A Very Happy Mother's Day

The sun was barely out, the rain was sporadic, but a good time was had by all.      

When I checked into facebook early this morning (NO, I am not stalking my kids!), I spotted this:

For a girl who has been in NYC for 4 years, this is one of her first Star encounters and a very current one at that!  For those of you who don't watch American Idol, Allison Iraheta is the redhead who is a cross between Kelly Clarkson and Janis Joplin and only 17 years old!    Looks like she is a good sport to ham it up with Amanda and Preston in Times Square.   

I opened Amanda's  card and gift which were very sweet.   As her card said, "She is not too old to make arts and crafts gifts for her mommy!"   This is for my desk at work and it will go with me tomorrow.   She also phoned in addition to sending the weirdest e-card from Jib Jab!   I would link it here, but I don't know how.    

As for my other daughter, Alison, I did speak with her yesterday, and it gives me such pleasure to hear that she is adjusting to working two jobs and enjoying them, for the most part.   I expect to hear from her again today, later.   ....edited to add: Alison called after work and let me know that she painted me a picture and it will be on the way soon....to be continued.    I am the luckiest Mom in the world with the best kids!

After delivering a huge geranium to my Mom, we went out to lunch at Buca di Beppo, which is always good, if you like garlic....and we do!  This is the gift we each received: a nail file and nail polish.  Notice the color name:  Mamma's Marinara!!

I have begun working on my Ishbel shawl and here are the first photos.   Hard to believe that I spun such fine two-ply yarn, but it is working out nicely in this project so far.   I am using size 6 needles and will do the larger size.   I could always alter the number of lace repeats if necessary, but I have a while till I have to make that decision.

The rest of my day will be spent with my Insurance books, since I go that two day class this week and take the test on Friday.    I hope I can stay awake through all of it, because it is pretty dry and boring.   Here I go...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fun Weekend

This weekend, my Eldest, Amanda, visited from NYC before her next semester of grad school began. She is so frustrated with the program because the other students are idiots (in her words). When she started class on Monday night, she told them she was in Colorado for the weekend and they asked, "Is Colorado upstate or in Manhatten???" These are grad students for goodness sake. She did bring home to wear the neck scarf/cowl I made for her from handspun from Creatively Dyed. My gauge was a little off so it came out bigger and with less body than it should have had so I sent it to her with the buttons close to the neck and she really likes it this way. I hadn't gotten a good photo of it before I sent it off so here it is now. The pattern is from Peaceful Knitter

and is available on Ravelry as well.

While she was here, her best friend from High School and earlier came over with Elijah who is a strapping 6 months old. Such a happy little boy.Amanda is so good with kids both from her career as a Child Life Specialist in a Children's Hospital and from her nature. She loved holding and playing with a healthy baby because she sees only the very sick children. She will be so good with her own whenever that might be.

Isn't Amanda's sweater dress cute. I cannot take credit for it....Target can. I could make one but won't because it is a bunch of knitting and I am sure she only paid about $24.99 for it!

New Friends and Projects

For the last week we have been lucky to have Amanda home for the weekend, as well as a couple of her friends, newly returned from their road trip and Alaska adventure. Chun-soon Li is Amanda's friend from NYC and is quite the character. She is fun, sassy, and always makes a personal statement with her presence.

Kate is quieter, intense, warm and a country girl at heart. Amanda met Kate in NYC when she was dating her cousin, but she has resettled in Casper WY temporarily. The two friends stayed for several days longer than Amanda, and they added a cheerful element to our otherwise quiet home. Buried in her computer most of the time, Chun-Soon gave me some incentive to improve my paltry skills and the confidence to know that it is possible. I should have taken a photo of Chun-Soon at the computer, but here is Kate.

Earlier this year I made another Odessa Hat by Grumperina for Amanda, who informed me that Chun-soon was always borrowing her hat. I started one for her while she was here and one would think that on the fourth go round of making the same pattern, I wouldn't have any trouble at all. Of course, I was off a stitch in the first beaded row and had to tink back a couple of rows, fudge a stitch, then continue. Now that the pattern is set, it is going much more smoothly. I am using the same yarn and needle sizes as my last hat.

It should be done soon and I will either mail it or take it to NY when I go in October.

I have been working on Monkey Socks by Cookie A. I have been using one of my "Europe" sock yarns- Regia. I am surprised how fast they are knitting up and it has been a most enjoyable project. I converted the pattern to Magic Loop, so it is not exact, but this pattern was easy to adapt as the pattern repeat is 16 for a 64 stitch total count.

I am on the gusset section of the second sock and should finish this pair pretty soon. I think this pair is going to CT for my friend Marion.

I have slowed down on the February Lady sweater, since I am so afraid of running out of yarn. I think I will definitely e-mail the ranch to see when they might have some more, and if not till next year, I may take the swatch of the yarn to Rhinebeck to see how I can possibly match it up.

I finished the second skein of the Louet Northern Lights, Thunderstorm, and it is not the same gauge as the first skein. This time I got about 200 yards and just over 56 grams. I am approaching sock weight, but I don't think the yarn is dense enough to wear well. Maybe the third skein will be the charm and I will have enough of one gauge for a pair of socks, shawl, or fingerless mitts. Gift giving season is approaching and my mind is churning with ideas.

I began spinning a new project. Last week, Stacy and I went to Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder to survey their spinning supplies, and I bought some merino roving in a soft multi-color grey. I hadn't yet tried merino, but it was so soft and irristable. I spun a small batch and did ok with it.

Then I decided to try Tammy Rizzo's Navajo Plying on the Fly. On this blog site there are written directions as well as a video demonstrating the technique. It seems quite fiddly at first, but then I got the hang of it and did quite well. What I ended up with is a three ply yarn on the spindle. I haven't yet measured it, but it seems at least worsted weight or maybe a little bulkier. My intention is to enter this into the Ravelry spindler challenge, either for the September group which has a theme of "Rock" or maybe if I get enough yardage (I need at least 200) then into the quarterly challenge whose theme is calming and variegated solid colors.

It will make a soft, lovely hat, maybe for Kate. If only Alison liked wool......it would be for her.

Wild Week in the Neighborhood

The Kids are in town, which always shakes things up around here. Wednesday, Amanda flew to Kansas City and then the two girls drove to Denver on Thursday, arriving around 3 pm. They surprised me at work and I really enjoyed showing them off to my co-workers. Alison, who also works at Crate, got to see all her old friends from 722.

Alison:
Amanda then picked up the car, drove to DIA to pickup her friend, Mary, and the two of them headed up to Casper WY, to visit a friend who had recently moved there from NYC where the girls live! Like she didn't drive enough that day....oh to be young again. I didn't know whether Casper was ready or able to survive these 3 metropolitan girls getting together again.

Amanda and Mary

On Friday night, since Alison ditched me to get together with an old friend and Amanda was two-stepping in Wyoming, I had the perfect opportunity to get to see the Yarn Harlot again, appearing at the Tattered Cover, this time in Highlands Ranch. I arrived at about 5:30 pm, bought my book, and found a stool to sit on in line and knit as I was knitting. Friendly knitters were all around and helped pass the time as we waited for the tickets to be passed out.

I had an opportunity to chat with Connie who was spinning some of the finest, as in thin, yarn I have ever seen spun on a spindle. I watched her nimble fingers pass the roving to its twists and become yarn....Amazing. She graciously allowed me to photograph her spindle and yarn. It is something to aspire to.

As expected there were more than two hundred knitters, knitting supporters, and a few muggles (people who don't get knitting) and at 6:30 when numbers for seats were handed out, I headed right to the front of the seating looking for a random open seat and scored a center aisle seat in the 2nd row. Check out the Harlot's blog on April 5 to see me in the green sweater.Last year I

(see my empty chair in the second row.)

was in the front row, but I am not complaining. I worked on the Booby Sock and enjoyed all the

wonderful ladies (mostly) around me.

(The Booby sock will need some serious blocking.)

The talk was hysterical covering the zen of knitting, the Canadian cabin episode and the lack of air in Denver. Someone should invite her to stay for more than 24 hours next time, so she can acclimate! Consider yourself invited, Stephanie!!

She talks like she writes and writes like she talks...it is a very dry and deadpan sort of humor, but you all know that! Once the talk was over, the book signing began and since I held number 94, I knew it would be a bit of a wait to get me chance to get my book signed and a few words with Stephanie. She complimented me on my Nantucket Jacket, loved my booby socks, which grew by a few inches during the evening, and she was very grateful for the few pieces of chocolate I gave her while she signed my book. What is so amazing is that she is just as gracious with the last people in the line as she was with those in front. There were nearly endless photos with socks, babies, projects of all shapes and sizes, knitters galore and Stephanie herself. I sat next to Katherine and we took photos for each other when it was our turn. I checked out Katherine's blog and she used a couple, so I was glad they came out. Here are a few she took of me:

Sharing the Sock Mojo Checking out the Booby Sock Pattern

Signing my copy of her latest book. She liked my Nantucket Jacket!

A good time was had by all, except the staff of the Tattered Cover who really wanted to go home hours earlier. There were still about 50 people in line when I left at 10:00 pm.

Blogging as a source of amusement

I sent the link to this blog to my two daughters, Amanda in NYC and to Alison in KC and I received two very different responses. Amanda sent me an e-mail that said "My Mom is so cool. " Alison thought my blogging about knitting is so funny (funny weird, not funny ha-ha) that she sent the link on to all her friends. So this link is getting out and about, not exactly in the way I imagined, but out nevertheless. Here is a photo from one of the special times we were all together. Wish it could be more often...