Saturday, July 22, 2006

Stash Yummification

There was a yarn sale. At Unraveled (in Monrovia). With discounts in a fishbowl. Hey, what's a knitter who's been craving Koigu KPPPM to do?? Especially when the SnB gang decides to meet there at opening time!

This is what:

Blue Sky Alpaca in cream, for a Slouchy Cardi from Greetings from Knit Cafe. There's a KAL for it, but I may or may not join t hat. After all, I have a bunch of other stuff in the queue. Not least of all, swatching some of that Koigu. I'm thinking that there may be a couple of scarves/mini shawls in my future. The orange is the big surprise, to me at least. Normally I don't gravitate to autumn colors, but this time I did. I love that orange! The blues are "my" colors but I also love the yellow/green combo. I only got one of each of those. Gotta show some restraint!

But the fishbowl was good to me--30% so it's like almost every 4th skein is free!

Gotta love that Koigu. Of course, when I got home from the sale, t here was a package from England waiting for me. Jannette had this lovely Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed on sale, super cheap, so that with shipping and everything it was well under $5/skein.

This might be another slouchy cardi, I dunno yet. I am swatching and it seems that the little nubs want to pop up on the back rather than the front, which is saying to me that a garter-stitch something might work nicely. I'm going to do a couple of cables on the swatch--I sure love me some cables--and then wash it to see what happens. The yarn is pretty rough right now, but I don't think it's meant to be next-to-the-skin wear anyhow.

So here's my "deep thoughts" for the day. I was listening to my SnB buds talking about their purchases, and I realized (I'm slow on the uptake on this, duh!) that there isn't anyone here at home for me to show it to, discuss it with, or any of that. I'm only accountable to me. For everything. Gets a little scary out here--kinda feels like I'm on the high-dive and I'm not even sure there's water in the pool to catch me!
I'm getting ready to make a few improvements to the place--a new deck (the old one was demolished over a year ago), a new fence, a new cover for the front porch, replace a couple of doors--and here I haven't even decided if I'm going to stay in this house! However, it would be nice to be able to use the back door again... so I'm doing it. Deep breathing now.

Meantime, it's fun to add to the stash--soothes the soul, don't you know!

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Repeat after me:

Doesn't everyone have a cute bear keeping the monitor warm?? I haven't given this guy a name, he's just Bear, but isn't he sweet? He showed up in my Easter basket a couple of years ago, because D3 is just as big a sucker as I am for a cute face and a big nose and a cuddly shape!

On to other matters. This is NOT going to turn into a baby blog. Honest! The real reason I put this picture in is to show you the baby quilt. Yeah, the blue one. You kind of have to look closely, but it's a whole-cloth quilt done in pale blue on pale blue. It has a LOT of quilting on it--there are hearts, flowers, a Tree of Life in the center, with lots of little critters in and around the tree. There's a squirrel, and an owl, a lamb, a bunny, birds... take my word for it, okay. It's just a really busy quilt! The irony here is that the quilt came along with me when I first met Baby G, and his mom really really loves it--it goes everywhere with him. You've guessed it--the quilt is the blankie, not the little knitted one. We'll see what The Boy decides when he's a little older, but for now? He's still wrapped in Gramma-love.

His little buddy is named Deryk; he belongs to D4's best friend and is 2 weeks--yes, TWO WEEKS older than our little guy. He's got the smiling and cooing down pat; Baby G is just learning. We figure they will be good playmates when they get a little older!

Yeah... Baby D and Baby G...