Bluebird of Happiness…

Yes and a Cardinal too…

If you need a little bit of bright cute color in your life right now you should try knitting up one or a half dozen of these cute little birds.

Bluebird of Happiness is a free Ravelry pattern that knits up so very quickly – you will certainly want to make more than one.

Here is a picture of one stuffed, a flat finished and a new one in the works.

It’s knit in 2 sections… you start at the neck and stitch towards the tail and then you pick up stitches at the neck and stitch to the beak.  The method of M1 the pattern uses (which is the easiest M1 I’ve used to date) makes the wing line **I miss stated that – the wraps and short rows in the body section make the wing lines** and the wraps in shaping the head makes the eyes… they are just too cute!

I will make a canary next and will get a good measure on the amount of yarn needed.  It’s somewhere between 12 and 15 yards of yarn total.

I didn’t post last week because The Engineer was off work and at 8:30 in the morning we were back outside to YET AGAIN clear off the driveway.  OK – we aren’t talking snow anymore… well except this… the snow came off the porch roof yesterday while I was out picking up groceries.  So I had to climb over the 2 foot snow bank to get to the shovel so that I could clear the walk and bring groceries in. 

The pond is half full of snow… I’ve only seen one of the fish so I’m hoping the others are OK… I didn’t see anybody laying out in the driveway so they weren’t washed out when the avalanche happened.

Back to knitting… My girl sent me this pic yesterday. Styling the Leftie Shawl which is available thru Ravely but is not free… well worth the money though!

Please go over to Judy L’s Patchwork Times and check out what others are knitting on today.  Always good ideas there!

Under the Food Category… Something new arrived yesterday… my package from Cinnamon Hill that contained 2 types of stick cinnamon and a nifty cinnamon grater and cup.  I’ve always loved cinnamon and we have been using more of it because of it’s health benefits.  I’ll have to let you know another time what we think of it as all I did last night was open the box and take some pictures!

 

Under the “I’ve been a SLUG” category… I am trying to not be a slug – really!  Remember my word for the New Year… Move.  So far the Fit Bit Force has been tracking my activities so that I can get a gauge of just when I am active and in-active.  I seem to have no problems hitting the 10,000 steps mark… on those days where we have to go out and clear snow from the long driveway and many sidewalks.  LOL  so I have had a few of those 10,000 step days.  I’ll admit to running in place on a few occasions to tip the count over a certain mark… but otherwise I haven’t yet set any goals for myself.  I did set the alarm to go off at 9:00 am… a little reminder to myself to get off my hiney if I’m still sitting in the kitchen poking around the internet – which I have been known to do on occasion.  I think my plan is to look at the inactive days to see just what the pattern is and then see what I can do to modify those days to pick it up.  Of course going to the gym would make a big difference… as I have determined that paying for the gym has absolutely no positive effect on my health. 

On that note… I need to get my hiney in gear before the 9 am alarm goes off… LOL

I Completely Missed My Anniversary…

No not that one…

It’s been 3 years since I broke my knee… and I didn’t even think about it this year!

Not on the 7th (date of fall) or the 15th (surgery date)… not until today did it occur to me that it’s been 3 years.

I will say that all in all my knee is great… no limp, able to walk right up and down the stairs.  It still gets cranky when I’m on it a lot and has been a bit swollen the past couple weeks because of all the shoveling snow.  Seems that being right handed and throwing snow to the left… I put weight on that leg with each throw.  The Engineer uses the tractor with a snow thrower attachment and I have 2 walk behind snow throwers that I can use for the sidewalks or on the driveway if I’m doing that also.

Here is a panoramic picture I took last Friday after we had finished clearing the driveway and sidewalks for the 2nd time in 2 days – oh and I cleared another 3 inches yesterday too!  I’m standing in the middle of my driveway (which is straight by the way). 

Have I said recently that I’m sick of the snow?  I am… how about you?  Yeah that’s what I thought…

Late Night Knitting Finish…

Don’t you hate it when you lay down at night and your brain just won’t shut up so you can go to sleep?

Since that happened to me again last night I went ahead and got up because I knew I only had about a half dozen rows to finish on this cowl.

This is (again) a free pattern available thru Ravelry… it’s called Elis.  I was intrigued by it because of the Indian Cross Stitch.  It’s very easy and gives an interesting pattern.  I still need to block this – but the yarn is a Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca DK weight.

Here are the Morning Bells Shawl…

and Triplicity Shawl – all nice and blocked and ready to be mailed!

You know what time it is?  Time to make Felted Knit Eggs if you want to include them in baskets for loved ones this year!  I made some last year.

Before and after felting.

You knit them and stuff them and felt them in the washing machine and then you can dye the plain ones with Kool-aide!!

In the end I liked the Kool-aide knitted ones the best because the colors were just so brilliant! 

My local yarn shop is going to order some colored yarns and put together some kits for those that want to make colored eggs but don’t want to dye them.  I think they will be sweet and was glad that she liked the idea enough to order some yarn.

I’ll be linking up to Judy’s Patchwork Times for her weekly On The Needles post… go see what others are knitting this week!

And just a glimps at what my week has been like… Monday brought about 8 inches of HEAVY WET snow…

Not good for bushes…

But pretty good for kids… each age group comes out and climbs up this mountain of snow.  This is the view from my flat roof that needed to be shoveled off in anticipation of freezing rain coming the next day.

And speaking of freezing rain… here is Wednesday!

We did not loose power here but it’s been rough going for many many people here in PA.

I’ve got to ask y’all… do you see the face image in the ice in this picture?  I see a girl in the little icicle… do you?

On The Needles January 31st

Oh my… the end of the month… I’ll need to pull out “Knit the Sky” and get the month stitched up… I knitted thru the 11th thus far.

Today I finished up the Triplicity Shawl and it and the Morning Bells Shawl have been washed and are blocked and drying.

Above shows the three pattern sections prior to washing/blocking and below is the picot bind off.  I just gently smoothed everything out and choose to not try and pin all those picot ends out.

I finished the modified Susie Rogers Reading Mitts for my granddaughter.  They are some kinda sweet!  They will go in the mail tomorrow or Monday.

I decided to try and clean up some of this knitting mess around my chair this week.  Leftover yarns that I’ve finished with went upstairs and I purchased a package of sheet protectors to put all those silly patterns I’ve printed out from Ravelry.  I had planned to put them all in a binder… but I’ll need to either buy a bigger binder or a second binder because they are not all going to fit into the one I have out.

I am trying to decide what to work on next… I do have yarn already to make another Turbulence Cowl or I am interested in using some leftover yarn from the Morning Bells project to make this Elis Cowl which has an Indian-Cross-Stitch pattern in it.  Or I could pick up those socks sitting over there waiting for me. 

Decisions… Decisions… Decisions…

Check out what others are knitting this week!

Cob Farming…

I got in to Cob Farming about 3 years ago… quite by accident really.

You see I broke my knee… and thereby ‘fell’ into Cob Farming as a result of my rehab.

Not an occupation I had intended… it just sort of happened.

It does in some respect go hand in hand with Dust Cropping… not to be confused with Crop Dusting.

I have always sorta dabbled in Dust Cropping… I’ve actually admitted out loud that had my children been allergic to dust I would have indeed missed them.  I know… I’m a terrible mother!

Anyway a little Dust Cropping is easy to manage (i.e. teach your kids not to write in said Dust Crop) but once you cross over and become a Cob Farmer too… well things can get out of hand quite easily.

What are Cobs?  Well a friend many, many years ago introduced me to them whilst explaining that her husband had convinced her of their existence...  you know - the little invisible creatures called Cobs that are responsible for creating Cob Webs.  So there you have it… Cobs make Cob Webs and a lot of Cob Webs is considered Cob Farming…

Anyway – in depth vacuuming and dusting is considered the best method for keeping Cobs in check… but when vacuuming is not a big part of your rehab and then you get lazy just fall into a “quick lick and a promise style”… those little Cobs can take advantage.

So… with Vacuum and Duster in hand I spent my morning destroying Cob Farms all over my kitchen.  Why today you wonder?

The SUN was shining thru the kitchen window and as I stood there and admired the wonderful sight of sunshine… well you know the rest. 

Sunshine can lead to the complete (hopefully) destruction of Cobs.

And no there are no pictures to go along with this story… I might be dumb but I’m not stupid… you’ll never know if this is true or not… unless you visit… and then… well – don’t tell - OK?

PS:  I don’t want you to think that these Cobs have run amuck at my house for 3 years… that - is not the case.  I have whacked at them from time to time and my daughter completely painted my kitchen last year so all evidence of prior farms had been removed at that time… but they can be persistent critters.

Here’s My Knitting–January 24

January 24th… really already?  Goodness…

Anyhoo… I’m trying to finish up the Triplicity Shawl that I took a class for way back early fall-ish I believe.  I don’t have a fresh picture of the shawl but I do have a picture of this Yarn Bowl (holding the last ball of yarn).  I received this as a gift from a very sweet friend (Thank You Again!!)… and it makes me smile when I pull my yarn and I don’t have to chase it around the floor when it falls off my chair… which it always does… well - not anymore! 

I had to clean off the corner of the table so I could take a picture… how sad is that… I need to clean up my knitting mess before my husband makes a comment.  Too many leftover yarn tags, little bits of yarn, little balls of yarn, patterns to look at, books & magazines to plan over… it’s a mess!

The bowl is from Red Hot Pottery out of Sedona, AZ which has an Etsy Shop.

Lovely, Lovely Bowl…

Last night I started a new pair of the Susie Rogers Reading Mitts – I’m making them in the small size again but will be shortening them at both ends so that they will fit my granddaughter in SC.  She wants so bad to wear the ones I sent her mother… I think these will be fun for her.  There was only one skein of the multi yarn so I picked up the purple to use for the patterned rows at the top and bottom.

Go the Judy L’s blog Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting on this week!

The Sky is On The Needles 1-17

Yep I am Knitting The Sky!

I decided to use the Favorite Scarf Ever pattern rather than the plain garter stitch and so far I am happy with how it is going.  The pattern is easy to remember and you just need to be careful with the doubled lace weight yarn. Aren’t these colors lovely!

I finished but have yet to block the Morning Bells Shawl – blocking will happen this weekend.

 

You can see both sides of the shawl above – the left side with the ribs is the right side of the shawl.  Can’t wait to get it blocked and sent out to my daughter as I think she’ll love it.

I did pull out the Felted Clogs and hope to get the last one finished up this weekend and get them felted… you know before spring.  My notes from when I last worked on them was dated April 1st… so it’s time to get them done.  Here is a picture of the first one I finished in Mid-March.  I sure am hoping they felt up good because right now they look a lot like clown shoes… the sole measures 16 inches! 

Check out what others are knitting this week over at Judy L’s Patchwork Times blog.

My Sky Has Arrived

Last year whilst poking around out in the Internet I found a site – Leafcutter Designs - that offered a free pattern to “Knit The Sky”.

It sounded intriguing so I read thru the pattern, looked at the kit they offered and saved the link for future reference… one of those ‘one day’ kinda projects.  But as time passed it kept coming up in my brain… I went back and looked at everything a couple times.  I thought about buying my own yarn – but decided to not waste my time – the kit was a reasonable price so I made an executive decision and ordered it.

Since I didn’t really plan to sit and knit one single row each day – I’ve just been making a notation each day (since the first of January) of the colors I would use for that day.  I’ve programed my phone to remind me each day and I have modified an online calendar so that I can add a color code to each day.

And then my sky arrived…

OOOOoooooo… ain’t it pretty!

Tomorrow I’ll wind them into balls and then hopefully by Friday I’ll have a week or two knitted… unfortunately mostly greys and light blues… but tis the season!

Bye Bye Ghost Poo!

Got your attention didn’t I?  Let me ‘splain…

I received my Organic EVOO order from Jovial Foods on Friday.  When I opened the boxes this is what I found.

I’m sorry but I am just lame enough to be excited by a new product… a new packing material… I was intrigued…

I was fascinated… little folded and locked triangles!!  Please tell me they have a machine that folds and locks those ends together!

But then I realized that this new product might mean an end to Ghost Poo as a packing material.  I have called these ‘packing peanuts’ Ghost Poo for probably decades now… can’t remember where I first heard it – but it was dead on.  You might ask about the color variety pictured above… some white, some blue, some light green.  I assume it’s from ethnic diversity in the ghost population… don’t ya think?  LOL

Anyway here is my new oil from Jovial.  The bottle was still cold from shipping so the oil had solidified in the bottle.  I had pre-ordered my bottles last fall while they were in the process of harvesting and pressing.  I don’t know if you’ve seen the olive oil controversy in the press over the past year or so.  The Engineer and I decided to look for a source we felt we could trust was providing a good quality organic oil.

And that new packing material… did it’s job quite well.

Still On The Needles–Jan 10

I am almost finished with the Morning Bells Shawl for my daughter.  I am on the last row - of 1,100 something stitches… and then the bind off of those 1,100 something stitches.  I have to chuckle because when I mentioned this shawl in the beginning several folks commented that the rows took forever – they were right.  At the end of the shawl section I think you have nearly 400 stitches on the needles – with the increases every other row in the bell section you end up with the 1,100 something stitches.

I had picked up an extra ball of the yarn so maybe I’ll have enough to make some simple fingerless gloves to go with the shawl… we shall see.

When I’m done with this I think I will go back to some unfinished projects like the felted clogs – I’ve been thinking more and more about these now that it’s so chilly – time to finish them and put them to use.

To see what others are knitting… hop over to Judy L’s Patchwork Times.