Runs With Needles

State of the knit.

I decided to inventory my works in progress tonight. I'm shocked: I only had ten. I thought I had a lot more. Guess that means it's time to cast on for something new!

Without further ado...here's a parade of my works in progress.....


Morning Glory:




Falling Leaves:




A Touch of Red:




Roger:





Cozy:




My Scarf:





Lilac:




Purple/Green bag:




Fruit Loops bag:





Pinwheel!




The needle drive continues.

I've had some questions about when the deadline is to be entered into the yarn giveaway. Honestly, I have no clue. When I do decide on a deadline, I will announce it here, with plenty of notice.

I'm not just being a yarn tease.

Honest.

Several skeins of this yarn will be given away.

posted by Kathy at 10/30/2005 08:17:00 PM | 6 comment(s)

Colorado

I've lived in Colorado since May of 1997 and am still in awe of its beauty.

Here's some pictures I took this week to show you what I'm talking about........

I took this picture Thursday morning (10/27/05) at sunrise, looking west. You can see Pikes Peak and the front range in the distance.




This next picture was taken the same morning, as the sun came over the horizon:




This next picture was taken in Colorado Springs (also on Thursday morning), just down the street from where I work:



That's Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.


Here's a similar view, but shows more of Garden of the Gods and also some of the foothills:




Today when I arrived home after knit group, I was greeted by this:




If you enjoyed these pictures, I have more Colorado pictures here .

Just a reminder..........the Warm The World needle drive is an ongoing project. Please give what you can. If you have extra yarn in your stash, they'll take that too!

posted by Kathy at 10/29/2005 10:26:00 PM | 0 comment(s)

Bag lady

My obsession with felted bags continues and it's all Christy's fault.

Christy showed up at knit group on Saturday with a bunch of her hand-dyed yarn.

I resisted the siren call of the yarn.

For a couple of hours.

And then, I came home with this:



Isn't it gorgeous?

The bag is in the floppy stage, but here's a shot of it:




And a close up:



I love how it's striping. I can't wait to see what this bag looks like when it's finished.

Thank you to everyone who's contacted me about donating needles (and yarn!) to Warm The World.

I've had a couple of comments from people that they only have one extra set of needles, and don't feel like they can participate. That's not true! Each and every set of needles will help Warm The World. If you only have one set to donate, that's fine. This isn't a contest. :)

To refresh your memory, details of the needle drive are here.

posted by Kathy at 10/26/2005 08:14:00 PM | 8 comment(s)

Got needles?

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, or perused my sidebar, then you know that I knit most of my projects for Warm The World .

Some highlights from their website (reprinted with permission):

“Warm the World is a privately-funded organization with 501(c)3 nonprofit status.”

“With the economic challenges many of us face, people simply do not have the resources to donate completed quilts or afghans. Not to worry, Warm the World solicits donations of material goods to supply to our volunteers making it no cost to volunteers.”

“Another benefit of working with Warm the World, we have no size, pattern or time requirements. You pick the pattern, size, color, and work on it at your leisure. We refuse no one and novices are encouraged to join the fun.”

“Every dollar donated goes directly to supporting our organization—we have NO paid employees. Our group is different than most, because we provide all the material to our volunteers, it does not cost them anything except their time.”

Does this sound too good to be true?

It’s not.

I’ve met Nan, the founder of Warm The World and have even done some investigating on my own. :) Nan runs a first class organization and is helping so many people.

And now, Nan needs help. Our help.

Nan has the yarn and the knitters. She just needs needles.

Nan asked me to assist her in rounding up knitting needles and so I’m turning to you: my blog friends.

I’m sure you have knitting needles that you no longer use.

Maybe it’s those aluminum straight needles that you bought when you were just learning.

Maybe you scored a whole bunch of needles at a yard sale and don’t use most of them.

Perhaps you’re like me: you have a ton of circular needles but use your Denise or Needlemaster sets for all of your knitting.

Whatever needles you have lying around are needed by Warm The World. By donating just one set of needles, you will enable someone to knit a blanket for Warm The World.

If you have more than one set, that’s even better!

Please, contact me at: runswithneedles at gmail dot com . I’ll help you get your needles to Nan.

To make this more fun, I decided to add a contest twist to my donation plea. What knitter doesn’t love a blog contest?

For every set of needles you donate to Warm The World, your name will entered into a drawing. Donate one set of needles and you’ll be entered once. Donate ten sets of needles and you’ll be entered ten times.

The prizes? (And yes, there will be several skeins of yarn given away!)

Hand dyed yarn from Crazy Monkey Creations!

Please, check out your needle stash and see what you can donate.

posted by Kathy at 10/21/2005 03:24:00 PM | 3 comment(s)

Coming soon, to a blog near you.......

A yarn give-away!

I'm giving my blog readers a chance to win some yummy yarn.

Details are being worked out. I will post details asap.

posted by Kathy at 10/21/2005 01:40:00 PM | 0 comment(s)

Friday's Feast

Here's this week's edition of Friday's Feast!

Appetizer
Do you button shirts top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top?
I had to think about this for a second! I button from top-to-bottom

Soup
What is your favorite sandwich?
Hmmmmmmm......I'd have to say grilled cheese. Bologna and BLT are up there, but grilled cheese sandwiches are my favorite.

Salad
What was a family project you helped work on as a child?
I'm not sure what this means. A family project? To me, a 'project' is something like building a deck. My father built our deck when I was about 8. I wasn't allowed near the construction area. I'll have to take a pass on this question.


Main Course
When have you acted phony?
This afternoon, at work.

Dessert
Do you write letters or postcards? If so, to whom?
Not often. The majority of my family and friends have email so that's my main form of communication. However, this question did remind me that I need to mail a birthday card off to my Great Aunt, who turns 98 at the end of the month.

posted by Kathy at 10/20/2005 10:08:00 PM | 0 comment(s)

Amazing stupidity

If you don't watch The Amazing Race , you might want to skip this post. I'm going to rant about my once favorite TV show.

I've ranted about Team Jesus before, but tonight's show took it to a whole new level.

In this episide, the teams had to drive over Lake Pontchartrain .

While Team Jesus was driving over the lake (IN LOUISIANA), this conversation took place:

Team Jesus Mom: "This is one of the Great Lakes"
Team Jesus son: "Is this bigger than the Great Lakes?"

What the hell?

One of the Great Lakes?

Someone needs to stage an intervention. Immediately. This woman is too stupid to be allowed out on her own. And the fact that she reproduced three equally idiotic children should get her arrested.

Seriously.

Granted, I spent the first 24 years of my life on the shores of Lake Michigan, but don't most Americans know the generally vicinity of the Great Lakes?

Want to know what's scarier?

Mom Weaver is an elementary school teacher.

Let's recap........

This teacher didn't the location of Pennsylvania.

Her daughter thought Washington D.C. was in a state.

She told her kids that Lake Pontchartrain was one of the Great Lakes.

Ladies and gentlemen: If you live in Ormand Beach, Florida and have children of elementary school age, I suggest you take a look at this woman:




If you've seen her at your kids' school, run.

Run and don't look back.

posted by Kathy at 10/18/2005 09:06:00 PM | 6 comment(s)

By hook or by crook.

Do you ever have a weekend so fantastic that you just keep thinking about it and smiling?

That's what this past weekend was for me. There was a ton of knitting and many hours of this:




That's Season One of M*A*S*H, my all time favorite TV show. How much do I love this show?

Just ask him:




His full name is Maxwell Klinger.

Saturday, of course, was knit group. After the knitting ended, Christy and I went out to lunch and then hit Barnes and Noble. Christy and I had a blast reading the knitting books and magazine.

Well, I'll be honest: there wasn't a lot of reading going on. It was mostly mocking the butt ugly patterns in the magazines. Have you seen what's out there? It was horrifying. One pattern was a sweater with pom poms hanging off of it!!!!!

Christy and I both succumbed to the lure of knitting books. I bought this one:




I also bought the book weight. I've been avoiding buying one (because I'm such a cheapskate), but everything else I've tried has just irritated the heck out of me. I'm very happy I finally bought the weight. It's works perfectly!

I have started Lilac (again) and am thrilled with how it's developing:




And a close up:





Unfortunately, there's been backwards progress on my socks:




I cast them on for the fifth time last week and frogged them a few days ago. I had dropped stitches and was short rowing instead of knitting in the round. I was having trouble coming up with a name for these socks. Tonight, the perfect name hit me: The Damn Socks. I'll cast them on (AGAIN!) once I stop hating even the look of dpn's.

I've been obsessed with a new project lately: My Scarf:




And a close up:




This is being knit with one skein of Noro that Christy gave me and one skein of Noro that she helped me pick out. I LOVE how the scarf is turning out.

And lookie here, what's this?




Yes, I am crocheting! Maus and Felicia taught me at the bonus knit group on Sunday. I'm having so much fun! I'm slow and awkward, but am loving it so far.

Also at the bonus knit group, Maus gave Felicia some yarn and Felicia shared it with me:




There’s been an odd dog development around here lately. The girls are hanging out.




All of my mutts get along, but usually the Shepherds hang out together and Kishka hangs out with me. For the past few days, though, the girls have been inseparable.



It’ll be interesting to see if this is a permanent development.

posted by Kathy at 10/17/2005 08:47:00 PM | 6 comment(s)

Friday's Feast.

I've been reading this website for awhile now and answering all the questions in my head.

I just realized that I'm being silly. I need to blog about it! Then I can record my thoughts for myself (which is one reason why I keep this blog) and also so I can fill the space between knitting posts. :)

So, without further ado, here is this week's edition of Friday's Feast:


Appetizer
Who is someone you would consider to be a calm person?

My mother.
My mother rarely gets riled up. I think the last time I saw her really angry was when I was 16 and came home at 5am.
But let's not talk about that.


Soup
What was your last "gut feeling" about? Were you right?

My ex-husband. And yes, I was right (he was up to no good).


Salad
List 3 words that you really don't like how they sound.

Slacks.
Ain't.
Scrappy.


Main Course
What kind of shampoo and conditioner do you use?

Whatever is the cheapest.
In my shower now is: Prell, VO5, generic version of Pert Plus, generic version of Pantene and Suave. (Yes, I like to vary my shampoo!)


Dessert
If you found out that you definitely do have a guardian angel, what would you name it?

Stan.
Seriously, I have no clue. I don't believe in that kind of stuff, so I can't even consider a serious answer.

I won't officially tag anyone, but if you care to participate please drop me a comment so I can stop by!

There's been knitting this week, but no new pictures. I'll post some pics this weekend.

posted by Kathy at 10/14/2005 10:18:00 PM | 4 comment(s)

Playtime

posted by Kathy at 10/11/2005 05:52:00 PM | 5 comment(s)

Winter wonderland

posted by Kathy at 10/11/2005 10:22:00 AM | 2 comment(s)

It's beginning to look a lot like............

.........Columbus Day?




Well, what do you know....the Weather Geeks were right. We got hammered and it's still snowing and blowing out there.

9:15pm update: The snow drift is now to the top of the dog jail in the above picture. I've lived here six years and the snow has never drifted this deep!

Unfortunately, my snow day was not as fun as I anticipated. I lost power at 10pm last night and it didn't come back on until 5pm today. So, I had no lights, no heat and no water. At 2pm today, it was 38 degrees in my house. I put all the blankets and comforters on my bed and spent the day snuggled under the covers, with the dogs lying all around me. We were warm and toasty! It was too cold to read or knit (the horror!) so I ended up dozing for most of the day.

Here's a pic of me in front of a snow drift outside my back door. The drift is up to my shoulder!

posted by Kathy at 10/10/2005 07:43:00 PM | 6 comment(s)

Avoiding housework

I decided to just be honest and title this post for what it is. Parts of my house look like a bomb hit and I just don't want to clean.

Knit group was all kinds of fun yesterday. On top of the usual, I discovered some interesting things about my knitting. Christy pointed out that when I do the long tail cast on, I flip people off. So, I now call this the flip off cast on. I was experimenting at home last night and found that I can't do this cast on without flipping people off. I guess I'm just weird.

Christy and I also stayed late and she helped me figure out that my pattern reading skills weren't quite up to snuff. I was doing yarn overs wrong. How pathetic is that? As a result, I had to rip two projects.

Lilac now looks like this:





And Cozy was ripped and started again last night:





I also started a blanket last night and I'm keeping this one for myself. I'm calling it the It Ain't Easy Being Green Blanket:



This is my first time using Knit Picks Shine and I love it! It's so soft and knits up smoothly without flying off the needles.

I'm not sure what Kishka's done wrong, but I just turned around and saw that she's put herself in the corner:



If you check your calendar, today is October 9th.

The NINTH of OCTOBER.

And this is our weather forecast for today: "THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PUEBLO HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM MDT TUESDAY.
SNOW...HEAVY AT TIMES...WILL OCCUR SUNDAY EVENING THROUGH TUESDAY MORNING. TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 2 FEET OF SNOW CAN BE EXPECTED."

I'm not ready for snow. I'm really not ready for this much snow.

Someone. Hold. Me.

posted by Kathy at 10/09/2005 09:41:00 AM | 3 comment(s)

TGIF

Presenting.............my felted bags!!!

Kishka wasn't too impressed by the first one (and neither was I):




However, I LOVE the second bag. Kishka, on the other hand, wasn't so sure about it:




The details:



What: My first Booga Bag
Yarn: One skein Cascade Quatro yarn in color #9440, and 2 skeins of yarn from Table Rock Llamas. 1 skein pink and 1 skein green.
Needles: 10.5
Pattern: Booga Bag
Lesson Learned: I think it's the floppy yarn, but I don't really like this bag. I don't like things that are floppy.
Destination: Moi





What: Another felted bag!
Yarn: 1 skein each of Lamb's Pride Bulky in colors Blue Boy, Supreme Purple and Limeade
Needles: 13
Pattern: I just knit what I felt like knitting until I got to the handles. Then I modified the Buttonhole Bag handles to fit the size of my bag.
Lesson Learned: I LOVE this bag! I think it's the yarn. Christy suggested both the yarn and the colors and she was right: I love how this bag looks!
Destination: Just try to grab it out my hands.


I cleaned up the sidebar on my blog, deleting obsolete links and fixing the spacing. If you find any dead links, please let me know.

I added a new button on my sidebar for Crazy Monkey Creations. What do crazy monkeys have to do with knitting?

Christy and her hubby own the company and they dyed the kick ass yarn that I mentioned earlier this week:





And in balls:



This yarn is fantastic. Christy is having fun experimenting with colors and those of us lucky enough to be in knit group with her are having fun buying it! If you like hand dyed yarn, check her out. You won't regret it.

posted by Kathy at 10/07/2005 10:37:00 PM | 0 comment(s)