Bramble stitch!

I love the way this stitch looks! After taking apart my boss's scarf 3 times now, waiting to see if i could find the right pattern to show off this particular yarn, i think i've found it! And it takes FOREVER to get a couple of rows done. If i do the entire scarf this way, it won't be done till Spring....but i'm going to try.        

 I have no idea how the underlining showed up here and no idea how to turn it off!

Liana's scarf

Here is the finished scarf i made for my little sister. I showed it at its beginnings very early in my blog...it took forever to finish but finish i did! And i sent it out on Christmas Eve, like this, in this box. She loves it and wears it all day long she told me...who knows, she may even take up knitting because of it...cuz she wants another! It's just a fancy rib stitch but i think it's the organic cotton yarn that makes it so beautiful. It's so soft and drapes so nicely...i'll definitely be buying that yarn again in the future. 

Christmas day funny

This was one of Emmet's new gifts from Nana and he was soooo funny with it. someone really enjoyed the sound of his own voice! 

Gifts and bobbles

First ...the gift. Isn't this the coolest picture ever? Daisy made it for me and sent it before Christmas but i was good and waited till Christmas day to open it. I'm absolutely in love with it...her creativity never ceases to amaze me.  

And then we have BOBBLES!!!!  People, these bobbles were not easy. They did get much easier after i got the hang of it, but figuring out how to do them was NOT EASY.   First i read the instructions in the book but i'm not very good with knitting instructions from books, especially when they say things like "knit one and then purl one twice into the same stitch" .......WHAT??? So i turned my attention to Knittinghelp.com as i always do to see videos of how to do things....but she only showed how to do a bobble the continental style and my brain almost shut down trying to convert that to English style....and she was also doing it differently than MY directions said to. So i turned to the other 2 knitting books i have but they were no help either. Finally, i went to my LYS today and the nice lady there helped me do it...i watched her do it once and then copied her twice and boom, i had it! Not too bad. A little confusing at first when i got home and had to try again on my own, but after a couple tries........ perfection!
This is the beginning of a scarf for my boss. I took the bobbled design from The Knitter's Bible but then decided to do 6 rows of seed stitch on each side to make it scarf sized. So far so good but it's taking FOREVER and i honestly don't know if i'll have the patience to make a whole scarf at this crawling rate. And i think i'm cabling it a bit wrong too...sometimes the book says to hold it to the front or back and sometimes to the WS or RS. Why?? And if the backside is facing me, and it says to hold the cable to the front, do i hold it to the front of the work facing me or the actual  front of the work which is not facing me at this time????  If anyone has any answers to this, i would greatly appreciate it!

P.S. Can you see the sparkles in this yarn? It's a very light green but i took the picture with the flash off so the sparkles and bobbles would show up better.

Haven't blogged in awhile....

But hopefully that will change soon. It's so BUSY!!!! Everything!!! Work, life...everything! I have NO time to knit at work lately especially since the ice storm and all the power outages and fallen trees.....the claims are coming in fast and furious! And at home, well, first my little Boo was sick for a week and the crazy grumpiness he had lingered for another week and there was NO sleeping going on so i was going to bed early and hence...not much knitting going on at night. Then i gave in to temptation and took the 7th Harry Potter book out from the library...simply could wait NO LONGER and then could not put it down so any free moment was curled up with a book....again, no knitting. Now i have finished the book and little Boo is sleeping again so i have started another Christmas present. A hat! A hat that i'm knitting on 4 needles!! Yes, count them...4. Like a knitting miracle. I don't think i like it though. I think i would rather just use a circular needle. I like the hat...just not the 4 needle process. I just wanted to try it because someday i hope to knit a sock....2 socks actually.....and i know i'll be using double pointed needles for that. It's a little more slow-going...but the hat looks pretty good so far. I will post a pic soon...

Noro Striped Scarf

I'm not sure i like it. I've seen some that were amazing and so beautiful but this one....the colors aren't matching up in a flattering way. Right now, the two colors knitting up together are a teal and a hot pink and they look terrible! I think i might finish it, just to satisfy my curiosity, then take it apart and make 2 separate things with the yarn. 

TaDaaaaahhhh!!!!

Here it is! All done and waiting for some tiny little child going through chemo to love it. I say tiny because it is much smaller than i thought it would be....it barely fits Emmet! It should fit a girl toddler pretty well, i think. Picking up the stitches along the bottom was easier than i thought it would be! And kinda fun!

And here we are Thanksgiving Day. we had a great time at Noonan's house and it was cool to watch Emmet play with Abby and Madelyn. The last picture is my favorite. Sooo funny!

Aaaaahhhh....better.

PHEW! Not only did it somehow all come together, but it looks GOOD!

Now comes adding on the brim. I have to pick up the stitches along the bottom. I have no idea how to do that but i am at work and i have Lucy here and Knittinghelp.com so between them both, i think i should be able to do this.

What on earth ????

Ok. This may look like a twisted knitting science experiment. But this is the chemo hat i'm making. LUCY I NEED YOU!!! If you remember correctly, i started out on wooden circulars that broke and i had to start over with new aluminum ones and everything was great until the rows started getting way too tight on the circular....i knew what had to be done but i don't own double pointed needles yet! But then i thought maybe i could add one of the broken off wooden pieces to sort of form dpn's...then that wasn't enough so i had to use the other broken piece but then a crochet needle was adopted into the mix because nothing is working the way it should and i'm confused and scared of this monster i've created and i don't even know if it might be too fragile to transport to work tomorrow and i need Lucy's help! What a mess.

I'm feeling much better physically though, thank you very much. The antibiotics are working and i only have a minor cough now. Maybe this hat could use some Z-Pak....it worked for me!!

Still coughing....

...but the antibiotics are helping. Turns out i had Bronchitis. So this weekend was low key; lots of coughing and knitting and hanging out on the couch. I finally started knitting the chemo hat...i had tiny circular needles that were just the right size and i started Saturday and the pattern said to knit up 4 inches before decreasing and i got about 3 inches done when the circular needle broke!!! And it pulled out a couple of rows of stitches too! AAAck! i tried, but it was unfixable. So i went to A.C. Moore and bought some aluminum circular needles and started all over again!

bleck.

I am sick. I have a crazy sore throat, cough, runny nose, headache....the whole shebang. I wish i was sitting at home, sticks in my hands, yarn in my lap, but i'm at work till 12. And when i'm done, i will go to the dentist to have a cavity filled. That may be one of the worst things in the world. This is not a happy day. Does anyone feel sorry for me???

Last night i worked a bit more on the snowflake scarf...i finally know who it will be for. And then i worked on the afghan i'm making for my mother-in-law. I have a feeling there's no way in hell it's going to be done before Christmas, but i'm still going to try! I would post a picture but i don't want her to see it!

Emmet gets a haircut from mommy...

I think i did pretty good considering he was walking away from me most of the time and pushing my hands away! I think i aged him 4 months...it makes me a little sad.

Emmet is quick to give up on his fork....and he's really good at picking out ONLY the pasta and leaving the veggies.

I can't wait to teach him how to knit.

My favorite scarf is useless

I finished this scarf about 2 months ago.....I was sooo in love with the yarn...Manos Del Uruguay kettle-dyed 100% wool.....and therein lies the problem. IT'S SO ITCHY!!  So now what?? What i do with the most beautiful scarf that can never be worn? Should i unravel the whole thing and make something else? Sigh......What was i thinking? It's not like i don't know that wool is itchy.

Our super-fun morning!

This morning we went to Tim and Maiya's house for breakfast and some playtime. Breakfast was delicious! We ate in their dining room at their dining room table because they are like adults...like real grown-ups. Someday Mike and i will have a house and a dining room table and we'll be like real grown-ups too! Then we won't have to have all our company eat at the coffee table and on the floor anymore. 

After breakfast the boys played together (sort of) and then the men took them outside to play so Maiya could get a quick refresher course on her knitting.  Maiya and i learned to knit on the same weekend, by different teachers. We found out weeks later that we had both learned how to knit...total coincidence. We also gave birth to our boys one day apart and met at the pediatrician's office. Our lives seem to parallel each other in so many ways HOWEVER....Maiya made a big mistake. I started my first project as a scarf...Maiya decided her first thing that she would ever knit was going to be a sweater!!!! Well, guess who got overwhelmed and stopped knitting? But now i think we've got her back on track and she's making a hat with the most gorgeous yarn....see? And by the way, Tim liked his birthday hat!

Daddy reads a good story!

Yet another hat

Here it is...Tim's birthday present.  Finished it tonight, gifting it tomorrow. I keep using the same charcoal gray yarn for my hats because i'm in LOVE with it and it looks great with any color i match it with! It's Paton's Shetland Chunky....so soft and stretchy and easy to work with!

And one more thing...

Before i go to bed i thought i'd post a picture.....cuz a blog is more fun with pictures! And so as i was browsing through my pics i noticed this little gem. How adorable were my parents!??? Mom, this is for you. (i meant to have this printed up for you guys and then never uploaded it to Snapfish....but i will one of these days....when i get around to uploading all 4000 pictures of Little Boo. )

By the way....

Did i mention my arm STILL hurts from the flu shot yesterday??? 

Fan and Feather scraf

The above is the scarf i made for my friend Patty....the pattern is called Fan and Feather....i didn't realize what a popular and common design it was until after i made it. I need to make another one now before Christmas for my boss. 

And below is a scarf i'm working on right now as another gift....the pattern is a fancy rib stitch and i'm knitting it with organic cotton...so beautiful and soft. The picture doesn't do it justice. 

Our little knitting group

AAWWWW....what an adorable bunch of knitters. From right to left....me, Lucy, Paula and Dee. We all work together! Lucy and Paula are sisters and have been knitting since they were little kids, and we just taught Dee and she took to it like a fish to water! We knit a lot at work (yes, i love my job) and we are going to try to meet at least once a month to knit together....stitch and bitch if you will...and right now we are all working on making hats for cancer kids. Well, THEY are working on the cancer hats....I am procrastinating and making knitted Christmas presents as fast as my little hands will go. But i need to get my butt moving on that and make at least one special hat for someone who will really need it.

The very first scarf I ever made

It was just a garter stitch scarf that i was so proud of i adorned it with beads along the bottom. It's not particularly warm seeing as how i used size 13 needles on it and it's very "lacy" as a result. 

       

                   

Next i tackled a couple of bibs for a baby shower gift. They too were just garter stitch....super easy pattern i found online.

 

                                                               Then came a blue bib for Little Boo's friend, Cooper. This one came out better and was so soft...i can't remember what yarn i used though. 

3 hats

These 3 hats i knitted for my step-nephews. The pattern is sooo easy....just K2, P2 the whole way until the last 2 rows and then i K2tog for those 2 rows, pull in the top and sew up the edge. Voila! A hat! I got the pattern from groovy-mom.com. Thanks Groovy Mom!

The other picture is of me and Little Boo wearing the hats...well, he's wearing the green one meant for one of my nephews, and i'm wearing the one i made for my older sister. Hers is actually my favorite and i really need to get these hats in the mail before i decide to keep them all! (My husband is hatless, as you can see, because i am so busy knitting things for other people that i neglect us!)

Taylor's scarf

Here is a scarf i recently finished for my niece...it's called a Mogul scarf...i found the pattern online for this too. Because of the way it's knitted, on one side the white shows and on the other side the rainbow color shows....but when stretched, it looks like stripes! That's my Little Boo modelling it for me. He didn't want to take it off and ran around the house wearing it like a cape.

I'm so new to this blog thing that i've spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get the pictures lined up the way i want them....and it's not working! i think i need help.

I got a flu shot today at work and now my arm is KILLING me! And I think the vaccine is affecting my brain too. Maybe i could figure this out if i didn't have dormant influenza running through my veins!

It's a start!

I knit! I LOVE it! I could spend entire days curled up with my sticks and yarn....ahhhh...i can see it now....but i am a mom and a wife and work full time so that little daydream will never happen! Here's some knitting pics:

See this? It looks like a plain ole striped scarf but it's MAGIC!

When you look at it from an angle, it's got a hidden pattern!! (Snowflakes). i found this pattern online...it's super-easy, just knitting and purling.