but I don’t care to do those 100 rows again.  I bet we get to do them on the other end of the shawl, though.  Hopefully I will feel better about them by then.  Everything is going smoothly and I’m several rows in to clue 2.  My hope is to catch up next week when we have a little extra time.

We figured out the strangest thing tonight.  We lose our internet connection at odd times.  Our daughter noticed that it seemed to be whenever hubby came home with his Jeep.  Tonight we tested it and it really is what happens!!!!  He drove away and came back several times and every time it worked then quit.  He tried parking in a different place and now we think that might be what it is because it is working better tonight.  Any ideas on that one?  We’re trying to figure out if it’s the alarm system or what.

And here is today’s sky.  It was nice earlier today, but this evening it was threatening to rain.