Thursday, April 28, 2005

finders keepers...

I love books. I hoard books. I have more books than yarn. To help me with my book obsession, the local library has a humongous book sale every yeat. Hundreds of people. Thousand of books. Yay! I thought I was safe as long as I remembered to stay clear of Military History. Beware of men with their civil war books in Virginia. That is until I realized that there may be knitting books. So after squeezing myself through the throngs of people with their bags and boxes of books. (Why is it no one will say Excuse Me or Pardon Me or Oh, I'm so sorry I hit you when it comes to these things. It's just simply, let me push through you so that I can get the books before anyone else.) Sorry for the rant, but when I finally made it to the craft corner. I was quite happy to get my hands on these...
Book Sale Finds

I love the vintage stuff. A lot of it is pretty dated, the 60's, 70's & 80's. I don't think I'll be knitting the giant tunic sweaters or sweaters needing shoulder pads, but some of the stuff is timeless.

As for actual knitting content, I've started a couple more scarves and I've started frogging my Klaralund. It fits a bit weird over across the chest. I have an idea for some shaping, and if I like how it turns out, I might share with you. If not, it will hide in my knitting basket with Em-Em's, 8 year old dog sweater. (I couldn't completely frog it...after all I may finish it one day.)

Many Many Thanks to Lu for the Flickr PRO account. (I won a contest on her blog). With all that space I'll definitely work on my Photo Blog.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

spring flowers and scarves...

I'm steadliy working my way through my scarves. Soon, it will be too warm for them, but I'll keep on knitting until I find something else...
Until then, I've got a little bit of this...
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and a tiny bit of this...
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and in a week the dogwood has gone from this
dogwood1.jpg

to this...
dogwood

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but the scarf is still...

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

The other stash..

Well, after struggling for a few days with these charts. I'm finally making some progress. I dug out a magnetic board I used during my Cross Stitch phase, and it has certainly made life much easier. I'm working on some scarves from scarf style, for presents, for the Dulaan Project and for the red scarf project. My goal is to use a large amount of the yarn in my stash so that I can justify a yarn buying expedition. Have you seen Axelle's new silk boucle. Gorgeous.

During my search for the magnetic board, I *discovered* my other stash. The stash of forgotten craft and art supplies. Well there's the cross stitch, but there's also the paint, the watercolors, the acrylics, Prismacolor, Derwent, Design (is it bad that I like the smell of the markers?), charcoals, the beads, the calligraphy nibs, and pots of ink. And I almost forgot the scrapbooking supplies: the stamps, papers, punches, scissors, and another set of markers (acid free, archival quality:-P) Oy vey, I really shouldn't be allowed in craft stores. At least I've re-purposed my crochet stash for my knitting. I realize that I should probably get rid of them, but I can't let go. One day, maybe someday soon, I might just try them again. After all, I've got ALL the supplies.

Yeah, right.

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My mum's party was quite a success, family, friends and tons of food. (I just finished the last bit of mango mousse cake. Yummy!) Everyone loved the party favors. Later in the party, people had broken off into groups that later became crochet circles. Those who knew how to crochet taught the others.

Here's my Mum teaching John the basics of crochet...
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Thursday, April 07, 2005

out of the slump

Well. I think I've officially out of my so called knittting slump. I've taken advantage of day off from work to tidy up the blog, and cast on for a couple of scarves. I've got a gauge swatch for the tank I'm planning to make with my new flash yarn. Yay.

I've realized I'm crap at reading knitting charts. Of course, I realize that as soon as I get the hang of it it'll be easier, but the repeated frogging and counting of stitches may send my new WIPs into the basket with the UFO's.

Of course my productive knitting day, came to stop while watching Lost. I definitely need to find some mindless knitting for TV time. Did y'all see Jack with that knitting needle?

Sunday, April 03, 2005

a slump?!?

I haven't been a very good blogger. Well, I really haven't been a very good knitter these past few weeks. I guess I've hit a knitting slump.

Of course, this slump has by no means affected my ability to enhance my yarn stash. I recently acquired some lovely cotton Flash and some silk yarn and books from Jaimi. (luckliy for me she's de-stashing.) I'm just waiting for the inspiration to knit up a summer sweater or tank.

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My mum, will be celebrating her Birthday this weekend. Once again I'm preoccupied with party details. The head count is somewhere around seventy. I keep worrying about the food, the catering, the decorations and everything else that comes with planning a big party. Why does it always feel like I'm forgetting something? Well whatever it is, I hope I remember before Saturday.

At least I've finshed the Party favors...
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a ball of yarn, a hook and some basic instructions for crochet...
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Mum's a former Home-Ec teacher who is quite crafty and currently obsessed with all things crochet. My sister and I thought it would be nice to share that with all her guests.