Spring has Sprung!

or has it? saturday was heavenly - blue skies, sunshine and semi-warm weather (60's)! perfect, perfect, perfect! what a wonderful day to spend in the garden, which is precisely what i did. how refreshing to get down and dirty! perennials are starting to poke through the soil and buds and leaves are starting to take shape on shrubs - ahh, the renewal of life!

that glorious day was followed by a deluge of rain all day sunday - so much for easter egg hunts and steppin' out in easter finery!

after a day of rain, we were rewarded once again with pleasant but a tad nippy days on monday and tuesday. much raking, hauling and clipping was accomplished preparing the garden for its spring and summer show.

on the knitting front, i've decided to abandon wool yarn for the time being (it is spring after all) and head into some summer knitting with cotton yarn. i dug into my stash and pulled out some periwinkle cascade luna yarn for a simple top. i did the gauge thing and as usual, started knitting with a smaller size needle. after almost completing the back (just several rows shy), i've decided that i need to use an even a smaller needle! so... i'll be joining the frogs in the garden with some time spent froggin' the past two days efforts - oh, well, it was a learning experience!

good friday!

today is good friday - a very special day in the catholic christian tradition and also a day of abstinence from eating as one normally does - only one full meal is allowed. why is it that when one is denied food it is all one can think about?

my other question for today is: will it be a good friday? it seems that i have the whole day to myself, not one single 'must do'! will i fritter the day away as i seem to have no problem doing or will i get 'on task'? at this moment i seem to be on task for frittering the day away as i've been online for over two hours without accomplishing anything!! i do have a long list of tasks i could complete! first up is frogging a vest from a knitty pattern that just didn't work - unfortunately i HAD to knit the whole enchilada to figure out that it wasn't a happnin' thing!! i will also be froggin' the starts of two other sweaters using this same yarn! i love the yarn but these patterns just don't cut it!! so...the search is on for a pattern that will work! i think i've found one but now i just have to find a lys that has it...and i do know a lys that IS having a sale today!!! hmmm... another item i can add to my task list! and so it goes...

will include a shot of my stitch markers. i have had so much fun making these...actually i've become somewhat obsessed. i took them to 'knit and knosh' a couple of weeks ago and they were a hit. i really should get busy and figure out a way to market them! oh well, not today...i've got plenty of other tasks. time to hit the shower!

stick a fork in it! i'm done!

yippee! yippee! yahoo!! they are finished, done, complete (the ends have even been buried!). whew, i am relieved and overjoyed - and the yarn for my next pair hasn't arrived yet! unbelievable! yea! yea!

one of THOSE days!!

ARGH!!! do you ever have one of those days? today was one for me - actually it started yesterday! let me preface this by saying that i am NOT a techno nerd!! i know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be techno astute! i am most happy to report that i finished the "halcyon scarf" by jenni chase that is available on the winter '08 knitty website. i really buckled down and rode it hard until i reached the end on wednesday night. i blocked it thursday morning and proceeded to take pictures with my digital camera as i usually do. with pictures in camera i was ready to begin downloading the pictures when trouble set in - the computer would not recognize my camera and open the program for downloading! so after spending the past two days uninstalling, installing, uninstalling, installing, spending way too much time on the hp website - i finally managed to download my pictures! ARGH!! right now, i don't know whether to jump for joy or sulk around with a curled lip! i'd really like to meet the person who said that computers were going to make our lives so much easier and give us so much extra time!!

on the knitting front, i have started a vest affair that i found on the spring '08 knitty website. all has been going well - quick knit in super bulky yarn - until i reached the point of passing the stitches of the rolled sleeve through the cast on holes to bind off. sounds simple, should be simple, but i have now taken it apart three times!! ARGH!! i guess i'll tackle it again this evening after a couple of glasses of cheer! it can't hurt!!

i'm also hard at work on finishing up my second rockin' sock club sock - i decided that finishing this was imperative as i got the drift on the rsc website that a new batch of yarn is on its way. i made a promise to myself that if i gave myself this membership as my birthday gift that i would keep up with the projects soooooo time to put up or shut up!!

is it over yet?

do you ever get to the point where you really want to have something done! i mean over, finished, enough is enough!! such is the case with this scarf. i needed to knit the 12 row pattern 36 times and i'm roundin' third with 26 repeats complete! yeah!! the push is on to complete the final 10 - if i had the time, i would spend the day doing just that!! i am ready to give something else a try - gosh, perhaps one of the aforementioned second socks! or, well, spring is in the air which means some cotton yarn is surely calling my name!! jeepers! decisions, decisions - clean house or knit, clean house or knit....hmmmmm.........

who'd a thunk it!

so...i'm at the re congress in anaheim this past weekend (well equipped with knitting supplies as expected) having a great time. along with a number of marvelous speakers, sessions and liturgies, there is a wonderful exhibit hall filled with many vendors of books, music, religious orders, schools, religious trinkets, etc. as i am wandering through the exhibits, never expecting in a million years to come across anything knitting related (get real, this is a religious conference), out of the corner of my eye i catch a glimpse of something that appears to be a hank of yarn - whoo!! eyes right indeed!! well, i stroll on over to the booth and discover that the wool is from south america and is part of a social justice ministry of the sisters of providence of saint mary-of-the-woods. i'm thinking "all right, i can get behind this - a wonderful way to help women of south america provide an income for themselves and thereby break the chains of poverty while supporting my yarn jones. sign me up!!"

as i'm fondling the lovely alpaca yarn, sister jean saddles up to me and cleverly asks if i'm a knitter. gosh, what gave me away! could it have possibly been the drool running out of my mouth?

immediately i answer, "well, yes, yes i am!" sister jean then turns, grabs a basket and says, "maybe you would be interested in this?". in front of me is a basket with 4 skeins of the softest alpaca that i have ever seen. sister jean proceeds to tell me that as part of their mission at the white violet center for eco-justice they raise alpacas and spin the wool into yarn and sell it and other felted and knit items through there website: http://www.whiteviolet.org/. sister jean informed me that they had had a tremendous response to the yarn they had brought with them (gosh, had they had any idea that there were knitters in the crowd they would have brought more) and these were the last four skeins so, like a good yarnaholic, i snapped them up!

turns out that the good nuns of sisters of providence of saint mary-of-the-woods raise a large number of alpacas on their 300+ acre farm and on each yarn label you get a picture and name of the very alpaca that the wool comes from - is that not cool? who would ever have thought that one could practice social justice at the same time as one is knitting!! go figure!!

here we go again!!

oops, i've done it again! another single sock! i'm beginning to think that i have a problem, houston! why, oh why, must i start another new sock without completing the second sock of the previous pair? is it because i love the yarn? (crystal palace 'panda cotton' - oh, so yummy!) heck, truth be told, i have yet to meet a yarn that i didn't love! is it the pattern? (monkey by cookie a.) apparently i love patterns, too!! in doing a quick search for this sock in my yarn stash area i spotted not less than five socks lacking a partner!! so...this begs the question - is there any hope for me in completing the mates to these socks or shall i perhaps start a new trend by wearing unmatched socks? i'm afraid that the latter's odds are much better than the formers!!