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.

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!

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