Time keeps on slippin'....

As you can see from the previous blog date, I have pretty much retired this blog. I went back to work 4 months ago, and what I call part time and they call part time, differs a bit. So I am pretty much working a 5 day a week gig without the benefits of a full time position. And it is eating a lot of my time.

Between keeping up with my books for review, just plain reading for fun, work and WoW, I haven't even looked at a set of knitting needles for months.

I try to post a lot more regularly to my book blog, but even that is somewhat sporadic and only book reviews.

So I leave you here with a picture of my last completed knitting project, a joint effort with my teen daughter. We knit it for one of her teacher's new little kiddo. (Teacher says child liked it and the monster we knit, too, haha.)

Beans the Cat

I will probably be around, occasionally. Maybe more so as winter hits and I start knitting a bit, haha.

Just realized

I never posted the finished monster!  Ta da!

The adorable monster

Really?

So as soon as I called for Phil's retirement, winter came roaring back.  Well, not really.  It's more like, "Oh yeah, it's Spring in the Rockies in which we always have a little snow."  But it did get chilly.

And now March has roared in like the lion it is, with crazy, crazy wind.  The DH was driving to Wyoming yesterday and saw at least 3 semi-trucks blown over. But at least it was warm and windy today, and hey, it was National Pancake Day, with free pancakes at IHOP, so it was all good.

In response to the wind, I am reading a new cozy mystery called Blown Away, by Clover Tate.  At least until tomorrow when I will hopefully, finally, get my hands on Anne Bishop's last Others book, Etched in Bone.  I need it to show up early, because I just gotta read it RIGHT NOW!!  I just re-read all the previous books, so I am READY.

The Teen starts Spring Break Friday, so we are going to start knitting Beans.  The Teen has decided that it must be knit in fluorescent yarn, so the small child it is meant for is in for a treat, haha. Small child is a very small child indeed, as he is the brand new baby brother to the previous small child that the monster was knit for.  I am thinking Beans will sit on a shelf for a few years, or perhaps be adopted by not so Big Sister.

Well...

I have spent more time on my book blog than here, obviously. We mostly skipped Fall here, Summer was officially over Nov. 17 when the temp went from nearly 80°F on the 16th to freezing and snowy the next day, haha. Until then, the weather had been unusually mild.

And with the cold comes the knitting! I am much more motivated to knit when it's cold out, haha. I finished my Blackrose socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks That Rock, Morticia colorway. I love them in all of their purple and black glory! Now I am knitting a blanket square with the left over yarn.

It's weird not having a sock on the go though. Must be time to look through Ravelry again, see if I can find something fun to start. I am getting quite a bit more confident in the knitting now, changing patterns to suit me (I kind of winged it on the heel length, gussets and even the toe shaping of my Blackrose socks, haha. I got about 2/3 done with the 1st sock before I decided I didn't like the heel as written and tinked back.).

Next up is to umm, finish the thumb on the 1st White Witch Mitten and then cast on for #2. Maybe have a full pair before winter's end?? Maybe?

I'm stash knitting now, since I still haven't gotten a job and I have dental bills from hell to pay and therefore no yarn budget at all. Most of what I have is bits and bobs of sock yarn. I see multiple blanket squares in my future.

I have a ton of red cotton that I bought to make a Cherry Bomb, but it's been hibernating for so long I think it probably needs to hit the frog pond, since gods only know where I stopped, haha. And frankly, who wants to knit a tank top in winter, haha.

I even walked in to the teen's room the other day and found her knitting again, so apparently she's also decided the change in weather means knits!

Spring, in the Rockies

It's April, the table garden is growing so my plants will have a jump start when it's time to put them out around the end of May.  We have a relatively short growing season here, so they start early indoors.  I just have to harden them off again before I start leaving them out all day.  I went for 3 tomato plants and a jalapeno.  All full size, indeterminate tomatoes this year, so I'm not entirely sure how well they will do in containers.

I think this year I need to dig out some old sheets to cover them with, because they're going to quickly get too tall to bring indoors when the weather gets bad. The good news is, I think the pots should be heavy enough this year that even once they are at full height, the wind won't knock them over so easily as it did with the small pots last year.

And see, this weekend's weather report is exactly why they don't go outside yet, even though Mother Nature has been giving us solid 70°F temps during the day for several weeks.  Yep, Mother Nature is having one last (we hope) tryst with Jack Frost this weekend, giving us rain, snow, ice and pure yuck.  We're being told to expect 10"-16" by Sunday morning.  It will also be a heavy, wet snow, which means it'll be a pain in the rear to shovel, so if you have an older neighbor, be kind and shovel for them!

The Teen and I will be running to the library and grocery store after school today, stocking up so we don't have to go out.  We'll just settle in and enjoy a quiet weekend (and hubby and I are on weekend #2 of crappy colds, so we don't really want to do anything anyway.  Today's the first day I've actually had the energy to even think about going anywhere, haha).

And maybe, I will finish the thumb on my first mitten this weekend.  That's the plan, anyway.  That and some Hulu and lots of reading.

Sewing, for knitting needles

The front

I made my daughter a bag for all of her knitting stuff.  It doesn't fit in her locker very well, so she won't use it :(  So since I had a bit of material left and quite a bit of interfacing, I decided to make her a needle roll for her DPNs and her little circular needle.  I bought another yard of the polka dot fabric and measured out 29", then folded the material.  I lined half of the material (what would be the inside of the roll) with iron on fleece interfacing.  Then I took a piece of coordinating pink fabric and cut it to 15"x 7" and lined it as well.  I pinned that to the bottom of the inside piece, and marking lines every 1.5" or so, I sewed little pockets for needles, leaving the edges open for now and the middle unstitched, as well.

Then I cut another piece of the polka dot fabric 15" x 5.5" , lined it and lined it up on the front of the pink pocket.  I then flipped the right sides together and sewed around the entire thing with a 1/4" seam, leaving a three inch gap at the top right so I could pull everything right-side out again, poking out the corners as I went.  I then top-stitched from the top edge down to the top of the pocket to close up the hole.

The backside

Then I sewed down the middle of both pockets, finishing the taller pockets and making two larger pockets for her circs, scissors, etc.

I sewed a piece of ribbon to the right side of the back of the roll, about an inch from the top of the taller pocket, and then sewed a decorative button to hide the stitching and add some fun.   The top portion folds down over the needles, roll it up, tie up the ribbon and viola!  Home for all her DPNs.

The inside

This picture shows the colors off much better, way more true than the pictures of the outside, in case y'all were wondering.  ;)

Knitting makes things a little better

This is my daughter and her high school Knitting Club.  They knitted hats and donated them to cancer patients at McKee Cancer Center.  They're pretty awesome kids!

Bear likes it

A little bit of knitting going on

I finished Isabel's green sparkle socks and started a blanket square out of the same yarn.  But then knitting ADD hit, and I started knitting myself a new hat.  But I don't like the way it's going.  I was going to knit an Acadia Cap in the lovely red yarn my daughter gave me for Christmas last year and cable the band in black.  I hate it.  Not just because I seem to be one stitch short all of a sudden.  The black is just too dark (Plus the join looks funky.  Bleh.).  No point in taking the time to cable the band if you can't even see the details, right?   So I am tinking back to the red and going to knit the band in a cream instead.  Sheesh.

Now I am off to pick up the kiddo from her Knitting Club.  Yeah, she's knitting hats too.  Haha.

Thanksgiving

This year most of us have a lot to be thankful for.  There's a lot of scary stuff happening in the world right now and I think we need to be thankful for what we have and what we don't have,

I myself am thankful that my family is healthy and whole.  That my husband has a decent job (and I am thankful that he continues to work there, even though it's not exactly his dream job).  That I no longer work in retail and that I get to stay home on Thanksgiving and Black Friday (for the first time in 13 years!).  That my husband gets to stay home with us because his boss decided to close and still pay them all for Thursday and Friday.

I am thankful that we have food to eat (Everyday, though I will take our Thanksgiving spaghetti feast for the win!), a roof over our heads, cars to drive and places to go.

I am thankful I have yarn to knit, books to read, materials to sew and a sewing machine to sew with, along with video games to play.

I am also thankful that we didn't get 10" of snow last week like my mom and the Quad-Cities (and multiple other places), did.  ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Back to School

Tomorrow is back to school night for the kiddo.  Though she's not really a kiddo anymore, since she's 15 and about to get her driver's permit!  Normally I would skip back to school night, since she has a good idea of where all her classes are, but she's taking an AP class this year, and we need to get the info for that.  Blech.  Of course, G gets to skip it, because he has to work late tomorrow to get ready for inventory.  He's working his fanny off, trying to train someone to take his place so he can finally move on up!  *Crossing my fingers that it actually happens this time*

It feels like fall at the moment.  Last week we hit 97°F, ick.  But the last two days we've been in the mid 70s during the day, and down in the 40s at night, with some pretty wild and wooly rain storms, causing me to bring in my vegetable garden, as G. calls it.  No rain tonight, but the plants are going to start coming in at night, I think.

Really, there have only been a few nights this summer that we haven't been able to turn off the AC and open up the house to the cool air, but I am really happy when I can just leave the house open all day so I love this cool weather.   Yeah, I know, we're sure to go back up in temp in the next day or two, but I am enjoying it while I can ;)

I finished Isabel's socks, and a blanket square with the leftovers, today.  Tomorrow I will ball up the other yarn I got at the Interweave Yarn Fest (that I talked about here.).  Going to go with the Vanilla Latte pattern, since it's a little different without too much pattern getting in the way of the color (and sparkle!  We can't forget the sparkle!).

If you hear someone cursing loudly, it will be me, as my yarn invariably tangles, haha.

Pssst...  Halloween is right around the cornet!  Along with all things pumpkin!  I love this time of year! 

300 days of sunshine?

Not this year! We finally saw the sun this evening, after a pretty wicked thunderstorm. Everything is still saturated, and the rivers and streams are over-flowing their banks. Hubby actually got "stranded" at work one day last week, when the river over-topped the highway and they closed the road. It re-opened that evening, so he got home ok, but I am ready for the rain to end. Of course, then the heat will come, and all the snow in the mountains will start to melt and we'll be flooding again. Ah, life in the Rockies! ;)

The kiddo's 1st sock in the Rainbow Bright is finished, with the second sock maybe a third done. I've been working on it pretty sporadically, between books. I just can't stand audio books, so that's not an option, ever.

Isabel is just about done with her first year of high school, and her first year of LISA. She still loves it, and seems to have come out of her shell a bit, thankfully. She'll likely take driver's ed this summer. Eeeeeek!

Spring

It's cold. And raining. Like lots of rain. So now Winnie the Pooh is singing in my head,"And the rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down, in rushing, rising rivlets." Funny thing is when I looked it up on youtube the first one was in Swedish, haha.

It's good, we need the rain, but everything is already saturated, which means the rivers are rising. Obviously, it's nothing like the big flood in 2013, but a lot of the areas that are starting to flood are still recovering from that flood. Hubby works in an area that they're still fixing the roads, and the roads in and out of Estes are still not permanently fixed. (It's sad driving up highway 34, the river is so changed and there are still houses that must be condemned, but haven't been pulled down yet. The dam along 34 that used to have a lake and a rest stop is completely gone. But I digress...).

Anyway, I think we'll get some lovely wild flowers out of in when it finally stops raining. And of course, being spring in the Rockies, we're also under a Winter Storm Watch at the same time as we are under Flood Warnings. Ahh, spring :)

In other news, I'm still not working. I'm going to try and pick up something part time, but I also think it might be nice to spend a summer with my kiddo before she flies the coop in a few years. And she'll have her driver's permit soon, so that will be loads of fun, haha.

Yep, tomorrow is her 15th birthday, and she's asking for Driver's Ed. Watch out Northern Colorado!

I've put my Barn Raising Quilt squares on hold again, since I'm knitting the first sock out of Rainbow Bright for the kiddo. I'm at the gussets now, and it's a pretty basic sock, so if I actually sit and work on it in the next few days, I should have it done. Just in time for warm weather again, oops.

When I fall off the wagon, I fall hard!

I fell off the yarn wagon yesterday at the Interweave Yarn Fest. My daughter actually pushed me, hahaha. I brought home 2 gorgeous,sparkly, skeins of sock yarn. Oh yeah, I am part crow, because anything shiny grabs me!

Western Sky Knits Twinkle Sock in Rainbow Bright & Greenwood Fiberworks Star Dust in Watercolor

Both are destined to become socks for the daughter ;)

Er, Ummm

Oops. Somewhere along the way I wrote a big long post. I never posted it.

So what's been going on? Well, nearly 4 months ago I decided I was fed up with being taken for granted and given the same old promises to change things by my boss, over and over again, only to have him do nothing, just like the previous time. I walked out. They can Make More Happen with less, just like they expected me to.

Frankly, I gave 6 years of my life to that P.O.S. company and they never really gave a crap. My husband on the other hand, was hired by a new company. His starting rate was higher than mine after SIX f-ing years. He's now gotten a raise, and a chance at even more $ come July in a new position with the same company. So I am taking my time looking for a job that I will hopefully be happy at. And hopefully, they will appreciate me.

So now I find myself gaining back all the weight that I never actually meant to lose, but lost anyway through pure stress and constantly missing lunch because no one even noticed I was still stuck in the freaking corner. Time to stop being such a couch potato, hahaha. The weather this winter has mostly been unseasonably mild, so I have no excuse but pure laziness!

I have managed to get a lot of my TBR list read, and multiple squares worked on my knit crazy quilt. It's honestly been nice to not have to be anywhere at any given time, to do any given thing. Low on milk? No problem. Kiddo needs to be somewhere as soon as school is out? Okey dokey. New book in at the library? Off I go. The one place I am avoiding like the plague at the moment though, the yarn shop! I have quite a bit of sock yarn bits and bobs, so I am knitting up a storm. Maybe, some day, my crazy quilt will be done, haha.

Anyhoo, back to my book.

Happenings

I went to see the Yarn Harlot speak a few weeks ago. First, she didn't sound like I had imagined her in my head, haha. I think I had a heard a brief recording of her in the past but forgot that recorded voices don't always match reality. Second, she was absolutely hysterical. And it was truly lovely to hang out with a bunch of people, knitting in public. I am a solitary knitter. I join knitting groups online, but I don't go out and knit with them. It's not because I am ashamed of knitting, really, I am just a solitary person.

Something I feel bad about, because I feel like I've made my family pretty solitary too :( I'm now trying to push my teenage daughter to go out and have fun, be with people. I told her today that she needed to start planning for Halloween with her friends because Mom & Dad aren't being dragged along now that she's in high school. Even if I do loooove Halloween. But I can't punish my kiddo by making her spend time with her parents anymore, lol. Or at least not until she deserves it.

Instead, I am going to support my love of Halloween by decorating the house to the max and becoming known as "that Crazy Family that Lives Across the Street."

We have two Halloween wreathes, both featuring skulls. This one was on the door, He's called Joe. The rest of him is actually now part of Steve. He's been moved to the window, with a flock of bats and a spooky red eyed owl.

This one is now on the door instead. He's Steve. Because we rebuilt him. We had the technology, or at least a lot of glue sticks.
Sadly, my daughter doesn't understand the joke.

I have a witch silhouette on my sliding glass door, she's feeding a bone to a vulture. Another window has my ravens and black cat stalking each other.

Isabel has decorated her room with some old window clings we had stashed away too, as well as a lighted jack-o-lantern.

We're getting there. Not quite totally crazy yet, but closer :D

High Park Fire Knit Challenge

As I reknit the same stinkin' row on my sock over and over this week while enjoying the cooler weather that Mother Nature has finally blessed us with, I thought about my neighbors just a bit to the north who have lost everything to the High Park Wildfire. And I thought, my community is really standing behind these folks, but I can't afford to donate money.

But I have stash! I can donate love! So my challenge is this: Knit or crochet something for someone you don't know, will never meet, but who will be thrilled to get something made with love to help them start rebuilding their lives. Winter's around the corner, no matter what we might think right now with record temps across the nation. Hats, mittens, gloves and scarves are the last thing on their minds right now, but they're going to need them soon enough.

Even a knit or crocheted toy would be welcomed for the kids that have lost all of their treasured possessions.

So here's the thing. My Sister Knits is collecting blankets right now for immediate distribution. They're also collecting hats, mittens, etc. And for the crafters that lost their stash, if you have yarn, needles, etc to donate MSK will take them as well.

If you're local, drop your donation at My Sister Knits. If you're not local, mail your donations to:

My Sister Knits
1408 West Mountain Ave.
Fort Collins, CO 80521

Label your box with HIGH PARK FIRE DONATIONS.

(And for those of those interested in helping the folks in Colorado Springs and the Waldo Canyon Fire, I believe the local Goodwill is accepting donations for them)

So get to it! Let's show them some knitterly love (and crocheter love too!)!

Highs and Lows

Yesterday was the Estes Park Wool Market. The kiddo and I headed up just before 9 AM. It was a lovely drive, but about halfway there the kiddo started feeling nauseous. We rolled all the windows down and opened the sunroof. She was still feeling pretty crudy when we arrived, but we gamely headed for the alpaca tent. Meh.

From there we went to my favorite place, the vendor barn. I have to say, it was a bit of a let down this year. One of my favorite vendors wasn't there this year. I'm sure there were A LOT of disappointed people, since the Plain & Fancy Sheep & Wool Co. booth was always packed in past years.

I did pick up a gorgeous skein of Brooks Farm Acero.

Brooks Farm is always a treat. It's likely detined to become a sunhat for me, possibly Delilah or Windansea.

And I found a new vendor, The Buffalo Wool Co. I bought a skein of their sock yarn, Tracks in the Freakin Red colorway.
It's already on my needles making it's way toward becoming a Feather and Fan sock. I knew bison was soft, but oh my! And they had a blend of bison and camel that I practically had to be dragged away from!

We headed for the food vendors after that, since the roasted cinnamon almonds are always a treat. Normally after that we get a smoothie, but the vendor wasn't doing them this year, just crepes and lemonade. Sad 12 year old girl :(

Last but not least, we hit the Paco-Vicuna tent. They are the sweetest little beasties, EVAH! I loved the "bangs" on this little girl. She was very curious, and came right up to the fence to see us (and look for treats, lol). Her fleece was actually on a table next to her, ooooooooooo so soft! And yes, VERY pricey!

While I left with some lovely wool, I couldn't help feeling a bit let down this year.

But it could be worse. Just north of here there's a huge wildfire burning, 20000+ acres and no sign of containment. It's burning through some beautiful county, filled with historic ranches and buildings, and a lot of homes. We can see the smoke plume from our deck. This evening in a show of terrible beauty, the sunset was glorious. Pinks and purples, reflected in the smoke.

Spring Flowers

I went out and bought a tomato plant yesterday. I'm going to try growing it in a container, see if I can get some nice real tomatoes, instead of the mushy things from the grocery store. Figure the advantage to a container plant is I can start it inside and move it outside once I am convinced the weather will stay nice. And at the end of the season, I can pull it inside long enough for the last tomatoes to ripen. Unlike my mother, I won't eat fried green tomatoes, lol. Silly cow that I am though, I planned on using a 5 gallon bucket that we already had. It's full of crap and gross to boot, so I am going to run out to Lowe's and grab another bucket in a bit. Then I'll dig out our drill, put in a few nice holes for drainage, throw some rocks in the bottom for more drainage and fill the bucket 3/4 full of dirt, then plant my little baby. It's meant to be grown in a container, I made sure of that, a Better Bush hybrid. My main concern is sunlight. I'm not quite sure it will get enough sun on my patio, but I figure I'll try anyway ;)

I have never gardened at all out here, other than planting flowers, so this will be a new experience. At some point I am going to have to go get some flowers for the patio too, but I think this year I am going to stick to all geraniums. I had petunias last year, that I bought mixed in with a gorgeous little white flowers. Long story short, the plant with the white flowers ended up needed waaaay more water than the petunias, and I ended up having to pull the petunias into their own pot. They never really thrived after that :( But the plant with the little white flowers is still in my kitchen window, flowering away and growing like mad, lol. So I think I will leave them where they are and just get some more geraniums. They do very well here, since they are naturally drought resistant, and seem to thrive on benign neglect, lol. Of course, that means more to bring in in the fall, and more for the hubby to ask why I don't just put the older ones back outside. But I swear they get used to being inside and all the leaves go yellow when I scare them by putting them back out! I usually end up pulling them back in again at that point.

Knitting is going absolutely no where, although I do have an awesome new LYS, The Loopy Ewe. I just had to buy some sock yarn while I was there ;) And they have these AMAZING random bags, The Big Bag O' Fun

that have bits of sock yarn in them. Probably enough to do a square for my Crazy Quilt! too bad for me that it's $80. Which is seriously reasonable but the hubby won't go for that kind of yarn expenditure, lol. When I bought the sock yarn he ran the old, "We'll be living under a bridge" speech by me again. (We won't discuss how much it just cost us to have an oil change done and a tail light changed on his folly of choice! *Grin*)

Anyhoo, I am off to read for a bit, then I should drag my lazy butt out for a bucket and some soil ;)

Dammit!

I sat down to start a new square for the Crazy Quilt and cannot find my 10" dpns! I've looked everywhere I can think of. I know they aren't in anything, because I only use them for my squares and I've none on the go. Figures, the first time I actually feel like knitting in ages and I can't find stuff!

I started surfing the web to see if I could find another set (I bought these at the Estes Park Wool Market) and came across these. The Loopy Ewe does have the advantage of being my newest LYS, but.... $120 for knitting needles??? Really? Do they knit on their own? Will I come back to find all my squares done? I said something to G. and he told me that would be grounds for divorce and I said, "No honey, that would be grounds for involuntary commitment to the local mental health ward!" Lol. That's like the glass needles we saw in Estes last year. Pretty, but you wouldn't want to actually knit with them, and at least they were only $60 and pretty enough to have on display!

But I did finally find a set of size 2 wooden 10" dpns on eBay. I had to buy two sets, 'cause I need 5 needles instead of 4, but even then I got them for $6 including shipping!

In other news, Spring has officially sprung here in Northern Colorado! Our ospreys are back tidying up their nest, the trees are leafing out and soon we will get nailed with a big snow storm ;) Or not. But Mother Nature does seem to have that kind of sense of humor!

And speaking of Spring, did I show you my gorgeous new Miche shell?? (Yeah, I got it months ago, but the colors yell "SPRING!" to me.) Love it!

Another eBay find! It's called Izzy, which of course sealed the deal for me, since my dd is an Izzy (though if you call her that she's likely to give you a "drop dead stare" and cooly tell you her name is ISABEL! Lol.

The polka dots make me smile and the little bow is just perfect.

Anyway, off to enjoy this glorious spring day. Temp is supposed to hit 80! Ciao!