going green

I've been doing much recycling of yarns lately.. more of that than knitting actually. This allows me to in the future knit with yarns that I could never afford to buy new from my LYS or online. I'll be very excited to try some of my new yarns, especially the cashmere and cashmere silk blends I've recently reclaimed.

As the internet allows us to though I've met a woman, mother of 7, who owns 2 etsy shops that deal with greening up our earth by recycling, both yarns and giving sweaters new life in a felted form. Her name is Julie and her two etsy stores, my 7 kids which sells reclaimed fiber from sweaters and Heart Felt Fun which sells really cute recycled felted and hand-knit items. She's also running a Go Green for the Holidays contest on her blog until December 1st. So go visit and enter!


We're going green in this house for Christmas.... I can't give any details, you never know who might be reading ;-)

quickie

post that is....

Today was another hellish day, well at least it started that way. I forgot the keys to the Elementary Center, not the end of the world, but a bit of an inconvenience. I spilled coffee down the front of my white sweater and then while making a U turn, I ran into the curb a tiny bit but blew out the tire.... then DS2 decided (while I was still in the hallway at school) to go into my office. His morning routine is to draw on the chalkboard... which is fine, but not with the black marker that he chose this morning. Fortunately, I got it all off while it was still wet. Then we had Officer Phil come in. So I missed 2 classes... why am I complaining, you might ask? Cuz I much rather be teaching than sitting in an assembly (not once, but twice) Oh well. Lily, tomorrow will be better (thank you Kevin Henkes and Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse)

I forgot stuff at the older school and had to walk back over during my only free 20 minutes to get it.

On to better stuff. This is the yarn I won at Kathleen Taylors site. Purty isn't it? I'm thinking a BSJ jacket or perhaps mixing it with Lambs Pride Cotton Fleece for a stripey blanket.


Recently finished (and already gifted) were these booties:

Pattern: Grandmas' Favorite Booties from the 2007 Pattern a Day Calendar (May 26/27) by Doreen L Marquat
Yarn: Red Heart Eco-Cotton Blend (75% recycled cotton)
Color: Almond
Needle: US6
Recipient: Grandbaby Smale

There should be an additional Purl row (row 20) before the instep shaping is begun. I noticed this the first time I made these booties (and didn't add it) so I made sure to put it in this time.

The package all together looks pretty good if I have to say so myself. The baby will be delivered via c-section Monday morning, so I gave the gift to grammy yesterday at school.

Still working on the wild stripes and that baby was delivered today..oops. For some reason, I have been sleeping like crazy (read going to bed before 10) That has to stop now.

I got Warm Fuzzies in the mail today. Can't wait to make something from it from those many sweaters I have in the basement that won't be frogged!


Brownies (and their siblings) went apple picking this evening at Strawberry Acres. Everyone had so much fun. They had a little lesson before hand, then rode the open bus to the fields. We saw a deer on the way back. Then pet the animals (bunnies, goats and llamas) and then played on the turbo tube. Of course, I forgot the camera. I hope Heather mails me some photos!

What a girl. She was reading my mind and sent a ton! Thank you. But this by far is the funniest of many of the moms

Can you guess which animal I chose to put my face on?

gotta go play mom

eating my words

so I know I just won that gorgeous necklace and lo and behold, Kathleen Taylor leaves a comment on my post to tell me that I won 2 skeins of Knitpicks main line yarn from her blog! I can't stand the excitement (OK I really can, I am getting the winning bug) I am dumbstruck, at a loss for words (and for me that's saying quite a lot!)

Kathleen blogs about her passions: knitting (including many free patterns on freebie fridays), music, books and paper dolls. She's the author of Knit One, Felt Two and I Heart Felt and Yarns to Dye For and her prayer shawl pattern is on the cover of the Prayer Shawl book (soon to be released) Go visit and say hi!

Today was a LOONG day... first the coffee grinder stopped working... before the coffee was made. That had the makings of a bad start to the week. I spent 30 minutes trying to get it going, but alas I believe the motor is burned out. This is our 2nd sunbeam doffee grinder in 2 years. DH asked if I had time to stop at the local kisok for a mug but no I had spent too much time trying to fix the grinder. Then the car I usually take on Mondays was out of gas, (no I didn't leave it that way) so I did what any wife would do and took the other car! Fortunately I didn't have to sub for the fifth grade teacher again this afternoon (that was Friday...took any and all free time I had) there was someone there for the whole day.

I made mom a pouch for her pitch pipe... forgot to take a picture of it though... maybe I can get a picture next weekend. And I hope the pitchpipe fits in it. From sock yarn that I made my Charade socks in.

Hopefully, with any luck and some staying awake tonight, I'll finish the pair of baby booties to go along with the sweater and hat.

Wild stripes is coming along about 1/3 of the knitting. The baby will be born on Thursday. Thankfully, it's too warm to need this blankie, so I'll just tell its mom and dad that the gift is still gestating!

Maybe pictures in my next post??

Oh and I got my package from my love2knit dishcloths exchange partner today. Question is can I wait until Oct 1st to open it???

I also bought some Spunky Eclectic sock yarn off a ravelry member. It's in her harvest colorway and I have the perfect pair of socks to knit for it. I found the pattern after I had one monkey sock finished. A pattern that I was looking for but didn't have of leaves because I thought that colorway would make great fall leaf socks. Well I wasn't going to rip out a whole sock, not during the olympics, so when I saw this yarn I knew I had to buy it. It's a beautiful varigation of greens, golds, browns and oranges, perfect for fall leaves. Now to dig out the pattern (even though I should be knitting Christmas gifts right now!)

I'm almost finished sewing the patches on DD's new brownie sash. I think I'll save the numbers for tmrw night. No sense in getting them done too early before the next meeting (LOL)

My colleague captaincosmic and I were choosing music for our joint spring concert which will be on Earth Day and hopefully in the town park. natch the theme for the concert is Earth Day related. I used to have this Sesame Street Tape called We are all Earthlings, but alas about 7 years ago it broke. I was looking for the tape to buy online and the only place I could find it was amazon for almost $50.00 yup you read that right fifty for a cassette that is 15 years old. Needless to say, I wasn't about to spend that on it. Fortunately some thrifty friends on ravelry pointed me to youTube and there I found video clips of the songs we were interested in using. Here's on of my absolute faves:
Love the Ocean
(if anyone can tell me how to drop the video in, I'd appreciate it!)