"Legendary Stash"

I've officially crossed into "SABLE" status in terms of my yarn stash.  (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy.)  I can hear my husband's eyes rolling as he's reading this, and probably nodding enthusiastically in agreement.  I finally put away all of my yarn from the Webs Tent Sale earlier in the month and made the mistake of telling him how many yarns I have stashed in Ravelry.  (Answer:  triple digits.)  He did some quick calculations to see how much I spent on all of it and almost fell off the couch.  Dude, don't do the numbers.  We don't wanna know.

This year's Tent Sale was on May 14th and was fantastic as usual!  A gorgeous day, not a whole ton of people the second we got there and a small group to boot.  I had been squirreling cash from yard sale items and things for quite a while and was pretty proud that I covered all but $10.00 of my yarn with it.  We had a fantastic lunch at Northampton Brewery and then Maureen and I headed home to get our knit on.  We've also picked out a new KAL project, "The Joker and the Thief."   (Photo courtesy of Melanie Berg, on Ravelry.)  mine will also have grey as a base color, but then varying shades of turquoise and purple.  Fitting, right?  :)

Anyway, I wish I could say that I'm going to go cold sheep (no yarn purchases until a set amount of time/stash is used) but I know that I don't have the willpower for that.  Especially since I'm making my first trip to the Maine Fiber Frolic with Maureen and Cindy this weekend!  AND Mom and I are trying to make plans to go to Rhinebeck in October.  Yep.  The stash will continue to grow, though no exponentially.

Not Just a Pretty Face

As I was walking around today with a screwdriver, removing air conditioning covers for the mini-heat wave we're getting, I remembered a little story from a couple of weeks ago that I thought bared repetition.

I went away for the annual work conference that I attend, and our work's Mother's Day celebration was two days upon getting back.  It was a bit hairy, trying to secure chairs/food/raffle prizes but it ended up working out OK.  I was lucky enough to get someone in attendance that had keys to the church next door and we were able to borrow tables and chairs.  Eve and I (Not her real name) were going to carry the chairs and tables ourselves.  Now, Eve is a senior citizen, and should NOT be carrying chairs and tables from the parish hall to our building.  She's pretty scrappy though, and insisted on helping.

As we exited the building, we ran into some plumbers that were doing some work in the parish hall.  They dropped what they were doing and offered to help.  One of them said that he of course would help such a pretty lady.  I thanked him profusely and he said "Well, I'm not just a pretty face.  I can do some heavy lifting!"  I said "OK.  But don't forget your saws-all, you left it in the parking space next to your truck."  He assured me that he wouldn't and then looked a bit bewildered and said "Lady, how do you know what a saws-all is?"  The response was only too easy.  "Well sir, I also am not just a pretty face."  LOL.

I pride myself on having a father who insisted on me having some knowledge about tools.  I also am proud to have a mother who has more than once taken Dad's tools and done the dirty work herself.

End-of-Year Gifties

Believe it or not....it's almost time to think about the end of the year for school.  I'm talking about making plans for summer camp, what the heck we're going to do between school ending and camp starting, etc.  And most of all.....teacher's gifts.

I asked Will recently if he would like me to knit his third grade teacher an end-of-year gift and he said yes.  He wanted a scarf, and it should be colorful because she likes lots of color.  Well good....because I already have a ZickZack scarf knitted up and it is quite colorful!  :)

I asked Sean the same question and he readily agreed.  However, when I asked him what I should make he surprised me.  "How about sweaters for her kids, Mom?  She has a 2 year old and a one-year old."  So sweet.  I pondered on it for a little bit and you know what?  It's a great idea.  Not only is it a kind and generous gesture on Sean's part, it's not a typical "teacher" gift.  In talking to my friend Jen (who's younger son Pat is in Sean's class and happens to be one of his best friends) she loved the idea and offered to make one of them.  Awesome!  So I took the 2-year old (girl) and she took the 1-year old (boy.)

After poking around on Ravelry a bit, I picked the Gidday Sweater.  It comes in a multitude of sizes and is really cute.  I decided to stick with the gray with red stripes, after "agonizing" for a while over colors.  (Navy blue and white?  Purple?  Pink?)  It's a unisex sweater, so her little brother can wear it later.  It'll be adorable with a pair of jeans and a white tee underneath.  

Now I'm just waiting for my yarn to arrive!  

Portland!

I went up to Maine to visit Maureen, Sky and this time Alexi!  It was a fun trip by myself where we went to dinner and a couple of bars in the "Old Port" of Portland, took selfies (because we took selfies before they were cool) and just had fun together.  We had delicious Thai-inspired flatbread and Maine rootbeer, and on Sunday morning, the best donuts in the world.  We observed hipsters in bars (Portland is apparently "Hipster Country, they're up there in droves)  Maureen and I knit like the wind, as she's trying to finish a gift for her aunt in San Diego before her trip, and I had boot cuffs for Lexi.  Neither of us finished our projects.  :(  Mine might be due to having a new project that I'm obsessed with, a Harry Potter cross-stitch sampler.  I can't wait to see it up in my hallway!

  I came home relaxed and to a totally clean house and happy kids. Hubby was happy that I was home too.  Now it's back to the grind for a totally crappy Monday.  But that's what Mondays are for, right?

Hey, Big Spender!

Candy Heart Snippets

Both the Valentine's Day celebration and the 100th Day of School (that wasn't an "event" when I was a kid) coincided for our Sean, and he couldn't have been more excited.  When I picked him up this afternoon he happily showed me a big paper bag that he'd decorated that was chock-full of Valentines, candy and the "trail mix" that they made as a class.  So. Much. Candy.

Immediately he brought me a lollipop and asked to open it.  He'd tried to do it, but couldn't get it open.  I gave it a shot and well, the bag won.  So quickly we had a lolly-stick and a heat-shaped lozenge.  Will asked if there was any such thing and I told him that we'd just invented the heart-shaped lozenge.  He said that he doubted that we had done that and I said until I hear differently.  "And if you hear differently?"  Well....we're the SECOND people to invent the heart-shaped lozenge.

Since the lollipop didn't work out, Sean brought over a itty bitty bag of candy conversation hearts.  I started reading them and the three of us started making up our own personal hearts.

Sean:  chicken nugget, chicken nugget.

Me:  I love Yarn.

Will:  Throw me in the nearest trashcan and eat chocolate instead.

Yep.  I don't know where he gets his wry sense of humor.

A few Somethings for Me

So, with all of the Christmas knitting behind me.  (Hey it's February, let's hope so) I've decided that it's high time to work on a couple things for yours truly.  I still have gifts to work on for other people, things that I've picked out for one reason or another.  But it's my turn.  So with that in mind:

here is the short term Project.  Sewanee, a shawl.  One can never have too many shawls.  This one is a navy blue wool sock yarn, with streaks of purplish-pink and greenish blue.  It's quite pretty, and I can't wait to see how it turns out.  I LOVE that lace at the edge.  Whether or not I'll love knitting it is yet to be determined.  (Pattern and photo credit goes to Beth Bradford, aka Bethasaurus on Ravelry.)

The long-turn project.  It's a sampler blanket.  It's 63 different squares, and supposedly by the time I finish them I will have knit pretty much every stitch pattern out there.  I chose a teal acrylic for this, since let's face it:  I am not rich and pretty much only afford acrylic for such a large project.  (this is a Bucilla pattern, vintage from 1964.)  Photo credit:  jjgordon on Ravelry.

Note:  mine will not include a cat.  However, Joey will probably try to claim it at some point.