You Make My Day

A mighty thanks to Stitches and Stories for nominating me for the "You Make My Day" Award!


The rules are as follows: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."

Here's my list (and in no particular order either!).

Dropped a Stitch -- she has some great hat patterns! Her Father/Daughter hat is my Hubby's all time favorite hat!

Cynical Knitting Gal -- Ella and Gracie have a "doggie" coorespondence going on! Plus she's just funny!

TiennieKnits -- She always knits such great things! Makes her own patterns and can knit a pair of socks or a sweater or mitts, etc. in no time! I always tell her how much she inspires me to knit!

...and another thing -- Carrie always has such great posts! She knits so many different things and always has great pictures of her projects.

Pat's Knitting and Quilting -- I love all of her stuff! She has a great sock collection, too!

Blather Magather -- Tiennie put me onto this blog! It's great! She's funny, her stories always make me laugh and she knits pretty good too!

NH Knittingmama -- What can I say! She always has such nice things to say!

K1-pugs2 -- One of my first 'blog' friends! I just like seeing what she's up to.

Smariek Knits -- She has great hat patterns! I love the Utopia hat and want to knit up her Swirl hat! She does some awesome things with those cables!!!

There are more out there whom I would love to mention, but then I'd probably just be listing my entire sidebar lists! So...check these guys out (if you don't already) and visit some of the others too.

Hope all have a great, great night!

(Cactus Edit: I can't believe I left 10 comments in about 30 minutes! Whew! That was some of the quickest reading and writing I've done in a while! You all have such great projects going! Thanks for inspiring me to keep on knitting and to try new things! Have a great night!)

I Can't Believe it's Thursday Already!

I really don't think I have to say much about these pictures! Ella can make herself curl up into a really, really small ball! And check out the eyeball in this last one!

Tuesday Update

Oh my! I just now realized that I haven't posted for a week! It's just been sort of hectic around here, it's taking me until now to get back into the swing of things. I don't know why, but I feel as if I've been a little, hmm, how should I say, lazy! I have been knitting, but a little slower, I hurt my wrist a couple of weeks back doing something stupid (picking up my tote bag off the floor of the car) and that's slowed me down a bit. I never realized how much we use our wrists/hands for things! I have been working on this hat, in a nice red, Cascade 220 wool. It's slow going because of the small needles, and I'm still not sure if it's going to fit my head! And then last night I decided that I would cast on a sweater for me from the Vogue Knitting Fall 2007 issue -- pattern #8 for those who want to dig into their magazine stash and see. I haven't knitted a sweater for me in a long, long time (see here), or so it seems, but that one was all one piece and pretty basic. A new year, time to expand my knitting! (I'm planning a Central Park Hoodie, too! But I need to find/buy the right yarn!)

Behold...The Dragon

He looks kind of squishy here!

Elliot's model was getting distracted!

Pattern: Elliot the Dragon, from Interweave Press, Holiday Gifts 2007 Issue.

Yarn: Stash yarn consisting of Red Heart Kids in lime green, yellow, red and orange.

Needles: #8.

Modifications: I made this a lot shorter as it's a gift for a 2 year old. If I made all the stripes per the directions, it would swallow his entire arm!

This is a very easy project! A great way to use up some stash yarn!

Ella's Day (Dogs on Thursday) !

Ella's day begins early! When she hears Dad pour his cereal, she gets out of her nest of cozy blankets to go get her two pieces. And then she waits, and waits and waits for her kids to get out of bed, have their breakfast and then it's off to school!

Since the Christmas vacation was over, Ella's been walking her kids to school! It's dark and chilly out these past few mornings, the sun hasn't yet made it up over the mountains!

Once her kids are at school, Mom and Dad let her run in the desert! This is Ella in full running mode! She's very fast! Here Ella gets to be a dog! She chases her rabbits (when it's not too cold), her birds and when it's warm, the lizards! She rarely catches anything, although sometimes a slow lizard! Can't you just imagine her herding sheep?

While walking this morning, Ella heard a group of coyotes off in the distance and I actually got a good picture of her! (Notice it's still dark!)

Once home from her run/walk, Ella gets two of Mom's homemade doggie treats! (Her friend Charley-the lab next door-gave her some good ones for Christmas, but they're all gone!)

And then finally, how Ella spends most her day! Curled up on the sofa! Her two friends snuggle with her -- Grinchy and Mr. Squeaky the Octopus! (This is the second squeaky toy she's had, she de-squeaked the first! A sad sight!) She's waiting for her kids to come back home.

Now that's a Neck Warmer

Yes, that's my neck! (I look like a giraffe in this!) This is for My Hubby, who actually wore it this morning while walking Ella (the dog)! It was, and is, extremely windy today! We're getting the back edge of that storm that hit California over the weekend!

Pattern: Adapted from the dickey simpler pattern, from Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmerman; minus the flap part.

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease; oatmeal

Needles: #7 circular.

FO & UFO First Friday

My first FO of the new year! It was supposed to be a neck warmer/gaiter for My Hubby, made with leftover yarn from his hat, but sadly, I miscalculated and it was way too small! I can barely get it over my head (what was I thinking?), so now I have a headband/ear warmer/sort of Calorimetry, but without the shaping!

Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers; light green, partial skein (I still have leftovers).

Pattern: co 76 sts, join and 2x2 rib for 6 inches, bind off (very, very loosely!).

Needles: #7 16" circular.

Now...isn't this such a pretty color?

Yes, just another shot to show you how pretty the purple is. (My poinsettia is still hanging in there, I moved it outside today, it was getting droopy and seemed like it needed some sun.)

It's the first Friday of 2008 for the new year and I had planned on showing a new sock to everyone (or at least part of a sock), but sadly it was frogged just this morning. I have some Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn in a lovely hand-dyed purple (which was purchased over a year ago, maybe two years, way before I started knitting socks, the color got me, as you can see) and was happily knitting along (my own made-up pattern), got to the heel flap and then tried the sock on...you guessed it, too small. So, I put it down, worked a few more heel flap rows (why? I don't know) and then went to bed with that sock on my mind.

This morning, I looked at that sock again, and decided something wasn't right and I didn't like what I saw. So, for some inspiration, I jumped on Ravelry read some reviews of the said yarn, thought about it as I undecorated the Christmas tree and then took two minutes to frog the sock! And you know what, I wasn't sad, depressed or upset, I knew in the long run I wouldn't be happy, or I'd run out of yarn. )The yardage on the label reads 267 m, but when you convert that, it's only about 320 yards.) So, now I'm back to square one with the yarn, which has been sitting in my closet for such a long time waiting for the perfect pattern for the yarn. More than likely, the perfect pattern is the one included on the ball band! But...we'll see...

Happy knitting!

New Year's Thanks...

I hope everyone had a great start to the New Year! Let me tell you, I can't believe it's 2008 already! Time certainly has flown by! And in looking back, I can't believe all that I've knit this year! Wow! I amazed myself at all that I've accomplished in my knitting. I feel as though I've come a long way in such a short period of time. So, in saying this, I want to thank all those knitters whom I've met via this blog! I still think it's amazing that I can watch the knitting progress of Carrie at ...and another thing in Washington, Dipsy in Austria, and NH KnittingMama in New Hampshire and get some great hat patterns from Dropped a Stitch! (Plus the many others I read -- see the sidebar.) All of you that I read are such an inspiration! Whenever I'm stuck in my progress, I just start reading the blogs and before I know it, I'm inspired and invigorated to pick up my needles once again!

So, I just want to wish everyone a great start to this new year and keep on knitting!