Another day, another broken needle

This will just be a quick update. I am exhausted. I am lucky in that I not only have ear infections in both ears, but my daughter has been home sick all week. YAY me LOL. So here is a quick update on my projects.

My KAL for the monthlydishcloths groups is almost finished. It is a fishie, or maybe a shark? Either way I think it is cute and I am going to give it to my son. Serenity thought that Joey should have it because his favorite color is blue. Works for me. Here is a pic:

Next is my place mat KAL for Rachel's Knitting Room group. I am not sure how far along I am on it. Maybe a third? I wish I had bought more of this color, as I am getting low. I will have to swing by Wal Mart and get a couple more skeins this weekend. I am only making the one and am thinking maybe we will just use it as a hand towel. I know, I know, weird, right?! Here is a couple of pics. I wish they had come out better so you could see the detail.

I had to switch needles for this yesterday, as the circulars I was using broke on me. That is the second one from that set. That is what I get for buying a set of fifteen for around twelve dollars off of ebay. The longer set, that I am now using, actually came with one pre-broken for me. Wasn't that sweet. I hope the two sets of metal circulars I have ordered from the same people hold up a little longer. I know that you get what you pay for usually, but dang! If I went to the store and got them, I would only be able to get two or three circulars for that price. This way I had fifteen different sizes in that length for what I thought was a great price. Not so great if I have to keep replacing them though, huh?

Now onto my cross stitching project. For you that might not remember it is a Paula Vaughan's Golden Needle Collection pattern on a 32 count cream linen. 32 count! I am making a little progress on it. I actually sat down today and worked on it twice. I just seems that the time I put in doesn't equal the progress made. Such tiny little stitches! I like how it is looking so far. I keep knotting up my floss in back, so am going to try shorter strands tomorrow. I think half the time I was working on it went into trying to get the knots out. Here is a progress pic:

Have not worked any on my scarf KAL and already they have another one going. I have to get the first part of the new one finished by the fifteenth or I won't get the second part, as I am not using their yarn. SIGH I am going to have to either spend even more time knitting, or stop joining in so many KALs LOL.

On a bright note, my neighbor is wanting me to do a little knitting for her as a paying job! ME! Get paid to knit? That is almost as good as if suddenly people wanted to pay me to read or to eat (two of my other favorite things to do)! I am excited to try my hand at this. I am not starting for a few days, as we are picking out what exactly we want me to knit. They will be used as props in her photography. YAY maybe if I do really well on the items, she will spread the word. This could be the start of something both fun and semi profitable! It doesn't have to be of course. I knit because I enjoy it. It is just nice that she will be supplying the yarn, once we figure out what kind we want.

I think that catches us all up for now. I am so tired I am not thinking straight, so it might be that I post this and then remember something else I was going to say. Oh well, if so then I will post it tomorrow :-) Until then, my faithful tanglers..... HAPPY CRAFTING (yelled gleefully at almost three in the morning!)

Nataly's Needle Creations: Valentines Day Giveaway !!!!

Nataly's Needle Creations: Valentines Day Giveaway !!!!

Cry baby day (or Life Pretty Much Sucks!)

If you don't want to hear all my crappy problems, please feel free to skip down a few paragraphs to get to my progress on my knitting and cross stitch WIPs and finishes! LOL

OK, so as if it wasn't bad enough that we lost our small amount of food stamps that we bought our groceries with, other crap is going wrong pretty steadily this year. For you that didn't know, we are poor folk LOL. We were getting 141.00 a month in food stamps and that was what I was feeding our family of four on pretty much. Bobby would go and get bread and milk as we ran out, but other than that, the food stamps were it. I would buy what was on sale at the beginning of the month and make it last all month. I got paid late in December for twenty two hours of work and it was enough to make us loose the food stamps. YAY

So that was a bummer, that we were going to have to come up with grocery money at least in the month of February, until I could maybe get the food stamps back. Then the washer decides to break down last week. Bobby tried to fix it himself, but the best he could do was run the hose over the washer and we fill it up manually, so we have to pay attention to the cycles. I forgot the first time and it tried to rinse with no water and ended up breaking off part of the agitator fin thingies. Anyway, so either way that was what we had worked out.

Then this last weekend I was so excited because we were going to Michael's to get me a scroll frame. We made it a whole six or seven miles from home before Bobby's car started acting up. It dies anytime you put on the brake. After pulling over facing a huge drop off where they are building the new highway, we discovered it dies when you put it in reverse as well. So he had to push it backwards until it was far enough away to be able to turn it around. It was fun getting home with it dieing every time he touched the brake!

So we went home and got my car, since he really wanted me to be happy and get my scroll. I was disappointed when I got there because I had a list of stuff I wanted to get while I was there, but they were out of or didn't have most of what I was looking for. I should have went to Joann's probably. I never made it to Big Lots either, but that was OK. I did get a magnifying glass with a light and it really helps me on that linen fabric. Such tiny little holes!

So, now we are to Saturday night. Bobby spent all night working on our projection TV we got for really really cheap a couple of weeks ago (I think it was 50 or 75 dollars!). We couldn't pass up something that big for that cheap! We didn't know about the washer or car yet, so don't think we were just throwing away needed money LOL. It was a little cloudy, so Bobby looked up how to fix it and bought the stuff he needed. Well, it didn't work the way it was supposed to, and now he can't get the colors aligned or something like that. So now we just have the thing sitting in the living room, not in use, waiting for us to find a way to fix it. SIGH

I worked on my cross stitch Sunday and some knitting Sunday night. I was bummed about the car and the TV so I didn't update the blog or do much of anything. Monday rolls around and I spend some time on stuff. I finish my double knit hat and start on my scarf KAL again. I was happy when Bobby got home with the mail. I got my new longer circular needles set and the dress I had got for a little over $5.00 for Serenity to wear, before I knew that Bobby planned on eloping!

Of course, one of the needles was broke when I opened the package. After waiting for three weeks, I felt a little let down, but it was a size I have no use for in that length anyway, so oh well. But that dress. Gosh Serenity was so happy, but then I had to open my mouth about us not having a wedding after all. She cried for a half hour straight and is still depressed. I told her she could wear it somewhere else, but she had her heart set on being a flower girl. I feel really bad for letting her down. Of course, with everything going wrong, the elopement and the following honeymoon isn't going to happen anyway.

Now I am up to last night. Joey wanted me to wash his gym clothes so he could have them today at school, and I stayed up late making sure they were washed and dried. He always waits until after I do a load of clothes before he asks me to wash anything LOLYAY

I finally got to bed around five in the morning, just to lay there and toss and turn. I fell asleep around six and woke up at six thirty to get the kids off to school and found Serenity with a fever. So she is laying here beside me, watching a movie, totally miserable. She isn't one to sleep off an illness, so we will both be up all day watching TV. No nap for me.

Now I am done telling you why it is cry baby day for me. I kinda want to cry over everything, but I won't. Bobby is already upset because he did his taxes Friday and he is only getting about five hundred back. He got a lot more back last year. He was going to use his tax return to take me somewhere for our elopement and honeymoon. Now that looks like it isn't going to happen. No marriage this year I guess. I told him that we could always get married by a judge and then take a honeymoon some other year. He is disappointed though. Now, with the car and the washer and dryer he is super stressed.

Did I mention his birthday is in less than two weeks? His birthday is on Valentine's Day and I want to get him something special to cheer him up. But I know I need so save any child support I may get, fingers crossed that I get some, for groceries and bills. So I will probably try to make him something and get him a card. He says he doesn't want anything, but I don't want him to feel unloved on his birthday.

OK, now I will stop with the depressing stuff. I just had to get it all out! I feel a little better now. I am putting a couple of pics of Serenity it the new dress on here, just because she is so pretty! Here they are:

So, as I said earlier, I finished my double knit hat. I am not too thrilled with it. I messed up in several places and didn't see them until it was too late to even try to fix them. Also the top was going all pointy. I don't know why that happens exactly, but I increased my decreases and stopped doing the non decreasing rows in between the decreasing rows (if that made sense) and that took care of that problem. Here is the finished product:

Not too bad for my first ever double knit project. It is funny that it sits so high up on my head (it barely covers the tops of my ears) but on Bobby it comes all the way down over his ears. I have a huge head, I guess. Anyway, the most noticeable mess ups are on the silverish side and he will only wear it with the black side out, so it turned out OK. He probably will never wear it, but he will keep it forever because I made it. Isn't he sweet!

I also started on my Crowning Glory scarf again. Remember that one? I had to frog the whole thing and was really upset. The second attempt (or actually about the tenth of you count all the false starts where I messed up on the first few rows) is turning out pretty good. Let's all keep our needles crossed that I don't screw it up again!  Here is a picture of it. I am loving how much easier it is on the longer circular needles.

I also started on a new washcloth KAL last night. I am loving washcloths right now. They are interesting to make and are a quick project. I love seeing completed items and knowing that I made them. Quick projects like washcloths give me that happy feeling. Here are some pics of the washcloth I am working on. I can't wait to get some more of the pattern in my email tomorrow! I cannot tell what it is going to be yet. I thought maybe some kind of heart pattern, since it is February, but not I am not so sure. Isn't that exciting!

I have no idea why one picture is sideways LOL

Today, I am going to start a place mat KAL that started last week. I didn't have the yarn or needles for it until now, which is why I am a week behind. Luckily she is only sending out rows on weekdays, or I would be even farther behind. I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I haven't done a place mat before.

I also want to work on my cross stitch project today at some point. I only managed another twenty something stitches Sunday before my eyes got too tired, even with the frame and magnifying glass. I will be happy when I am totally over this cold and able to get more than an hour or so of sleep at night. I hate being tired and cranky and making everyone around me miserable LOL. At least Bobby babies me some, so there is a bright side to being sick. I am just too headachey and cranky to appreciate it usually. Here are a couple of pics of my progress on the cross stitch:

That is about all there is. You are now totally up to date on my life! I am grateful for my faithful tanglers. I am hopeful that I won't be so whiny in my next posts. I am glad that you put up with it (or skipped most of it)!
I hope you will feel free to leave some comments, whether they be on the WIPs or my life. Until next time...
Happy Crafting!

My first HAED, first scroll frame, and some new yarn!

I am so excited. I bought my first HAED and really, really, really want to get started on it. I can't yet, as I need to get the 89 colors and that is beyond my means right this moment. That is ok though, as I haven't made any progress on my current cross stitch project. I have been waiting on that one until I get a scroll frame. The hoop I was using was leaving too much of a ring in the linen, even though I took the hoop off pretty quickly.

For an hour or so after I bought my HAED I was almost in tears. I only bought the pdf version, as I didn't have the money to get the chart shipped to me. Heck, the only reason I got the chart in the first place is that they are having a sale + I am a new customer so I got a five dollar gift certificate for creating an account. I ended up only paying 1.75 for the chart! I was soooo happy. Like ecstatically happy! Then the pdf that I downloaded was messed up and wouldn't open. Crash! My mood plummeted and ended up somewhere past down in the dumps. I emailed the company, not expecting any response for several days. The download link is only usable the one time. Or one time for a two week period or something like that.

I got a lot of responses from my cross stitch friends saying that some of them had problems before with their pdf and that the problems were always resolved quickly and easily. They were so right! She got back to me in almost no time (maybe an hour after I thought to email her, if that long) and had the pdf chart attached to the email. Wow! I thought maybe the answer would be that I had to repurchase it or that I would have to wait a couple of weeks and try to download it again. I was so wonderfully surprised. I will definitely buy from them again, when I have the money. They have the most beautiful designs there. I just want to win the lottery and buy them all!

Anyway, now I just have to get together the floss. I found a wonderful lady on listia that had 38 of the colors I need and is sending them to me for just five dollars. That is going to help a lot. I have been looking all over listia and ebay and all kinds of sites, trying to find the cheapest way to get the floss I need. I am going to look today at Michaels and maybe it wont cost as much as I had figured. I still need fifty-one colors and at sixty-nine cents a piece,which is the average price I saw on most sites,  I will have to wait a while before I will have them all. A couple months at most, so that is not a problem. I will just work my butt off on the current project once I get my scroll frame and see how much I get done before I start my new one.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you which design I ended up buying! How silly of me. I was too busy whining again about how poor poor me is so poor LOL. Sorry about that. It is the Emerald Dragon.  It can be seen here on the Heaven and Earth Design website:   http://heavenandearthdesigns.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=419_87_207&products_id=7005  Beautiful, isn't it!

Oh and today is the day I get my scroll frame! I am so excited. We are going this afternoon to Michaels to buy it and some yarn I have been wanting. My man is so generous! I can't wait to try it out and see how I like it. I have heard mixed reviews on scroll frames. And on hoops and Q-snaps and so on. I have several sizes of hoops and I will save those for my smaller projects that I plan to do while I am working on the several pages of the dragon. I know I will get burned out if I don't switch it up and I am supposed to be doing this as a relaxing hobby, not as a gotta get it done as quickly and perfectly as possible challenge.

I don't know which yarn exactly I am getting today. I really want some more cotton yarn for more washcloths and maybe a placemat KAL that is going on in one of my groups. I also want to learn to knit socks, so I will be looking into some sock yarn while I am there. I might run by Big Lots while I am in Evansville and look for some of their dollar skeins for a couple of new scarf patterns I want to try out. It is going to be a great day.

To top it all off.... wait for it.... drum roll please..... NO KIDS! My son is staying at his grandparents this weekend so he can visit with them and his dad and maybe one of his other sisters, and my daughter is getting dropped off at my aunt's house on the way to Michaels. So that means quality alone time with my man. Of course that usually involves a trip to Hardees

So, as you can see, I am having a good morning and plan on having a great rest of my day. I am going to work some more on my double knit hat while waiting for it to be time to go to Michaels. I started on decreasing last night. I am glad I got some cable needles in yesterday's mail! I didn't know how to decrease in double knitting and looked it up last night and it involves cable needles and I was like YAY I just got some in today's mail. Woo hoo! It is the little things in life that make me so happy!

So I am hoping to have the hat done tonight. I am going to start on my Crowing Glory scarf again either tonight or tomorrow. I plan to have pictures up on my next post of both the hat, the scroll frame, and maybe my new yarn. Until then my tangled tanglers....

                                              Happy Crafting!

Peaceful Threads by Fiona: 2 Year Blogging Anniversary and a Giveaway!!!

Peaceful Threads by Fiona: 2 Year Blogging Anniversary and a Giveaway!!!

Almost sleep, scroll frame, and elopement

So I ended up taking some generic Benadryl last night with dinner and it made me so tired, but my ear and head ached less so it was worth it. I had only gotten about three hours of sleep total yesterday after vacuuming and shampooing the living room carpet, so I can understand that it was partially lack of sleep that made it hit me so hard. Anyway, long story short, I did not do any knitting or any cross stitching at all last night. Usually I do a little every night, so I feel like I am behind on some self imposed deadline or something. Wow, I hate that feeling.

The worst part? I didn't even sleep good. I woke up every fifteen minutes all night long. I did the same thing the other nights I have managed to sleep this week. I am becoming easily irritated. Oh well, I will get over it.

My fiance, Bobby, went to Michael's and Menard's last night after work and bought stuff to make me a homemade scroll frame for my cross stitching. We thought it would be cheaper. All we needed was a couple of little knobs, a couple of cheap dowel rods and some bolts of some sort.We already had some wood pieces that he could cut down to make the rest of the frame. I can't tell you specifics of the hardware he had to get, but I know he grabbed some 3/4 in by 36in dowel rods and was going to cut them down into two 12in and two 24in rods for my frame so I could change the size as I needed to. The problem? He doesn't have a workshop or anything, so he was out in the cold trying to cut the pieces of  wood we had (I don't know if it was oak or maple or what) with a handheld saw of some sort and could not get the pieces cut correctly. He spent a long time on it before giving up in frustration and telling me he would just buy me a scroll frame from Michaels. The best part is that the dowel rods he had would also fit in the frame he had seen there, so that means I will end up with three different sizes! YAY!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to which brands of scroll frames are the best? I looked up some on several different sites and they all look the same to me. Here is one I found on Amazon. I am assuming that they are all about the same as this one. Of course, eventually I am going to want one of the ones on a stand, but I will wait until I have more money and more experience at cross stitching.

.Homecrafters Deluxe Hardwood Scroll Frame 6 Inch x12 Inch


Now, I am sure you are wondering about the elopement part of my title. Well, most of you don't know me well yet, so you wouldn't know that we have been planning on getting married this summer down in his home state of Texas. I have been finding stuff on listia and ebay and freecycle to use for the wedding, as we are some broke people and cannot afford even a used wedding dress or a real ceremony. Not whining, just stating facts LOL. I had bought a bunch of different white and white with pink flowers from the Dollar Tree and put together some pretty bouquets and my best friend was going to make a beautiful wedding cake for me. I have been planning this for over a year already LOL.

Now, though,  Bobby has pretty much decided that we should elope. I thought he was kidding the first time he mentioned it, as he was the one so adamant about having a real wedding, since I have always wanted one. My first marriage was at a courthouse in front of a judge that I didn't even like, and was over in about a minute and didn't even feel real. So, he wanted to give me a real wedding with the walk down an aisle and a wedding dress (of sorts) and a bouquet and cake and all that. Now he keeps hinting around about elopement, which is fine with me and would be a lot less stressful when it comes down to it.

He was sitting at his computer desk a couple of nights ago and I was watching a rerun of a Glee episode, the one with the Glee wedding!, and I asked him jokingly (as he hates Glee) if we could have a Glee wedding. He looked at me and said "I thought maybe we would elope. That I would take a week's paid vacation and we would go somewhere and spend it alone, without the kids."  What?!!! I told him that it sounded great but that the kids would be disappointed because they were planning on being in the wedding. He thinks that they would get over it pretty quickly. So I am going to assume (and hope the old saying doesn't hold true about that word) that he is planning something. Sweet!

I told him I was going to blog about it and he said not to mention specific dates. So I am assuming that he is planning to do it before the originally planned July date. I am so excited. Especially since it seems that it won't be as long an engagement as I had originally thought it would be. For those of you that don't know us well, he didn't propose until my last birthday.  We had been together for four years and I thought he would never get around to proposing. We got into this big stupid fight because he didn't spend hardly any time at all with me on my birthday, and then when he got home a little after midnight that night (so okay, technically it wasn't my birthday anymore) he dropped down on the knees and proposed. I didn't even know what to say at first I was so shocked! After saying Ok, I proceeded to texting everyone I knew a picture of the ring along with the news. He helped me take a few good pictures of the ring to capture the color right. He even told me to change the status on my facebook, even though he hadn't told his mom yet and I knew she would see it. He is the sweetest.

Do you see why I call this blog a day in the tangles skeins of my life yet? If not, then you will eventually. My life gets way more tangled and confusing then it has been lately. Have I mentioned that I am friends again with my ex boyfriend that I hadn't seen since I started dating Bobby and that Bobby is okay with it since my ex boyfriend used to be one of my closest friends ever, and that my son's dad is back into his life for some reason, while my daughter hasn't seen hers since Christmas? LOL Ok I will stop there.

I hope to accomplish some crafty things today, but I also have to finish cleaning the remaining carpets at some point today, and there are some errands I have to run. So we will see what I actually get done. I can't wait until Saturday, when I get to go pick out my scroll frame and also get to pick out some more yarn, and cross stitching supplies. Being broke people, as some of you probably know from either experience, or from knowing other broke people LOL, I don't actually get to buy this stuff new usually. I am always on freecycle asking if anyone has stuff they are wanting to get rid of, or I am on listia or ebay getting kits no one wants, or boxes of mixed partials of yarn. It makes me happy, whether it is new or used or unwanted, so it doesn't matter to me where it comes from. It is still exciting to get to go to a crafty store and look around, knowing that this time I actually get to buy something :) Usually I am just looking at stuff and getting ideas about what I might want to do in the future. I love finding new free project sheets when I look around too. It is like the fun little surprise in a box of kids cereal. They are already enjoying the sugary deliciousness of their cereal so the treat is just that added bonus. Yep, that is how I feel with project sheets. I am already loving just being in the store and viola, a project sheet I didn't have already. YAY! HAHA yep, I am weird.

So I will stop my random ramblings now. Thanks for being my faithful tanglers. I notice that for some reason my comments section is working where it wasn't before. I must have finally got a setting right! So feel free to leave as many comments as you want to. I love hearing from everyone, either on here or in the groups I am in. Any suggestions, constructive criticism, hints, ideas, or just 'hey how ya doing's are welcome. Until next time..

Happy Crafting!

Sleepless nights lead to..... washcloths?

I am so tired of being sick and sick of being tired. There, I have done my whining for the day. I haven't managed to pick up my Crowned Glory KAL, or made any progress on my cross stitch or hat WIPs. I did manage to finish my first washcloth last night. Here are some pics. I wish I had a camera, instead of just my phone. I can't get the colors to show up too well.

An up close and a not so close pics of both sides of my first ever washcloth. Serenity loves it and can't wait to try it out.

I couldn't sleep after I finished it, so I decided that since I have a bit of the cotton yarn left, I would look up more washcloth patterns. Luckily I am in a yahoo group that does a lot of washcloth KALs, so I found some cute ones. I didn't have any one colored cotton yarn, so the pattern didn't show up well in the next washcloth I knitted. Yes! You heard me correctly. I knitted another one already. Sleeplessness sometimes means you can accomplish more in a night, if you are too tired to function anyway. Here is the pics of my second washcloth. I think it is cute, even though you can't see it well.

Can you make it out? It is a bunny! I thought it was cute, so I had to do it. I don't mind that it doesn't show up well, because I know what it is and can see it. That is what really matters, isn't it? How I feel about my creations? Well, I love it. I am feeling a rather sleepy feeling of pride.  I can't wait to see what I make next!

Now that I have finished that one and updated this blog, I am going to vacuum the carpets and get ready to shampoo them. I really doubt I will get it all done today, as I am going on no sleep. I will probably just pass out after I vacuum and worry about the rest tomorrow. Yep, that actually sounds like a plan. Even better would be to just pass out now and do the vacuuming tomorrow. :-) That sounds really good. I just might do that.

We will see if sleeping today leads to more projects completed tonight! I need to weave in the ends of both washcloths, as well as two scarves that I did a week ago for my daughter to take as gifts to a birthday party this Friday. Then I need to either work on the cross stitch or the double knit hat. I am still not feeling focused enough for the Crowing Glory, but who knows how I will feel after a few hours of sleep and maybe as pot or two of coffee.

So, I will catch you all up tomorrow probably. Maybe I will surprise us all and do something spectacular. I don't know what that something might be, but life is full of surprises. Especially when you are open to new ideas and experiences. Until next time, my tangled tanglers

Happy Crafting! (or Happy Crafty as I sometimes like to say)

Stitches and more stitches

Well, I am going to put aside my Crowned Glory scarf for a few days until I get over my headaches and my cold, so that maybe I can concentrate more on it and stop screwing it up over and over. I have now started this lovely scarf eight or nine times. I keep messing up though. I thought I had made a good start at it last night, but when I got to the end of my first triangle I came up with the wrong amount of stitches. I tried, yet again, to backtrack or rip it back or whatever you call it, and messed up, yet again. I am getting frustrated, so I decided to start a different project.

I ran across a KAL in another group I am in, so I decided to do that one as well as the scarf KAL. It is a washcloth. I had neither knitted a washcloth nor ever knitted with cotton yarn before. I had just recently bought a couple of skeins of peaches & cream yarn because I have been wanting to make some wash cloths or dish cloths, so this works out well. They are not the colors called for in the pattern for the KAL, but as I honestly don't have another three dollars to go buy the right colors, I am knitting with what I have. Here are some pics of my progress so far.

My daughter, Serenity, is totally loving the colors, so I will probably give it to her when I am finished. I am using Peaches & Cream Strawberry Cream and Lilac Ombre. I love how it is turning out. Also, I love the feel of cotton yarn and I think I would like to do more things in cotton. Maybe more wash and dish cloths and some pot holders.

I have also been working some more on my double knit hat. Haven't made a whole lot of progress. It is such a time consuming hat LOL. I will feel like I have been knitting for hours and hours, but when I look at it, there is only another row or two added to it. Oh well, it is my 'watching tv' project. I don't have to concentrate very much on it, so I can sit and watch tv while I work on it. Those are the best kinds of projects! Relaxing, yet still accomplishing something. I love it.

Also, today, I decided to do some more on my cross stitch WIP. That was a mistake. Not that I messed up or anything bad like that. It is just that with the headache I have had since waking up sick yesterday, it would have been wiser to wait on something that is so eye straining and headache inducing. I did manage to triple the amount of stitches, YAY. I am up to somewhere over 120 stitches done. No, don't worry, I am not going to count the amount of stitches every time I give an update. That would be difficult as I make more progress. I just wanted to see how many I got done this time. I felt like I had been stitching for hours LOL. Here are some pics of the project.

It is hard to believe that there are already five different colors on there. It is hard for me to see the difference in the colors sometimes. They are so similar. I feel that it is getting a little (a tiny little) bit easier for me to work on this linen. I am hoping that by the time I am done with this project I will either be comfortable working on the 32 count linen or be able to say for sure that I will never again work on it LOL. Either way, I will have learned something new.

Ok, I am going to go blow my nose, get something warm to drink,  lay down and zone out to some episodes of the old tv show Blossom. I found it online and am taking a walk down memory lane. I had forgotten about the show and am glad I ran across it. So off I go. Enjoy your day!

Happy Crafting!

Frogging, crying, and starting over

Woke up this morning all excited because I had received the rest of the pattern for my KAL I am doing with one of the yahoo groups I am in. I couldn't wait to get started. I waited though, for my man to wake up. I didn't want my muttering and cursing to wake him up. I tend to cuss up a storm as I am learning a new pattern. I shouldn't have waited. Or maybe I should have waited longer. I don't know if it would have made any difference though.

"What? Why should you have waited?" you are probably asking right now. Well, let me tell you. I messed up my  project. I started off ok, but I messed up and had to back track a little. I don't really know how, though I have seen it done recently. It worked out okay, but then, a little later, I messed up again. Worse this time. I tried to back track again, but there were too many yarn overs and increases and I guess I got confused. Next thing I knew, I had a big mess on my hands. I ended up frogging the entire thing. Yep, you heard me right. I have frogged my entire Crowned Glory scarf.

I thought I was going to cry. Honestly considered it. I didn't though. Why waste my tears on what should be a good learning experience. Every step I take in learning to knit is progress, even if it doesn't seem to be at the moment I am ripping out all of those stitches that took me so many painstaking hours.

So, I decided to start over. I messed up on the second row! I have now started over yet again and am going slowly. I will post some pictures of my new progress tomorrow, when I have more to show. Meanwhile, I did a few more rows on my double knitted hat. I decided to add a couple of single row stripes to break up the monotony of the hat. I think it turned out ok. I am still having troubles with my stripes lining up right. I have no idea how I am getting the lopsided when I am starting at the beginning of the row and ending at the end. Oh well, just something else to learn. :-)

I have also accomplished, since the last post, forty-two whole cross stitches on my new project. Wow, this 32 count linen is kicking my behind and making me blind. I usually work on 14 count Aida, so I am used to being able to just fly across rows and see pretty good progress in an hour. Not anymore! I have already had to oh so carefully undo a few stitches because I had them off by one row. I tried gridding my linen, as I have seen others do in some of the blogs I read, but I messed that up several times before giving up on it. So I am just going to work slowly and learn to enjoy this pattern (even if it kills me).

              Yes, this really is 42 stitches. I counted them twice!

Well, you are about caught up on my life and progress now. The schools have been closed because of the snow, so the kids have been home. That means I have not been able to work much on the cross stitch, since my good natural light floor lamp is in the living room. I can't concentrate on the little bitty stitches with a couple of kids yelling and jumping around. I have just stayed in my room for the most part and been on hulu or catching up on emails.

I have finally managed to read a few pages of a book today. I haven't been reading much lately, what with all the new projects I have been attempting. I used to read a book a day. Not anymore! Too busy doing my crafting. Maybe I should slow down and enjoy a good book and not worry about any more crafts until the kids are back in school. Maybe.

Well, I will let you all get back to your busy lives and I will get back to mine. I hope all of your projects, whatever they may be, are going well for you. Enjoy these days of crafting and creating, of enjoying art in whatever form you take the most pleasure in, because the day comes for all of us that we will no longer be able to. Then we will be able to sit back and remember fondly all of the joy we took in our crafts.

Happy Crafting!

Full needles and empty linens

Well, I never did manage to start my cross stitch project today. I spent a little time untangling the floss and finding the center of my linen and staring at the tiny, tiny squares I am suppose to fill with bright, lovely colors. Then I passed out for a couple of hours. When I awoke it was almost time for the kiddos to get home from school. I ran to the post office to mail off some packages, but there was a new guy that didn't know how to send them, so I brought them back home. Oh, well. They can keep a day or two. Or longer if we get the four inches or more of snow they were calling for on the weather.

I did manage to get some knitting in. I irritated the secretary of my Lion's club at our meeting tonight at By The Cup in Oakland City, IN. I decided that I was going to knit on my double knit hat while we talked and waited for our food to arrive. Both my kids were working on plastic canvas projects to occupy them and my hands were feeling empty watching them. So I got a few more rows done on that. Then tonight I finished the first part of my KAL. Just waiting for the rest of the pattern so that I can finish it and get it off of these little circular needles. I can't wait until my longer ones come in that I got super cheap on ebay! Here is a pic of what I have so far:

It is longer than it looks. It is just all scrunched up on the needles. I think I like how the colors turned out. I wasn't sure at first. I just grabbed a skein of yarn that I had no plans for and started working on this scarf, hoping it would turn out okay. I think it did. I hope.

So anyway, I didn't drink any coffee tonight so I think I might actually be able to sleep soon. I hope. I had a coffee/caffeine hangover today pretty bad! The one hour of restless sleep before getting the kids off to school and then the three hours of passoutedness around noon made me feel less than human most of the day. I rode that line between hyper and irritable all evening. I am sure everyone was happy to go to bed and leave me alone!

Before I head to bed, here is a couple of pics on the progress of my double knit hat WIP. It doesn't look like much yet, but I have hopes it will turn out ok. It is a sparkly grey on the outside and black on the inside, or vice versa as it is reversible. It looks more like a headband so far. I am almost tempted to leave it as is and let my daughter have it. I bet she would look cute in it! But I want to finish the hat for my man. Maybe I will have enough left over yarn to make her a headband. Anyway, I am off to bed. Maybe I will start on that cross stitch project tomorrow.

Happy crafting everyone!