Snow! Finally! At least 7 inches and more coming down fast...a day off! Whee! 

Three Scarves Finished! The brown/purple one is for DD, the lettuce green and mink brown will be sold! 

Beads & Stitch Markers! We were talking on knittingchicks on Yahoo about making stitch markers...I knew I had these beads, but had misplaced them in the move a year ago...found them tonight! I think they'll be pretty when I finally get them done! 

More Beads! 

Projects Galore, Stash Building, too!

Today, I'm starting Clapotis!! I'm so excited...it's the Fair Weather colorway of the Caron Rainbow Dreams and I just love the blues/greens/yellows - even tho' it's a heavy acrylic, the lightness of the colors makes me feel like spring - and it's definitely not around here. And yes, I know I've got Aibhlinn on the needles, and a healing shawl, not to mention the 4-5 scarves I work on whenever I'm at work (lunch), or in a doc's office (b/c they're straight garter stitch).

So now Kittnknit and I have been discussing the projects in Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls and we've decided there are so many of them we want to make it's just overwhelming. My answer to this turned out to be something I thought I should post here. You may use my corruption of the quote below if you'd like!

Remember this? "God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things...at this moment I am so far behind, I will never die."

Well how about....

"God put me on this earth to knit a certain number of things...that's the sole reason for stash building...at this moment...I have so many projects planned, I will never die!"

Gives life new meaning, doesn't it?

Tag! I'm IT!

Ruinwen got me today...so here are my answers:
1. What was the last book you read or are reading: The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. Also working through Stitch N Bitch. Plus numerous magazines on knitting and sewing.
2. Where did it come from: Blossom Street from the library, SNB from Barnes & Noble, a gift to myself. The magazines from the stores and subscriptions.
3. How many books do you read per year? Too many to count - anywhere from 2 to 5 per month, easily. But you know, I really never stopped to count them!
4. What is your favorite genre? Fluff novels, health information, craft instruction, sewing. Basically I'll read anything if it pertains to something I'm interested in.
5. Who will you tag now? Jane - of Plain Jane Knits!

Sorry, Jane...:)

One Year Ago Today...

After 28 years of smoking, I put down my cigarettes for good. It wasn't simple, it wasn't a firm, angry, I will do this. I just decided to try. I'd found an on-line support group that appealed to me at www.quitnet.com. I pretty much lived there for a month. Then gradually spent less and less time there. During the past year, there've been plenty of times I thought about smoking, even wanted a cigarette. Times leaving doctor's offices with less than pleasant news, times of boredom, times of worry. But every time I thought, "I need a cigarette" I just as quickly turned my head around and said "What? Me? I don't smoke anymore." And that was that. Today it's been a full year.

It was the best decision I've ever made for myself. It's a decision I make every day, when I get up and say Not One Puff Ever - the quitnet mantra - N.O.P.E., N.O.P.E., N.O.P.E.!

And while the quitnet has tracked and calculated all the cigarettes I've not smoked, the lifetime I've saved by not lighting up, and the money I've saved from not running to the store (every day), I have to admit that I transferred my addictions, like most obsessive people I know...

Now I'm addicted to fabric and fibers...I sew and I knit. Now instead of relaxing on the balcony with a cigarette (I always smoked outside), I relax behind the sewing machine, or in the comfy chair with my knitting. It's much, much more pleasant. I have a new sewing business, and many, many new knitting friends.

I like my life much more now...So if smoking is something you've been thinking of ridding your life of...think of www.quitnet.com (or the Q as it's affectionately known). Just click on the little red-haired guy in my Sites of My Heart section. Then just think of all the yarn you can buy with your savings - mine as of today was $1281.00 and that's a lot of fiber!!

My Rescued Siamese 

Started Out Poorly Got LOTS Better!

This is a hard day. I was very lucky to enjoy a great day of clothing shopping with my DD yesterday - but I really overdid and am so paying for it today! DD landed a great first, REAL job in legal transcription but had no appropriate attire and isn't well known for being able to choose well for herself - she inherited her poor color sense from her grandmother (the first "Nana"). We had a blast, but we were out for 10 hours!

Today, it's sleeting, the temperatures are dismal, and after not being able to go to sleep last night until 2 a.m., I woke at 11, shaking, headachy, in pain. I'd taken a pain pill to get to sleep last night. Not taking another now.

Managed to finish (with much ripping and restitching) the final bag from the January CFA cat show, but have been totally frustrated with adding buttons to my blog. I'm member of several rings that are showing down there (below) but I can't get the buttons to show up, no matter what I do. I also want to get the Siamese Rescue button on to link you to one of my pet sites (oops - didn't mean that pun). I'm not good at this...don't know HTML.

Otherwise, I'm knitting a great fun fur scarf for DD - we found a great coppery-rust colored heavy wool dress coat at a second hand store for next to nothing - the scarf is Lion Fun Fur Copper and Red Heart Foxy Majesty. I'm wishing I had a bit of purple Fun Fur to trim the ends ...

A big THANK YOU to Debbie from the Clapotis Knitalong 2005 on yahoo - she found my Rainbow Dreams yarn at www.knitting-warehouse.com so that I could get to knitting sooner on MY clapotis! WhoooHooo!

And now I have to add the BIGGEST HUGS and THANK YOUS in the world to Kitt from Kittnknit who rescued my blog and made it beautiful! She even made up a wonderful button for one of my favorite sites - WomenHeart! So check it out, and if you'd like to post on your site, just right click and copy to your computer! I'd love to share it!

The day wasn't the best but the evening was terrific!

I love presents! My yarn & supplies came and I went a little crazy at Barnes & Noble tonight (tho' I didn't buy the SNB Nation I was thinking about getting also). The red of the Wildflower DK is a bit more orange than I thought it would be but I think it'll be fine. And dontcha know, I've got a new large-sized knitting tote all drawn and ready to prototype! 

Pine Needles & Raspberry Canes Scarf 

Scarves, Shawls, and Clapotis?

Well, I've been bitten by the bug...the clapotis bug. My stash has mushroomed just since the first of the year, and I'm trying to hold off, reading everyone else's experience and looking for a less expensive yarn to use for my first. I love Plain Jane's Caron Rainbow Dreams...you know, I really don't need another project! Oh well...might as well jump in with both feet!

I'm trying to knit up some of my stash. Finished two scarves I've been carrying around for several days while watching the Westminster Dog Show tonight - Mom loved dogs, so I watch it to honor her every year! Started an elegant cream-colored one in Gedifra Spino and Patons Brilliant with gold flecks tonight.

I'm adding a photo of Pine Needles and Raspberry Canes, one of the scarves I finished tonight. Lion Fun Fur (raspberry), Moda-Dea Cache (Smartie), and Brazilia (pine) make it up. Used size 10 and 17 needles to accomodate the fun fur edging! What fun!

Trinity Stitch sz 7 needles 

Never Try to Plan!

Minor family emergency has me watching the DGSs without warning...early, too - I'd only had 3 hours sleep! They're playing quietly so I've been swatching - learning new stitches. Trying to stay awake. Here's the Trinity Stitch. I'd had a problem with "K1,P1,K1 in the same st." Couldn't visualize it. My fingers did it though!

New Project!

Just ordered from Patternworks the Wildflower DK in red for Knitty.com's great cowl pattern. I'm so excited, this will not only be my first cotton yarn, but my first project in the round!

See I really shouldn't have hurt my ankle, I can't use the sewing machine (it's my peddle foot!), so I'm surfing and spending...oh and working on my Blue Ridge shawl tonight, too!

Women, History, Family...

I'm trying to be philosophical about the mini-crises that have recently struck in my little corner of the world. Because it's almost another weekend, when my time is finally my own again, I can finally settle in to cogitate. I like to think about how the women of previous generations have survived the calamities of their lives, and try to remember that, in the grand scheme, most of this really doesn't matter much at all. What matters is family, friends, love, and the little things we do for each other. And remembering the strengths of those who've come before us through the reminders of the incidental personal items they've left behind. Tonight I'm thinking of my mom and her sisters, sisters-in-law.

I have a photo, which for some reason I can't put my hands on now, of several of my aunts and my mom, in their youth, during World War II. They are in wonderful 1940's suits and heels, all sitting on someone's front porch, some perched on the railing, some leaning against it. It's probably a Sunday afternoon. They are spunky, strong, talented, and BEAUTIFUL. Some of their husbands were at war when this photo was taken.

My dad was not: a 4-F because of his vision. So my mom watched for fighter planes that might attack the East Coast in the night sky and taught piano lessons. And knitted, crocheted, tatted, raised 2 kids (I wasn't here yet), and kept the house. The incidentals of a life.

I have only one item she crocheted for me: a vintage, long vest from the early 70s in primary colors and ivory. It had graced the cover of Seventeen Magazine and I begged her to make it for me.

Now both she and my dad are gone, as is my brother. My sister and I are orphans, though that's an odd concept at my age. It's still a fact. When your parents are gone, you must become parent to yourself.

So often I think of those strong women who came before me. The one who still lives in a house built by her and her husband's own hands, in the steep New England Mountains, who grows and cans her own food, hundreds of quarts every year. Each of these women was a teacher, of one specialty or another, an acceptable profession for women of their times, but they all sewed, knitted, crocheted, quilted, embroidered, and grew and put by their own food, in addition to their routine homekeeping skills and their careers. But if need be, it was never too low a position to clean another's house. The money they earned helped to pay for the building of their own homes, paying as they went, so they owned them outright, far sooner than those of us today who use mortgages as a means of financing the purchase of a home.

No doubt, it was a different world...but was it really so different? Or did they understand a concept so foreign to us today - delayed gratification? Knitting inspires us to delay our gratification, especially if we recycle our own yarn from sweaters we come upon. First the unraveling, then the winding into balls, stitching a gauge swatch, then finally sitting down to knit up again, those strands used before. Recycled. The hours of work put into something usable, worthwhile.

I'm all over the map tonight...knitting, family, mini-crises, delayed gratification, recycling, a general trend in my mind towards voluntary simplicity again.

But in a way it all comes back to values I was raised with that I think knitting somehow personifies.

Inside of knitting tote - pockets galore! 

Bamboo Knitting Bag 

Cats & Flowers Knitting Bag 

When it Rains is Pours!

Started with a computer crash, then a computerized car warning, then a medical systems failure, finally a literal crash over the curb, walking.

I'm laid up. Bad sprain, purple all over my foot and swelling. I've been trying to rebuild the disaster on my hard drive, reinstalling programs, and aching literally for my needles or sewing machine - was afraid to touch that - it's computerized too!

Fortunately some of the bags are being brought around by folks to sell in the flesh, because my daughter has a dangerous infection that I can't be exposed to, so my website is (again) on hold. If I can find Picasa on my old hard drive, I may be able to load a few bags on the blog in an attempt to help!

If you love them, let me know?

Wow! Those photos were easier to load than I expected! Note there's no knitting needle wrap yet...still on the drawing board...should be done in a couple of weeks!
Stay tuned...and keep those needles clicking!

Finished my first shawl!!

Oh, my! It came off the needles last night! Haven't gotten the fringe done, yet, but the knitting is finished...and it's long. I used 4 skeins of Lion Homespun, because I wanted to be able to toss one end over my shoulder...I'll see about a photo, once I've gotten the fringe done.

This weekend, I think I'll cast on the Blue Ridge shawl. And I've begun accumulating yarns for a knitted ruana, found in Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls...lots of blues/purples/fushias - my healing colors! Knitting is my new meditation, K3, P3 my mantra.