My Project List

Here it is the end of the first week of January and I have a finished object to show off:



This is the sock monkey posing with his friends that I sewed up for the girls for Christmas. I am closing in on finishing another project. The red scarf is now longer than I am tall, but my goal was to just knit until the yarn was gone. The ball is getting small:



Unfortunately, I keep seeing things I would like to make. Like this cute sweater:



Or like this afghan from the latest Lion Brand catalog:



Right now, I am planning on getting the yarn for the afghan. I think I will dye my own for the sweater. I’ll have to find a dk weight yarn to try out for it. I don’t currently do dk for my shop, so I don’t have any laying around to dye. That is probably just as well, because I did sort of promise myself to finish up some projects rather than starting new ones. And I don’t actually have a complete list of the things I have on the needles. I’ll try to list them all here:

1. Socks for Brent
2. Bunnies to felt for Easter (last year)
3. Bonsai vest
4. Purple mittens
5. Cathedral mitten
6. Gift Scarf
7. My socks
8. Hat for Knitter #3
9. Earth and Sky Shawl

I think that is all of the knitting projects. There are others that are abandoned forever. I just don’t care to finish them. They lost the luster and I am letting them go. I have a few crochet ufo’s, too:

1. Hello Kitty toy
2. Butterfly afghans for the girls (2)

My crochet projects are usually smaller and much more likely to get finished.

Starting the Year in Full Drool Mode

I love watching period shows like Downton Abbey. I like to drool over the fabulous clothes and hats. Lately, I have been wondering why women quit wearing hats. I love hats. I’ve decided that I am going to buy some nice hats to wear than my floppy ones I use for gardening. They are wonderful, but not stylish at all. And when I say stylish, I mean that they are pretty much for wearing with jeans. I will need a nicer hat to wear with the pretty outfits I have sworn to wear this year.

Happy New Year!

Crafty Intentions

My intention this Christmas break was to do a bunch of sewing. I was pretty successful with it a couple years ago. This year I have been a bit lazy with it. All I have sewn so far is Christmas dolls for the girls. They are from the Wee Wonderfuls book by Hillary Lang. I love her dolls. Maybe I will get to it and sew something this weekend.

Yesterday I finally had time to play with some of the new yarns I am going to be adding to my shop. It was kind of cool so see how the colors came out differently for the different fibers. They are finally dry, but no pictures yet. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures taken tomorrow. Today was far too gloomy for pictures.

I might finish the sock monkey tomorrow. I am pretty excited at the thought of being able to finish a project. I have both arms done. Now I just have the tail and the face left. They are all small stuff, so I might finish.

My First Real Hair Post

After doing a bit of digging tonight, I found my hair measurements for the year. My hair has grown 3 inches since I started keeping track again in May. I’ve been measuring every month at about the same time of the month. This is the picture I took a few weeks ago to show how long my hair is:



I use sweet almond oil on my hair to keep it healthy and strong. Generally, I put it on the night before I am going to wash it. Right now, I am trying to decide if I should go back to using shampoo on my hair or not. My hair tends to be an ongoing science experiment.

The Coming New Year

This is a project I’ve been working on lately:



It is a sock monkey I was making for Knitter #3’s birthday in October. She would like to play with it someday.

I have a few plans for the New Year. More knitting. More blogging. Weight loss. Getting in shape before I am 40 in the summer. That is my real goal. The weight loss will happen. I want to be able to say on my 40th birthday that I am finally fit again. I used to be before I had kids. What’s my plan? Well, I actually started about 2 months ago. Eating carefully, exercising, and being serious about it. The stars finally seemed to come into alignment in October, so I got started. And I can tell I am on my way. I feel so much stronger already.

I would also like to dress up a little more. I used to admire a blog where someone cataloged their cute vintage outfits. I like vintage. I am a huge fan of the early 1900’s. Need I say that I can’t get enough of Downton Abbey? I love the clothes, the hats. Not just the flashy outfits of the daughters, but the outfits you see the maids in when they are off duty. I am determined to make myself another skirt like my favorite denim one. Only not in denim. I recently was introduced to Sock Dreams by a friend on a long hair forum. That place has socks that make you want to wear a skirt!

I’ve decided to talk about my hair and hair care here a bit, so here is my hair:



Last summer I started using henna on it to cover up some horrible highlights I had put in a few years ago. I love the color. And since it is not chemical, I can do my eyebrows to match. I do the henna every couple months, but my eyebrows need touched up more often. Probably in a few years I will quit using the henna and let my natural color grow out before I start to really go gray.

Christmas

Long time, no blogging. But I love blogging. So I have promised myself I will get back into it. It seems like my blogging is linked to my knitting. If I don’t knit, I don’t blog. I just have not knit that much in the past year and a half. Knitting makes me happy, so I am going to make more time for it. I have a lot of unfinished knitting projects that I just need to finish. Can’t wear what you don’t finish…

Christmas was nice. I went to bed earlier this year than I have for several years. We didn’t have anywhere to be on Christmas Eve, which was nice. I also started wrapping presents 3 or 4 days before Christmas. That made things go better. My best present was either my brand new Dremel 4000 or my Kindle. I will go on about the Kindle first. My brother got it for me and it is something I never thought seriously about getting. I have lots of books in my house I can read. And there are always things more important than a grown up toy. I love it. I visited Project Gutenberg and acquired a few books. I haven’t looked in to how to download books from Amazon without a wireless connection. I have over 15 books loaded on my Kindle, so I won’t have to worry about it for a bit.

I asked Brent to get me a Dremel because I want to carve myself some hair toys. Something I really don’t talk about here at all is my hair. I have long hair. What most people would consider very long hair. It is my ambition to grow it much longer. Tomorrow I hope to starting playing around with my Dremel and start carving a hair stick out of a piece of apple wood.

New Knitting

Have you ever just stopped and looked at your house and thought “How in the HELL did this happen?!” I’ve been taking a lot of hard looks at mine lately. One day my husband said our house has never been so bad, and he is right. So, I am embarking on a major, major clean out. It all really started with the mouse invasion. I kept thinking that our house is perfect for mice with all the junk and clutter. I started asking myself how many things in our kitchen could just GO. And I think if people would just put stuff AWAY then maybe we would find there is really tons of space in our house. I’m not sure how to get all of them on board with the putting away. Especially the husband. If think the kids will follow if the adults lead.

Anyone out there making things for Christmas yet? I have a project lined up for Christmas, but not started. I have grown to have mixed feelings about Christmas projects. I like life with few pressures. Especially since I make stuff for my shop. I used to be a knitting machine. Now days, I like to just enjoy myself when I knit. I don’t do many projects. Not compared to what I used to do.

This is the project I have been working on lately:



It grew all week:



I would like to get to this before the snow comes:



I’ve also been plugging away at this:



It is the Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt by Alicia Paulson. I am using it to make a new duvet for our down comforter. The other one has been shredding for some time. I am sewing over 500 squares together. It is taking FOREVER. I can’t wait for this step to be over so I can sew them into rows.