Super Simple, and Always...

...Fetching!

Pattern: Fetching, knitty.com
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease; red sprinkles and black.
Modifications: I made these longer at the bottom and did an extra repeat of the cable at the fingers. I like this length, but, alas, these are going to Colorado when the hats go!

Had to show off my mitts and my Mexican Bird of Paradise bush/tree/shrub (the orange flowers). It grows higher than the fence every year!

I have one more FO to show off this week that I finished in the car when we went on vacation. (And, yes, I know, I know, it took me way too long to show you all!) My hubby says I've been a horrible blogger this past month, and I agree! The munchkins go back to school this week, so hopefully I'll be better at posting things! But I think that everyone who has kids and stays at home with them during the summer puts projects and things aside to take care of the kiddos, and once they're back in their school routine, we can get back into our knitting groove/stay at home routine.

Hats Off! (or On)

As promised, the pictures of the hats!

See below for details!

Pattern: Garter Stitch Hat with Square Raglan Crown. (Ravelry link : here.)

Yarn: naturally caron.com, Country; black. Not even a half of a skein!
Modifications: I cast on 74 stitches, worked garter stitch for about 6", then decreased back down to original cast on of 64 and then followed the directions for the crown.

Pattern: The Amanda Hat. (Ravelry link: here.)

Yarn: Sensations, Bellezza Collection Dolcetto; cream. Used about 3/4 of the skein.

Pattern: The Boy Hat Pattern. (Ravelry link : here.)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers, blue (has a tweedy blue/black look).
Modifications: Knit the rib for about 5 1/4" then did decreases.


Enjoy! Hope this inspires some of you to whip these up! They don't take long at all!!! Tune in (hopefully) tomorrow or by early next week, for a few more small projects that I finished but haven't shown off yet! (special thanks to my model -- oldest munchkin!)

Saturday Morning Update!

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I've been working on hats for C in Colorado (Abby and Coco's mom), as well as one for her hubby who protested that she has, oh, I don't know, like ten of my hats, and he has none! So, I made him one too!

Once I get off my butt (I'm being genuine here), I'll take some pictures.

I'm enjoying my last weeks of my littleone's summer vacation, so once they're back in school (a week and a half believe it or not), I'll probably (or I will) have some more time to show all the stuff I've been working on!

Also, I've just been plain lazy. I will admit it. I've been enjoying knitting the hats, a quick project with quick results, but it takes me a few days to finish weaving in the ends and such. But, I did start a new project yesterday, which if you look here (rav link), you'll see that it will probably take me a while to get this done. And, I got my fall issue of knitscene yesterday, too. Wow! Lots of things in there that I want to do! Always too many good things to knit, with so little time!

Take care and have a great weekend all!

Edited @ 12:00 pm. Just found out my cousin's wife is having her twins today! Wow! We have twins in my family! A first for us! She's having a boy and a girl! Congrats to them!!!

Ella's Friends for DOT

Ella wanted me to show you her friends that she visited on vacation. The first picture is of Abby (if you remember, she came to visit Ella earlier this year). I love this picture. It looks like Abby is smiling (poor old lady[she's 10])! The bottom picture is Coco in her backyard. It was difficult to get a shot of all the dogs together. Ella would chase Coco around the backyard and into the front yard, but every time I would go for the camera, Ella would stop and look at me as if to say, "What? I'm playing!"
Ella had fun with her friends, and seemed to miss them when she got home.
Happy Dogs on Thursday.

Zoomania!

One of the first touristy things we did on vacation was to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. If you're ever in Colorado Springs (or "The Springs" as the locals call it), I highly recommend that you go! This zoo is great! You can get close to the animals and actually see them. Among all the zoos I've been to (San Diego, Phoenix) this one's is one of the best.

You can feed the giraffe's and if they get close enough actually pet them! (As you can obviously see by the hands reaching out to this guy!) Their tongues are sticky and they're actually very soft.

(Sorry I should have flipped this photo.) Here's the moose! Don't you just love him! He was laying down for a while and then the zookeeper came and he stood up! He's only a baby (2 1/2 years old), so his antlers were just coming in.

And the bears! This exhibit is cool! There's a small building where you can watch them swim, and then run out and see them tumble and play in the trees. We were there when they were feeding them, and it was really cool.

And a vacation FO!

Pattern: Father/Daughter Hat (ravelry link).

Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun, teal green.

Modifications: Made the ribbing longer, as usual, to cover the ears. Gifted this to C (where I was staying) who loves, loves, loves hats.

The first of a few photos I've got. I'll have some more later this week!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I'm Back Baby!!!

Hi All! Hope every one's summer is going great for them and not too hot. We got back two days ago and it's taken me this long to get caught up, what with laundry, cleaning the house (you would think that with no one here, it would be clean!!) and then we decided to re-arrange our living room, office space and basically the entire house!
I'll have some pictures tomorrow, I still have to up-load them to the computer and haven't got around to it yet.
Now...I have a question to pose to you all out there, I'm struggling with the Magic Loop sock method. I started last night by following the directions I got from the knitpicks web site, and got really confused. Is there a better pattern/tutorial out there that I should/could use? Or, should I just jump right in and begin? I'm tempted to just jump right in because I really want to learn how to do this (no second sock syndrome!). I just printed out the knitty.com info on the magic cast-on for toe-up socks, so I'll look that over later and see if it makes more sense to me.
Since we've gotten back home, the monsoon has kicked in full time. It's been cloudy and humid here and raining every afternoon/evening. It's great. We really need the rain in the desert!
(Oh, by the way, school starts back here in a little over three weeks!)
Take care and happy knitting!

Happy, Happy 4th

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!
Hope everyone is having (or going to have) a great time with lots of food, fireworks and fun! (The three "F's"!)
I forgot to bring my camera cord to show you the pictures of Colorado! Yes, that's where we are! It's great too. I talked to my parents yesterday and they said in AZ it was supposed to be 115 degrees today! Wow! Right now I'm (well as soon as I'm done typing) going to go get my ...hmmm...CPH or a good bias shrug....I'll make up my mind when I get up! It rained really good yesterday, and sounds like thunder again now! Ella is here with us visiting her friends Abby and Coco (if you look back through you'll see the pictures of Ella's doggie friends). And they're having a great time.
I have made a couple of yarn purchases (pictures to follow at a later date):

1. some Hemp yarn from, believe it or not, the Hemp Store!
2. a lovely skein of papaya colored of bulky Shepherd's Shades (it was on sale and there was only one left, how could I not?) {Amanda hat perhaps?}
3. one skein of Shepherd Sport in a great teal color, which has already become a hat!

Oh, and a set of Addi Turbo needles #2 in a 40" length to teach myself the magic loop method of knitting two socks at once!

There will probably be more yarn added as the days go by, so stay tuned!

Hope your 4th is safe and fun!