Bamboo Love and Christmas goodies!!

Before I give you all an update from this past weekend I want to give you all a big thank you for all the lovely comments you sent my way. I made the necessary changes I wanted to my cardi/jacket and I wore it to work today. The changes did the trick and the everything is staying in place.

On the home front, I need prayers this week. Both my mother and MIL are going into the hospital this week for procedures. Hopefully everything will go well for both of them and this will be it for now.

In knitting news, I worked on another Knit Picks project last week and it's just about finished. I'll be shipping this one out hopefully by Wednesday. I have 5 more hats to make for the guys in the band so I figure I need to get cracking. My bass player asked for the Jamaican flag colors in his hat. It should be lively, and fun to make. I have no progress to show on the afghan as I haven't been working on it, so I guess I'll be putting some serious time in on it in the next few weeks.

I was a bad girl last Friday. I called Metro Textiles and ordered more material. The good thing is that some of the material is for the Hefner(Hugh) robe. I purchased some black crushed velvet for the collar and cuffs. I think or I'm hoping Mr. D will like it, and that it won't be too much against the blue velvet fabric I'm using.

I have 2 more robes without collars planned for my mom and girlfriend. As they don't read my blog and they asked for them, I figure I can talk about them here. I'm thinking of using a plush fabric. I was looking in JoAnns over the weekend but I didn't see anything I liked. I going with a green for my mom and either periwinkle or red for my friend. I checked out Fabric.com and I think I'll be fine there. I just need to pick my pattern first.

Over the weekend I was able the cut out and mark Simplicity 4112. I washed the fabric for this one and so far there isn't any shrinkage so I'm happy about that. I put that pattern aside for now and also cut out and marked Butterick 5420. I love the fabric I'm using. If you ever get a chance to work with organic bamboo knit fabric, please do. It's well worth the money and feels fantastic on. It's like BUTTER!! Anyway, I started working on the top last night and it's coming along nicely. I'm hoping to be done tonight maybe. I ran into a snag last night. The pattern calls for you to interface the front 2 pieces and the collar. I've never done that before and I don't know if I ever will again. You don't get the stretch you want after you do that. I have to re-cut the collar as it doesn't fit the blouse now. That was a pain. I'm trying to decide if I want to re-cut the collar bigger or just rework everything without the interfacing. Any ideas? Here it is so far.

Can It Get Any Worse

I've been trying to decide if I should talk about this because I usually don't talk about private things on my blog. But I figure the more prayers we get, the better.

On or about my last post, my husband and I found out that his mother had an aneurysm in her brain. She is doing okay right now. She went through one procedure that week and has to go back in 4 weeks. At that time they'll shoot coils into the aneurysm hopefully taking care of the problem. She did suffer some short term memory loss from the first procedure but she coming along.

A week after this took place (last week) I got really sick with a sinus infection. They also thought I had the flu, so per doctor's orders, I couldn't leave my house. Now to make matters worse, my mother didn't answer her phone on Monday so I drove over there, and thank god I did. Her blood sugar was through the roof(she's a diabetic) and she had also suffered a heart attack. It was a little crazy at first and they didn't know if she was going to make it. She is now doing much better and getting stronger every day. I know this of course by her attitude towards me.

Through all of this, I've gotten some knitting done, but I can't show it because it's a sample item for the December issue of Knit Picks. I can tell you that it's beautiful and I want a set for myself.

Last Saturday I made a window treatment for my bathroom window. Do you ever have that problem where you buy a shower curtain, and you want a matching window curtain, but they don't sell them? Here's an easy solution. Buy an extra curtain, and make one. The curtain looked like this and here's the end result. My second project last weekend dealt with my mother. When I travel with my mother, we usually bring her wheelchair. It just makes things go faster. We purchased a traveling wheelchair the other day but it didn't come with a cushion, so I made her one. I measured the chair dimensions, went to JoAnns and purchased some foam. I used an electric knife and cut the foam to the size I needed. I then went to Home Depot, I purchased some boarding for the base. Had that cut there to the size I needed. Last Saturday I put the foam on the boarding. Covered it in batting, and this morning I covered everything in black duck cloth and stapled away. I think it turned out okay.On Trench Coat Sew Along news, I found the lining for my Trench Coat last Sunday.

I thought I had found my buttons as well, but now that I've found the lining, I'm going back to the drawing board on that one as they do not match. These buttons were in my stash. Believe it or not I purchased them at The Dollar Store. Here are pictures of the front and back of the buttons. I'll probably go back to JoAnns or take a trip to 4th Street in Philadelphia to see what I can find in the near future. Between today and tomorrow, I want to make another attempt at cutting out the pattern pieces or at least start to cut them out. After that I want to start my muslin.

I did cut out the pattern pieces for Butterick 5030. I need to iron them and cut out my fabric. I also plan on cutting out McCalls 5978. I'll have to see how much I can get done this weekend. That's all that going on right now. I hope you all are doing well.

SP11 & Sample Knitting

First of all, I want to thank all of you that have left me comments on my blog. They have all been wonderful. If I haven't gotten around to all of you yet, I plan to.

Remember when I showed you this nice little swatch.


Well this is what it really was.



The Off Center Argyle Caplet from Wrap Style that I had to knit for Knit Picks. I thought it turned out rather well. Here it is in their October Catalog.

I also received a nice little package from my Secret Pal yesterday.

I absolutely love everything!!!!! The yarn is Pakucho 100% Organic Cotton. It feels sooooooooo good. I can't wait to work with it. I think it will have to be an original design. I also got Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac (awesome!!), a beautiful handmade card, and 2 CD's of Amy Winehouse music ( love them, I've been playing them all day). Amy is so dirty(nasty girl), but I love her music. I can't wait to find out who my secret pal it. Thank you so so much.

Happy Friday!!

Well, it's been a while. I've been spending most of my time on Ravelry, listening to podcasts (they're great to listen to while knitting), and finishing up my sample knit for KnitPicks.

Ravelry is lots of fun. There is so much to do and it is very time consuming. I still have not put my stash on it yet. I keep freaking out about all the pictures I have to take. It's definitely a work in progress.

I don't know about anyone else, but I love listening to podcasts. A lot of them are very informative and entertaining. There are things from teaching different and new techniques, book reviews, yarn reviews and designer interview, just to name a few. There is always something new that I've never heard of. Case in point, I was listening to Episode 12 of Knit Picks and they were teaching the technique of Steeking. I was like what's that? Here it is, it's the art of knitting a sweater in the round and instead of doing the decreases for your armholes, you just knit your garment straight up, (knit a tube) and then cut your armholes out with scissors after sewing in a few stitches with your sewing machine to protect yourself against those live stitches. It's a useful technique to learn and can be used in many different ways.

Say for instance you have a pullover that you weren't too crazy about. Pull out your sewing machine. Stitch down the front of the pullover 2 times and then cut down the center in between the 2 stitches. Fold back the area or pick up the lives stitches and either knit or crochet a border down the 2 front pieces on the edge and you now have a cardigan.

A co-worker of mine had asked me to knit a few caplets for her grand daughters a while back. She gave me their measurements fully aware that they were much larger than the sizes the girls actually were. She wanted them to be able to get a couple of seasons out of them. When they put the caplets on, the girls were floating in them. I didn't want to knit the caplets over, so I pulled out my sewing machine, sewed a couple of lines where their arms could come through, added an extra button at the neckline and the caplets were salvaged. Eunny gives a good tutorial on her blog on steeking as well as Knitty and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around.

Anyway, I'm just about finished my project for Knit Picks. Here's a sneak peek.



I'm shipping it off on Monday. Yippee!!!! I can get back to my shaped lace tee from Knitting Lingerie Style. I want to wear it while I'm in Florida at the end of the month.

I also just signed up for another Knitalong, hosted by Robin of course. She's great!!! This time it's for Teva Durham's book Loop-d-Loop, and Loop-d-Loop Crochet. I don't own the crochet book, but it's on my list. I can't wait to cast on, but I guess it would help if I picked out a project first.

I'm also trying to decide between these next 2 crochet projects. Let me know which one you like better. They are both very similar, just the backs are a little different. The first one is More Than an Apron and the second is Tunic. I first saw Tunic on Carrie's blog which I found through Ravelry. Thanks Carrie. Anyway, let me know which one you like better.

Toodles!!

Ravelry and Sample Knitting

Hi Everyone!!! I hope everyone had a nice holiday. I know I did. The Fi had me running around with him and a buddy of his that was in town. I had loads of fun and ate at a few really good privately owned restaurants. What more could a girl ask for.

First of all I want to thank all of you for the lovely comments you have left me. I haven't gotten around to emailing everyone back, but I wanted to say thank you anyway. I haven't blogged about anything lately, because I've been a little busy. 2 Thursdays ago I received 2 nice surprises in my email. I finally received my invitation to RAVELRY. Yeah!!!!!!!. If you haven't signed up yet, you need to. The site is amazing. There is so much that I need to do to get fully functional on that site. I love it!!!! I'm hoping to start some time this weekend, depending on how much work I get done on my other surprise I received, which actually came in the mail last Monday.

My second surprise was an email from Knit Picks letting me know that I was excepted as a sample knitter for them. I received my package as I said before (The yarns are beautiful and nice to work with!!) in the mail on Monday, and it's due back by August 9th. I have casted on and I'm moving along nicely. I don't have a sneak peak for you yet, but I know it's for the October Issue. Hopefully I'll have a little taste for you soon. This also means that yes, all my other knitting has stopped temporarily while I'm working on this. I'm pretty excited, and you never know what else can happen in the future.

I did start working on the Shaped Lace Tee from Knitting Lingerie Style. I have the back done, and I casted on for the front. I don't have any pictures yet, but it looks great, and it's a quick knit. I can't wait to finish it, as I would like to wear it for my father's birthday next month.

Anyway, that it for now, I'll try to have pics up real soon. I did decide to go with buttons for the baby hoodie I'm working on. I found these adorable wooden baseball buttons. I'll be sewing those on this week and handing it over to it's proud new owner hopefully by the end of the weekend.