sick of being sick...

i am officially sick of being sick. the darn common cold has been with me for too many days now. i am however pretty darn pleased to force myself to do almost nothing. sadly, with that comes piled up projects at work, lack of sleep and lack of husband's sleep due to my constant hacking and nose blowing. 

nothing to pat myself on the back for.

these things aside, i have made 2 more buttercup bags from made by rae. her easy to follow FREE instructions can be found here. did i say FREE? not only is it FREE, it is written for the sewing impaired like me. pictures and all. my first effort was pretty darn successful. it may be due to the fog in my head or just stupidity but this time around i just flunked sewing 101. silly me~ drawn to those beautiful fabrics that just beg to become something more... of course i can take a lightweight cotton fabric and make it into a sturdy handbag. 

why not? 

well i need only say one word... 

interfacing

ok, so i can add a few more inappropriate words to go along with it, but you get the picture. why would anyone want to do two and a half times the work when they don't have to? all i needed to do was walk away from the pretty florals and go deeper into the fabric shop to find something that screamed "i need to be a hand bag"  

but i didn't. 

mental note to self for any future project... if you need to use interfacing to make it, just don't make it.

thing one and thing two are for two young girls i have yet to meet. their mother is one heck of a lady so i hope they get enjoyed. 

oh and go vote

my first nose kiss 4 years on....

from my first nose kiss 4 years ago i was lucky enough to get to spend some more time with this little angel.

it seemed a little fitting that my little eskimo kisser would come to visit and the weather would change from the upper 90's to the coldest day since february.

hopefully next time it wont be so long between visits.

thank you for the visit little one. i enjoyed every minute of it.

flower fridays

wine and knitting

and my love of wine saves me $2.49

has anyone heard or bought these great little yarn sleeves? you can get them from patternworks (set of 5 in multiple colors) for the hefty price of $2.49

i kid you- they are worth the $2.49

only while purchasing some items for my beverage stash i noticed that my favorite beverage store has these nifty net wine bottle sleeves

(aka yarn sleeve)

pretty thrift, no?

knitting in japanese

we had a cold day. enough to get me back into the knitting mood. our newest stray joined us this summer at the height of the summer heat. it took almost two months of driving around the blocks of our new office looking for him, each one of us with a can of dog food in our trunk in the event that we ran across him.

we learned that he was smart enough not to run the streets in the afternoon so it took early mornings to find him and get him fed. at some point he decided we weren’t all that bad and i snagged him. he underwent surgery right after the snatch and grab, because while he was on his own he was hit by a car and only used 3 of his four legs.

now he is on the mend and all puppy- (gosh i forgot what it takes to be the owner of a puppy)… his 100 mile per hour skinny body needed a sweater. he is kinda built like a whippet/italian greyhound mix. we think he may very well be a sicilian greyhound but whatever he is- he sure is cute, bright, clumsy and one early riser.

i decided since coming back from my trip to japan that i would knit him a japanese sweater. i have a few japanese knitting pattern books (and a few more after my visit) but i have never tried one. the pattern i found seemed perfect for him with the exception that it was a hoodie sweater (even worse it had a pom-pom on the top). after being thrown into a family with middle aged parents, 2 geriatric small dogs and one other who is  deaf and sleeps morning, noon and night he has nothing better to do than play with anything he can (envelopes from the bin, wicker furniture, plastic containers… well, just about anything.) so far he has chewed through one nylon lead and on his way to chewing through two others. a pom-pom on his head would be fair game for knit destruction. besides those greyhounds are just meant to be in turtlenecks, right?

i have to admit that i guessed on the gauge, guessed on the needle size, guessed on the wool but found a website that did a good job of explaining “the reading of japanese knit charts.” this was after spending a great deal of time deciphering a crochet chart by accident.  you can down load it here- it is interpreting japanese knitting patterns by marsh white. 

the book is stylish knits for small dogs. the patterns is on page 26, item number 17: nordic hoodie vest. 

my goods:

1 skein each of cascade 220 heathers in shades 4009 (dark teal) and 4010 (gold) (plus a bit of unknown white fluffy yarn for the snowflake)

us 9, 10 & 10.5 straight needles. 

 

happy halloween!!!

steve

thank you steve