Knit Happy!

To all of you Rhinebecking in NY today, why are you reading this blog?!? There is yarn to be had, and lessons to be learned! Get out there!!!

To the rest of you (including Pretty, who was unable to join some friends who are there right now). . .just because you are not attending a wool festival, don't think you can't buy yarn! As a matter of fact, the reason today's blog is so short is that some of my friends and I are going on a Yarn-Crawl around to our fairly local shops! After all, Pretty is preparing for the pleasures of grand-parenthood, and knitting is certainly involved with that!

I promise there will be details after the trip, maybe tomorrow. . .perhaps on Wednesday. . .until then, I give you permission (based on the fact that so many knitters in NY are celebrating fiber and yarn crafts today at Rhinebeck) to buy yarn. . .even if you are on a yarn diet. . .just one skein of sock yarn, or a little cotton for a washcloth, or maybe a little cashmere for a smoke ring to wear this winter. . .that's right, I am an enabler!

Today, I am also a knitting fiend, perusing shops, and preparing to knit happy. . .and I hope that you will knit happy too! Knit in Good Health!

Sweater Weather, and other things. . .

I have been meaning to make some more polymer clay pieces for the shop for some time, and I finally did that last Sunday! Go, me! AND, since my original niche for my knitting row counters was sweaters, I decided to get back to the basics a little bit with the new pieces. . .

There are short sleeved sweaters (pink arrows), long sleeved sweaters (blue arrows), and a couple of holiday pieces (green arrows), thrown in just for fun! I had a blast with these pieces, and I hope to have them listed at Pretty Knitty Jewelry, starting before this Saturday!
"But, what is the yellow arrow pointing to, Pretty?"

Haha! The yellow arrow points out my priorities, which you will surely understand if you are reading this blog! That's the church calendar in my office, and the yellow arrow points to the word "Knitters" on EVERY THURSDAY, signifying one day each week that I work toward, and the knitting meet-up that helps to restore my sanity. . .even when the week has been crazy, crazy, crazy busy. . .or downright awful. I love my knitting friends, and I look forward to Knitting Thursdays with CKW. . .I rarely miss it! Yay!

Recently, a new knitting friend has been joining us on Thursdays. . .it's College Girl! Seen below, modeling a very chic, very purple nosewarmer made of acrylic yarn, she is quite a good sport most of the time (or this picture would not be in the blog)!!! Lately, she has been joining her Pretty Knitty mom more and more for recreational time, and she has started helping me coordinate weddings at the church!
I have mentioned my Wedding-Coordinator-Hat to you before, and it is a hat that I love to wear! As College Girl gets ready to plan her wedding, I was glad to hear that she is starting to be curious about what goes on "behind the scenes" of a couple's very special day!

It's a lot of work, and a labor of love (well, there is a little paycheck, too. . .and yes, I am sharing the profits with her!). Last Saturday, we ran around with this couple, sharing in their joy in a very peripheral and busy way, until the last guest had left, and the last candle had been blown out, and the last of the church photos was taken. As the new Mr. & Mrs. left for their reception, College Girl and I wanted to just put our feet up and relax!

That did not last long! There were flower petals to sweep, furniture to rearrange for church (thank you, Sweet Hubster, for "muscling" into the day as well!), lights to turn off, and doors to lock up before we left. It was a good day, but it left me looking forward to my regular job at the church. . .where putting my feet up IS sometimes an option!

And see what's on those feet? Yep! It's the finished Dragonfly Socks that I promised would be done before the weekend. . .I finished them on Monday! lol

I hope that you have some time to put your feet up this week, and do whatever you enjoy (unless, of course, you enjoy hiking, biking, running, playing or other sporting activities requiring that your feet touch the ground)! In any case, as one of my one of my friends always says, do what you love!

And as I always say, Knit in Good Health!

Two Faces Have I

Sooo, apparently I now have two faces? Kinda. Remember when I broke my glasses? Remember the ordeal of the spare pair of doom? Well, so do I! That's why I decided that now I need to always have two pair of current glasses. At first it sounded like an expensive venture, but then I looked into some online shops, and found out that I can get specs to my specs pretty cheap - Yay! So I did!

And, as long as I was not breaking the bank, I decided to have some fun with it, too! The first pair I got at Wally-World, which is pretty standard procedure for Pretty, except that the frames were a little bolder than I usually choose. The other pair I currently love to wear is from Goggles4U. (This is not an ad, just a letting-you-know kinda thing, I promise.) I was wary of ordering something like glasses online, but it seems to have turned out just fine, at about half the cost of my store-bought pair, and I call that a win!

Oh!, and they are PURPLE! Very purple. . .so purple that I forgot how purple they were between the time I ordered and the time they arrived! But, you know what? I like 'em! You can see some photos of both frames over there on the left, and you know what else? I think I like to accessorize with my glasses. I am a Girl Who Wears Glasses, and I love it! (I didn't always, but now, I am sure that I do!)

And I love that I have glasses that I can see out of, and that I have a spare pair at the ready, just in case, because seeing is important to a knitter!

Speaking of knitting, in Knitting Knews this week, I finished a couple things! A Christmas project (no pix - keepin' it covert), technically it was project #3, but it's the 4th finished Christmas project, soooo, take that for whatever it's worth to ya!

I also finished the first of my October socks - the Dragonfly pattern - which is working up SUPER QUICK! It's just flying away on the needles! I started these just before the potluck last Saturday, and I think I will easily be done by next weekend! I love the colors of this 5th Avenue Funky Sock Yarn, even though it's acrylic. . .and I have worn acrylic socks before. . .they are not as nice as wool, truth be told, but they wear like iron, and if the Hubs should accidentally wash and dry (because he is a totally hip and happ'nin' kinda guy who is not above doing the laundry sometimes), no problem! "Acrylic Yarn - it can save your marriage. . ." lol
I also love the way variegated yarns look in an Eye of Partridge heel flap. . .Oooooh!, preeetty!
I just love to pick these up all the time. . .I am really not sure what I will do when they are done, except that I will probably cast on the November socks. . .but I don't know if I can really love a pattern/yarn-color marriage as much as I am currently loving this one. . .sigh! I suppose that I will survive, in any case. ;-P

Oh! I know what I can do next! I still need another baby girl sweater, and I happen to have this yarn. . .Sounds like a pretty nice match up to me! So, I guess my two faces and I will sign off now. Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

Pot Luck Fun!

That's what we titled the Ravelry post as we planned a potluck for our knitting meetup group! And last Saturday was the day that all of the planning paid off. . .as you can plainly see:
Yumminess in many shapes and sizes, cold food, hot food, crunchy food, soft food, sweet food, savory food, the theme of the day was FOOD (just in case you missed that)! It's a little funny, because many of us have some food "sensitivities," and all of the dishes were described as, "Dawn brought that and there is no milk in it at all! It's really good!," or, "Connie left the ingredient list from the cake and pudding boxes right on the table, and I did not see any nuts or milk!" Everything was beyond delicious, and I don't think there were any digestive "issues" afterwards - yay and double yay!!

And, even though the girls protested, there is one picture of the friends!

That's not all of us, but it's a pretty good cross-section anyway! We started at around 4pm, and the last knitter left the church at around 11!!! It went a little longer than any of us thought it would, but with food, friends, fun and fiber, I really don't see how it could have been any shorter!

In Knitting Knews, I did make quite a bit of headway on my October sock at the potluck, and since. . .this is just the first one, but I've already turned the heel and decreased the gusset on this sock, and I only cast on 5 days ago! This one is knitting up quick, and I love the lace pattern! It is the Dragonfly Socks, and I am using 5th Avenue Funky Sock Yarn in pastel multi. It's an acrylic yarn, but these colors sure do brighten a dreary, October mood!

In other Knitting Knews, I was able to find another couple of skeins of the Bernat Baby Coordinates to finish this sweater. If you remember the last post, I ran out of yarn with six rows left to knit on the second sleeve. . .but I found the exact right pink (it seems the Sweet Stripes may have been discontinued), and I finished it up on Sunday. Since I also bought a whole skein of this yarn in the white, and since there is another baby girl at church that I have not yet knit for, I think I may make another! It was a fun knit, and I look forward to making my own stripes!

The Saturday song reference was Sunday Morning Six o'Clock by the Camel Drivers, from the 60s! I have had this song on a vinyl 45rpm (same label as in that video) record since I was a wee girl, and now I have an mp3. . .super yay! Because, of course, I am a morning person, and I like 6 o'clock!

Well, perhaps this post has enough potluck in it for now. Please pass it on to pretty knitters everywhere. . .I need more followers! lol Seriously, tho, this blog can be pretty random, but that's one of my favorite things about a potluck anything! Perhaps Pretty's potluck posting pleases people?!? haha!

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

So I run to the day. . .

. . .and the day runs to me. . .

10 points to anyone who knows where that comes from! Every time I start to sing or hum it, the people around me tell me to just stop. It's hard to be a morning person some days!

And the day did run to meet me! There's a knitting pot-luck this afternoon, so as I met Saturday in the kitchen, we emptied the cupboards and started to bake! It was a lot of fun! We made chocolate-chip-peanut-butter mini muffins:

And we made apple-cinnamon-oatmeal muffins, and also some plain muffins, for the less adventurous!

Three kinds of muffins might seem like overkill for your average day, but Pretty's family gets a little miffed when there are baked goods for an event and none for them! I guess I would be miffed if I woke up smelling cinnamon and chocolate only to be told, "No muffins for you!"

So, what could make a Saturday better than the promise of fun, food, friends and knitting? Well, a finished object would certainly be a bonus, so I snapped up this sweater (my first steeking project) when I was done in the kitchen:

But, it's still missing something. . .see?

Look a little closer. . .

Yep. A sweater isn't really finished until it has BOTH sleeves! (Who made up that rule? Oh, someone with TWO arms, got it.) But look! I have the other sleeve! It's just about 6 rows from being ready to set into that lovely armhole. . .

But, look a wee bit closer and you might also see that THIS IS ALL THE YARN I HAVE LEFT!?! Ugh! How did this happen?!?

Oh, that's right, poor planning on Pretty's part. Thanks for reminding me. . .

Of course, it's not all that bad. . .at some point today I should pass by the store where this yarn was purchased, and I am sure there will be more, and you should see this as a finished object in my Ravelry pages later this weekend! sigh!

I hope that your Saturday brings you some joy! Make some muffins for the family, I am sure that will help! Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!