What I've been up to this week..

Well a partial version anyways. I was off all week except for today due to new equipment installation. I had a list of 9 things to do..um..see below for the 1 thing that did get accomplished.


Finally!!! My Son of Dishrag Tag box arrived!


Yummy chocolate, a cute pumpkin coffee cozy (has she been reading about my latest orange craze) so soft bamboo merino sock yarn and of course my own dishcloth. The full ball is what I had to use to knit mine.

We are officially in last place. Hey, sometimes the best is saved for last right? Our box went AWOL 2 times, but our wonderful team captain and the organizer kept sending out new ones.

I got it at 3pm, but couldn't start knitting on it until 7 or so. After a few false starts I finished half of it before I passed out. Got up and had to go to work to schedule patients and have a meeting..gah...I knit every second I could. Then it was time to go home...I was only 6 rows and a bind off away. I knit walking to my car (thank goodness for garter stitch huh!), I knit at stop lights, thank you for the extra long ones today. :)


Quick pic before it went into the mail. It was soooo close! I got to the PO at 6 minutes before 5 pm! It should reach it's destination by Monday as it's not too far away. :)


In other news...that list..well the main thing I wanted to do was spin. I have some bobbins in dire need of releasing their fiber.

Well, due to some unwanted tiny visitors in the dry goods...a deep pantry clean was needed. Then I realized how ugly it looked. So bright idea....paint it. Painted on Monday. Planned on moving back in on Tuesday. Decided to trip down some stairs. Spent Tuesday in studio with ice on ankle knitting...darn! ;) Ankle is fine now, the resting and ice helped immensely.



Has anyone seen my dining room table??? I swear I left it here!


Ahhh...see what a nice coat o'paint will do to something.


Almost back to normal. Going to store more in plastic now...darned visitors!


Wish me luck on getting at least 1-2 more things off my list before the end of the weekend!

Way to Recycle and Reuse!!

How creative of these students! Saw these at the NC State Fair this week!



Aww isn't she cute! She won 2nd place

Made from old electric cords, clotheslines, other wiring, phone parts, hair curlers, light bulbs, computer keys and a mouse, all previously used items.

You gotta love the curls on this one ;)


Next up...a cow! She won 3rd place!


All from plastic milk containers.


What a cute face!


Last up, the snoozing sheep. Which won Honorable Mention

I didn't get a picture of the sign to the right which would have told me the items used, but from what we could see, white plastic bottle caps, um..a whole bunch of them!

Yeah , I so missed 1st place, a chicken..ehh so what, these were more cuter!

YPF-The Orangey Pumpkiny Version

One from the pile of orange/pumpkin is this! Score from a destash...


Very soft and squishy


I can see a hat or cowl with this! Scarf, smarf, I really dislike knitting scarves back and forth, cowls are my thing.

Sugar Maples
The Plucky Knitter Single ply merino

What's up Wednesday!

For my mindless garter stitching..

Shawl that Jazz still plugging along. Finally, I've passed the area I had frogged, it's nice to pull the yarn from the center now ;)


***Spoiler alert for TTL Mystery Sock KAL***



Now for pumpkin you can't eat

Up to clue 3 on sock 1. Sock 2..well still have clue 2 & 3 to do :)

See what I mean..the color I've been wanting lately..

some sort of sickness huh? More on these lovelies soon ;)

Happy Hump Day!

I love fall!

The flowers, the coolness in the air, the leaves falling....

the mums...that keep coming back year after year...


Lately, though, it's a bit about the orange around here.


Although, when you see this you'd beg to differ...


This 2 orangey guys decided to stop by...

I'd been wanting to make my own Pumpkin puree out of sugar pumpkins after seeing Bezzie's. Heh..I had no idea there were different "kinds" of them. The few times I did them before, um..er..it was from one used for carving.

Oh..my..gosh..were they ever hard to chop up, or maybe I need to use that knife sharpener thingy...

Just before the baking commenced.


So, I don't have a food processor...tried the blender, a no go so I ended up using a potato ricer,
which was ok, but time consuming..


this minus 1 cup is all I got...

that minus 1 cup...turned into these!


cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and of course pumpkin!

Pumpkin Spice muffins I did buy some cream cheese for frosting and was too beat to make it.
Which was good. Although these smelled delicious, I didn't cook them long enough in the wee centers.

The taste was ok...luckily the girl loves them. I guess I like my own old recipe for these.

So I rinsed the seeds...let them dry on the cookie sheet overnight...


drizzled some olive oil and threw on some salt, and mixed it up a bit.

then you have pepitas and I can't stop eating them!

So after all that work...I have these 4 one cup packages in the freezer...

hmm...Bezzie got 10 cups...wonder what I did wrong? Is it a pumpkin size issue ;)

That orangey color of Pumpkin...love it...and trust me...you'll be seeing more of that color
when I can get some decent lighting!!

One mystery KAL revealed

Cables and red, things that I definately like! I was invited to the KAL (which is over now) as I had recently bought a Mondo cable pattern. Stay tuned for that one later this fall.




My leetle French girl! As you can see she likes it beret style.

Mondo Cable Hat
Malabrigo Worsted in Vermillion
US 5 & 8 circs, knit magic loop

I used my 8 Zephyrs tips and oh....wow....like buttah!! This wool just glided along.


Sigh..even in daylight, red is a tempermental color to picture!

I so don't like it on me though :(

I blocked it with a plate inside. I want it more slouchier. I think I'll resoak it and try to block it different so I can wear it. After all, I already have a matching pair of Toasty Reds and I think I have enough leftover for a small cowl too.

Whew...

I've been trying to figure out what to say. It was an amazingly beautiful night. Although a tiny bit humid, we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Our campsite won the award for the best themed.


Knitting while waiting for the start time.


Hubby and I getting ready for the start. Note the cool lamp shade light above my head.


The Survivor lap. I had asked hubby to join me as he's a survivor too. We had no idea there would only be 3 of us. They even made us speak..yikes!

So we walked a lap, then a caregiver lap, then my pal Christine and her sister came and we walked some more laps...bigger laps even. I started off really well.


Mr. Bones hanging around.


See the luminara! Gosh these highlighted the entire track! It was awesome!


They burned until we put them out, about 11 hrs total burn time! Some didn't make it all night though. Each time we walked around, we read all the names...sometimes we had somber, quiet laps, sometimes we were all laughing and talking. It all hit us at different times. We cried, hugged and laughed. Sometimes we held on to help each other around, when it got hard to walk. I ...er...kinda..overdid it and pulled a hip muscle.




My boss juggling a lap.


Oh and at 1 am, the crazy hat lap!


This is the 4 am lap...umbrella lap, we were the only 2


Everyone who was left. We only had 3 teams walk, but with 5 total teams, we raised over $11,000. Not too bad!


As for me, I'm pretty much recovered I think. Compared to what a lot of people go through in their cancer treatment, this was nothing.

Can't talk...

Gotta walk!!




Thank you for your donations, support, vibes, etc! Our team is well over our goal and looking forward to today. Walking for 16 or so hrs...should be interesting... (yikes!)

What's happening around here....

Sunday my B/N (bookstore) knitting friends and I went to the local Heritage Festival. It was at our botanical gardens and turned out to be a lovely afternoon. We had a bunch of us spinning, knitting, crocheting, and looming. Of course, I didn't get out of my seat much, so not too many pictures of the neat old-timey crafting going on.


Looming...or do you call it loom knitting?


Isn't this truck neat!! Behind it is a tobacco barn. I've lived down here 20 yrs (yikes!) and have never seen one close up until this day. They look interesting, but the smoke about sent me into an asthma attack.

This is Momma

She's 82 yrs old and always knitting or crocheting. She teaches it as well. She can keep up with us youngsters too.

This is her daughter spinning.


Here's my momma Megan! (inside joke on the momma ;) She helped me immensely in my drafting "triangle". Yeah, I wasn't doing too good and got me straight


Mucho better...

*****SPOILER ALERT*****


In knitting news, I'm in 2 mystery KAL's

Through the Loops Socktoberfest Mystery Sock KAL


Pumpkin baby! Here's the 2 cuffs of clue 1. Um..er..you'll see this color around here more in the future ;)

This one...

can't talk about it. Other than the fact it's Malabrigo, soft, and red...need I say more ;)