Bringing home the GOLD

Look Look Look! One of the Harlot's talented friends made us a medal!! In two sizes, even...one for the blog and one to print out and hang on the wall! I've printed out two..one for home and one for my cubbie at work.

And, last night in the comments on Steph's blog someone gave a link to an big article in a Toronto (I think) newspaper so I have printed that out too. Give some credence to this whole thing...my coworkers admire my bag but don't quite get the Olympics, I think.

I'd planned on working on the sock and doing another felting experiment this evening but unexpectedly I went shopping with my friend Mac and my 12 year old niece of choice. That girl can shop!! Went to Kohl's to get her new clothes for school since she's in a growing spurt. I need new clothes but nothing really screamed at me and what I really want is more yarn. I think this is an addiction, eh?

There....I don't know how to put my buttons in the sidebar so I'll just post them all in the post. At least I can see them I did find a book @ Barnes and Noble.com that teaches you how to
make a good blog here so I think I shall order it later on this evening.

Friday I had a Dr's appt in the City. First time I've dared take my rattly old car out of town since it went wonky but it had to be done. Happy to say we made it there and back. Once the appt was out of the way I spent some time shopping! Woohoo! I had received gift cards from my dear friend/sister/twin Tam at Christmas time but hadn't been able to get over there to spend them. That's taken care of now At Michael's I got some Lion superwash wool...a sort of camel color, paint that will work on tiles...more about that later I hope, and some silk flowers for spring. At Pier 1 I got two small rugs that I use as covers on my trunk/coffee table and the top of my great hulking tv. One is aqua and the other sand.

Then, after lunch at Pizza Hut and stocking up on pet food at Petsmart, I went to Gourmet Yarn. Only one customer so I got to chat! And got some scrumptious yellow Plymouth Encore...an acrylic/wool blend. That's what my cast on sock is made of. I'm hoping that by actually being able to see the stitches I can at last get farther than the ribbing LOL.

See ya later!

wooohooooo!

I MADE IT!!!! Not the greatest pic and I'm sure everyone is interested in my bathroom door but hey! This was the most fun! I really was worried...it was so floppy loose looking but ahhhh, the wonders of felting! I'm so very proud of me LOL and to celebrate, I even casted on for a sock Sunday evening in the closing ceremonies!

I had lots of "help" tho...well maybe just good company. Here are two of the cats, Hershey the Siamese and Mary the grande dame tortie. Obviously they aren't too impressed but they did enjoy snuggling with me every evening while I knitted. Mercy, the so-called helper cat seemed to be saying "it's MY yarn...go away!

Hmmmm, I'm apparently not too good at posting. Not that tons of people are awaiting my most up-to-date message :-)

Knitting was going well, sort of. Apparently about 3 rows into the sides, I turned it inside out. So instead of a steady field of stockinette, there was a ridge of knit all around the bottom. I tried to convince myself that this ridge was a style element. Uh huh, sure. C'mon this is worse than straddling a gate (sorry Bode!) so Wednesday I ripped it out back to the base and started over. Much better looking and although I'm sure there will be glitches, at least I corrected something.

So now, it's still rather small but rolling right along. I didn't get as much done as I had hoped for last night because I kept stopping to watch that snowboard/ motocross thing. Amazing! I have loved all the snowboard events.

I got pictures developed. A whole roll of pics with maybe 3 good ones. Hopefully this weekend I can upload a couple. It's supposed to be icy here so I won't be running around doing errands.

Speaking of errands..I needed to add minutes to my Tracphone. got the card last week and did it over the phone one morning this week. But oops, the minutes didn't add...I've thrown the card away so now I have to go spend another $20 on the way to work. Note to self..keep the card until you know for sure it worked.

Playing catch up

Here I am back again. LOL for one thing, I forgot how to get here! I'd eMailed myself the link to the blog but not to the log-in place. Duh.

Thursday evening was spent doing grocery stuff and a bit of laundry. Had to have clean jammies for the opening ceremonies, ya know.

Friday I came home totally disgruntled about some work stuff. I was really glad I had the Olympics to focus on. At least I could be doing something instead of just thinking too much. And it wasn't anything I could do anything about anyway. Sooooo....here we go!

I casted on and completed the base of the Booga bag. Took lots of pics a la Harlot but since I don't have a digital camera that will have to wait until I use up the film and get it developed. Mercy cat was ever so interested and helpful. Spent a great deal of time rubbing her chin on the yarn. I guess she is claiming it. And I wonder, will cat hair felt???

Saturday I cooked and did house stuff. Made a big pot of cabbage and dumplings, and then for supper I made hamburger steak. Oh, and made a pan of brownies. When the afternoon Olympics came on, I picked up the stitches around the base with the dpns. Well what a disaster that was. I kept losing them and something was just not right. So, pulled them out and tried to frog back. My frogging is a bit aggressive and I kept finding little places where I didn't like the look of the stitch so I ended up starting over! Eeek!

Went to bed Saturday night with 3 rows of the base done.

Woke up Sunday morning with a hellacious headache. All sinus, all on the left side. It eased off once I was up but kept me company the whole day. So knitting time was interspersed with little naps cuddled up to that scented flax (or whatever is in it) bag. I think that helps almost as much as anything.

I finished the base and then realized that I was supposed to leave it on the circs to pick up stitches. That done, off I go. Now I am confused again. The base (unfelted) is approximately 5x10 (34 rows). Now I am to knit for 64 rows for the sides. Well, knitting in the round produces stockinette stitch and 10 rows is approximately 2 inches. So the sides are going to be only maybe 8 inches tall? That's not right. I guess I will just keep knitting till it seems right. I'm tempted to order some Addi turbos. These circs (all $5) surely grab at the yarn where the cable attaches. We shall see. I got my check for 80% of my meds from the insurance company and my wish list at Knitpicks is already huge. And I may have to get more of the yarn for this bag.

And now it's Monday, and time to get into a cubicle frame of mind. Well, that's ok...I have knitting to think about.

Day Two, swatching and cursing

Nope, not cursing at the swatching. That was actually quite nice although I wish I had Crystal Palace circs instead of the generic metal ones I have. They work just fine, but there is this sort of faint uhhh grinding (?) noise as they move passed each other. I wanted to just keep on knitting but since I knew I had to frog it all, I quit after just a few rows. Didn't want to wear out the yarn.

This yarn is rather "sproingy" for a lack of a better word. It's as if it has a life...well that sounds a bit weird. Better hush now.

The cursing involve this blog. For some reason, when I'm outside and try to come back in via a link, I get a 404 message. I shall have to mess some more and hopefully it will majically work since I have no idea of what to do.

But now I must go iron. Am trying to do a bit of laundry each night so I won't have to worry about it when the games begin.

G'nite.

Here I go

I really have NO idea of what I am doing. I wanted a blog not only to babble on about myself and my projects and my furkids but to also have a place to put my Knitting Olympic buttons. Not that I have any idea of how to do that!

Yes, I've joined in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. One of over 3,000 and probably one of the less skilled knitters. I am, I guess, an advanced beginner. Scarves, dishcloths etc. But now I am going to make a Booga Bag and am knitting it with the Kureyon pictured. I've loved it since I first saw it. But I hesitated to spend the money. Recently my doc prescribed Lexapro to hopefully fix some depression and I prescribed Kureyon. One of the two should work! And certainly the Kureyon is a lot more fun.

My yarn arrived today! I'd been tracking it on the UPS site, and when it said it had been delivered, I ran home from work to get it. ohhhh it's pretty. Interesting texture too. I've never had yarn like it and am excited to see how it knits up. I did swatch a bit tonight and was happy to see that it "feeds" well through my fingers.