...just keep winding, winding, winding...I'm so excited! I ordered a yarn ball winder from KnitPicks (along with lost of yummy lace yarn!) and it's already here!!!



Sadly, I don't have a swift yet (though a great friend in England is sending me a spare she has), so I've not gotten around to winding said new yarn yet...so I've been winding all my other yarn instead! LOL It's so much fun! I really can't wait to see all my new yarn wound...so many pretty colors!

           


So to keep me distracted until the swift gets here, I've been winding up all the sock yarn I'd previously hand-wound into actual balls...they're so pretty as center-pull balls!!! And my boys like to "help" as well....LOL

Off to wind some more!

People all over are having babies this fall! Two babies in my husband's family, alone, not to mention all the pregnant friends I have! (Thankfully, I am not counted among them...I'm not ready to have another one yet!) Since I'm the only crafter in my husband's family that still can craft easily (a.k.a, doesn't have arthritis or carpal tunnel et al. slowing me down), I felt that I should make some hand knits for new little ones. Fall babies are the perfect babies, because they're born in a cooling time of year and right before winter...you know that the things you knit them will be used! So I found this mock cable baby hat that I fell in love with on sight! Then, while browsing on Ravelry amongst the hats already made with that pattern, I stumbled across someone that had made a sock pattern to match the hat! It was listed as a personal pattern, so I PM-ed Janet on Ravelry, and she wrote it up, quick as can be! The socks (a free Rav download) are the perfect compliment to the hats, and I could not be happier with the end results! I hope the recipients are as pleased with the gifts as I am. : ) (The colors in this photo are a bit off, but you can get the general idea.) ; )

When it comes to packages, unless I have a deadline, I am horrible about getting them out in good time! My "baby" sister had a birthday in June, and I still haven't sent her present to her! (If you think that's bad, just wait...it gets worse...) So in attempts to clean out "my corner" of the computer room, I finally got to putting it in a box. However, the shape doesn't fit snugly into a box, so I figured that I'd wrap the Dark Mark Scarf that I made for my brother a year ago for the Ravelympics (as in, literally, last August) around it. Still room to spare. Oh look at what I found to put in there: a name doily I made for my nephew while we were still in the States!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (We've been living in Italy for more than a year and a half...I think it's about 2 years old already...) Ok, good to go. Now what? Still too much wiggle room, and I'm a crafter, so why bother with buying packing materials that'll just get tossed when the package is received? Then it hit me: DISHCLOTHS!!! They're small, will pack well, and will fill each little space until there's no more wiggle room! So I made the first one the other day (the finishing of it was delayed due to wasp stings...my hand was swollen and hurting, so no crafting), and have plans for many more....

The first one is a swan dishcloth. I edited the pattern a little to my own tastes. There was nothing wrong with how it was written at all, but I prefer mine to be reversible, so on the wrong side rows, I knitte the purls and purled the knits of the previous row to get the look I wanted. :) I rather like how it turned out!

    

We'll see what dishcloth I feel the urge to make next...but for now, it's time to feed the little ones.

The scarves seem to come in waves instead of the ideal steady stream...then again, the APO system does absolutely nothing to amend that. In fact, i think it quite contributes to it! But either way, I'm overdue for pictures. :) Here is the last crocheted one I have, I believe. (I think it's Kimmikat's...):






And here's a picture of that lace that I really, really, really ended up loving beyond reason (though it's actually more of a blue and less of a purple, lol):





And I forget whose this was, but here's my section of the provided pattern (which I loved!):






And now it's back to waiting for the next batch...it doesn't seem to fail, no matter how often or fast they get sent to me, they show up 2 or 3 (per group) at once...oh well. We're coming to the end of it all!

So I got to go to England to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a week ago (I can't believe a week has already gone by!), and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in love with the UK! Seriously! I could live there, happily!!! It is stunningly beautiful!!! I miss the moors something dreadful, and miss hearing English spoken around me even more, I think. But in this week of "recovering" of the fun of the weekend get-away, I have been working hard on the kit for my spoilee for the swap, and got two more scarves for Scarf Travels. The first one I got is to be done in laceweight, which I've never done before...I was super excited, had a blast picking out a pattern, and have enjoyed watching the pattern form under my fingers...I have noticed, however, that it takes an insanely longer amount of time to knit 5" of scarf in laceweight than in worsted. Definitely a lot longer than I expected. But the pattern I chose is beautiful (as is the story behind the designing of it!), and it will be well worth it in the end...I just have to get to that end...and quickly! I wanted my husband to send it out tomorrow when he goes to work, and I'm lucky if I'm halfway through it! LOL On the plus side: we got a working printer yesterday, so that means I can now print out patterns for when I take the boys to the park...I'd have taken the scarf with me to work on, but couldn't access the pattern (wireless Internet isn't all over the place, yet...LOL)...which means that about 5 hours were spent out of doors without the scarf. Le sigh. But it won't happen again! In fact, I'm getting off the computer right now to feed the kiddos dinner and then plug away at it some more! It's certainly taking me a lot longer than I thought, but at least it's going faster as I go! :)

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE my husband!!!!!!!!!!! He gave the go-ahead!!! I get to go watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the IMAX..............IN ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!! I can't stop giggling and clapping and "squee"-ing!!!!!!!!!!!! Kristin is coming with me, and we're going to stay with Ann and Marie from the Harry Potter swap! I wonder of we'll have time to go to an LYS....hmmm...But now I have a deadline for my Hermione hat...I am so wearing it to the movie!!!!!!!! And, if I can get it done in time, I'll make one for Kristin, as well! :D YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm too excited to sit anywhere...I'm off to be productive with this mass of excited energy!!!!

While those may sound like allergies (hmm, maybe it partially is...), but in reality, it's me dusting off an old project...my Hermione hat had a rough start, and then, as all other projects I have started for myself, got set aside for other projects. However, the Half-Blood Prince (in which movies this hat makes it's appearance) premiere is only weeks away...and the best part? I might get to go to England to watch it in the IMAX!!! I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hope it works out! But, if it does, I can't go all that way for the movie and not have at least one piece of some costume! I have to show everyone else (that doesn't know I'm flying all the way from Italy just to see it) that I'm more than just a casual fan...LOL

However, two more scarves have been worked on and passed along, and I've got one more in my possession...I'm waiting on the yarn I ordered to come in first, though.  Here's the section of the crochet scarf I've sent on. I couldn't get a good picture of it to show it off, but I intend to make an entire scarf with the pattern and share the pattern here. And I was so focused on trying to get a good picture of my section, I forgot to get a picture of Rebecca's scarf so far before I packed it up to go! LOL



Here is the section I did on Stacey's scarf, which is knitted:



I did a variation of the pattern I used on Jody's scarf, which I am working on making an entire scarf to share that pattern as well. And here is a picture of Stacey's scarf thus far:



I did about 6", I think, instead of five, because of how it fell with my cables. :) But now I'm off to work some more on my hat...I can't wait until it's completed!!!

You know, I've never really thought about how many different scarf patterns exist out there, until this scarf round robin group...I have learned that I choose patterns much like I shop; I browse and browse and browse, until something just jumps out at me, and 9 times of 10, it's perfect! And if it's not, then I tweak it a little, and voila, a new pattern is born! I really need to get to posting those patterns here, come to think of it. Especially the pattern I used for the red scarf I made a couple posts back, and the 5" I did on Jody's scarf. Well, now, I've done it again! I've got Rebecca's scarf, and I like the pattern of a hat I've made a few times, so I modified it to work for crocheting that's not in the round...I believe I'll share it! As soon as I'm done with adding it to the scarf, that is... ;)

Wow, things have been great, albeit slightly adventurous, around our house! We're getting a new (and I mean new...as in 2010 new) car sometime within 5-14 days, we got a futon (finally!) for the TV/computer room and got the husband a computer desk (which means his currant "desk," aka the card table, will be finding it;s permanent home in my crafting room...I'll be able to keep my sewing machine up and sew at will!!!) all within the last week! On the not-so-good side...we ran out of gasolio again, so we have no hot water...hopefully we'll get lucky and it'll be refilled within a couple days...maybe on Monday? But back to the positives...

The car we had was breaking left and right and driving me insane. I think my griping finally got to my husband, because he decided it was time for a new car! We're getting a 2010 Ford Escape! I'm so excited! I don't know what he plans on doing with our old car (which, by the way, is something like a '93 or '94 Chystler[?] Stratus), but he also is talking about getting a nice bicycle to ride to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday...which means I would actually have a car part of the week!!!!!! (We'll see how that pans out, though...)

I was excited beyond all belief at the futon (which I've been wanting for over a year now) and desk (YAY for the table going to my craft room! And yay for DH getting a nice desk!)...even more exciting was that he went to the warehouse and pick them up in a timely manner! So the night before last, I was helping him carry the boxes in from the car...I'm not used to heavy lifting. I am a stay-at-home mom. I change stinky butts, I wash dishes, every now and again I'll rearrange furniture, but 90% of that is simply pushing things across the floor. The heaviest things I lift in a normal day are my boys, the heavier of which is 39 pounds. So we get the box and mattress of the futon in, and then we go for the heavy box. I don't know how heavy it actually was, but like I said, I'm a wuss. lol I had to stop 2 or 3 times between the car and house to get a better grip because the weight kept it slipping out of my hands! We had to turn it to carry it up the stairs, and the momentum (and weight!) kept the box turning when it should have stopped, which twisted my wrist. It didn't feel good, but it didn't feel excruciating, either. No big deal. Got to the top of the stairs and my foot slipped, which resulted in my fingers getting smashed between the heavy box and metal handrail. That swelled up fairly quickly, actually, and I could see it bruising within half an hour to an hour (which, blessedly, means it wasn't as deep as it easily could have been!). I think my wrist would have been just fine if it weren't for previous injuries...in 2000 I fell on it while at a roller skating rink and had to wear a splint on it for a month and in '03, it got smashed in a stainless steel walk-in refrigerator door at work (which resulted in consistent and frequent icing and a brace along with physical therapy). So it's a little more prone to injury. Sadly, it's my dominant hand. And, even worse, it means I can't knit or crochet! (Even typing isn't helping me right now, really...) It's feeling significantly better today, compared to yesterday, but it's still sore. I'm hoping I'll be back to crafting tomorrow! I have 3 scarves to work on!!!!

I finally got one scarf out in the mail, and suddenly have 3 more to work on! Whoa! LOL I know with mailing systems and vacations and personal lives going on, that not all of the scarves have been being sent (or received) on schedule...but so long as everyone gets them back in the end, that's what counts!...right? LOL I'm one of those people that gets a little...shall we say, uptight...when it comes to being in a position of even semi-authority, and things aren't going precisely to plan. I guess I still need to learn to be more flexible! A lesson I've actually had a hard time with all my life. But I'm feeling a little restless anyway, when it comes to crafting...I haven't gotten to knit or crochet as much as I'd lake to lately. So these scarves should have a quick turn-around time. Here's hoping!

Maybe the repressed crafter in me is what's causing the outbreak of stitch markers in my house...Of course there was the 3 sets I posted pics of in my last entry, but I've since then even gone and bought more supplies for making more and made another set. And when I go to Venice this weekend (yes, again, lol), I'll be keeping my eye out for some pretty beads in addition to browsing lellabella's gorgeous yarns! (I'll post a picture of the latest set in a while...the camera's not hooked up at the moment, and I'm itching to work on these scarves!!!)

Off to craft, I go!