hmmmm... will this really work?

water bottle sock by ME!
yarn: some cheap yarn (100% wool and very scratchy) bought from ebay
colors: apple green and turquoise
needles: US10 dpns (set of 5)


I've had a few requests for the pattern so here you go! I wanted to post a .pdf file, but don't know how to do that on blogger. Any body give me some advice?

Be prepared to do some math.

Use your yarn scraps to knit up a nice sleeve for your bottle to protect your furniture and keep a firm grip with hands dry

My bottle measures 9.25” in circumference
The height from the bottom to where I wanted the cozy to end is 3.5”
The radius of the base is 1.5 inches

Use a needle 2 to 3 sizes larger than one that you would usually use for your desired yarn weight. This gives the knitted fabric room to shrink.


• Knit a swatch. I CO 30 stitches on US10 needles and knit until my swatch was 4”
tall, which was 18 rows
• Felt said swatch
(mine could have been felted more, which means I need to felt my cozy more as
well I think)
•Measure the swatch to get your felted gauge.
In my case the swatch after felting measured 7” wide by 3” high

Now it’s math time. Proportions to be precise


CIRCUMFERENCE
7/30 = 9.25/x Here x = 39 with a remainder
width of felted swatch/# of stitches CO = circum./# of stitches needed
I rounded up to 40 stitches for CO to make the decreases in the bottom more even.


HEIGHT
3/18 = 3.5/x here x =21
height of felted swatch/# of rows = height desired /# of rows needed
I rounded up to 22 to make a Fibonacci series possible


BASE
3/18 = 1.5/x x = 9
This is for the amount of rows needed to decrease to produce bottom.
The larger your bottles radius the more rows you may need



Tools needed:
•DPNs or circular needle(s) in the size you have determined to suit your yarn for felting
•100% wool yarn (or something that will full when washed)
I used 2 colors, you may choose to use more than that or a single color.
•Darning needle for weaving in ends




So for me,

Circumference at sides (like the leg of a sock)
•CO 40 in CC on a US10 needle
•Join in the round, (You can place a marker here if you wish, I just leave the tail and use that as a marker, use whatever method suits you, dpns, magic loop, 2 circs, because the circumference will most likely be small that you’re knitting) and knit 2 rounds
•Change to MC (I carried the CC up the side rather than break it and need to weave in ends) and K 1 round
•Change to CC and knit 2 rounds
•Change to MC, knit 3 rounds
•Change to CC, knit 5 rounds (you can break CC off at end of 5th round and weave in as you knit the next row)
•Change to MC knit 8 rounds

Preparing for Base this helps it stand evenly
•Purl 1 round

Decreases in Base
•[K6, K2together] five times
•K one round
•[K5, K2together] five times
•K one round
•[K4, K2together] five times
•[K3, K2together] five times
•[K2, K2together] five times
•[K1, K2together] five times
•[K2together] five times
•bring yarn end through all five stitches draw tight.
•Weave in ends




Place in zippered pillowcase and fill washer to low setting with HOT water, add small amt of detergent, and place a pair of jeans in washer for agitation. Wash on most vigorous setting. Rinse with COLD water.

I always spin mine out before checking (I know, bad idea, bad habit) This particular yarn took 2 and will need a third wash for my desired amount of felting to occur. Paton’s or Cascade will felt much more readily, so be careful.

To dry, I placed my water bottle in the cozy so that it would conform to the desired shape.

Drink up!

© Carole Burkhardt
All rights reserved.
Please do not post this pattern on any website or sell this pattern without the owners consent. You may link back to this page for pattern distribution
Products made from this pattern may be sold as long as credit is given.

our family

found this little fun toy. You should go check out all they have that you can play with

more booties????

Pattern: Bernat Cot'n Corn Booties
Yarn: Patons Shetland Chunky
Color: Blue
Needle: US7
Recipient: Ulysses
These will be sent to Spain with the tri-jester hat and some family hand knits for DH's cousins baby. Hopefully she'll appreciate all the love in the package that we're sending. Some things were made for our boys and a few were also made for our daughter. Plus these new items. Gotta keep that little fella warm! They were talking about going back to Argentina, but now that's up in the air.

Also worked on these cozies this weekend for my 2 water bottles. They still have some felting to finish. One water bottle is for the 'new' school. Because I'll bring water from home in its frozen state. That bottle has apple green trim. The other bottle is in the 'old' (read preferred) school where there is a Deer Park cooler. That bottle has turquoise trim. I think they'll be perfect. I actually wrote the pattern, so if anyone is interested I can post it!

I started the wild stripes blanket, but have to wait for the colors I didn't have to be delivered. When I first had the idea I got other colors to substitute, but now I see colors on Knitpicks that are closer to the ones in the blanket on Knitty and I like better, so I ordered them. They were sent out on Friday. Hope they get here soon.

I signed up for a dishcloth exchange of the Love2KnitDishcloths yahoo group. I wasn't going to do it, then regretted not doing it, then saw a post that they needed someone to be a partner for a member, so I thought why not? I'm psyched. Picked out my pattern, have the yarn and already bought the goodies to be sent in the package. Of course I can't reveal until opening day (Oct 1) which will kill me... but oh well.

OK... gonna to see if the felting is done. Happy crafting

tomatoes from heaven

this year, I unfortunately planted nothing in my garden, save a few herb plants. Low and behold though, several cherry tomato plants popped up; volunteers, as my friend Gene would call them. I *love* tomatoes, in any form, but fresh picked are my favorite and ones that I can pop into my mouth whole are the best! This was today's harvest. Doesn't your mouth water just looking at them??

On my way out of school this afternoon, I heard rain. No, not from outside, from one of the empty classrooms. Apparently the guys fixing the air conditioning aren't doing such a great job. The ceiling was open and the water was pouring out of it onto the carpeted floor. Apparently this isn't the first time this has happened of late because there was a dehumidifier in the room and the carpeting has huge stains on it. I called up to the office to alert them. The custodial staff scurried down to the room along with our building principal. That poor man has enough to worry about between the 2 buildings. So when you think your day is bad, it could be worse. Be happy for the little things like tomatoes from heaven!

10 on tuesday

list the 10 things you didn't like about school

1. waking up early (still don't)
2. catty girls (still don't)
3. dressing the part (still don't)
4. assignments I wasn't interested in
5. the bathrooms (that smelled of cigarette smoke)
6. the popularity contests (still don't play them)
7. my frosh roommate
8. the morning after the frat parties
9. physics 101 (it was at 8 AM after all)
10. teachers who made you feel inferior (and I pray I'm not one of those)

day 2

of school. Yesterday went without a hitch. I was at the new building all day. I think I may have a permanent home there (well for the time that I spend there, that is) When I left on Friday afternoon, I had no idea where I'd be teaching Monday morning. But there is a lovely room with little chairs and desks that would occasionally come in handy and an empty space large enough to do lots of moving around with those little 5 and 6 year old cherubs. To say I was tired at the end of 8 classes and morning and afternoon bus duty, would have been an understatement. I really wanted to come home and sleep, but that wasn't in the cards. DS2 decided that he was a big boy and big boys didn't go to bed at reasonable times. He talked himself awake until 11 PM (yes, there was a nap for him at daycare) so I got to do my schoolwork until 1:30AM...that made 6AM come really fast.

Today, I was in my freshly painted room in the old building. It's really a joy to be there. My students love the new look. I taught 5 classes there, grades 2 through 6, ate lunch and then went back to teach 1st and Kindergarten. This afternoon was a walk through fire drill. Just one problem, the PA system doesn't work in my room so I never got the call to do the drill. So the joke was that the KDG kids and the music teacher were charred. Personally, I was just as happy not to have my lesson interrupted and their teacher can walk them through tmrw at the real drill!


I came home and in my e-mail in box was notification that I won the 34th Mommy Giveaway for the Circle of Love Necklace from Heart on Your Wrist! from "The Giveaway" (the link to this cool giveaway site is also in my sidebar.... go check it out!) What a great surprise! I've never won anything on the net before, so this is really exciting for me. DD was almost as happy as me.

Now that the ravelympics are over, I have some projects to do. Small ones include a cozy for my stainless water bottles (one at each school) and some dishcloths for the sinks in the room (to wash my lunch dishes of course), some baby bibs for those September babes and wild stripes. All of which, of course, I have the yarn for. The last one I have some alternate colors for because when I ordered the yarn from Knitpicks long ago they didn't have the same colors (I ordered it in swish DK instead of the merino style because it's superwash.) Tonight I revisited and found some of the colors and other better substitutes so I had to remedy the situation and got myself some circs in both harmony and metal so I can do toe up socks on 2 circs. (a technique I just learned doing one of the baby booty patterns for the ravelympics.

OK... I MUST put these kids to bed and do some school work.
happy crafting

my classroom

thought I'd post pictures of the classroom about ready for inhabitation. Well it's gonna have to be. I'm at that school Tuesday morning with kids. I'm at the new school tmrw with no room, stark difference

when you walk in the door you see this


The boxes in the corner will be gone as soon as my 4th graders get their flutophones.

if you look to the right this is the view:



Looking to the left and this is what you see:





From the viewpoint of the chairs:





Still a few more touches to do like maybe a couple of plants to hang from the ceiling (I'm thinking spider plants hanging back towards the windows) But I'm really happy with it. It's quite a change from the past few years

whew

with 14 inches of yarn left, I finished these in time to put them in ravelympics:

Pattern: Monkey Socks by Cookie A.
Yarn: Color Me simply sporty (I think...it was an unlabeled ebay purchase)
Color: tropical or darn close to it!
Needle: US2
Size: EU41
Recipient: ME!

Well I finished all the new projects I had signed up for and 50% of my WIPs. Plus I spun 3 skeins (although 2 were sample skeins, 1 was 252 yards of single ply worsted targhee)

I'm off to take care of my neglected family now...ravelympics is about over!

yay

2 FOs to add to the list:

Interweave Knits Old World Booties by Gryphon Perkins
Yarn: Patons Merino
Colors: Old Gold and Evergreen Mix
Needle: US2 (yes, you read that right)
Recipient: one of those newborns next month
It took quite a bit of work to felt these. I finally worked on them by hand going from hot bucket to cold bucket. I think they are so cute though, I'm really happy. My blog friend hakucho reminded me of a time she was felting slippers and had too many in the washer at the same time and they didn't felt right. The first two times I tried felting these they were in a pillowcase with 6 sweater sleeves. And the washer had a large pair of jeans and a towel in it. After that they were in with the bag below with a much smaller pair of jeans. But they still needed some hand work. I think my washer water could be hotter and it would go faster.


Pattern: brown bag by Frances Swiecki
Yarn: Cascade 220 and recycled merino
Colors: Greens
Needle: US 10.5 (a more reasonable felted size for worsted weight!)
Recipient: DDs teacher for a portion of her winter holiday gift
Of course the original calls for one color and the body is a bit shorter. I got carried away while making the stripes and forgot to measure the length. Hardly would I have ripped back 2 inches, so it's just a tad taller. Now to find a closure.

I have more pictures to post but no time. Ravelympics ends in 15 hours. Must. knit.

we're back

to school that is.... I have some pictures of my room in its incomplete state. I'll take some finished pictures tmrw and one of my new 'room' too. You'll be shocked!

This is the old color. A cool (as in touch of blue) light green. Mind you the carpet is avocado tweed (think 70s) and the chalkboard is avocado, but I have a kelly green counter top on one end of the room and blue folding chairs... nice, no?

In this shot you can see glimpses of the chairs, carpet, counter and chalkboard. (hmmm all c words) Also the wall over those large (and very deep, rendering them a waste of space) cabinets is staying green cuz I wasn't about to crawl up there to paint. This picture doesn't do the yellow justice. Wait til tmrw. I'll take some GOOD pictures.. maybe DH will let me take Olympia to school with me!

Here I am crossing the park with my cart. The man in the picture, you ask? No clue! But he helped me get the cart over the curb and wanted to push it for me... I wouldn't let him. What if something happened to him while he was pushing it? Anyway, he hung around so we got him in the picture The K-1 center is across 4th Street from the park and the elementary school (grades 2 - 6) is across 3rd Street from the Park. Quickest route is through the park, which I'll have to do once a week. I'm at the K 1 center 3.5 days a week. But on the half day I start at the elementary school and then at lunch go to the other building. I'll wait for my room description for the picture.. it will say 1000 words at least!



I finished knitting the Interweave Press Old World Booties that they had as a free download quite some time ago. I made the gold ones and used gold wool (imagine that!) They've also been through the wash twice, but they aren't felting (Paton's merino... so it shouldn't be a problem felting) but the pattern calls for size 2 needles, and I think that's where the problem is, because there's so little space to work wiht. Tomorrow after I get home I'll try hand felting them, I think the water in the washer didn't get hot enough. They're cute as a button even unfelted, so if it doesn't work, I'm not gonna worry, but they're even cuter felted (If that's possible)

Ok... time for me to go to bed. 6 AM will be here faster that I want to think about!

ten on tuesday

Top 10 Olympic athletes

• Nadia Comaneci - what an amazing gymnast
  
• Mark Spitz - I was in love with him for the longest time. And to hear him interviewed last week, I was so impressed with how well he spoke
  
• Dorothy Hamill -she made me an ice skating fan
  
• Scott Hamilton - those flips on ice were crazy
  
• Michael Phelps - provided some nailbiting races
  
• Greg Louganis - what form
  
• Mary Lou Retton - america's sweetheart
  
• Shawn Johnson - her sportsmanship and smile, regardless of the outcome, win me over
  
• Carl Lewis - need I explain
  
• Flo-Jo - ditto
  

there are so many great athletes in each discipline... this was a really hard list for me to choose. Interesting to me that most are in swimming and gymnastics. I really do watch other sports ;-)

b & b (booties and blanky)

Here are two pairs of booties I finished this weekend. Except, I have to turn one right side out and fix the buttons... that's what I get for sewing at 2 AM!




Pattern: Saartje's Fleeglized Bootie
Yarn: Paton's Grace, unknown acrylic
Color: blue, spearmint, blue
Needle: US3 (two circulars)
recipient: DH's cousin and ??



I think I have another pair to make and then I'll be done with booties for a bit! (except for the cute felted pair I want to make... it truly never ends)

I finished painting in my room today. It's really yellow. I think that will be good in the winter cuz it'll be cheery.. plus once the posters etc are hung, it should tone it down a bit. Now to set up the room and get the other school ready not to mention lessons.

The other Linus Project blanket was delivered. Thanks Rhoann. My finger appreciates all your hard work.

Now to pack them up and mail them out this week. I need to find that info again.

OK.. back to knitting. Trying to rack up those medals LOL

hat dash

is over for me.
I finished my third

pattern: umbilical cord hat from stitch 'n bitch book
yarn: patons rumor
color: halycon
needle: US10.5
recipient: Smale grandbaby... along with mitts I'll make AFTER the olympics are done!

boy this yarn is soft!

it's nice to know

that I own 7 out of the 10 top ten knitting tools (according to knitpicks)

• ball winder
  
• umbrella swift
  
• view sizer
  
• WPI tool and knit card
  
• sweater wizard - nope and prolly won't need it for quite some time
  
• Chart keeper - may be something that comes in handy once I learn to read charts
  
• circular knitting needle size ID tags
  
• Kookaburra Woolwash - i have woolwash, but not kookaburra, and will most likely make my own next time with Dr. Bronner's lavendar castille soap and some lanolin and maybe a bit more lavendar EO
  
• Knitting Row Counter Plus - I have one but not the PLUS...
  
• Lace BLocking Wires
  

I knocked this out today

4.5 oz of Targhee that spun (on Louise, my Louët S10) into about 252 yards of worsted weight singles. I've been wanting to spin fatter so this was a good go, although it was made a bit tougher by some less than wonderful roving. Still debating about overdying half of it then plying to a really bulky weight 125 yards... have to sleep on it.

How about that Phelps? He needs to find some words though I'm tired of hearing that he's speechless. Mark Spitz was so eloquent last night during the interview. The man looks good for being in his what early 60s.....

And Bolt from Jamaica really lived up to his nickname of lightning.. man I wonder how fast he would have been if he wasn't coasting the last 10 meters or so?

Dana, well she's one amazing woman. And that's all I'm gonna say about the olympics except that it was a good night watching!

Ok.. back to knitting now

oh no

where did it go? summer that is. I feel really sad about the encroaching school year... I can't believe summer is about over. And I'm more than a bit anxious about this school year being split between the 2 buildings. I can't get my mojo to get ready and start.

I wanted to finish painting my room in the old building yesterday, but that wasn't in the cards. So it will have to come on Monday. At least I can stay until 4 that day.

On a knitterly knote (yes that spelling was intentional) yesterday I learned the Turkish cast on and knit baby booties (one at a time) on 2 circulars. I'm on my second pair and the more I do it the easier it is. This will open a whole new window in my sock knitting (once I buy some smaller number circs - like 1s and 2s - I'm thinking options silver and harmony would do nicely!)

Today I started spinning some targhee I won on ebay for a song. 4.5 ounces of kettle dyed for $3.10 plus shipping. There's a reason it was so inexpensive. There is quite a bit of VM in it and it's a bit felted IMO... so I'm spinning it low twist and kind of thick (and sometimes thinner) I was going to leave it as singles but I think I may 2 ply it (after I overdye one of the plies a darker blue) Right now it's bright berry blue (you know the Kool Aid shade) so some darkness thrown in could be good. Then it could be really nice mittens for DS2 :-)

Speaking of mittens, the ones on the cover of the Fall Vogue are simply stunning and not surprisingly designed by Jared Flood. He is amazing, his knitting, spinning, photography and design... and to think it's not his livelihood. That man has talent! First time I passed the mag by because of all the charts for the patterns I liked, but had second thoughts that maybe I should learn to read charts so in the end I coughed over the bucks to buy it.

DH took the kids to BounceU for open bounce this AM cuz we had free passes left from DS1's birthday party there. Then we went to Perkins for breakfast. Kind of a lazy day here at home. Trying to eek out the last few relaxing moments of the season.

Off to check out the moon scope. I thought about it early yesterday, but it was so cloudy. Turned out to be a beautiful night with a full moon. Should have gotten it out for the kids to see. Tonight I'll be better prepared and also ready to watch Phelps take his possible 8th gold... what excitement!

more booties

Pattern: Grandma's Favorite Booties by Doreen L. Marquart
from the 2008 Knit pattern a day calendar May 26/27
Yarn: Lion Brand Jamie Baby
Colorway: Sherbet print 239
Needle: US4
Recipient: Dunham baby

I think there's an error in either the pattern or my brain. Everyone elses on ravelry looks fine but mine came out with the sides and top in opposite stockinette (one purl one knit side) and I'm thinking it just needs a row 20 of purl before you start instep shaping.... oh well, they're still kind of cute!

Not much else accomplished. I started and ripped Saartje's booties twice. I'm going to try them in the round next.

I'm finishing my first monkey sock...I'll never get everything done!

more fo's

finally, the linus project blanket that needed seaming (thirty-six 7" by 9" pieces) is complete.... I was thinking about an attached i-cord edging, but I need to decide on a color. At any rate, I could send it out now and here is the labor of all those kids work from March and April, many of them new knitters



it's all acrylic yarns but various companys and many knitters. My retired teacher friend has another 36 blocks in more girly colors that she is in charge of seaming. My pointer finer is actually a bit sore from that darning needle.


I also have some little magic baby booties that I knit up from scraps in the wrong weight wool, thereby forcing me to use a larger needle and messing up the gauge. So i winged the math and came up with these:

and to see the bottoms:

you can tell that the yarn is from the same skein, but they aren't a matched pair, which kind of gives them a charm of their own!

I'm trying to import pictures from flickr that I have already uploaded.. we'll see how the look is.

I finished up spinning some Colonial top from Ashland Bay that a friend has sent me a sample of long ago. It spins like a dream. Someday I'll order more.... after I get through the stash of fiber that already is in my house. Right now I'm working on another sample that the same frind dyed. I'm not sure of the fiber though.

someday I'll learn this html stuff so that I can really make my blog the way I want it to look, but for now there's no time.

DS1 had a friend sleepover last night. Tonight is DD's turn..2 of her friends. pulling in the last few days of summer!

good in-service

isn't that an oxymoron? I learned about some great sites.

• animoto which allows you to make a short slide show set to music from pictures that you choose. It reminds me of a powerpoint but on a simpler scale
  
  
• stained glass collage. You guess it. You can make a stained glass rectangle of photos that you choose to put in. I made this from our vacation (most the pictures will be familiar if you read my blog)
  
  
  
  
• quizlet that you can make flash cards and a couple of games with the information that you input
  

These three are free and useful.

There was another site which charges a fee but is really great for educators (there is a 30 day free trial, though) It's called quia You can search for other peoples stuff or make up your own, into games like battleship, jeopardy, millionaire, etc (with different names) and the typical test type stuff like fill in the blank, matching, multiple choice, true or false.

I think this was the first in-service day in a long time that the time actually flew!
AND I got to knit and spin :-)

Stopped at my room in the old school and started to trim out... boy is pegboard a pain to paint. I wonder what posessed them to think it would soundproof the room. Anyway, it's gonna take at least 2 coats to cover that garish green.

ravelympics

I should have put the baby booties and my monkeys in the sockput and my poncho in the cabled steeplechase.

I worked some on that latter thing. It will be a miracle if I medal in that!

How about the American men's swimming today???? Grinning from ear to ear. When I was a young swimmer I idolized Spitz. Had a poster of him hanging in my room with his 7 gold medals around his neck. He was a tad more handsome than Phelps is though, imho.

I'm working on these cute little booties but in the wrong yarn and hence, the wrong needle so my gauge is abominable.. I spent more time doing math than knitting. The one that's done is cute though!

School tmrw.. and I believe I'll start to paint as well. Takin' everything in at least! and I will take my monkeys with me, so I can knit while learning! can't waste a minute...

what the hail?

yet another day of summer storms, with hail the size of small grapes. So cool for the kids to feel snowballs in August, right here at their own home!

yay! the olympics have begun

picture by Clive Rose, Getty Images
found at Kodak's Olympic Picture of the Day site



which means TONS of knitting for me :-)
I cast on in the morning of the 8th. And here's what I have accomplished since then (in reverse order):

pattern: Iceland Printed wool Baby hat
Knit 2008 pattern a day calendar Feb 16/17 by Cathy Campbell
yarn: Patons shetland chunky tweed
color: medium blue
needle: US 10.5 dpn
recipient: DH’s cousin’s baby to be (September)


pattern: Angora baby booties from Last Minute Gifts by Joelle Haverson
yarn: Brunswick Eleganza 80 Acrylic/20 Kid Mohair
color: white
needle: US 5 dpns
recipient: friend's baby to be (September)
these start at the toe and the foot is double knit then separated for the heel and joined in the round for the cuff. Clever pattern. Took me way longer than the hour the book suggests. Of course had I read the pattern through before starting gangbusters in, I could have saved myself some time (and frogging.mohair.not.fun.)



pattern: Bright Tweed booties for Baby
Knit 2008 pattern a day calendar June 2 & 3 by Wooly Fatty Knitters
yarn: Paton's Shetland Chunky Tweed
colors: ice blue and biscuit
needle: US7
recipient: yet another friend's baby to be (September)

are you noticing something.... I have too many people that are due in September.. and this isn't all!

I did the knit in the stitch below incorrectly in the hat that follows, and thought I better do it wrong in these booties that the hat was planned after. I eventually WILL learn to do it correctly though ;-)



pattern: umbilical cord hat from stitch 'n bitch book
yarn: Paton's Shetland Chunky tweed
colors: biscuit and ice blue (yes to complement above booties)
needle: US7
recipient: same friend as the booties above

I changed up the pattern to include the knit in the stitch below as a band so it would have some similarity to the booties

YIKES! I've also worked some on the wips but nothing worth pictures.



So far, I've received this

and I'm sure there will be more to come


We've been enjoying Olympia, the new camera, and DH has signed us up for the beginning DSLR class for the Olympus Evolt 510 at our nearby camera shop Dan's Camera City

I found this interesting fungus growing on the tree in the front of our house. Looks like a scone with jam, doesn't it?


I have class on Monday and Wednesday this week at school. Wednesday's is a book discussion (actually 2 books) and I don't have the books yet! Love my school district! In the afternoon after class, I plan on painting my classroom. My dear friend P gave me 4 gallons of paint (yes all the same color - yellow) so there should be more than enough. I'm so psyched!

My buddies came to visit me this past Wednesday. We went to lunch at Jumbars which is within walking distance of my house. It was so much fun for me. And the food was so yummo! What more can you ask for, good food and good company. :-)

Thursday evening P and D and I went to the Lehigh Valley knitter's guild meeting at the Whitehall public library. What a nice bunch of ladies there. The topic of the evening was sock knitting... so I was prepared.


Other than that, it was a quiet week, the beginning of which totally slipped by me. The summer is rushing by with a speed that is frighteningly fast. I'm so not ready to go back to school!

a most celebrated life

ended last Thursday. One of DD's schoolmates died just 8 days shy of her 8th birthday from neuroblastoma. She was a warrior princess who loved, lived, learned everything that she could and touched every life she crossed.

Her service was this evening. I've never seen so many people gathered for one little life. Tim and Elizabeth comforted everyone who should have been comforting them (including me) just as their daughter would have done.

RIP Kristen. You've showed an example that we should all live by
8.8.00-7.31.08

goodies in the mail

The mail was finally delivered Monday and in it were my two exchange packages. One from Tina the moderator of the Love2Knit Dishcloths yahoo group and this is what she sent:
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And the other from Lorri from ravelry's weekly dishcloth KAL group (not that I knit a cloth a week... far from that! This package was far beyond my expectation. I really was treated like a queen. Thanks Lorri so much!


I'm doing the ravelympics and plan to knit the brown bag from knitty for the felted freestyle and bag&tote backstroke as well as finish my cabled poncho pictured here in it's current half done state:

and hopefully my monkey socks. Both of these will be for the WIPs wrestling. I have a lovely soft yarn for them and the pattern is easy enough. I'd love to start a baby gift or two. I know 5 women who are due at the end of September/beginning October. I should get cracking and knit for them and I think of the five 4 are for sure boys and the remaining they just didn't find out (but I swear it's gonna be a boy!) So I may need to add the gift GIft Knits Pentathalon to my events list. All of this is why I belong to Team Hopelessly Overcommitted. All this has to be done while gritting down for the beginning of the school year, which starts mid-olympics. Am I nuts or what??

I finished knitting another lizard ridge block in color 156B. I cheated a bit because the way the colorway was flowing, I would have had two ridges in the same green. I think the cause of that was a knot in the skein from the company. At any rate, I like the blue next to the green. And I'll have to soon cast on another block. I think I'm going to do 5 columns of 6 in lieu of 4 columns and may substitute the attached i-cord edging for the crochet edge. But there's still time to change my mind LOL.


I thought I'd end with a few more shots of our vacation.
This first is from the Journey behind the falls. It's good they provide you with raincoats because you really get a soaking on the lower level of the walk farthest into the falls. It takes you about a third of the way into the Horseshoe Falls from the Canadian side.




There are lots of Bed and Breakfasts along the drive along the lower Niagara river. Some are huge housesand others small.



A view of the horseshoe falls from atop the Skylon Tower. We ate dinner here for DH's birthday. The 360° view of the area was incredible.








They put on fireworks every Wed, Fri and Sun evening in the park by the falls on the Canadian side at 10 PM. We were back to the hotel and the kids were so tired that they didn't make it to watch, but DH and I watched from our window






Back again on the American side, one of the things we went to see was the little aquarium that is in the state park. We saw the end of a seal show and got to see them feeding some anemone and small flounder in a little wave pool.


There's lots more photos but I'll save them for another time

10 Events that SHOULD be in the olympics

1. knitting - could be divided into fastest, cables, two color etc
2. spinning - could be most yardage within given time, thinnest, etc.
3. singing - for us marathon singers
4. chasing after kids
5. cooking
6. washing dishes
7. laundry
8. composing blogs
9. entertaining kids
10. sleeping - how much or how little you can get

OK by now you can see that my list is tongue in cheek.... all the things that I do that get no credit. Go ahead have a good laugh. And enjoy the real olympics. I can't wait until they start!

we're back

from vacation with about 750 photos to upload and label (not to mention laundry, grocery shopping etc)

Just to give you a glimpse or two of where we were

the view from our hotel room window


yup, you guessed it Niagara Falls. So powerful, beautiful, inspiring.

While there we visited the Butterfly conservatory.





It's incredible. It was a rainy day and we had a ton of stuff on the schedule, so we, unfortunately for me, didn't spend any time at the botanical gardens. A must for my next trip to Niagara



other fun time spent:
Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. This picture was made from dryer lint. It's about 8 feet wide and 4 feet high!








Bette Midler, among many others, at the movieland wax museum of the stars. A NY show french horn player once told me I reminded him of her. I don't know if that's good or bad!







The skywheel which had breathtaking views of both the Canadian and American Falls. We really couldn't get enough of this powerhouse!











The Maid of the mist (twice, once from the US side and once from the Canadian side)

look for more highlights of the trip in days to come!







Opening day for the dishcloth exchange from the Love2Knit Dishcloth yahoo group was yesterday. I haven't gotten the mail from this week yet but this is what I sent my partner Tina (who is the moderator)