Runs With Needles: April 2005

Runs With Needles

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Whole lotta knitting going on

Finally, I have time to blog again. I hate it when life gets in the way of important things!

Winter has returned to my corner of Colorado. Yesterday I woke up to snow and about half an inch of ice. Tonight it looks very wintery out there. No snow (yet), but very gloomy.

I've had some great comments on my timed scarf and I have an answer! It took me about two and a half weeknights worth of knitting. (On weeknights my knitting window is approximately 7:30-11pm.) Here's the progress pics, from my lightbulb moment to when the finishing touches were completed.














What: Timed Scarf
Yarn: 1 skein Lion Brand Homespun in the color Tudor
Needles: Size 17 straight
Lesson Learned: Took about 2.5 weeknights of knitting to complete.

Here is the picture of the Good and Plenty shawl that I neglected to share earlier this week:


Cathi asked if it was Homespun. Yes, it is! I'm using the colors Boston Rose and Edwardian.

This morning I met with Nan at Warm The World. What a wonderful woman! So friendly and helpful. I gave her this:

and she gave me this:


Hee!! What fun! I'm going to have a blast putting all these colors together. I can't wait to get started. And now I have two yarn stashes. My personal stash and the Warm The World stash.

Look what I found in my yarn stash:


It's the Harlot's book! Very funny stuff. I recommend it to everyone and I'm only a few pages into it.

The wonderfully talented Kitt has created a crafting board. If you're interested, click here or on my sidebar button. It's a wonderful group of crafty people!

Monday, April 25, 2005

Thank you!

I want to thank Liz, Michelle, Tena, Rox and Pioggia for assisting me with my format problems today. Everything is fixed now!

I knit a lot on the Good and Plenty shawl yesterday, but forgot to take a picture.

I'm actually going to start another new project tonight. On my drive home to this evening, I was wondering how long it takes me to knit a simple scarf. So, I'm going to find out. I'm going to time the whole process. (Yes, I am a hopeless dork.)

Pictures, of course, to follow!

One more time?

I've tweaked my template and it's looking fine to me now.

Could a couple of Explorer users verify this with me?

The problem does seem to be with Explorer. Try Firefox. It's the better browser. :)

I need your help. (Yes, you!)

I use Firefox at home and my blog looks fine. At work (on Explorer), the formatting is messed up. My sidebar column is pushed all the way to the bottom of the page.

Could you please take 30 seconds and let me know what you see? Just let me know what browser you're using and if the blog looks okay.

Thanks!!!

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Sunday. Just Sunday. Wonderful Sunday.

It's a stormy Sunday and my Molly Homemaker duties are finished. What's a girl to do?






Can you believe it's been 19 years since Top Gun came out? Am I the only one that feels positively elderly? I remember seeing it for the first time with my friends on a hot summer day at the little movie theater downtown. I know it's cliché to say this, but it seems like just last week!



But, back to knitting. Did you see what was under the movie? It's the Good and Plenty Shawl!






I started it last night and it's going very, very quickly. I'm actually going to keep this shawl for me. The first thing I've kept! Here's a close up:






Speaking of giving my knitting away. I'm meeting with the founder of Warm The World on Saturday. I'm going to give her my scarves and blankets and she'll give me yarn to knit more. I'm so excited!! If you've been looking for a charity, check them out . I've also added a link to them in my sidebar.



The Shepherds have been very hyper today. This is what I'm dealing with:










Kishka is just staying out of their way!


Thank you to Janet for her kind words on my blog. I’m doing my shawl in the same diagonal pattern as the Jolly Green blanket and I’m using Homespun. Janet, you can finish your diagonal blanket! :)

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Ahhhh.....the weekend......

It's been a good day. Spring has sprung in Colorado and I took a nap outside in the sun today. I also took a drive with Sam and Kishka (Max gets car sick). Why can't every day be Saturday?

I finished the Jolly Green Blanket tonight!



What: Jolly Green Blanket
Yarn: 2 skeins of Bernat Denim Style in the color Faded Khaki
Needles: Size 10.5 circular
Lesson Learned: Nothing went wrong with this blanket. I love this yarn!!!

The picture was taken prior to blocking. I was just so excited to finish it that I had to take a picture!

I only have two projects in the needles now. (Two Tone Pink Blanket and the Crayola Blanket) I'm going to cast on for something else tonight. I'm not sure what, but am leaning towards a shawl for moi.

I was reading the newspaper this morning and found this article about this local charity. I've been emailing the founder about getting involved and am very excited to have found a local charity. I'm a blanket knitting machine and I've just been collecting them until I found a charity I was comfortable with. I think I've found it!

Got Gmail?

I have five Gmail accounts. Is this an illness? I also have three Yahoo accounts, but Gmail is my favorite. I LOVE Gmail.

If you don't have Gmail and want it, shoot me an email and I'll invite you.

runswithneedles at gmail dot com

I knit a bit last night and will knit more today. Pictures to follow. When I get motivated. :)

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Hanging on for the weekend.

If it's Thursday, it must be TV night. I worked on the Jolly Green Blanket tonight and it's almost done!



I really should have used at least one more skein of yarn. Oh, well. I'll add it to my preemie blanket pile.

Once I finish this blanket I will probably cast on for my shawl. :)

I was watching the late news tonight and noticed that it must have been Funky Tie Day at the station:





I enjoy seeing unique ties. The boring news anchor uniform gets old fast.

I've shown Kishka on this blog many times. What I haven't told you is that Kishka is a whore. A belly rub whore. I just looked in her direction tonight and she did this:



Of course, I got up off the couch and walked across the room to rub her belly. I can't resist those brown eyes. She has me wrapped around her little paw and takes advantage of it at every opportunity.

I made a decision today. Actually, I set a goal for a decision I made a while ago. My goal is that on January 1, 2006, I will greet the new year in a different house. I decided to sell my current house a few months ago, but have decided to kick it into gear and make it happen. Since I know nothing about buying or selling a house (I bought this house with my ex-husband and he did most of the work), this summer is going to be study time for me. I'm going to research the ins and out of buying, selling and mortgages and when summer turns to fall, will embark on the search for my house. Just mine. For me. Well, and the critters. I'm really exicted. Scared as hell, but excited. :)

Monday, April 18, 2005

Knitting, interrupted.

I left my house at 6:30 this morning. I returned home at 8:30pm. That's just too damn long of a day. The dogs were dancing when I got home. There were no messes in the house, though. Those dogs have bladders of steel.

I'd like to thank Jane and The Fearless Knitter for their unraveling tips. I appreciate you ladies taking the time to offer advice. I will be following your advice as soon as I find some patience. :)

Rebecca has asked for the pattern to my Crayola blanket. I had to go look at the blanket because I just made this up as I went along.
  • Cast on stitches in multiples of five. Cast on until blanket is as wide as you want it.
  • Knit five, place marker. Purl five, place marker. Continue to end of row.
  • Knit the knits and purl the purls until blanket is as long as you like.
I've using size 17 circular needles and Red Heart Grande yarn for my blanket.

My knitting lately has been on the Jolly Green Blanket. I've begun decreasing and hope to finish it this week. I'm tossing around a shawl idea in my head, too, so I plan to start that by this weekend.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Frustration

I think of myself as a reasonably intelligent woman. I have a job. I own a house. I keep five animals happy and healthy. I keep my plants one plant alive. I can handle basic car maintenance.

However, I cannot unravel a sweater.

On Thursday night I sat down for my three hours of TV (Survivor, Apprentice, ER) with this:



These are all the sweaters that I don't wear anymore. Look at all that free yarn! It's just cotton and acrylic, but it's all free. :-)

I sat down with a printout of the sweater-unraveling tutorial and got to work.

Three hours later, I was very frustrated and feeling like I shouldn't be allowed to live alone.

I couldn't get one sweater to unravel. Not one. Ugh!!

I ended up with this:



Why won't this unravel? Here's some closeups:



Here's the collar that I can't get to unravel:



To those of you who unravel sweaters, what am I doing wrong?

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Frolic like you've got no sense

Wow. I had some awesome feedback on my Crayola Blanket. Thank you! To answer Kelly's questions: I'm using Red Heart Grande yarn in the color Wow. Yes, I did invent the pattern myself. It's 5x5 ribbing. I've only knitted a couple more rows on this blanket.




Most of my knitting lately has been on the Jolly Green Blanket:



I really like this pattern. Simple, but very nice looking. I think I'm going to make a Homespun shawl using this same pattern. I bought some Homespun in the colors Boston Rose and Edwardian, with the intention of making myself a blanket. The recent blizzard (accompanied by two day power outage) persuaded me that I need a shawl instead. The shawl will commence as soon as I figure out what size needles to use. (Super big or more normal sized?)

Speaking of Homespun, have you seen the new colors they're coming out with? Candy Apple Red, Olive and Fuschia....oh my! Spring Green, Cotton Candy and Lavender.....oh yay! I really love Homespun and these new colors are wonderful.

Here's a blast from the past:



The Purple Blanket!! After the disaster several weeks ago, I was no longer inspired to knit this blanket. My inspiration has returned. My love for this blanket has been reignited and I want to knit this blanket all the time now.

I was watching American Idol last night and the contestants sang songs from the year they were born. I felt really old. I remember when most of them came out! "Everytime You Go Away" reminded me of my Paul Young crush back when I was 12. :: swoon :: (Where is Paul Young these days, anyway?)

Remembering these songs reminded me of a question I've seen asked on some non-knitting blogs: How would your 17 year old self react to your current life?

For me, it's a two-fold answer. The initial response would be "Holy shit! What happened? This isn't how life is supposed to be!" Upon further reflection, though, I'm sure my 17 year old self would be impressed at what I've done and how I'm living my life. It's not what I expected, but it's a wonderful life that I'm living. :)

To those of you with blogs (and inclined to participate), I will ask you: How would your 17 year old self react to your current life? If you answer, drop me a comment so I can see your response.

Monday, April 11, 2005

It's a dog's life

No knitting content in this post. Just dog pics!

Here's Sam and Max standing playing king of the mountain:







Max is enjoying the snow:






Max washing his face:





Sam and Kishka facing off:





It's supposed to be 70 on Wednesday so I may be building an ark when all this snow melts!!

Long weekend

This is unbelievable. Three blizzards in three weeks. And another snow day for me today . Did you hear me cheering at 5am this morning? This is what I woke up to (picture taken at sunrise):





The blizzard has finally stopped, but I need to go shovel a path to the street so I can get out of here tomorrow morning. Ugh. I need to train these dogs to do some work around here!



Last weekend (two blizzards ago), I took this picture:





I was doing some work outside and just took Samantha with me. Max and Kish were not happy about that!


That same day, I snapped this picture of the jets flying overhead:





Also last weekend, I enhanced my stash:





I was so excited about the stash enhancing that I started two new projects!



Here's the Jolly Green Blanket:




The blanket is an enlarged diagonal dishcloth.

And a close up:





And here is the Crayola Blanket:




This blanket is just 5x5 ribbing. A close up:




I also found some great stitch markers:





They are the perfect size for the large needles that I prefer. I found them in a most unexpected place:




I plan on knitting on both of these projects this afternoon. I've been a knitting maniac lately. I love it!


On one of the knitting groups I belong to, a very nice woman got ripped off by Smileys Yarns. That led to this:





Kitt also blogged about this and since she described what happened so well, I'm going to just quote from her blog:


Another dishonest online store has been flushed out into the open; Smileys Yarns. Diana, a wonderful woman ordered some yarn from Smileys knowing their return policy; No Returns, all sales final. Diana had no reason to not trust Smileys.


What they sent her was misrepresented on their site and because of this they should exchange the yarn as it was their fault, not Diana's.



Side note; in the three days since these emails were traded, Smileys has changed their website to correctly reflect the yarn Diana purchased. In other words, they know they screwed up.



Read for yourself, the rude email she received from them. Diana's emails are italicized.



Here's my note to Smiley's:


I received an order today, AA43673. The Berella Polar yarn is the wrong color. I ordered Wine/Spruce/Brown. The yarn enclosed is Wine/Mist/Ombre. I had started a swatch and noticed it is not what I had in mind then I checked the yarn label. How shall I
return it for an exchange? Thank you,



Smileys Reply:
The color you received is the same color that you ordered. Berella calls it " Wine Mist Ombre". As stated on our website under "return policy", all sales are final. Trudy



I ask everyone who shops online for yarn to please boycott Smileys. This is unacceptable practice and it could happen to you. Diana has had to resort to listing the yarn on EBay with the hopes of recouping some of her loss. We do NOT need dishonesty in our craft, we have enough of it in all other facets of our life. Let's all work to keep online stores honest! Especially those in our craft!




Now, just to add my own commentary....


Regardless of the 'no returns' policy. Smileys customer service sucks. I work in customer service and when my company makes a mistake, it's my job to kiss our customer's ass. How hard would it have been for Trudy to toss an "I'm sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction" in there?



Smileys prices are dirt cheap.

And now we know why.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Alive and kicking

I've been a very bad blogger lately. I apologize for that. I have been a good knitter, though! I've been knitting up a storm! I've started two new projects and will post pictures soon.

I had some excitement earlier this week. A blizzard went through and I lost power for two days. No power also means no heat and no water, so it was an interesting couple of days! I woke up this morning to another blizzard, so please cross your fingers that my power stays on. :)