I finished the wubbie blanket. I ran out of yarn! So I trimmed it in black and decided it was a crib quilt. You know, just big enough to fit in the crib and not smother the baby! I also knit up a teeny tiny pair of little socks out of some leftover yarn. I love them! I think these little socks may be popping up every time I knit a big pair.

They look very tiny, but they are very stretchy because they are ribbed all the way down. They should fit, for a couple of weeks! Oh man - I just loved baby feet when I had some around the house. I miss them. They were for sure my favorite baby part.

Working on some Spring Forward socks with Dream in Color Smooshy. I bought a sweater's worth of yarn the other day to make Forestry. And I bought more sock yarn - some Panda Silk, cream colored and a skein the lys owner dyed. Someone told her it wouldn't take dye, but it did and it looks really cool. I'll take pictures when I can sneak the stash out and not alert hubby to the purchases.

Random Knit Stuff

Here is the last square I'm gonna churn out for the Hopps for Hope Blanket. It's number six. Number seven is in the works, but I just can't get motivated to finish it and the deadline quickly approaches. Number seven is cute, too. It's a houndstooth check with two different shades of green. Maybe.
See the cute book mark my daughter helped me make? They totally dig the beads and the green and orange charm was just screaming at me.


That's my stack o' blocks for my Not Your Ordinary Block Exchange Afghan. The one on the bottom is mine, blocking, because, of course, it did not resemble a square in any way, shape or form. Maybe a very wide rectangle. Now all the blocks are pieced together and the whole thing is looking a little lopsided, so I put it away for a bit before I try to edge it. It needed a time out.

And just for kicks, here's a picture my ten year old took. It's the rocks outside of my house. In the long view, they really aren't that pretty, but up close I think she caught something.

Maybe I can hire her out as a photographer and make some yarn money!

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is my 18th wedding anniversary. That's a long time. Yeah me and Joe.

I put together my Not Your Ordinary Block Exchange afghan. I just need to put a border on it and it'll be done! So exciting.

I bought the new Vogue Knitting magazine and started the Potpourri mittens. (scroll down, they are the last pair of mittens) From stash! I already tried it on size ones and while it got the called for gage, only an infant could get those mittens over their hands. So I moved up to a size two and am considering a size three. Anybody else have this problem with fingering weight yarn, intarsia and mittens? They are pretty though, a combination of grey, pink and purple. Yum. Gotta find the camera.

Oh and there is a pretty sweater called Forestry in their too, I could also make it from stash. I bought a bunch of heathered cascade 220 last year to make a Cobblestone Pullover, but I don't want to make that now. Forestry is calling my name. There are no pictures of it yet on Ravelry, I was gonna link there because I know a pictureless post is a boring post. Sorry!

Stitch-n-Pitch

It was fun! I got to see my man get two sweet hit which were also rbis and I got to be with my knitting peeps. Here are Kristin and Matt, both knitting baby bib s. They assure me the bibs are for friends babies, not theirs . . . yet.There were tons of other knitters but I didn't take pictures of them. My whole row was knitting. One lady was making an afghan for her daughter who was going to MSU in a week and wanted it Now. She gave her mom two weeks to whip one up and it looked like she was almost done.

Here's my man. That's a zoomed in picture. We were as high as we could be. It seemed like they put the knitters in the last two rows all the way from behind first base to behind the plate. I guess last year they had a whole section of knitters. Personally I think that would've been better because you could see more of what people were knitting and chat them up about it! It was a little hard with the row thing, but it was still fun.
After we went to Mexican Village and had yummy Mexican food. They don't have Mexican food in Alpena. I miss it. We also drove by and walked up this bridge to see what they are doing to the old Tiger Stadium. It's sad, but supposedly they are going to make it into some kind of tourist attraction having to do with baseball, so maybe it will be ok. You never know with Detroit nowadays, what with the mayor being on the tether and all! The radio stations are calling him various names, such as Mayor Tether, Tether Boy, etc.... Resign already! Does he not care that he is a laughingstock?
I got all my blocks for the NYOBE! Except the kid's who flaked out. So now I am knitting two more and I can't wait to put it together! I'll take pics of my progress. Gotta run.

What is that I'm clutching in my hand (the astute among you may notice it's my left hand - cuz I am a leftie!)? Why could it be? Yes, it's a crochet hook, size g to be exact. I've been kidnapped by the dark side.

No, not really. Someone at Joe's work is having a baby and he wanted me to make something for her. I told him I could knit an afghan or a sweater or booties or a hat and he told me no, he wanted me to make soft blankie.

Soft blankie is my sixteen year old's wubbie. Wubbie? Watch Mr. Mom. If you don't want to watch it or haven't seen it, a wubbie is what the littlest one carries around and won't let go of, even to be washed.

Our soft blankie was made by my sister Bobbie. She is the Barbara J. Hopps of the Hopps for Hope Afghan-a-long. She made all three of my babies afghans. She was left handed to, we both taught ourselves how to crochet, because trying to learn from a right hander is just backwards.
We still have soft blankie, it's currently balled up in a corner of the sixteen year old boy's gross room, but I dug it out to document it. By the way, when roused at 10:45 a.m. and asked where soft blankie was, he knew exactly where to find it. I think it's still his wubbie, even if he doesn't sleep with it anymore.It's still remarkably in shape for a very used blanket. Bobbie didn't want us to put it up and keep it pristine, she wanted it to be a wubbie. So it's got some stains, and one part of it is coming undone, but it still serves it's purpose and now it's a reminder of my sister every time I see it.

So Joe wanted me to make a soft blankie and explain to the lady we are giving it to, what it means to us. It's our first born's first wubbie and hopefully it can be that for her child.

So there it is. I decided to do it in this cool pewter color because honestly I can't stand the pastels you are expected to use to make baby blankets. The pewter, I think, looks like a spiderweb, which is the name of the pattern. I'm about halfway done, the crochet thing came right back to me, like riding a bike! Baby's due Sept. 2 so I must hurry, hurry, hurry, but I must also admit that I'm not being project faithful. I'm also knitting the little boy a kimono (doubling as a ravelympics project), finishing up a pair of socks (stitch-n-pitch project) and still cranking out squares. I can't put down the needles, I just can't.

Ode to Green and Orange

If you were to ask me, I would not say my favorite colors are green and orange. I would say purple, blue and yellow. Really. This idea is not reflected in my recent picture taking or yarn purchases however. Witness the tomatoes. Aren't they lovely? Tomatoes, by the way, don't usually work for me. They die. But so far this summer I've actually gotten to eat about 20 cherry tomatoes from my OWN PLANTS! For me, this is an accomplishment!

Down here we have a picture of the flame decal hubby installed on his moped, his preferred method of getting to work nowadays. By the way, quite a picture that would make, with his little chopper hat and shiny glasses and his khaki pants and button down shirt. Someday.
Here we have some Lion Brand Sock Ease which I mentioned in my last post. Aren't those colors awesome together?
And this my friends, is my first attempt at the tye-dye. It's green and yellow I realize, but that's only because there was no orange in the kit. If you will notice, my tye-dye appears to be very haphazard - I guess I didn't use enough dye, but for goodness sake, I have dye all over me. It's on the bottoms of my feet even! But I still think it looks pretty cool!
Except the back. The back just looks like an accident.
It would seem this whole Hopps for Hope Afghan -a- Long has rubbed off on me.

Yikes!

That's the Rogers City Public library. It's actually one of the bigger small town libraries I've seen around here. I haven't been in any of them, but just looked from the outside! Hey Kristin, if you see this, print of a picture for Jenni, I know how she has her collection of library pictures!
Jenni is a librarian at my old library, I took that picture for her!

Why a picture of libraries? Because I can't find the charger for my camera! GASP! I must find it before Stitch n' Pitch - which I'm going to this Sunday. Go Tigers! I know, they are blowing it this year, but I am not a fair weather fan, not as long as Placido Palanco, greatest second baseman ever, is still on our team! I love him! He's my Tiger. But nowhere, can I find a shirt with his name on it. It's all about Sheffield, Verlander, and Pudge, who now isn't even a Tiger anymore, what's up with that?

Anyway, I'm kind of boring in the knitting department right now. I cast on three different times with the same yarn for three different pairs of socks. Nothing looked right. Well, the Uptown Boot Socks from Favorite Socks looked nice, but about halfway through the leg I decided to try them on . . . and couldn't get them over my foot! :( Frogged.

Still knitting squares. In fact, that's going to be my Ravelympics project, squares. Good tv watching. Although honestly, I probably won't be watching the Olympics. There is too much good reality tv on! Anyway - I have to do squares because apparently one of the people in my Afghan a long flaked out on us. He says he didn't, that he mailed his squares a long time ago, but no one has seen them so . . . I'm knitting squares. They should make good Tiger game knitting too.

Or, the Lion Brand Sock-Ease socks, plain stockinette that I cast on. The yarn leaves something to be desired fiber wise, but the colorway is rocker. It's pukey green mixed with tiny stripes of purple brown and orange. Really it sounds gross, but it's tres cute. As soon as I find the doggone camera charger I'll show you! Wish me luck!