Happy Birthday Nancy!

Ohhh, it's a tailgaiting dream come true! I don't think I've ever posted a picture of myself on my blog so here I am. My friends Bev & Ken and Grace bought me this "tent" that I've been wanting for so long. What you see is a real porta potty. We can bring this for tailgaiting at Nascar races (Mom, you don't have to pee in the woods anymore), football games and even for camping. My darling husband bought the 5 gallon bucket along with the snap on toilet seat. We're ready for the summer! When I got home, my husband had put this together and ran toilet paper down the stairs from the front door all the way to the "potty" as a surprise.

OMG

My home computer hard drive crashed. :-( It's not good. I called Dell yesterday 4/26. My warantee expired on 4/23. What the crap?? Anyway... I'm waiting for a replacement CD of Windows and then we'll try to get it back up and running with the Extended Warantee that I had to purchase so if the hard drive is in fact fried, then it will be replaced by Dell.

Computers. Can't live with 'em.... can't live with 'em.

2nd sock syndrome OH MY!

I simply won't have it! I've already started my 2nd sock so I can have my very own first set of knitted socks. I can't wait to wear them both and feel the warm fuzzies between my toes. Stay tuned for the finished product and for my next trick... I may try to make a 2nd pair of socks with some beautiful koigu that my friend Susan gave me!

2nd sock

OMG it's my very first sock!

It has a few things that I would change but here she is, my very first sock.

WIP

Completed below is the Mason Dixon bathmat. It's so soft on your feet! It's already in one of my bathrooms and it looks great. I think I may make one again!

Okay-so as promised I said I was going to try to make my very first sock this year. I started it yesterday with my knitting group at work. We're teaming up to get it done together since none of us has ever knitted a sock before. I'm hoping I get get through the tough parts and really get it done this time. Wish me luck!

We interrupt this change purse for....

A new washrag! This is a petal dishcloth pattern that I found on the wonderful internet here. My mother and I saw it and just had to make one QUICK! This one is mine.

My mother of course, had made hers into a fancy flower! It's the petal dishcloth on the bottom with a mason dixon warshrag inside. It's so cute. She also made a quickie crochet chain to tie it all together. Come on ??!!! Don't you want one.

Change Purse

Where the heck have you been? So much has been going on since we got back from Daytona. Knittingwise and other. I'm finished up with my bag but need to stitch it up and make the handle...then it will be ready for felting. My friend Mandy who I am making the bag with needs to catch up so I've put that down for now until we are at the same point. 225 rows takes a long time!
So I'm back in Florida because my mom has not been feeling well so I've come to knit with her and make her feel better. Last night and today I made this change purse. It's in the washing maching right now getting felted. I got the simple pattern on line but I think the flap part is a little small. We'll see how it comes out. I made this with some needlepoint wool that my dh's grandmother gave me. Since I don't needlepoint, I thought I would try to make something different with it. The after pictures will come later.

L@@K at this!

My mom made this beautiful scarf for me. It's a crochet pattern and it looks great on me!

What Can you Finish?

Here are some of the items that I worked on during my long drive to FL and back. Thanks to my DH who drove most of the way, I was able to complete many of the above. I also started my sweater (more on that later). What will I do with all these!!??

How much can you knit on a trip to Florida?

Stay tuned for the results. OUCH my hands hurt!

What a long strange trip its been.....

So those of you who know me, know that I've had our trip to Florida planned for many many months to attend the infamous Daytona 500~! Unfortunately mother nature played a wicked role in our travel plans this year and our flight was cancelled on Wednesday. More unfortunately was the fact that every flight out of every Washington DC airport to every airport in Florida was booked up until Saturday. Guess what?

We're driving to Florida!

Here's what we started out with Wed morning. Ice, snow, sleet and cold.

Here we are later... Welcome to North Carolina - Green grass, green trees and warmer weather.

So anybody who has driven south on the 95 knows the highlight is Pedro. Pedro is the icon of the drive down 95. South of the Border (this is where the border of South Carolina is) is a milestone on the drive.

There are mucho billboards alerting you to the exact mileage to get to South of the Border. It is a countdown of sorts.

Here we are! Restaurants, Hotels and Hot Tamales OH MY!

I don't have pictures of us arriving in Georgia or Florida. I was doing some driving then while DH was sleeping. But then I had to break out the light for some nighttime knitting.

This thing worked great. Not a bother to DH or otherwise. I got a bunch of knitting done. It sits on your ear! Check it out.
That's all for now! Tomorrow we attend the Busch race!

The Stash...

So some of you may think that this really can't constitue a stash considering that I don't really have that much yarn. I've been diligent in my quest to not buy more than I can realistically use. So far I've been doing pretty well. Some of the yarn I have has been gifts so that really doesn't count.
Drawer One: In the picture below is actually some needlepoint yarn that was given to my by DH grandmother. It's 100% wool and I was thinking that I could felt a bowl for her. I just have not gotten to it yet. I will though soon. Below you also see the only 2 skeins of koigu that I own. That was a gift as well from my friend Susan. There's a few things of sock yarn here too. That's one of the things on the list for 2007. Socks. I must make myself a pair of stinking socks.

Drawer Two: Here on the left is the yarn for my sweater that I'm going to try to make for myself. It was on the cover of the Creative Knitting Magazine. I talked about it on my blog here. Also, for those of you following my blog, the purple yearn on the right toward the back is the yarn from that blanket that my mother made me frog. Really, it was the right thing to do.

Drawer Three:

Two cases of needles on the left. Also on the right in the bin is all my circular needles. Addi Turbos in one section and all others in the other section. I keep all the packages so they fit neatly in there.
You may have noticed that there were no Sugar n Cream in any of those drawers. That's because they have their own home outside of the cabinet. There's too much (especially my sister Linda bought me a bunch for christmas.
So that's all I got (for now). Impressed??!!

WIP - Capelet

I started this on Tuesday. It's going to be a small capelet. I saw a friend wearing one and I thought, I could so make that. I'm going to sit down and finish it up today after I finish up putting all my stuff away back in my craft cabinet.

So remember when I bought this ? The door was broken and I've been waiting for a proper replacement since last year! Well.... long story short, they had to replace the entire thing so it was a proper time for me to reorganize all my crafts and yarn and things. Wasn't my DH scared when I had emptied it all and he saw everything that I so neatly 'hid'.

Happy Birthday Mandy!

Hee hee - I made another cake for my friend Mandy. Hers was "special" because it was gluten free! She loved it. Yummmmie. Look at these! How cute! My friend Joan gave these to me. They remind me of pogs. You can use these to attach to gift bags or put inside boxes before you give out your knitted gifts! Thanks Joan!
My friend Kitty is just learning to knit. Let's all add another one to the mix! I love it when new knitters are just starting out. It makes me remember how excited (and obsessed) I was to just knit every minute of every day. She will be joining my Wednesday stitch n bitch that I have at work. It's always fun to have a new member.

Last night I casted on the stitches needed to start my very first sweater. I'm thinking it's going to take me a while to decipher the pattern and such so don't look for any pictures or updates just yet. I'll get back with ya!

Holly Jolly Christmas

Here are some of my goodies that I received for Christmas. My sister Linda sent this yarn tote filled with Sugar 'n Cream. Hmmm... I wonder what she wants me to make her for her Birthday!

My Mom sent me this yummy Lion Brand tote. It's quite big! I've got my felted bag project in there that I'm working on in tandem with my friend Mandy. We both had to put it down in order to finish up some holiday knitting. She's been a knitting fool since I taught her and made everyone in her family scarfs for Christmas!

Below are some other great items I received from my Mom as well as my Brother and his Fiance Michelle. I love these great little accessories that you just can't get along without.
We'll here it is folks. The lite up knitting needles. My Brother and Michelle got these for me. Aren't they just the coolest?

Here is something I bought myself. It's a cross stitch pattern (no I'm not giving up knitting) but I miss my cross stitch and thought this would be something great for our kitchen. My husband loves roosters and actually when he was in the military everyone called him Rooster. I'm going to change the "doodle doo" at the bottom to actually say "Rooster". I think it would be super cute. I don't like that frame so when It's all done, I will take it in and pick something more appropriate.

What the New Year Brings....

What the New Year brings is the unknown. So far we have a few exciting things planned:
On Christmas Day, we found out that Paul's mother got engaged. Her boyfriend works for Boeing and has been asked to work on a project in Italy. So not only are they getting married, but they are moving to Italy! On they day before New Years Eve, we found out that they are getting married on Jan 14th! So we had to make a quick scramble to get some flights to Montana which is no small feat considering a few things that are challenges in that respect.

So I suspect that a trip to Italy is in the cards for this year. We'll have to wait until they get settled but I'm already thinking of when we can go and for how long. Italy certainly wasn't on the agenda for 2007 but I think I can make an exception!

In February, we'll be going to Flordia to visit my Mother and Brother. We'll be attending the Daytona 500 for the 2nd time. This will be so much fun, I can't wait to go and to see my mother as well. We went with them 2 years ago and I'm hoping that we can make this more of an annual event now that we have purchased our own tickets (when you have your own tickets you get first 'dibs' on tickets for the following year with the hopes of upgrading if possible).

Knitting in 2007:
My first sweater
Finish the child's sweater that I started in 2006
More warshrags (of course!)
My first socks
Finish first felted bag WIP

Hmmm... I think I need to work on that list.

So little time...

Sorry it took so long to get this up.

Here are the results.