Feeling better - today is "Knit Night"

Staying home yesterday actually made a difference. Hubby made a lot of tea and the dogs enjoyed snuggling with mommy on the futon. I slept through most of the day, but while I was awake, I got a bunch of knitting done on my Dad’s felted vest. I knitted about 80 rows (with 210 stitches…) so far. I feel better about getting it finished in time. I have 26 more rows to go until I have to divide the big piece into back and front.

Tonight is one of my Knit Nights at JoAnn's. So far I know of 10 women who are planning on knitting & chatting tonight. I will bring patterns for baby blankets, hats and scarves. Seems that most of them want to start something new tonight. It is always a lot of fun to meet every other week with previous students and knit enthusiasts.

I also finished the red scarves of the Red Scarf Orphan Project. I will drop off four scarves at Einstein’s this weekend. They turned out cute. I have to take picture before I give them away.



Yesterday was my sister-in-law’s birthday and she opened her birthday gift. This time I was in time with my gift – knitted socks. Not too late (like for Christmas…) She loved the colors and the pattern. I haven’t knitted socks in a while. They turned out OK.

For the Knit Night tonight I brought the baby hat as my project. My Dad’s vest is getting too big to drag around… Alrighty - back to work - more later.

Man - my cold is driving me crazy...

I tried to ignore this awful cold now since last week. But finally it caught up with me... All the symptoms you can think of, and I am still trying to ignore it… I am not a good companion these days… Coming home from work, no cooking – poor hubby eats leftovers (but he is a good sport and doesn’t mind), falling asleep at 8pm while watching a movie… With knitting in my hands… Interesting what you knit while you are asleep. Or better, what you have to rip later... K.U.I. Knitting under the influence (of cough medicine)...



I finished my hat, scarf and fingerless mitten set over the weekend. The set turned out better then I expected. I bought the yarn back in Germany $1 per ball – they had 4 balls left. Typical me – buying yarn and not knowing what to do with it... But it is so soft and it was soooooo cheap. Anyway – I started with the scarf and realized I might have enough for a hat. I finished the hat and realized – hey, there is more yarn – let’s try if there is enough for the fingerless mittens. And I just added all the leftover yarn – yes, there was still more – on to the scarf.

And then, I have the following projects in the works:
A felted vest for my Dad for his birthday (deadline March 15) and it has to be finished a couple of weeks before that since I have to send it to Germany. The vest is knitted in one piece and right now I have 210 stitches on my needles… The pattern is from the book “Felted Knits” by Beverly Galeskas, on page 62-65. It is the biggest piece I have ever felted… SCARY…

I have started the very cute baby hat – Miss Dashwood (you can find the pattern at http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTmissdashwood.html) for a colleague’s little baby girl. She’ll turn one on February 10. So there is another deadline. I finished the brim and the booble border – need to change to dpns now.

Pillow cases for two ugly pillows on our couch are in the works – no. 1 has about 8 inches done. It is cable pattern to perk up the boring yarn.

And I started the riding jacket from the “Loop-D-Loop” book. I knitted the first 80 rows, also knitted in one piece to point where you separate the back and the fronts (is there a pattern of self-destructiveness – too many stitches…) I am stuck at the moment to figure out how to continue with the cable pattern on the front. And since this is something for myself, it moved to the bottom of my priority list.

Since I have nothing else to do (yeah right), I entered my project today in the Knitting Olympics: You can find it in VOGUEknitting - Issue Fall 2005 - No. 18 - Lace Shawl by Meg Swansen on page 80. I am using a lace yarn that I bought last year on eBay. I bought it from a store in Uruguay - they call it Handpainted & Kettle Dyed Pure Merino Wool Lace Yarn (color: purple). My challenge – guess what, little time and it is my first lace project.

I need to make this stupid cold go away, it is really bugging me – especially since I am hardly ever sick… I think some TLC and an early night might help. More soon…

First Entry - I am giving in to the blog craze...

OK, New Year, still, kind of... New Year resolutions...
Hopefully I am going to be better with this one...

I started going to a Stitch'n Bitch group (oooppppssss - shhhhh - we are not allowed to say that anymore thanks to a nice sewing company in New York, now it is SNB) in my area and almost everybody has a blog. So I thought, good thing, you can put your German stereotype to work (organize everything and make a plan for everything) and keep track of your projects and what you are doing with your life.

AND - in case you start reading my blog and you think my English is a little off - well, I am German and this is not my native language. But I am trying, and thanks to the never-ending patience of my husband (or so-called English Nazi), it is getting better. So enjoy the reading :-)

I guess knitting started taking over my life - actually I have been knitting for over 25 years. Not that I am very old (at least not in my mind - 38 is NOT old) and don't ask my nephew... But he (being 8) thinks everybody over 20 is ancient...

So anyway, my Mom taught me how to knit when I was in 5th grade. She is a great teacher and her knitting is just beautiful. Unfortunately, I can wear her knitted sweater only a few weeks each year since I moved to Georgia, USA. Different story in Germany - you can wear a sweater even in summer, thanks to the weather. So I treasure her sweaters - and right now it is a good time to wear Mom's sweaters. She used some gorgeous Noro yarn for my Christmas gift. See a pix on the left. Very soft and yummy - I wear it at the moment whenever I can... Got to take your opportunities with the cold weather in Georgia...

I did not have much time this weekend for blogging - too much going on. Here is a recap. I had two knitting classes scheduled (yes, when I don’t knit for friends or myself I teach others how to). A beginner’s class on Saturday and another one on Sunday – 2 hours each. AND – my friend Jenny and I had the first SNB NEGA (Northeast Georgia) knit-together in Gainesville, GA on Saturday. If you are interested, here is a link to our Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SNB-NEGA/

And I went go to a volunteer knit outing to knit scarves for orphans. Details can be found here: http://www.orphan.org/ We met at Einstein Bagels - 5 women, all knitting red scarves. It was a nice get-together. Over the weekend I made 3 scarves and a triangle scarf with FunFur - all red for the orphan's Valantine gifts. They have to be sent in by Jan. 28, 2006. We'll see how many more I can get done this week,

I did not have much time left to do something else... Oh – and I got to think about a project for the Knitting Olympics 2006 – I’ll keep you posted...