Monday Morning News

I finished my dad's socks! I sat in my room on Friday night and finished them. I was SO excited to get them off the needles. The second sock didn't have the ladders up the toe and the kitchner stitch worked a lot better on that sock as well. My dad liked them as well, so that was good.

I worked on my elephant toy on Saturday. I have it almost completely done! It looks crazy. I only have to knit the arms and the ears now. It is really cute.

Now I am starting on my cabled bag. Hopefully it is as exciting to knit as I think it will be. I am also very hopeful that we will close on our house this week. We have to close by Wednesday to move in this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Friday Night

So it is my sister-in-law's birthday and we are having a BBQ/party. If you know anything about my in-laws you know that the party is out of control. And because I didn't feel awesome last night, I have decided to omit drinking. And I am severely regretting that decision. There is no one here I know. (Not totally true, but no one I want to hang out with) So I am upstairs in my room wishing I was in my own house. Another reason the party is REALLY annoying to me is everyone keeps messing up the recycling. It is like people see a trash can full of glass and think, "This must be where they toss hamburger leftovers" NO. Ugh. Very annoying. I think I might pop in a movie and work on my knitting. I'm so anti-social. I believe Jerry Seinfeld said it best when he told the Pool Boy that "I already have three friends. That is enough." Oh, Seinfeld. Maybe I will watch that...

Quilts Without Borders

No, this has nothing to do with Doctors without Borders or any other charity that is similar. I just don't like putting borders on my quilts. And here is why. Reason #1: Borders involve math. You are supposed to measure the quilt width in three places and average the three to determine how long to cut the borders. Then repeat this for the length. Really? No thanks. Reason #2: Borders involve pinning. I don't like to pin things while sewing them. I poke myself with them and that gets old really fast. Reason #3: You finish the piecing of all of the blocks. You finish sewing all of the rows and sewing all of the rows together. WHEW! That took a while. But wait! You STILL aren't done! You have to add BORDERS. And then my quilt tops that need borders tend to sit and sit and sit because I hate borders so much. Because of this, I look for patterns that would look good without borders, or even better, patterns that don't call for borders in the first place! Could be why I love Buggy Barn quilts so much, many of them are border-less.

On the knitting front, I am almost done with my dad's socks. I can not wait to get those off the needles. I am so tired of looking at them. Then I still have the elephant and the pillow to finish. But I will probably start my rhino sweater once the socks come off. I can't help it. I'm considering knitting the cabled bag I've had my eye on, but I don't have the yarn for that, so I should wait a few more weeks.

Socks for Dad

Father's day has come and gone and yet my dad's present is still on needles. A pair of socks. I bought two balls of my favorite sock yarn, which I was sure would be enough. It is a self-patterning yarn that I thought was mostly red, yellow, and orange. When I started knitting with it I realized that it also had brown, green, and blue in it. Now I can't tell if I like the socks or if I think they are ugly. I have knitted one sock to the point where I am out of yarn (not done...still needs a toe, probably about 2-3 inches left) and started the other one. I'm not sure what to do with them. I don't really want to buy another ball of yarn (I know, crazy...but I just don't really like this colorway...). So I was thinking of using the leftover yarn from Bobby's socks. Then I run into the problem of running out of that yarn and still not having two socks. BLAH. I have decided that I need to learn to knit two socks at a time because knitting the second one is lame. I am SO not motivated to finish it. I really want to start a sweater, or something from the new knitting book I got. AHHH. All of these projects and so little time. We are *hopefully* going to be moving in 8 days. Which is really going to put a kink in my knitting time. But it will be WELL worth it! I can not wait to have my own space again. Be able to not have to get dressed to go to the bathroom, leave every door open if I feel like it, leave my knitting/quilting/stamping stuff out around the house....at least until Weston has something to say about it. It will be wonderful. So hopefully I can get these ugly/awesome (still up in the air) socks done so I can move on to something else more exciting. Like a cabled bag.....

Another weekend, more yarn buying

Yesterday Leah and I went yarn shopping and it was exciting! I bought yarn for my mittens and hat that I got the pattern for last weekend as well as the rhino sweater. I was really excited because after reading the pattern for the mittens and the hat I realized that I could use the same yarn for them both, thus limiting my yarn buying but maximizing my projects! Double score. Today is raining and cloudy outside. I am a little bit bummed about that because Leah and I were thinking about walking down to the Saturday Market today. But, there is a chance it is nice downtown, I am in Eagle River which is 10 miles away. Plus, in Alaska I am always reminded that the weather can change dramatically in about ten minutes. Maybe after I shower it will be better. After shopping for all of that yarn it made me dream of more projects. OH! I also bought yarn to make a knitted elephant toy. It wasn't on my list, but I wanted to make one and decided WHY NOT! I really want to make a shawl. Don't really know why, but I think it would be fantastic to have on the back of my couch for when I get cold. Like a fancy blanket just for me. But I REALLY need to finish the projects I already have started (pillow especially). Just realized that the pillow is the only thing on the needles right now. Pretty amazing. I am a bit scatter brained right now. It is a bit early for Sat (8:40) and I didn't sleep too well last night with Weston and Frito gone. Waking up by yourself is pretty lame. Ok, off to get ready to knit!

Weekend Excitement

So I ordered a bunch (5) of patterns from purlsoho.com the other day and I picked them up after work yesterday. I was SO excited! I have a pattern for a pillow, a kids sweater with a rhino on it, a hat, mittens, and a reversible scarf. I immediately ran (ok, I drove. I'm not THAT worried about gas prices yet!) to the Quilt Tree and bought yarn for the pillow. I was going to buy yarn for the sweater too, but I knew Weston was going to be home when I got there, so I tried to limit my purchases. It is best to take things into the house when he isn't around. Plus, I wanted to ask Leah about her advice on the yarn for the sweater. She has made a baby sweater before so I think she would have a better idea of what I need. ANYWAY. I am going to start the pillow here in a bit. I have to sew new covers for some pillows that my mother-in-law puts on the porch before I knit. Apparently she is "redoing the porch". I didn't know you had to decorate a porch. I want to get them done so I don't have to hear about how I need to do it anymore. So off to sew pillow covers and then I can start my knitted pillow to put in my house! :)

Knitting Frenzy

So the shrug has lit a fire inside me that I didn't know I had. I have been knitting like crazy since then. I bought yarn to make myself a shrug (although I haven't started. Scared of gage), yarn to make some hand warmers, and I have knit a pair of fingerless gloves. CRAZY. And I have been reading about knitting which makes me just want to knit more. It is a bit out of control. Every time I finish something I am just so filled with pride. I'm very amazed with myself.