Come back, Time!

A blink...just one tiny blink...and it's been an entire week since I last blogged. I'm starting to sound like a cliche when I say, "Where has the time gone?". Summer is waning, autumn is knocking at the door, and soon, we'll be thinking of holiday trees and snowflakes. I'll admit, I've already started to think about gifts for the holidays.

I had the day off yesterday and John needed to use the truck since his car was in the shop. That left me without wheels. I usually spend my day off at the yarn shop, knitting and talking and thinking up more things to knit. Yesterday, however, I spent sewing. Yes, my dear Son - Mom quilted all day! I finished piecing a BOM from last year. The top is done, the binding is made, and all I need to do is make the backing and get it to the quilter...one more flimsy DONE! No, I don't have any pictures yet...you'll just have to wait till it's finally finished. I checked my database and I've completed 15 items this year - and only started 2...that's a net FINISHED count of 13 so far. I'd love to finish everything on the UFO list...in my dreams I am able to do that but I think it will take another year to get them done. I can't remember a time when I didn't have many, many, MANY UFO's. Maybe 2009 is the year!

Thanks for stopping by. More later.

Wednseday Randomness

I entered a program this summer called Summer of Socks 2008. It began on June 21st and goes till September 1st. No contest, per se. Just a way to track how many pairs of socks one can knit in a given span of time. Some folks are finished with pair #20.....yes, that's right, 20 - Twenty! I, on the other hand, have finished pair #4 - above. Sport weight yarn, size 3 needles, Spunky Eclectic yarn in Watermelon Fields colorway. A really fast knit.



Saturday I went with a friend to teach a workshop in Mountain Grove (the workshop was a total bust cause no one came...we packed up and left at 10:30 in the morning. ) This is the sunrise - the sun was soooo big! And it was foggy and overcast a bit so the sun shone thru and didn't blind you.



I participated in another fabric postcard swap this summer. There were a total of 10 of us. Here are the 9 postcards I received from the other swappers. Incredibly creative and artistic...fun to make and send and receive. Have plans for another one this fall....my favorite season of all time! In the past, I've used the embroidery machine for the fronts...this time I might just use a quilting technique...that will be a nice change.

Rainy and drizzly today...the dogs are in the laundry room while I'm at work...too wet for them to be outside. John will probably get home before I do...they will be so happy to see him, I'm sure.

Happy Wednesday...and thanks for stopping by.

Another Random Wednesday

Every spring, our son and his family come to Missouri to visit. And every time they visit, they plant beautiful flowers and bushes in the front garden. And every winter those same plantings die. Especially this past winter when we had those ice storms. So this spring when they came to visit, they did NOT plant anything in the front garden. John put tomato plants there instead. Imagine my surprise when I saw a lone vinca right there in the garden, shaded from the sun by those enormous tomato plants. And right in front of the tomato plants is the rock harvest...John has been trying to get most of the rocks out of this little patch so he can put topsoil down and plant a tree in front of the porch. They seem to re=grow overnight...

My dryer broke on Sunday night, before I was able to finish the laundry. Of course, I'd already washed the last 2 loads and they were just waiting to dry...John worked on it Sunday night and figured out that it blew a thermal fuse. I took those two loads to the laundromat on Monday after work. And John was able to get the fuse and repair the dryer last night. But in the meantime, while he was trying to figure out what was wrong, Gilligan staked his usual claim to anything that resembled a box or a container!

Yarn Smackdown 2008 started on Friday, the same day as the Olympics. I entered 3 events: The Advanced Sock, The Lace Bookmark, and a mystery event called Food Fight. Here is my advanced Sock becgun on Friday - my target lives in southern San Diego.

Next is my Lace Bookmark - pretty, huh? I've never done a bookmark and this one was a snap to knit. I mailed it off to my target in Georgia on Monday afternoon. And finally, the Food Fight entry. It was called Toast - yep, a 4 inch square of knitted fabric to represent toast and mailed to your target! Mine was a brown rye with a crocheted round of orange marmalade...mailed on Monday to my target in upstate New York. So far, I've not been killed by any of my assassins. I've just turned the heel on the sock and hope to at least get one done before I get killed and have to send the unfinished portion off to my assassin to finish.

Well, enough randomness for today. Have a wonderful week and thanks for dropping by.

Boobie Socks

Since I've been knitting, almost 3 years now, I've entered...oh, about a million sock knitting competitions. At least it seems that many. This summer I entered what is more like a KnitAlong. It's called Summer of Socks 2008. It runs from June 21st to September 1st. Some folks have knit 17 pairs of socks up to today, the 2nd of August....I, on the other hand, have knit 3 pairs in the last 6 weeks. And I've got 2 more pair on the needles that I hope to finish within the next week. Here is pair # 3:





This is a kit, by Skacel. It includes, specially dyed Opal fingering weight yarn, beads, and the pattern. Skacel only made up 2000 of these kits. All proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Fund for Breast Cancer. After doing a nice ribbing, you then knit the Walk for the Cure pattern, followed by the Breast Cancer Ribbon row, the Healthy Boobies row (this is where the beads go) and finally the Mammogrammed Boobies row (more beads). The toe has a star-shaped pattern to remind us that we are all stars. The pattern is very well written. I loved doing these socks.

I'm knitting a pair of socks (not boobies socks) for John right now...hope to have them done in a week or two...men's socks just seem to take longer...I guess because they have big feet. (This is from a woman who wears size 10 shoes!)

Have a wonderful weekend...here in Missouri they are having NO SALES TAX on anything thru August 3rd...It seems I am meant to go shopping!

Bye, Seeya!