knittinggenes.blogspot.com

Yesterday at the shelter operating room it was snuggly cats day. I could have taken them all home.  For everyone's sake I took none home.  While we were operating a pal arrived with these coffee cup gifts for the team.  How cute is that?  They were filled with Lifesavers, shucks, cause she says we are lifesavers.    I came across these amazing owl mittens yesterday and had to send the photo to Karen my owl buddy.  We saw the great horned owl last week on her block.  I love this mitten.  I only wish I could recall whose blog it came from. It is not my image.  Does that mean I shouldn't show it to you? If it was on your blog, give yourself a big old shout out. YOU deserve it.    If you want to change things up with your hat knits,  Head over to BallstotheWallsknits.com This is her image.  She has a few great hats  on her current post.  She includes the patterns for...

  This is how I keep my powdered sugar and oats. We go through creamer for our coffee quickly.  Pretty sure I saw this on pinterest.  Clean out the containers and they make great containers that stay upright and do not take up lots of fridge space.  They don't spill out either.   Dear St. Francis got a fresh coat of paint yesterday.  His head survived the neighbor fence incidents.  I moved him, although I loved his old spot.  He is a quiet presence in the yard.  Do you have an angel? St Francis or garden guest? Here's the start of my THIN ICE shawl.  This Louisa Harding yarn is so pretty and nice to work with.  I've seen many done is a single colorway on Ravelry but I knew I'd need to knit with some colors for variety.   It is really helpful to me to read about others who have knitted a project on ravelry before I buy the pattern.  I try to read some of their issues or successes be...

  Do you Skinnytaste.com? This is not my photo but it is from their website.  I like their recipes and they include weight watcher conversion points.  Tonight is breakfast dinner, their Lightened up Creme Brule French toast.   I love breakfast dinners.  This is Vincent.  I love this little sweater.  My LYS is having a class for this one.  I won't be taking it, I wont be making it.  It was cute enough to share.  I'm hurting for all of you involved with Winter Storm Troy.  Suns out here and we are washing the windows today. I was helping answer phones at the shelter on Saturday and we started washing curtains and windows.  I got the bug.  I caved. Yesterday,  I went up to Three Bags and bought me some Louisa Harding.  I've started the THIN ICE shawl.  This one is going to take awhile but oh, I love sitting and knitting this one.  It is the kind of project I...

It can be done.  I finished my first Wildhorse Farm Designs Rococo Sock yesterday.  I need a little mind break, so the second sock is on hold.  Koigu rocks.  Today's Monday Meme is rather random.   *Does your knitting reflect your address? In other words, if you live in a wonderfully warm climate do you knit warm wooly hats and scarves?  * Do you love your home? Do you plan to move in the next ten years?  *If you don't have the luxury of a nearby yarn studio, what are your go to's  for mail order yarn companies?  *Is there a knitted or crocheted blanket being used in any room of your home today? *Are your windows open today?  *Have wool pests ever invaded your knitting in your home? *Can you view the sunset from your home?  My answers: My location does influence my knitting because as the seasons change I knit differently.  And we have all 4 seasons.  And winter is the lo...

Happy Easter Weekend.  Whether you celebrate or not, I hope you enjoy the weekend.  Zach and I went to the Gethsemene Garden shop in Chicago yesterday.  Seemed a good place to go on Good Friday.  The pansies are a welcome welcome sight.  For those of you who asked, the Crazy Skeins in yesterday's post are from Shepard's Wool company.  I'm working very slowly and carefully on a lace sock.  Can't wait to show you when one is finished.  I take a 16 row repeat at a time and that involves about an hour or more of concentration.  I need a little sign to wear around my neck that says "I'm knitting lace, I can't talk" Because I really can't talk to anyone but myself when I'm working  lace.   But hey, I'm finally branching out in sockland. There's a whole new world there for lace sock folk and I've always wanted to go there!

  Have you seen Shephard's Wool crazy skiens?  They've been available for awhile. At my LYS one of the teachers was wearing her cowl and a student was knitting a hat and scarf.    They both loved the wool and found the color changes made it fun. I think it is fun to see a few different ways to knit with the same yarn.  It is a bit scratchy in my sensitive skin opinion. I may felt with it if I had to buy some.    I was drawn to the colors of the Louisa Harding yarn. If I ever start knitting lace shawls, I'll be buying that yarn.  Why do knit models all looks like they are told to be expressionless. ?? That shawl is a work of art and you, skinny lady, get to wear it for awhile, so....smile! I have to say that all of you who commented on the Monday Meme about travel and knitting made me smile. If you are traveling this weekend, be safe and tell us all about it.  Y'all come back now ya hear? 

  I've been adding a colored row here and there to my sock yarn leftover blanket.  I'd say I'm about half done.  Do you see one of the seams going down the blanket? This blanket is going to be quite warm as it is a double sided creation.  It is Joan Hamer's The Mindless Knitting Tv Watching Scrap User Upper Afghan.  This mailbox amused me.  Clearly someone loves to bowl! Fezzik crawled into the electric blanket when it fell on the floor.  I'm trying to be patient, but End of March weather always taxes me.  I'm so ready for porch weather.  I dont' think we've seen the sun in a week.  Not today either.  How do you handle streaks of really lousy weather? I'd love to know 

  Last summer Judy and her daughter visited me.  Judy brought me fun sock yarn. I don't know why it has taken me so long, but I finally knit up a sock with it.  Such fun colors for a very dreary week here. I leave a stitch marker in the spot where I started my toe decreases so I can be pretty close to matching when I start the second sock toe decreases.  Fireman and I visited Holy Hill yesterday in Wisconsin. This gorgeous church sits on Wisconsin's highest point.  Oops, Fireman just told me that is not true.  The highest point in Wisconsin is Timms Hill. For all you Jeopardy want to be folk.... Even on a dismal day, the view from the church is pretty spectacular.  We want to go back when the leaves are on the trees.  Seemed a good day for some extra Prayers for this world. Be safe all of you who are traveling.  Let's focus on all the good in this World.  

I forgot to tell you my big knit news.  I finally was able to pick up dropped stitches in garter on the shawl from the weekend! I have been unsuccessful for years.  I found if I kept turning the work around from front to back I was able to do it. So, some things take me years to learn.  Back to socks today. Look at my daffodils, coming up. Spring?   are you fooling us?

  1. Last thing you finished:  This ONE ROW Wonder by Allison Griffith.   Finished last night.  Easy peasy knitting.  Madelintosh in gold segment followed by very old fuzzy sock leftover yarn that I couldn't part with years ago.  2. Favorite pattern to knit again and again: Is this cheating?  This ONE ROW wonder will be knit again and again by me.  I love a scarfy shawlette. 3. Do you prefer to drive or fly ? Sometimes I like to fly.  I can manage about 9 hours max in the car without going bonkers.   4. Do you use a paper map or your phone's directions. Bye Bye paper maps.  Fireman always laughed at how I had to turn the map in the direction we were going...and I was a bad navigator.  5. Would you rather a National park or an Amusement Park? National Park! 6. Do you like to go to the same place for vacation over and over or somewhere new?   When my father had a cabin in Northern Wisconsin we went th...

  These little beach buddies are a class at my LYS.  They look ready for Spring Break.  I've never been able to knit such little things. I love the bikini bunny and her tail is adorable.  The winds took down our neighbors falling apart privacy fence. They are not the kind to fix it. The fence fell on my poor St. Francis' head and I dont know if I can  repair him.    Fireman is installing a small latch to keep the Fezzik out of my yarn. I've never had a cat so yarn fixated.  Thankfully the times he has gotten into the cabinet, he doesnt eat the yarn. He just tangles it and drags it around.  No more! 

This is a potential sock.  I started the VESTIGIAL sock pattern, a Hedgehog fibers pattern that was gifted to me. The leg is a simple two row repeat.  I do like the look of the leg.   During the gusset I realized this is not going to work with this yarn.  This is not a sock yarn and I should know better, but I was tricked by it's pretty pastel magic into thinking it could be a sock.  So I could rip it back to the leg and make it fingerless.  I could rip the whole thing out...but that's just painful. I could sit on it and work on the never ending sock leftover blanket until the answer comes to me.  The goldfinches are super hungry.  The birds seem thrilled with the milder temps. I know I was.. today's freezing.   All Y'all who live in the warmer parts of the US, keep those pictures coming on your blogs. You are helping me believe that Spring is right around the corner. 

  So fun to see a bloom in the yard.  These super tiny Irises make me smile.     I'm feeling the time change in the best of ways. I actually went to the library after dinner.  I walked up. It was still light out. Most of the winter I'm tucked in and cannot bear to go out at night.   I Found this chart book .  Someday I'll check it  out! I also found a toy book with that adorable Koala bear. Someday I may check that out too. For now you know I'm all about the socks.  Happy St. Patricks Day! I had every intention of knitting some of these squares, last week. I didn't. But I love the way they look. 

Keeping a blog has many advantages.  I needed to find a photo of Beatles from last year and I knew I'd posted one around St. Patrick's Day. While I was back blogging, (?) I found that I had knit 4 pair of socks at this same point last year.  I distinctly remember being tired of them after that, for just a bit.  I just finished my fourth pair of socks for 2016.  See? The yarn is ThreeIrishGirls sock yarn in a colorway I can't recall. The yarn was gifted me and I have only the best things to say about it.  So many of you answered my Monday meme and suggested sock yarns I had never tried.  I cant wait to make a list and get my hands on some of your favorites.  Some of the yarns I will try thanks to you: Sprout Zen garden Serenity Sock dream by Periwinkle Shepard and Knitpicks Hawthorn.  I haven't tired of socks at all yet this year. I've just cast on my next pair.  Oh and to explain further about the ro...

  Someone at my LYS was knitting the Eyelit Cardi in Red. She had just begun.  The store had a sample and that's what you see above.  For snicks and because I'm cheap I looked up the yarn to see what this sweater would cost the knitter.  Turns out Silky Wool retails for under ten dollars a skein.   This means you can knit a fifty dollar sweater if you wear a size small.  I did feel the sample and it was not wooly but it didn't feel terribly soft either.   Now it is knit in the round in one piece with raglan shaping.  I liked it.  Not enough to knit it, but to share anyhow!  This ragged haired irish girlie is my only decoration for St. Patrick's Day.  My mom and I were laughing when I visited the other night because she and I never liked corned beef and cabbage.  Yet she made it for my father, using a crock pot recipe.  While she doesn't know who I am, often, she knows my voice and my cadence and my laughter...

  This is the first of my ThreeIrishGirls socks.  The yarn is heavenly.  #1 Do you have a favorite sock yarn? #2 Do you knit top down or toe up? #3 Have you ever knit a Holiday Stocking? #4 Have you tried KnittersPride Karbon needles? #5 Do you knit through the back loop on your gusset pick ups on the first round? #6 Do you know someone famous who knit socks? #7 It is Pi Day.  This is Miss Pie's designated Birthday.  She is 3 now.  Will you have Pie today? #8 Have you seen the see through clogs that show off your handknit socks? #9 What's the biggest pair of socks you've ever knitted? #10 What color is your current or last pair of knit socks? My Answers:  1. I have many favorites: (but do share, I'd like to try more) I love Happy Feet yarn for the price and the colors. I love Lorna's laces sock yarns for the wear. I now love Three Irish Girls Yarns.  2. I only knit top down.  The wh...

  This picture of Jessie's Girl was hanging around my LYS. I think I could knit this. I may have to check out the pattern.    Teacher Linda is teaching a Rug class. She made this table runner with doubled Cascade 220. She said it is a bit cumbersome to knit, but isn't it pretty? For those who ask what I'm reading, I'm watching. I watched Alpha Dogs about police dog work.  It was cool. I watched the Lives of Dolphins which is old but beautifully filmed. I watched a program on Alzeheimers... and the  best was the movie  FARMLAND. It came out in 2014. It is a documentary about the new generation of Farmers in the USA.  Fascinating and beautifully filmed. What are you watching while you knit? 

I'm all about yellow suddenly.  The feather and fan scarf is in  Lemon Drop from Lion Brand. The color is so cheerful after a long winter! It is going to block and wear beautifully. Knit two together is hard on my wrists so I slip and pass the slip stitched over instead.   See?  I am all about yellow. I forced our forsythia to bloom this week. My little Irish vase was a wedding gift years ago from my Godparents.   Oh Spring I am so happy you are practically here. Spring ahead this weekend!  I don't mind losing the hour one bit.  Do you think it is really here?