Ravelympics

I did it! I have had the idea of a lace, fold-over ruffle cuffed socks playing in my head for some time. I decided to get these socks out of my head and into knit fabric as part of Ravelympics. They were started on Saturday, February 13, 2010 while we were driving to Canada. I only worked on them on my commute while the Modern Beach Glass Quilt Wrap had a chance of being finished. Once I realized only one of these projects would get finished - I set the wrap aside and concentrated on these! I love them. I'm thrilled to have finished them. They are exactly what I saw and I can't believe I figured out how to knit them. This is the 4th finished pair of socks from stash for 2010!

Nosy Dog!

that's my bag thrown in the chair. Come on - you know that's what you do when you get home too! Don't judge!! Beau was just dying to stick his head right inside and see if there were any "goodies" left in it. But I either eat my lunch or leave it at work - I don't pack it back home so he was out of luck. Can you see the big owie on his nose? Somebody ripped a hole in his face. Every time it starts to heal one of the dogs rips the scab off - poor boy! It's obviously hurting him because he throws a fit when I try to put antibiotic ointment on it - but I win!! Happy Dogs on Thursday everyone.

My New View

This post is really for Channon who has requested photos of the water that I can see from my desk. They aren't great photos, but I think you'll get the idea. The first photo is from the conference room. The mountains in the background are the Olympics and they are stunning!

This next shot was taken from Mr. TN's office. With the camera right up to the glass. The water is Elliot Bay.

And finally - a dark picture taken from the fishbowl! In this one you can see the "seams" in my glass walls, the plant in the hallway (that dark thing on the left) and the portion of the wall (dark on the right) that I couldn't get rid of. But you can see that I can see right through my glass walls, through Mr. TN's glass walls out to the water.

Enjoy :-}

Look! She still makes clothes!

Many of you know already that we are headed to Mexico for a lovely vacation in March - the very beginning of March - actually! Well - I ordered a new brown swimsuit and my "uniform" of choice when we are beach vacationing is a swimsuit, skirt and sandals. As I learned on our cruise a few years back - I needed to either get a solid suit or make more solid skirts. Well - I went with both! This was a down and dirty skirt that I quite literally whipped out in a couple of hours last Sunday. I should have been working on my Ravelympics knitting - but let's just say I'm a quitter! This is Kwik Sew 3337 which I have used at least a million times! Seriously. Each one looks different I constructed the entire skirt - with the exception of the zipper completely on the serger. I even got totally lazy and just serged the hem. I put some fake "wooly nylon" in the loopers and just serged it with a short stitch length. It's cute and will be fun with a tank top of just about any color as well as a solid suit!

Crafty Bits

While it wasn't garment sewing that got done - I did get into the studio this weekend and get my "craft" on. It felt good to get these projects done and out of the way. My childhood best friend became a grandma to a lovely baby boy this past November. I'm just now getting around to making the little one a very special blanket. His parents happen to be big football fans as well as being horse people. When I couldn't find the super cute baby bears that I usually use for blankets of this type. I figured this bear with a stick horse would be perfect. The blanket is Seahawks blue with lime green trim. I also did all the edging in a matching lime green. It's completely washable and dry-able and I hope they love and use it. I made another pink blanket with chocolate brown trim. The design was a very sweet bunny holding some tulip - but I delivered that blanket to the grandparents (our neighbors) without taking a photo - duh!!

Dogs in Jail

a couple of Saturdays ago I was home and JB was at work (happen more than you all know). I had been downstairs in the studio and all the dogs were hanging out with me. I had to run upstairs to take some photos, do laundry - various chores. This is what I saw when I came back downstairs - the dogs all fretting at the gate thinking I wasn't coming back!

Wednesday Already?

Saturday morning we got up early, loaded up the jeep and headed to Canada. Nope - we weren't going to see any Olympic events - we were going to see JB's dad.

We stopped at Duty Free and I spotted this cute little handbag. We will be in Mexico soon and this bag will carry everything and not get too heavy - sunglasses, wallets, passports. you know everything I have to keep track of.

I think it will also hold the necessary knitting! Horrible photos of a really cute bag that the clerk at Duty Free convinced JB that I had to have. Happy Valentine's to me!

Not Much

has been going on around these parts. I cut a hunk of my hounds tooth off and washed and dried it - didn't like the resulting fabric so this skirt will eventually be dry clean only! Umm - have I mentioned how impractical dry clean is in a house with 4 slobbery dogs? On the knitting front the socks on the left are the January Brown Bag Sock Club Section. I'm knitting bubble wrap socks from the toe up. It's a free pattern that can be found over at Ravelry and I'm completely enamoured with it. This pair accompanied me to a Superbowl party and kept me from eating too many brownies. Thank you socks. And I finished my "Blind Side" socks. Nothing special about these socks. Toe up, two at a time as usual. I started these socks back in November when we were on vacation as I needed something simple to work on at the movies. Foot is simple stockinette and I've lined my feet up to show where the pattern lines up. I did an afterthought heel as I like that better in self-patterning yarns. The leg is a 4x2 rib - just to help break the monotony of knitting every single stitch. And while you can't see it here - I saw a photo of a round heel in a friend's knitting book and thought it looked cool. I totally ripped the idea off and these socks have semi-round heels. I did round decreases (just like you would on a hat - but with more rows between decrease rounds) until I had 12 stitches left and then grafted them closed. It looks interesting and is very comfortable to wear. So - what's going on in your life?

BanaCoCo Bread

Using Marjie's method of naming food based on the ingredients included and then being lazy - I've shortened the name of this bread from Banana Coconut. The recipe comes from a book called Company's Coming by Jean Pare. I've had this book for a long time because there are notes that I first made this bread for Christmas 1995 and then again in 97. Back then I made mini loafs of bread and fresh jam as gifts for the family. Back then I even grew the berries to make the jam. Now my family is lucky to get bread. This bread is super easy and quick. Here you go: 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup melted butter 1 cup mashed ripe bananas 1/2 tsp. almond flavoring (I used vanilla) 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup medium coconut (this time I used flaked coconut - more like 3/4 cup) 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (we used about 3/4 cup) 1/2 chopped maraschino cherries - left them out. Break eggs in mixing bowl. Beat until light and frothy. Add sugar and melted butter. Beat well. Stir in mashed banana and almond flavoring. Measure remaining ingredients into another bowl. Stir until well mixed. Pour over batter. Stir just to combine. Spoon into greased loaf pan. Bake in 350* over for 1 hour until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Let cool before cutting - like that's going to happen! Enjoy.

Lucy Knits?

The Musical One has been knitting a mitered square blanket as a gift for a friend who's getting ready to graduate from college this year.

She has spent the better part of the last year knitting squares. She knit them out of acrylic - but mostly because she wanted the blanket to be completely washable - this particular friend she's gifting it to is male.

On Monday she finished knitting the final square. So she came over to the house for help laying out the squares. Lucy had to come give her opinion on the layout.

Unfortunately - I didn't take photos of the final layout - so you'll just have to wait until it's finished to see it.

Opinions Needed

I have this beautiful piece of gray and white hounds tooth. I don't know the fabric content, but I bought it at Hancock Fabrics a couple of years ago. It has a lovely soft drapable hand but it's pretty loosely woven. I have spent a couple of weekends modifying the Carolyn skirt to get something that resembles this lovely skirt from Burda April 2009 to get this shape. I think I have it. This is what I want to know. Can I put the center front panel on the bias and the remaining skirt on the straight grain? I'm planning on underlining this with white flannel and lining it as well. My thought was that I'd cut the fashion fabric on the bias the the lining and underlining on the straight grain. The girls in my local ASG group said that I couldn't do that. The fabric would behave differently in the center and I would be unhappy with it. Another said that the skirt would be too busy and there would be no place for the eye to rest. So I'm asking you all - can I do this? Will it work to mix the two grains? Will it be too busy? I have lots and could do it over if it doesn't work, but I think I like the idea of the front panel being just a bit different. I was thinking I would pipe those seams with a solid gray fabric if I did cut the center on the bias.

Emerald Forest

So this is the last shipment from the one sock club I joined last year. It was a 3 month sock club from Creatively Dyed, the price was reasonable and I purchased it just days before Beau decided to rack up major vet bills. The yarn is a rich, dark, dark green - practically black and it photographs black. The socks are beaded and toe up with a gusset and traditional heel flap. I started these on Friday night. I'm working both of them at the same time. I put the beads in a tiny dish to make them easier to add to the socks. On Sunday morning Beau spilled the dish of beads! I hope we found them all!