Fun with Knitting (and Quilting)

Now for something Non knitting!

So I have indeed been knitting. In fact, I finished my market bag! But more on that later!

Today a little morning dove was hopping around on my deck railing and I went to investigate, and this is what I found.

This little willow tree is right next to my deck. Now We have to keep an eye on the pups so the don't mess with my little friend here!

Then since my camera was out I decided to snap some picts. of the flowers I planted last weekend!

My chives I really love this picture! I believe these are called torenia. Some of my snap dragons. And some Pansy's

Even Abby is intriqued by the birdy! Happy Spring!!

A few FOs

So Yay I have a FO to post about! it is my Gathered Pullover from Hana Janson in Winter 2007 Interweave. I LOVE it! It is so nice to feel like I really love my recent FOs! (I must be becoming a better knitter! LOL) The sweater has been mostly finished for a few weeks I kept looking at and telling myself I need to set in the sleeves! So since today was a "Cold Day" off of school I figured I ought to get it done!

Anyway here are the specs:

Yarn: Malabrigo Silky in Nocturnal. I originally bought 7 skeins from River Colors in Lakewood and then worried I wouldn't have enough so I bought 2 more skeins on-line. It wasn't thesame dye-lot so for hte body of the sweater I alternated between 2 different skeins. In the end I have 2 left over so I wouldn't have needed to do that OH well (I think the extra skeins will become a darkside cowl since this yarn is so scrumptious!)

Needles: size 8 Knit Picks Options

Size 36 1/2"

Mods: Not many really..I did make the body and the sleeves a little longer than the pattern and I think the length came out great. I probably could have lengthened the sleeves by another 1/2' or so, but since the yarn is a silk blend, they may grow anyway!

There's a bit more over on my Ravelry page if you want to check it out!

Here is another sweater I've had done since like August but the weather hasn't been cold enough to wear it. So now that the temps are like -10F I'm finally getting wear it and finally got hubby to take a couple pictures!

The pattern is Marianas from Webs

The Yarn is Berkshire Bulky from Valley Yarns (I really love how soft this yarn is but it pills like crazy!

Needles size 10 1/2 Knit picks options.

The construction of this sweater was really unusual but I enjoyed knitting it and I really think the style of it came out  cute!

My knitting corner

So here's my little corner of knitting mess in the family room ...I have magazines, books, yarn, needles, notions, lotion...What mess (actually it is a bit cleaner than usual) but what a great mess! I hide some of my projects in the space between the end table and sofa. It keeps Abby out of it! LOL Does anyone else have this kind of space? I mean this doesn't nearly encompass all my stash- that's in another room!

BTW did anyone else get the Custom Knits book? Mine came yesterday. I LOVE LOVE LOVE  it! There are so many patterns from it that I want to knit! I love Inguene, and the lion neck cardigan (I have the soft tweed in my stash that would work for it!, and the slinky-ribs (also have stash yarn for that one!) and many others! I have to finish up a few projects though before I start new I've told myself. (we'll see how that works out for me! LOL

In other knitting news, I started Marianas, since I finished Newport (picts soon). I've been on a bulky knit kick lately. I'm using the Berkshire Bulky so it's going very fast. It's knit in the round from the top down but the sleeves are knit before the body. Though I think I want to start Hey Teach after I finish up Marianas.

I also started another pair of socks. I used the magic cast on from Knitty! Oh man is EASY! If you haven't tried this for Toe up socks you have to!!! It is unbelievably easy!!! I'm just going to knit in plain stockinette. The yarn is from Patons it's called Kroy Socks.

Everyone have a great holiday weekend! I'm looking forward to it! This was my first full week at work after summer vaction! Though I had kids for 3 days only...My class so far has been really good, scary good actually. Let's hope thats a good sign for the year!

Why no knitting?!

So hubby was on vacation this week and well he loves to do/redo projects! So We have this patio off the end of the deck with 2 types of stone, some red 12 X 12 pavers, and then some blue flagstone. (of course I forgot to take a picture before we started!) It's a long story as to why the patio had 2 different types of stone! But anyway it looked bad, and so we have been working on redoing it with Unilock pavers. Of course it was way more work than we planned. Our yard sort of slopes off a lot, a lot more than we thought! So we ended up having to put up a retaining wall and get a ton (we already had about a ton from the previous patio!!) of gravel to level the patio area off. So we used the blue stone to build a wall, which is now capped and we started laying the pavers, boy they look pretty cool if you ask me! But man has it been hot! Plus we were starting to lay pavers without gloves (duh) so went went out and bought some for laying the rest of them! Ken's family has a reunion this weekend so we have family up visiting so I doubt much will get done until sunday night or Monday. I hope that we get most of it done then!

Abby says "Watching my people do all this work makes me sleepy!"