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!

thought I'd put in a picture

from olympia (the new camera)

this is of the wool from the tour de fleece.... purty, no?

brown sheep, brown sheep

here's what I have spun of the BFL so far:

It's about 1200 yards. I still have a bit more to go. But DH chose a vest that he likes. I need to spin/ply up some contrasting yarn (about 150 yards)

We bought a new camera today, the Olympus E510. Just in time for vacation. DH has been playing with it since we've come home. He says it's for the family. He's the one that talked into a DSLR. I hope that I get to use it sometime. It could make fro great pictures on my blog.

I'm too tired to post more. I want to sleep.

more snow

it started very early this morning around 1 AM.. .and it's been stead since. Very fine flakes though so the accumulation is only a couple of inches. I hope the wintry mix doesn't come. Just once I'd like to see a plain old snowstorm.

My ebay camera purchase arrived today :-) I'm so happy. Remember the old Kodak mysteriously fell off the basement window sill and broke a few weeks ago. I was using a little panasonic that is 6MP and was happy that it was available, but I missed MY camera. the one that I was finally getting used to using. The one that I have the cool macro and telephoto lenses that fit on it. I took it to the local camera store last Sat and they said it wouldn't be worth fixing. So I found a used one on ebay. I already have the dock so didn't need that. Anyway it's here and I'm taking pictures when the kids aren't looking. DD knows it's here but I'm not telling the boys... and it's in a very safe place and my lesson has been learned. I'm interested to see the difference in the pictures. Here are some pictures of the cloth with the 'new' camera


Pattern: Mason Dixon Ballband
Size: CO 37 stitches
Yarn: Elmore Pisgah Peaches and Creme
Colors: mauve and verde green
Needle: US6
I'm not nuts about the color combo but it matches the monthly dishcloth KAL colors so I'm doing a couple of cloths to get a gift set together.

I'm working up swatches for pop's vest. I tried a needles in 8 and 10 and now i'm trying an 11. It's bulky wool, so I think the 11 could work. Would make a quick knit too.

Well happy snow day. I love long weekends, even if it means Easter vacation is goofed up.





picture with other camera

pictures

The little Panasonic point and shoot is now the camera I'm using. The kids got if from Red for Christmas. I don't know about the Kodak... I'm so sad about that camera.

Here are some pics:

Pattern: show your colors shawl by Spunky Eclectic
Yarn: Jeannie by Kraemer Yarns
Color: Handyed by me "berries in the snow"
Needle: US4

The color in this picture isn't great. The picture below shows its best color. I made a few stray yarnovers that are noticeable upon close inspection, but it's barely noticeable. The new thing that I learned while finishing this shawl was the knitted picot edge. I like it and it's easy peasy! Also this was my first real blocking and a chance to use the wires I bought at Joann.com with a 50% off coupon :-)




Here's mom with her newly acquired shawl. I drove down to my brother's house this afternoon to give it to her along with some other things for she and dad. I think she likes it. Hope she uses it in good health!



Tami over at Tami knits is hosting a contest in celebration of her 100th post. Go leave a comment to enter to win some yarn and stitch markers and tell her I sent you!



DD's rug has been started. Her room is pink so I chose pink. She had a fit and wanted blue So we compromised and put both colors in with white as a buffer. I'm modifying the flower power towel pattern.


That's about it for now.. Happy crafting

:-/

My camera seems to be broken. I'm wondering if little hands got hold of it. I have a shawl to show off and some new projects I'm working on. One is a knitted rug for DD's bedroom. I'm adapting the flower power hand towel pattern by enlarging it and using triple stranded cotton on 10.5 needles (well 2 of the 3 strands in the triple strands are double worsted, so it's like 5 times the thickness of the towel)

My brother called at 11 PM today asking for some remedies to my father's incontinence problems as a result of the recurring tumors in his bladder. well not a solution to the problem, but rather ways to deal with it. Seems dad isn't doing well with adult dipes... a. doesn't want to spend the $ (and probably isn't changing as often as he should to make them effective) and b. is getting confused as to how they work. So at any rate, they aren't working out very well. I grabbed some prefolds that we have sitting in the house waiting to be liberated and some Malden Mills fleece I bought oh so long ago and fashioned a super thick pad... by folding and sewing the prefold in thirds and sewing the fleece to the back to act as a waterbarrier. I made two tonight and hope that DH (who is battling the flu) is on his pins enough to let me run down there in the afternoon (it's a 60 mile trip each way) to deliver them and show him how to use them. I was thinking maybe I should try to knit up a wool soaker for his as well. I'll have to get him some briefs though because these won't work so well in boxers. The man is so thin I could wind up getting teen briefs. He 6' tall and only weighs about 130 pounds so a size small should do fine. I have a wool pad that is made from a felted sweater, double thick (the back and front parts of the body are sewn together) that I then lanolized so that he could sit on that in case of leakage. How ironic that DS2 has been out of dipes for about 6 months now and I'm still working on wool and cloth. Getting old isn't any fun!

I found a gorgeous cloth pattern on Ravelry that I think I'll knit for myself. It's really pretty. It's called Ivy's cloth. It was a part of the cloth of the week KAL that I belong to but haven't had time to knit... one of these days.

WIth any luck I'll find the software to install on my computer for the kids camera they got for Christmas so that I can upload the pictures.... I'll bet they won't even fix my camera :-(