Three on Thursday - Skills

One of my 2021 goals is to improve a few of my knitting skills.  For today's Three on Thursday, I thought I'd share several of those skills.  So that this post has some photos, I'm including a pattern to go along with each.

The Yellow Queen Sweater by Veronika Lindberg

First, I really, really want to improve my colorwork skills.  I can knit fair isle and intarsia and I'm okay with the results but I'd like to feel more confident and relaxed when I knit them.  I want to be able to talk and fair isle at the same time rather than obsessively looking back and forth between my knitting and the pattern while mumbling numbers and glaring at anyone who dares to speak to me.  I'd like to feel confident going into a project that it will turn out the size planned rather than being drawn in so tight the garment is six sizes too small or so large and loosely knit it looks like a poorly made, old, torn fishing net rather than the intended item.

Triangle Entrelac Shawl by Diane Conroy

I also really, really want to learn how to knit backwards so that I can knit entrelac without having to constantly turn my work.  Entrelac can create some of THE most gorgeous designs but I absolutely despise flipping my knitting back and forth.  I will learn how to knit backwards if it kills me!

Headband with a twist by Mirella Moments

And third, I want to learn to knit while I walk.  This may prove difficult.  Very, very difficult.  I can barely walk and talk at the same time, but I have taught myself to read and knit so maybe someday, with enough practice and a few bloody knees, I will be able to walk and knit at the same time.  (And yes, a little insider trading tip for you... I suggest you all rush out and buy stock in Band-Aids!)

So, do you have 2021 knitting goals?  I can't wait to hear about them.

Links:

The Yellow Queen Sweater

Triangle Entrelac Shawl

Headband with a twist

Seven inches?

So, who else has knit a Ninilchik Swoncho?  

Ninlichik Swoncho

Did you have an issue with the sleeves?  I know I'm tall and have long orangutan arms but...  

The way this swoncho is designed, the arm holes hit just above the elbow and the directions say you should make the arms seven inches long.  In other words, the pattern thinks the distance between my elbow and wrist should be seven inches.  Nope!  Mine measures a tad over eleven inches.  

Another oddity about the arms on this sweater/poncho/swoncho...  I'm knitting the size 2 so my arms are 78 stitches.  If I was knitting socks with this same yarn, I'd knit on 48 - 54 stitches for the legs.  And my legs are Much fatter than my wrists and still somewhat fatter than my forearms.  Knowing this and the fact that I don't like my sleeves to be too loose, I went down a couple of needle sizes for the arm ribbing.  After knitting about five inches I tried it on and... I could barely get my arms through the sleeves!  The ribbing was all stretched out funnily.  

I ripped that ribbing out and reknit it with the correct needle size and... It fits perfectly.  How is that possible??

Dammit!  

I just measured my forearms and my calves with a tape measure.  It's quite possible that my arms are fat.  My forearms measure a full inch bigger around than my calves. 

In the infamous words of my mother, "Dammit all to Hell!"

Fat arms or not, this sleeve will be done before bedtime and other sleeve should be finished within a day or two.  The end is in sight!

Not what I remembered

So, if you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my post about my boredom level and an embarrassing Amazon purchase.

Ninlichik Swoncho knit with Wool of the Andes

Yes, I was so bored I ordered the complete series of The Patridge Family on DVD.  Have I mentioned that we don't have internet here at this house?

Once upon a time, I was going to marry David Cassidy.  I never missed an episode of The Partridge Family on one of the three channels we had back then and I even owned their album.

Today, The Partridge Family is not what I remember.  It is however, giving me something different to watch while I knit the ribbing on my swoncho.  

I should be done with this bad boy within a week and I'm excited to say, it's going to fit.  I was worried that it might be too small.  Unblocked, the fair isle section is slightly tighter than I'd like but I think the post blocking version will be perfect.

I hope you are keeping entertained during this pandemic and haven't been reduced to watching The Partridge Family, but if you are watching - get in touch.  We can laugh about the show's cheese factor and our current pathetic lives.

Anchors Aweigh

Thankfully, I have a new hat on the needles and it may be the only thing saving my husband's life.

So, I'll go ahead and say it.  I am a cold hearted b*tch. 

My husband has the flu and he may not survive.  I'm fairly certain the flu isn't going to kill him but I might.  The man is driving me bonkers BONKERS.  I mean, like stark raving, can I put rat poison in his Tylenol? insane.  I'll be down the hall and I'll hear his coughing and the bed creaking, and his faint little voice calling my name.  I take a big, giant breath of non-flu air and enter his room... and he proceeds to moan and tell me how bad he feels.  And when I ask him what he needs or what can I do to help him, he just moans and tells me he thinks he's dying.  And yes, I'm a cold hearted b*tch because my response is starting to be, "When?"

I don't do well with sick people.  Can you tell?  I specially don't do well when my loved ones are sick.  And I really, really don't do well when my big, strong husband is moaning.

About the only thing keeping  him safe is my hat.

Anchors Aweigh

I'm calling it the Anchors Aweigh hat because all I want to do is weigh anchor and set sail, away from this flu infested house before I catch it.  I start work tomorrow and I finally have an eye doctor's appointment this afternoon so I can get new glasses.  The ones I currently have are so old & scratched I can only see to read if turn my head all the way to the right and look out of the left edge of my glasses.  I'm so afraid I'm going to catch the flu and not be able to make the appointment.  And I'm starting to get this weird little tickle in my chest.

As for the hat, I'm hoping the design will look better after it's blocked.  I've never been super great with fair isle knitting.  I really struggle with keeping my tension even.

Makers' Monday

It's Makers' Monday!  Yay!

Boy am I glad to see this past weekend end.  All last week Mr. Weatherman kept talking about high wind warnings for Friday.  On Thursday afternoon, they announced schools would be closed on Friday.  They closed the schools in advance for wind!  I had to laugh.  I mean I know wind can be dangerous.  And I know that it has rained every single day in 2018 so the ground is saturated which adds to the danger....  But come on!  Virginia tends to be the laughing stock of the US when it comes to snow closings and now you're closing for wind?

Turns out, it was a pretty good decision because the wind definitely blew.  Friday was the first sunny day of 2018.  Actually it may have been the third sunny day but it felt like the first.  Sunny, with hurricane force winds.  Hurricane force winds that blew for a full 24 hours.

Power thief

This downed tree may not look like much, but it fell early-ish Friday morning, blocking us in and taking out our power line.  It doesn't look like much, but it's almost two feet in diameter and the other third of the tree, the top third, is over across the street blocking up the neighbor's driveway.

We have an excellent power company (I bet you don't hear that very often!) and they were able to restore our power after only about 12 hours.  Naturally, we had all gone to bed out of boredom not 30 minutes before hand.  Saturday morning, we all hopped out of bed bright and early, eager to play on our computers... only to find that while we had power, we had no internet service.  Dammit!

We finally got our internet back Saturday night.  On Sunday morning I finished catching up on email reading.... and discovered I'd just missed Craftsy's free weekend.  Craftsy had an All Classes are Free weekend and I missed it!  Double dammit!

Hat #14 out of 52

In my frustration, I started knitting another hat.

Tell me that knitting book isn't straight out of the '80's!

I'm using the shaping from a hat featured in The Sweater Connection and a simple fair isle design from a random stitch dictionary that happened to be within reach at the time.   And of course, I'm using Knit Picks' Wool of the Andes in Lake Ice Heather and Garnet Heather.

So, here's hoping you'll join me for Makers' Monday and tell me all about the free Craftsy classes you took, the wild weather you experienced this weekend and of course, what you're creating.

Makers' Monday

Welcome to Makers' Monday, a celebration of knitting designers, artists & creatives.

I'm still obsessing over  St. Patrick's Day patterns and ideas.  Today, I thought I'd share a few hat patterns.

First up is the  St. Patrick's Day Kiss Me Hat offered by Cassandra May at Little Red Window.

Kiss Me Hat courtesy of littleredwindow.com

Knit with worsted and designed for babies and toddlers, this would be a super quick knit and great for colorwork beginners.  

Bit O' Luck, courtesy of Keya Kuhn

I just love this adorable hat pattern designed by Keya Kuhn of Cedar Hill Farm Co. on Ravelry.  This fair isle pattern uses fingering weight yarn and is sized for infants through adults.  Every time I look at the photo,  I picture a large Irish family with each member wearing their own version of this hat.

Which hat will you knit?

Hanging Loops & E Myths

Let's just get the knitting out of the way so we can talk about the book.

I was reminded recently how much I like knitting my hanging loop hat design & decided to make another.  The design is so simple & versatile, plus I really do like having that little loop to hang the hat up with.

The E Myth by Michael Gerber

This version has a fair isle strip (patterns from Mastering Color Knitting) and is knit from Patons Classic Wool in Seafoam & Mercury.  Both yarns were already in my stash, so no shopping involved.  Yay me!

But let's get to the reading part of today's Yarn Along.

I'm so excited about this book.  Normally I have a hard time reading non-fiction.  Real life just doesn't hold my attention & I tend to struggle to read a chapter a week.  But this book.... I can't put The E Myth down.  My husband and I both have our own small, one person businesses and this book was written for us.  I mean, like, really and truly for us, as individuals.  I'm only about a third of the way through the book, but I'm already convinced Mr. Gerber has spy cameras set up in our house & satellite office, otherwise known as my husband's truck.  It's the only way he could so perfectly describe how we've been living our lives for the past umpteen years.

And now that I've briefly mentioned what I'm knitting and reading & thus met Ginny's Yarn Along requirements, I'm going to sign off and get back to the reading.  I can't wait to find out how Mr. Gerber is going to fix this crazy life we've been living.

Let's Pretend

Let's pretend I didn't ignore the blog for four days straight.  Christmas & my bandaged thumb got the best of me.  I really have no idea what I was thinking when I challenged myself to post every day in December.  When looking back, I apparently do it every year and every year, I fail.  In my defense, it's been a very busy four days.

One day was spent having my annual visit to the dermatologist and getting my hair cut.  The hair cut, even though it's just a trim, is an all day event.  My hair is so thick it takes two hours just to trim, thin and dry it.  Literally, two hours.  You can ask my daughter because for reasons unknown, she usually tags along.  I think it's because she sits in the waiting area reading & they give her cookies & soda.

Fair Isle Scarf

Despite my bandaged thumb, I completed the next color sequence on my Peppermint Icicle scarf.  I'm using Knit Pick's Palette sampler in the Peppermint Icicle colorway, thus it's name.

I can't type worth a damn with my bandaged thumb, but luckily I can still knit.  Sort of.

A hat or a sweater body?

For some reason, the bandage is causing me to knit extremely EXTREMELY loose.  I received another request for the same hat I knit last week.  I'm using the same yarn, the same needle, cast on the same number of stitches and Poof!  The hat was turning out three inches larger in circumference.  Three inches!  How is that even possible?  Instead of a hat, I was apparently knitting a sweater body.  For a pregnant person.  Good grief.

Version 2

I started over and now I'm pushing the deadline which makes me very uncomfortable.

Another day was spent jumping up and down with excitement over the mail delivery.  Besides receiving a big box of yarn, I received a few other unexpected packages.

Long, long ago, Leslie at A Friend to Knit With had posted that she had a ton of little clippy things she used as stitch markers.  She got them free from somewhere - work? the dry cleaners? I don't even remember now.  But the point was, she had way more than she'd ever need and she offered to give them away to whoever responded to her blog post.  Well, she was inundated with requests.  After sending out the ones she had, she made a list & promised to send them out as she collected more.  Well, this past week, my name came up on her list.

Thank you, Leslie!  I can't imagine the time, effort & cost that went into mailing me and everyone else  the stitch markers.

The next package wasn't really a package - it was an email.  I'd entered a random drawing over at Knitting Sarah's to win an e-copy of Everyday and I won!  I won!  I never win anything!  My family thought I'd lost my mind because I was jumping up & down shouting, "I won a knitting book, I won a knitting book!"  I even thought I knew which pattern I was going to knit first (Moonstone.)  It was going to be my Christmas Day Cast On project but now I'm not so sure.  There are so many items in the book I want to knit and the yarn I was thinking I'd use for Moonstone has really been marked for cabled cardigan.  So now, I don't know.  I've got 16 days to figure it out though.

Wait, sixteen days?  No, try six.  I have six days until Christmas Day Cast On.  Dammit.  Along with failing to blog daily, I also failed to change my How Many Days Until Christmas Christmas decoration.  Dammit.  I'm just slightly behind schedule now.

Next on the list of the day's receivables was news that Sarah, my daughter, not Knitting Sarah, scored a 100% on her biology final!  I'm so happy and proud of her.  For a homeschooled kid who'd never been in a classroom, taken lecture notes, or even taken a test, she is rocking college life.  We celebrated with cake.  :)

Another day was spent baking without water.  But that's a whole other story.

Stars or Snowflakes?

The lengths ...

Early stages of a Fair Isle cowl

   .... I'm going to ...

Stars or snowflakes?

         .... to avoid frogging the world's splittiest yarn.

Giving Thanks, Day 3

Today I'm giving thanks to cheaper gas prices.

Gas Prices, 11/2/15

$1.79! Wow! The last time I put gas in the car, it was $2.24.  Admittedly, I've been lucky & the car has needed gas on the days my daughter is driving (we share a car) and she's been the one to go to the gas station for the past month or two.  But still.... $1.79.  I'm pretty excited.  And thankful.

I'm also pretty excited about this hat.

Watch Cap Style Hat

It's a fake fair isle knit from Yarn Bee's Fair Isle yarn.  The yarn is an acrylic/alpaca blend and was a joy to knit with, even though it was mostly acrylic.  (That's the yarn snob in me is coming out.)  The yarn was nice and squishy and knit up super fast.  It has that alpaca hairiness, but it didn't have the alpaca scratchiness.  I'll definitely buy more of this yarn.

Slouchy Style Hat

I knit it so that the brim could be folded up watch cap style or worn unfolded and slouchy.  If you're interested, that hat will most likely show up in my Etsy shop within the next few days.

On the needles

Today's OTN project...

OTN 10/28/15

A fake Fair Isle hat.  A fake Fair Isle hat that I'm trying to ignore.  It's supposed to be my At Work project but I'm loving the yarn and the striping so much, it's hard not to knit on it at home.

I'm not sure what I'm loving about it the most.  Self striping is always a good thing and the fake Fair Isle affect is even more appreciated.  I don't have my gauge exactly right so I'm not getting a perfect Fair Isle look, but that's okay.  Although the yarn is a sport weight, it knits up quickly, more like worsted weight.  That may have something to do with it's hairy alpaca content.  And, it's "cheap craft store yarn."  It's Yarn Bee's Fair Isle from Hobby Lobby.  And did I mention it contains alpaca?  Anyway, I'm loving the simplicity of this project and am having a really hard time saving it for an At Work project.

Sunday Hats - Cuba Street

It's Sunday so naturally, we're talking about hats.  I stumbled across Cuba Street totally by accident, and I'm so glad that I did.

Cuba Street by Nikki Jones

I was searching Ravelry for  shawl patterns & made a major typo.  I cleared my search & thought I'd typed in the proper search terms but instead of shawls, I got an assortment of all kinds of things and this hat was one of them.

Cuba Street, a Nikki Jones design

At first glance, it was just another striped hat, except it's not 'just another' striped hat.  Cuba Street is fair isled, or color worked.... or what ever you want to call it.  I love the little band of color around the beginning of the brim and how the hat could be crazy colorful or knit with only two colors.  The pattern would also make excellent use of those little balls of left over sock yarn.  Or, knitting it in 'new to me' colors would be an excellent excuse to go yarn shopping.  My favorite kind of pattern!

Cuba Street is a Nikki Jones design and seems to be quite versatile.  It's a unisex design but could easily become sexist by use of color.   I love how the hat is slightly slouchy but I think that if I didn't want slouch, I could leave out a pattern repeat and it would be okay.  The pattern is written for sport weight yarn but in the description it states that fingering weight could be used.  I prefer hats knit with sport weight but for some unknown reason, I rarely have much sport weight in the stash pile.  And you know what that means.....  Yarn shopping!!

St. Patty's Preparation

In honor of my Irish heritage, I'll be featuring/sharing a few of my favorite Irish songs and/or song writers everyday through St. Patrick's day.  Today's song is Wish You Well by Mick Flannery.  I recently discovered Mick Flannery & although his style is not what I generally think of as typical Irish music, I absolutely love his voice & thought his music would be a nice, calm way to start the week.

As for my knitting, the fair isle scarf continues to grow but at an extremely slow pace.  I ended up frogging more rows than I knit yesterday.  I will be so happy to see this scarf finished!  I sort of never want to do fair isle knitting ever again. There are only a few more pattern stripes to go though, so the end is in sight.  Assuming I don't have to frog the whole bloody thing.

For now, I'm off to consult the Irish cookbooks & make a meal plan.  How about you?  Do you celebrate St. Patrick's day with any special Irish foods?

Nacho Night

There’s been progress on both the rainbow chevron & the fair isle scarves, but not enough on either to bother photographing, so, instead of talking about knitting....

It was Nacho Night at our house tonight.  I love Nacho Night.  Not because of the nachos, but because of the guacamole.  I LOVE guacamole.  And it’s so simple to make.

Take an avocado, and if you have a cutting board that your dad made for your mom as a wedding gift 70 years ago, definitely use it!

Peel the avocado, remove the seed & chunk it (the avocado, not the seed) into a bowl.  A smallish bowl with a nice flat, wide bottom works best.  My smallish, flat, wide bottomed bowl was no where to be found so I used a Tupperware bowl.  

Add a little lime juice.  I usually use a whole lime’s worth but I like my guacamole to be a bit on the limey side.  Add a little salt & just slightly more garlic powder than you’d think you’d need.  I usually use a little less than 1/4 tsp. of salt & about a rounded 1/2 tsp. of garlic powder, but add yours to taste.

Then just smash it up until it’s the chunky/smooth texture you prefer.  I have no idea what the tool is called that I use, but it works great.  A potato masher works well too, as does a simple fork if the avocado is ripe & soft enough.

Eat a spoonful to make sure it tastes right.  Then eat another spoonful just to make extra sure.  Then spoon it onto your nachos.  Yum!

Do you have a favorite guacamole recipe?

Sibling Rivalry

Do you suffer from sibling rivalry?  I think my sister hates me.  

My sister runs a gift shop in a retirement home & gifts from her are always in the form of a gift basket full of all kinds of fun goodies from her shop.  The baskets are always full of such wonderful surprises.  There might be an expensive piece of hand crafted jewelry, or there might be a cheap, plastic, light-up holiday piece of jewelry that breaks after an hour’s use.  There might be clothing or a purse.  A keychain or a candle.  A silly game or a book inscribed by the author.  There might be tins of nuts or special candy from our childhood.  You just never know what’s going to be in the basket, and that is what makes it such a fun gift to receive.

But this year, this year my sister set out to destroy me.  She gave me money soap*.   And then she proceeded to tell me a story about how karma pretty much guarantees you'll only get $1 if you cut into the soap to get the money out.  Darn her!  She knows I have absolutely no patience.  And I’m also determined that if I behave and use the soap as intended, my soap bar will be one of the few that contain $20.  I firmly believe this.  So, I wash my hands 100 times a day using the end of the bar that the money is closest to in hopes of rushing the process along.  I even go so far as to rinse the bar of soap off after each hand washing just so that I might rinse away a slight layer of soap.  I have been doing this since December 26th and look where it’s gotten me:

Not very far.  Waiting for that money to come out of the soap is absolutely killing me.  I’m pretty sure my sister knew it would have this affect on me & I think she hates me.

In knitting news, I’m still plodding along on the fair isle scarf.  I’m currently on the 40th pattern stripe.  Yesterday was spent knitting from sun up to sun down, although there wasn’t much sun involved.  It snowed.  Like crazy!  It blizzarded is a more accurate description.  And what a crazy storm!  The day before, Sunday, was 64 degrees and absolutely gorgeous!  Sunday evening, it clouded up & began to rain and the temperature began to drop.  By 3 a.m. it was sleeting and when I woke up on Monday morning, we had about 4 inches of snow on the ground & it continued to fall as well as the temperature.  In the late afternoon, it stopped snowing, the sun popped out and there was actually a rainbow in the sky!  Okay, a snowbow, not a rainbow.  Very weird!   By bedtime last night, the temperature was down to 3 degrees.  That’s a 61 degree shift in temperature in a 24 hour time period.  Welcome to Virginia’s idea of spring.

*Please note, the soap shown in the link above is not from the same company but it's very similar.  I, stupidly, did not make note of where my soap actually came from when I first opened it.  The soap mentioned in the link above comes from WWW.etsy.com/shop/TheBodyCareBoutique if you are interested in purchasing your own.

Favorite Cookbooks

Because an important part of knitting is eating, I thought I'd share my top five favorite cookbooks.    Or should I say, my top five most used cookbooks.  I have others that have much more sentimental value or that have better food porn photos, but these five are the ones I use over and over and over again.

Make it Fast, Cook it Slow and Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is the answer to a obsessive knitter's busy homeschooler's prayers.  Make it Fast is the only slow cooker cookbook I've ever liked and I've looked at thousands.  Most slow cooker cookbooks only give you recipes for stews & barbecue but this book has everything!  Not to mention, the recipes are easy, contain simple ingredients & taste great.  Artisan Bread shows you how to make a huge amount of dough that gets stored in the fridge to be taken out & baked as needed.  With these two cookbooks, I can toss dinner into the crockpot in the morning, run the kids all over the state to their various homeschooled classes/outings (or sit on my butt watching Netflix & knitting all day,) then toss some dough into the oven in the evening.  By the time the dogs are fed & the table is set, we have a hot meal and fresh bread.  In fact, I like & use Make it Fast so much, I bought several additional crockpots of various sizes so that I can cook multiple things at once.

Dining on a Dime is pretty much what the title says it is.  The recipes are very inexpensive to make and every one I've tried so far has tasted great.  Well, except that time I forgot to add the water in the spanish rice.  Liquid-free baked rice is not great, let me tell you!  But hey, the more money I save on meals, the more money I have to spend on yarn.

1,000 Vegetarian Recipes is just flat out excellent.  I'd bought this book a few years ago when my daughter & I went vegetarian and fell in love with it.  Neither of us are following a vegetarian lifestyle anymore, but I still use this cookbook frequently.  I don't even like vegetables all that much (I'm much more of a meat & potatoes & cake kind of girl) but every recipe I've tried so far has been excellent.

Last but not least on my list is Necessities & Temptations.  I've been using this cookbook for almost 20 years.  You'd think I'd have the recipes memorized by now, but I don't.  Not because they are difficult, but because I seem to be incapable of memorizing anything.  Necessities & Temptations has, for the most part, simple recipes with simple ingredients that end up tasting like I've slaved away in the kitchen for days.  With most cookbooks, I find that I tend to only use one category of it's recipes.  I only use the meat recipes, or the side dishes, or only like the deserts....  But with Necessities & Temptations, I find myself using, and enjoying, recipes from every section.

So, if you are looking for a bit of kitchen inspiration, click on one of those links or simply go to your local library and check out those cookbooks.  I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

For knitting news, I've only knit nine more stripes on the fair isle scarf since my last post.

That brings the total number of stripes so far up to 29.  I probably have another 12 or so to go before it's long enough.  Progress has been extremely slow on this scarf because I've been on a scary movie kick.  Intense, scary movies are not the best knitting option when every row is different.  I either get absorbed into the movie & forget to start a new pattern row or something jumps out at me, I scream like a little girl & drop a bunch of stitches.  It's not helping that I rearranged my desk/knitting/crafting area & now my back is to the room/door.  The family keeps sneaking up on me.  Sneaking up on me when I'm absorbed in a scary movie makes me scream & drop that many more stitches.  I think I have knit every single pattern of this scarf twice, sometimes three times, now.  First, I knit it wrong, then I frog it, then reknit it.  It's a good thing I enjoy the knitting process.

Fair Isle progress, sort of

I've made progress on the fair isle scarf, sort of.  And I do mean sort of.  Miniscule progress is more like it.

As  you can see, I've only added a few pattern stripes to it over the last few days.

I realized after hitting "publish" on the previous fair isle post that I didn't provide much detail.  The scarf contains 92 stitches.  Size wise, I think it's fine, but I do wish I'd made it slightly bigger because it's barely big enough for my smallest circular needle & the fabric doesn't move around the needle easily.  I'm using a number 4 needle and the stitch patterns are all from Mastering Color Knitting.

I strayed back to the rainbow chevron scarf for a while.  It's been deemed travel knitting, which is why it's crammed into that little bag.

Instead of knitting, I've been painting.  Well, okay, I've been playing with Gesso.

It's a long, rambling story, but while bored during the recent snow, I clicked on a link that popped up on my Facebook page that took me to a whole new world.  "The Documented Life Project" world.  DLP is a Facebook group for art journaling & planner decorating.  And, OMG!  The talent that group has!  I am unbelievably intimidated by them but am also so excited to become a part of that talent pool.  The people there are so welcoming & don't seem to care that my artistic skills are non existent.  And we all know how much I love my planner.

Yes, I'm an old fashioned girl & still use a paper planner.  No matter how much easier it would be, I just can't force myself to use a digital planner.  And yes, I realize there are probably a minimum of three trees worth of paper in that planner, but it works for me.  I included the coffee cup in the photo so you could get an idea of how thick it really is.  And that's a two cup coffee cup!  My entire life is in that thing & I would be devastated if I ever lost it.  And since decorating my planner is an excellent to-do list procrastination technique....

Actually, I'm playing in an art journal much more than I'm decorating my planner.  That baby doesn't need to get any thicker & since I discovered Gesso, everything is getting thicker!

Do you paint?  Do you know about Gesso?  Oh My Gosh!  Gesso is the coolest!  It does everything!  It stops just short of doing the dishes for me!  First, it's a primer & gets the paper ready to accept the paint.  Secondly, if you make a mistake (which I do every time I pick up a brush) you can simply Gesso over the error & have yourself a merry little do-over.  You can also add color to it, add texture to your artwork, rubber stamp with it....  And at least in my case, when I'm done playing with it, I look like I've had a french manicure.  If you don't know the joys of Gesso, go YouTube a few videos.  It is The coolest stuff.

Another cool thing I've been playing with is spray water color paint.  The brand I've been using is Dylusions and I absolutely love it!  Which is a good thing; it's kind of expensive.  At least I considered it expensive when I bought it without having any idea what it was.  I just liked the colors & knew I'd have fun playing with it.

The luminosity of the paint isn't showing up in that photo, but in real life, it sort of glows.  I have no idea what I'll do with those pages but I'll use them on the art journal pages some how.  I now have lots & lots of pages like that to tear & paste over.  I am having so much fun playing with paint & Gesso I may never knit again.  Well, that's a fib but....

Snow day knitting

I love snow day knitting, don't you?  They were calling for up to 30 inches of snow!  Around these parts, 3 inches is enough to cause panic at the grocery store.  I knew I needed a snow day knitting project but I wasn't feeling the love from the rainbow chevron scarf and my car was having a major hiccup so I couldn't go to the LYS to pre-storm yarn shop.  I decided to cave into the urge to start a Wendy Knits fair isle scarf of my own.

I grabbed needles, made a chart, drug (Or should that be dragged? Neither seems right.) the scrap fingering weight yarn bin over to my "nest" and started knitting.

One snow storm later, I have almost a third of a scarf.  The majority of my sock yarn is dark, subdued colors & I obviously didn't have enough lighter colors to copy Wendy's exactly.  Besides, who wants to be a total copycat anyway, right?  What I did have was a lot of Sweet Potato orange Palette yarn.  The plan is, the foreground will be knit with the orange, the background will be knit with scrap sock yarn & no two backgrounds will be the same, nor will the fair isle patterns repeat.  In other words, it's going to be a wild mess.

As for our snow storm, we did not get 30 inches, but we got some.  When I went to bed Wednesday night, it looked like this,

It was coming down at a rate of slightly over an inch an hour & we already had almost 7 inches.  I woke up Thursday morning to find,

Six inches plus a thick, thick layer of ice on top.  At some point, it had turned to freezing rain which had smashed the snow down. (And no, that's not a hole in our fence, just a hole in the boards.  As is typical, less than a week after installing the fence, a tree fell on it & smashed the boards in that one area.  So now, the wire part is still there, just not the boards.)

The dogs were NOT pleased with the conditions.  They love to play in snow but they definitely did not like breaking through the ice with each step they took.  They ventured out, reluctantly, did their business & came straight back in.

As snow storms go, it was a crazy one!  It started out on Wednesday afternoon snowing hard, changed to freezing rain in the wee early morning hours, then it freezing drizzled most of the day on Thursday.  In the late afternoon, it began to thunder, then it hailed.  Hailed!!  Dime sized hail in the middle of a snow storm!  Then it returned to snow, a few hours later it thundered some more and continued to snow, then at the tail end of the storm, it turned back into freezing rain for an hour or so.  And as is typical in Virginia, on Friday, I'm riding down the interstate (thank you, VDOT, for doing such an excellent plowing job!) with the window almost half way open because the sun was making the inside of the car uncomfortably warm.