Temptation

There's so much knitting (and spinning and quilting and beading and scrapbooking) I want to do, but this has caught my attention and I keep coming back to it:

It's a vest kit from KnitPicks, and while it would look horrible on me (horizontal stripes = very, very bad), I was thinking about getting the kit plus a bunch of one of the colors and making a yoked cardigan with the stranded patterning on the yoke, then solid on the body and sleeves.

Of course I need another project like I need a hole in the head, but I was thinking about cheating in a massive way and trying to figure out my knitting machine. It's for fine-gauge yarns, and the Palette yarn should work nicely in it. I could do the yoke by hand, circularly, then do the body and sleeves on the knitting machine and just have some grafting and seaming. It's darn tempting!

Now I just need to clean the house and get some projects finished so I can consider ordering the kit. LOL!

I'm officially a bowler

Today was my first bowling league meeting. I did pretty well (for me!) and my official average is 141.

I still don't have a team mate, but we might combine my "team" with someone else whose partner backed out. I'm just happy to be bowling.

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I've been knitting but don't have too much to show for it.

I started a double knitting project for Ryan, who requested a blue and red scarf.

I ended up cutting it off because I'm just not happy with it. I need to figure out the technique a little more, since I hate the way the checkerboards don't line up. I know I'm doing something wrong, I'm just not sure what.


I've been working on my Trachtentuch A shawl, although it still doesn't look like much:

It'll look a lot nicer once it's blocked. I ended up having to spin up an additional 2 ounces of the merino/tencel, so I'm really glad I got 8 ounces instead of 4. Thanks, Mom!!!!

I have four more rows and the bind off, then I'll block it. Hopefully by the end of the week....


I've also started another pair of socks. This is again using the Quilted Lattice stitch. I'm in love with it for variegated yarns. This pair is going into the fair instead of my Coupling socks, which have a few too many problems to enter. (Not that they're unwearable, I just don't think they're good enough to enter in the fair.)


I finally got some pictures of my Hanging Garden Stole, which I posted about a few weeks ago. I blocked it on the last day of July.

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That's about all that's happening around here. This afternoon I'll take Gillian to her first bowling league meet, which will be fun. She's really excited about it.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Scrapbooking -- lots of pics!

On Friday of last week Marci and I went to the Creaking Keepsakes Scrapbooking convention here in Tulsa. It was a blast! We took three classes and shopped to our hearts' content.

Here's some of my loot:

That's not all of it, but it's a good sampling. I got a sheet of Technique Tuesday stamps that was on cleareance, some neat gel pens that are really really glossy and raised, some grossgrain ribbon, and a couple of neat paper kits.

The classes were really cool! I especially enjoyed the results from the Jacob's Ladder class. We did two layouts, and I took three pictures of each so you can see how they work.

Layout #1, closed:


Open to the left:


Open to the right:

So you could have a total of five different pictures. (The picture on the smaller striped paper changes, as you can kind of see because in the first picture it's grey, and in the picture above it's tan.)

Here's the smaller version, whic I really like:



Cool, huh?

Here's Marci in the Jacob's Ladder class:


And me!


The first class we took was making a clear acrylic album, and here's the finished (except for pictures) project:

There wasn't as much to it as I'd thought there would be, which was cool. My only problem is that I don't really want a bunch of little books around, as it's so much easier to keep things contained/together if they're in one or two albums. These might be nice to giving to people though.

I took another class on using clear stamps and learned a lot more than I'd thought I would, which is always great. Of course I don't need any help in my addiction to clear stamps, but that's all right. LOL!

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I'm trying to finish up some things to enter in the Tulsa State Fair, and hopefully I'll have a bunch of pictures of the projects in the next few weeks. They're due on September 18 so I'd better get going on them.

I hope you're all having a great week so far!

A Hot Time

Yes, the weather is hot, but the harvest from the garden is even hotter!


The peppers are the only plants left, but WOW are they productive!

The kids and Greg picked quite a few this evening:

There's one small bell pepper in there. The green and red ones are jalapenos, and the yellow ones are Hungarian wax peppers. I'm not sure what we're going to do with all of them, especially since there are lots more on the plants still.

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I'm so behind in a lot of things, and in the interest of being less behind on my blog here are a couple of pictures from the Fourth of July:

The kids LOVE smoke bombs, and this year they really enjoyed running through the smoke.

We had some small fireworks and I managed to catch this neat picture:

We had a nice, low-key time.

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Today I went to the a scrapbooking convention and took three classes. It was a blast! I learned some neat things and I'll take some pictures in the next few days.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

First Day of School!

The kids have been SO excited, and so have I! Today is the first day of school!

Gillian is starting third grade and Ryan is starting kindergarten, which goes all day.

Here they are with their backpacks:


They picked out their own clothes and got themselves all ready. I'm so proud!


Here's Ryan, settling down to business immediately in class:


And Gillian, heading in to get to work in her class:


(Note the cool shoes -- they're from Aunt Louise, and Gillian has all kinds of outfits planned around them.)

We rode our bike in, which was nice because the traffic was a zoo, as usual. It wont' be quite so pleasant this afternoon since it's in the mid 90s, but I'll bring some water and we'll be fine.

I helped out in the lunchroom this morning which was really fun. The kids are all SO well behaved! It was fun to be able to check on the kids halfway through the day, too.

I can't believe we've already started back to school but it's going to be nice to be back in a routine.

I hope you're all having as great a day as I am!

"New" Old Wheel

I was talking with my parents and sister, and we realized that I never blogged about my "new" old wheel!

I picked up this wheel from Craigslist back in May:



I have no idea who made it, as there are no identifying marks.

It's quite different from my Fricke so I haven't really learned to use it yet. I need to learn a whole different system, since this one is bobbin-driven and I'm used to my flyer-driven Fricke. I'm hoping that once the kids are back in school I'll have a few hours to really play with it.

Speaking of school, tomorrow (Monday) is Meet the Teacher, where we find out who the kids' teachers will be. Wednesday school starts!!! I'm ridiculously excited, and so are the kids. :-)

I let Marci talk me into helping at the cafeteria on Wednesday, so I'll see the kids at lunch time. This will be Ryan's first time in all-day school and I suspect he'll be exhausted for the first few months, just like Gillian was in kindergarten. I'm really hoping that both kids continue to enjoy school.

I hope you all have had a great weekend!