Stitching and Living

Lost In Stitching

I suddenly realized that it has been more than six weeks since I have written anything here. The time has flown by quickly!

I have been lost in stitching. The moderators of one of the groups to which I belong on Ravelry announced a contest which consisted of making Amigurumi Food. Up until that time I had been a very practical knitter and crocheter that would not indulge in making things for the fun of it. One must be practical.  I thought about taking part in the contest for a couple of days.  After doing some research on the topic and with a lot of encouragement from my husband, downloaded a simple pattern. My first project was Little Fried Egg by Ana Paula. I still recall my sheer joy and delight at completing it. I had never made anything like that before. Not only was it three dimensional, but it was fun!! I laughed and giggled with glee!!! Listening to me that day you would have gotten the impression that I had accomplished a great feat. For me, I had. that was the first time in my life I had ever made something just for the fun of it. I was hooked. This was the start of a new aspect of fiber arts for me.

Much of my free time that weekend was spent looking for; downloading and printing free patterns from the Internet. I also looked for books about amigurumi on line and went on successful  searches for them at some local bookstores and one nearby LYS. My fascination with making food was growing.

I discovered Easter Eggs by Nikki Anders on Ravelry. Not only are they quick and easy, but they are gorgeous and use so little time and yarn. In very little time, i was making one of these every few days. I found other patterns on her blog as well as on the blogs of others. Pattern searches on Ravelry and Google and  led me to more patterns, a lot of free ones and some for purchase. How awesome! There are patterns available for almost every food imaginable.

I began spending time every day making some food item. This soon became more than an addiction, it became an obsession. I stayed up late at night and got up early in the morning to play with yarn and food. There were days when all that meant only 10-15 minutes, but that was all right. At least it was a bit of time to play with my newly found interest.

As time went by, I discovered  ETSY. It was there that I discovered Crafty Anna and KTB Designs. Wow! They sell patterns in sets and cute ones at that in my opinion.  Not only that, but based on price per pattern, they are not expensive. Now, several weeks later, I have a collection of patterns from ETSY. There are other wonderful designers there as well. These two happen to be my favorites.

At some point, I began to look at food in terms of color. For example: is the inside of an apple Ivory or ecru? Is the inside of a banana yellow or a different color? What is the best shade of red for the outside of an apple or carrot?  This has been  gloriously mind stretching. What a great way to learn to look at the world differently! I will never be the same.

Thank You Maile and Flo! Once again you have enriched my life and those around me forever.

Everyday Activities

I have been wanting to write for a while, but have not been able to think of anything to say. That is strange for me, since I normally have lots to say. There has been a lot going on in the past several weeks, but most of it is a part of everyday living. 

The weekend after my cousin died, which was Mother's Day weekend, we had a bit of a minor crisis. The water pipe leading to the refrigerator broke after the refrigerator was moved. it happened late Saturday night/early Sunday morning  resulting  in a minor flood in the kitchen and into the basement. Luckily for us were able to find an all night plumber who came and stopped the leak. The remaining  plumbing repairs were completed after the weekend.  We filed a claim with our homeowner's insurance and are going to have the final repairs made in the next few weeks. While we are waiting for the last  detailsto be worked out,  we are cleaning out the basement to make for some of the items that will be shifted around while the work is  being done. It is a major task but is progressing quite nicely.

Since then, I have been busy finishing up a couple of projects which have been needing to be completed. One of them is the comfortghan for my friend who lost her son last year.  It is almost done.There are less than ten squares remaining to be made before it can be assembled. Once it is finished, I will post pictures and share the pattern for the square. 

A couple of years ago !I listened to the first one or two pod casts  by David Reidy of Sticks and Strings. Life happened, and I lost track of it. In the past couple of months I have rediscovered it. Originally, I was going to listen to it while walking. That did not work out so well. Instead, I now listen to it and knit. It is much more enjoyable. I downloaded all the past episodes and am up to number 46. That only leaves 23 more to listen to until I am caught up.  I enjoy his style and variety of topics. I know that there are other good fiber related pod casts available. It just happens that his is the only one I am listening to at the moment.

One thing is happening on the knitting front this week that is exciting. One of the Yahoo groups to which I belong  The Cloth Of The Week, is celebrating its' First Year Anniversary starting July first. The owners, one of whom is  Maile Mauch have some fun activities  planned for the group. You can also learn more about the group  on Ravelry if you arebelong there. This past year has sped by quickly with lots of learning taking place on my part. There is so much more to learn about and do with knitting.

Have a great week!

Glorious Weekend

This has been a most glorious weekend in my part of the world. On the surface it has been an ordinary weekend except that I have been home for the past three days. We have had plenty of time for rest and play, mingled with some weekend household chores.

I have kept busy with an assortment of fiber related activities. As I mentioned in my previous post on Friday, an order from Pisgah Yarn And Dyeing Co. arrived that day. I had been planning that order for months, waiting until there were several of the Kits and other special items available that I wanted. My motivation was simply to save on shipping. When I got home Friday night,

The box of yarn was pretty big and had lots in it. This was a good thing, until I took it out of the box and spread it all over the floor of our small living room. Most of it stayed on the floor until early Saturday morning when I put it away. Now that does not sound like too big of a job for a grown woman to do....Or does it?  What it meant in reality, was doing a bit of re arranging of my stash. It took a couple of hours to do this by the time I brought up an empty large plastic bin from the basement and  washed & dried it before filling it.   

One of my other goals for this weekend has been to post pictures of my knitting efforts on my Flickr account so they can be seen here and on Ravelry. This meant weaving in a bunch of loose ends and taking lots of pictures. In theory this was not too big of  a job. What happened was that most of the batteries for my camera were not properly charged. so as a result, what was to have been a little bit time consuming became a major time eater. There are still a few more items to be posted, but not many. If you are interested, go take a look at my Flickr album on the left. You will see lots of new things.

Most of the cloths I make are by my two favorite designers, Sue Schaefer and Maile Mauch. although their styles are somewhat different, I enjoy them both because a lot of time the patterns they create challenge me to think and learn new ways of knitting. Besides, their designs are pretty. :)

Due to family needs, I have unsubbed from most of the online knitting groups to which I have belonged in the past. One of the few to which I still belong is the Cloth Of The Week. This group, run by Maile, is different than any other group  because of its  emphasis on learning about knitting. there have been time when life has not allowed time to do each week's cloth. In the past couple of week, I have been working on some of them.  In my opinion, it is fun learning with no pressure. I will try to post pictures of some of the cloths made from this group on Flickr.  Please do not ask me for the patterns because they are only available for group members due to copyright laws.  I spent some time this weekend making at least of the cloths from this group.

I also allowed myself the luxury of printing and filing a lot of knitting patterns. Some of them were freshly printed one while others had been in some piles for a while waiting for my attention. In the course of this at some point, I cleaned out a bookshelf and made room for notebooks containing patterns. It is not exciting stuff to do, but goes a long way in terms of organization and how I fee about myself.

May eacn of you have a wonderful and knitful week.

Spring and Knitting

Wow! It's Wednesday already. I almost can't believe the past week has gone by so quickly. Life has been a bit busy around here to say the least.

Since it is Spring, I am in my usual Spring cleaning mode. This activity has dominated a good portion of my free time. Most recently this has meant catching up on laundry that has been ignore in the laundry room, de-cluttering the homeschool/computer/craft room and helping as needed in the cleaning of son's room. My next day off will find me moving the living room furniture, cleaning baseboards in the living room and that sort of thing. My husband did  some of the same sorts of things in the bedrooms this past week end.  None of this is exciting, but it is part of life in my family.

There was time last week for knitting, so I almost finished the second sock of my first pair. It is down to taking the last eight stitches off the needles and weaving in the loose ends. I'll do that on my day off in the middle of the week in a couple of days.  I also have a gauge swatch for another pair on the needles. At the rate I am going, it will be my day off before it gets completed and the next pair of socks gets started.

Knitting and crocheting are two of my passions, but at this time of the year, I normally take a bit of a break from them. Nothing is wrong. I just need a bit of a break for a  week or two.

In the meantime, I have decided it is time to catch up on some reading and to learn HTML, CSS and about web design. Since computing has been one of my hobbies for a long time, this is a natural progression. The knowledge gained doing this will be for my own use and for fun. It is one of those areas I have wanted to explore for a long time.

Last week I read Debbie MacComber's 'Back on Blossom Street'. I have started, but not finished 'Susannah's Garden'. These have proven to be good relaxing reading in my opinion.  ( I have no connection, financial or otherwise to these books or the author. )

Sidebar and Learning

I have been playing around with computers as a hobby  in one way or another since the early days of the Apple 2c.  There is so much to learn and do that it is still a mind stretching hobby.   A few months ago have decided to spruce up this blog by adding buttons to the sidebar.  The first button or two took what seemed like forever to place just where and how I wanted it.  That was chalked up to learning. It was hard learning but it also good.  I still remember how proud I was of myself when the first button was in place.

My most recent decision is to join some net rings for the purpose of being connected to others who enjoy the fiber arts .  Once again I am in the position of adding buttons to the sidebar of this blog. It is not such a difficult task as it was the first time or two.  I am still learning and stretching my brain muscles a bit....I know there is no actual muscle tissue in the brain, after all I am a nurse. But you get my point. This whole process of blogging can be and is at times a real learning experience. It is fun learning and helps keep me young.