6.22.2006

My mother was right...

When she told me as a child, not to run with sharp objects, usually scissors. (WALK WITH THE POINTS DOWN!) Though, she never let me have anything sharp! I should have remembered that today. However, I was too concerned with answering the door. I had my knitting needles (DPNS)in hand, when I heard the door bell ring. I jumped up to answer it and must have frightened "Nervous Nell"(my Maine coon cat, Allegra), because she shot out in front of me. I became an instant ballerina, trying to pirouette out of her way. As I grabbed for the doorway with needles in hand, I realized to late, I was about to become stab victim! Those damn needles are sharper than they look. I actually put a small hole in the palm of my hand!! It's minor compared to what it could have been. I think I just put a detour in the life-line of my palm!! That cat needs valium! A bandaid and neosporin did the trick.

In March, I took a knitting class. At the time, We were instructed to find a pattern to work on in class. That way, If we had any problems, the teacher would be able to help us problem solve. I decided to work on a pattern from the book, Loop-d-Loop.

I really love this sweater and I especially love the color... And don't have much green in my wardrobe. This would be perfect winter wear. Oops, I digress...The yarn.
I thought I would like to make it using the yarn the designer used. I had seen other knitter's blog pics of the completed sweater in a variety of nice yarns, with excellent results! I could have easily substituted a similar yarn as did others. But noooo, I had to have the King Filtes-Van Dyck yarn. It was hard to find locally, and on the net. Especially, in the color I wanted. So, I searched the internet and found a site that would order it for me. Guess what? I ordered it in March. (the first week) and received it in June (last Friday). It was definitely a "Murphy's Law" purchase. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I won't go into further details (You're all prolly noddin off at this point!) I nearly cancelled the order several times, but my knitting OCD wouldn't let me. Also, I'm a sucker for nice people.The woman who does the ordering was so nice about trying to get things straightened out. Needless to say, the class is long over,but the yarn was definitely worth the wait! It's a beautiful yarn and the color true to the pics in the book.

I have three outstanding projects to finish. So, although my fingers are itching to start the sweater and some other projects, I am not going to do another thing until the current projects are done!

Sock Progress
Here is a picture of progress I've made on the current sock. I hope to finish it in a couple of days. After that, I'll either continue and make the mate to a previous sock or continue to this one gets a mate right way...Maybe both at same time!

Lately, blogger's be a pain. It's so hard to get pics put up. Today, I got around it using "Hello" a free program for uploading pics and sending e-mail pics. It's easy to use and does a decent job.

Summer Reading Challenge Update
I've finished reading the first book on my list by Lisa Jackson and I'm onto another book on the list. "Breakfast on Pluto" by Patrick McCabe. This one's a fast read and really funny at times. It took me a little bit to get used to the Irish syntax and expressions. It's a good read!

Project Spectrum
The color is Blue. I'm blue because I haven't any blue to show for it. I wonder if "Singing the blues" counts. This month hasn't started off well, but it's ending on a better note.
Hope all is well with you bloggers out there!!!
Get knitting!

6.09.2006

House of Flying Needles!

No, I'm not writing a screenplay for a sequel to the movie "House of Flying Daggers" It was how I vented my frustration over not "getting it" on a sock heel that I haven't done before. I went to the frog pond several times and ended up with holes where there shouldn't be holes, stitches that kept slipping off the needle, and split yarn. Instead of the calm, "Hmmm,let's see where I went wrong" or the Zen/yoga like approach of just meditating and letting the answer come to me...I sent those suckers flying across the room!!! I left the damn sock alone for 3 days and when I couldn't stand it anymore, I sat down and tried it again. This time, "light dawned on marble head". So not a lot of knitting this week, but I should have something to show for my recent efforts soon.



In other news, It's the summer reading challenge and I'm off to a good start. I'm 3/4 of the way through the first book: Lisa Jackson's "Cold Blooded". Its a suspense thriller with a serial killer, hard boiled detective, and a beautiful woman with visions of the murders and romance thrown in. Here's a list of my other summer choices:
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
Dan Brown - Angels and Demons
Edward Rutherfurd - The Princes of Ireland/Dublin Saga
Stephen King - Dark Tower V - The Wolves of Calla
Stephen King - Dark Tower VI - Song of Susannah
Stephen King - Dark Tower VII - The Dark Tower
Patrick McCabe - Breakfast on Pluto
John Connolly - The Black Angel
F. Paul Wilson - Crisscross

This list of books will keep me busy for a while do have list of other books that I can't wait to read, should I get through these before the challenge ends! Anybody in blogland knit and read at the same time? Just imagine what I could get accomplished...Just kidding! I think I like the idea of just doing one of these activities a time to get the most pleasure out of each!

Have a good weekend everyone and keep knitting!