Looking for the Sun

I have to admit I've been pretty sad lately. The loss of my friend has been very hard on me. My children are heartbroken and very sad. We all feel as though the sun won't shine here again. I even saw the Schwan's man today and this wonderfully kind man knew who my friend was because he used to see her every other week when she worked in our home. He too was saddened by her passing. He said she was such a sweet lady.

In order to pull myself out of my grief, I've been working on lots of patterns. I am tossing around the idea of making them into a book. I even checked into self publishing them with a company called Trafford Publishing. Their publishing packages are definately doable and it is definately a dream of mine to be a published author. I even have several children's books I could publish with this company too. I would need to illustrate them myself, of course, since I couldn't afford to hire out an illustrator.


I have also have been needle knitting to try out new techniques to convert over to my looms. I fell in love with the reverse stockinette and regular stockinette to create patterns on my cloths rather than using stockinette with purls to get pictures. It creates what looks like an embossed image and I just love the look of it.


One of my goals for this year was to learn cables on both my looms and the needles. I posted a picture of my success story on my loom (thanks to Isela's wonderful Cabled Mittens pattern) a while back. I sat down and started working on the Inspired AllOver Spa Cabled Cloth in the March 2008 issue of Creative Knitting Magazine, and finished around the time of my friend's death. Other than a few small (barely noticable) mistakes, it went fairly well. I of course had to go out and find a book with more cables for knitting needles onces I finished it. I checked out a book at the library called The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches from Reader's Digest, with lots of cables for me to try :D

I must be getting better with my needles since they have been what I reach for lately. My March Loom Along pattern is still sitting on my loom and I don't have much desire to finish it! I will be heading to the doctor today so maybe I'll bring it along and work on it while I wait.

I am the designer for the May Loom Along on the Loomin' Dishcloths group over on Ravelry. I have the pattern picture designed, I am just working out the technique for the loom (it is a needle knitting technique). I am crossing my fingers it works out! If not, I'll think of something so it is super fun to knit up! Hope to see you over there!

Signs of Spring?

Isela posted on her blog signs of spring in her hometown. She asked us to post pictures showing signs of spring on our blogs. Are there signs of spring here? Well, not quite. In a few days though I hear it is suppose to maybe get up to 40 degrees! Wow! Bikini weather! Well, in Minnesota anyway! LOL! I did spot a mud puddle forming by the garage when I went to bring my daughter to school today. There was a little melt off of snow from the garage roof, that's all ;-(.

I am still getting these terrible dizzy spells. I am just miserable with it. One minute I am fine and the next minute I am falling over. I got up in the middle of the night about two weeks ago and thought I was going to die. I was so light headed and faint. Then I got a sharp pain in my pelvis and got really sick to my stomach (probably from the pain). I have lots of things I want to design, but I keep sitting down to work on them and get so dizzy (I did get three more graphs done but haven't written up any directions yet). I can't look at anything for very long. I did start needle knitting a cabled dishcloth because that was one of my personal goals for this year (learn cables on a loom and on the needles). It is turning out just gorgeous! I made a little boo boo though on one of the cables, I didn't have my working yarn in the right spot (it was behind the cable needle in back rather than in front of it) so I have a thread wrapped around one of my cables. Must have been a dizzy spell! Oh well, I'll still use it though.

The March LAL on the Ravelry Loomin' Dishcloth Group is in full swing. A couple people posted pics of their finished cloths. They all look fabulous thus far! Great job everyone!

I don't have any pics of signs of spring. I sure wish I did. I am a summer girl all the way. Since we haven't had enough snow to snowmobile, I'd rather have spring.

Have a great day!

Reveling in Ravelry...a big old mess...and a great story

As you may know, I am now in Ravelry! Boy, what a place. I feel like I am sitting at a table set for a Queen and I have a feast of foods picked out just for me! I started entering my stash of yarn. It will take me months to complete my stash. What a neat concept. It's a great way to connect with someone if you are making a project and "oops" didn't get enough yarn for the project. You can log onto Ravelry and see if someone else has some in their stash and see if they would be willing to sell and/or trade.

 

My little two year old made quite the mess for me today! I had my EFG version of the half finger gloves and my Plushy House Socks project currently occupying my Blue Knifty Knitter sitting by the couch in the living room while I showered this morning. When I came out to the livingroom to work on my projects, here she had unraveled all of the yarn and wound it around the living room coffee table!!!!!! Arrrrrrrrrrgh! What a mess! I just spent the past hour trying to untangle and rewind up the skeins into some sort of ball. At least the projects on the looms are still intact! Whew! It's quite amazing how she spent merely minutes messing with my projects and it took me so long to correct what she did!

 

A good friend of mine, who happens to be a very spiritual person sent me an email this morning with the best story! It is a great testament to God's work in our everyday lives. I just wanted to share this story with you:

 

"Oh, I need to tell you a great story.  Last Saturday evening David went to deliver pizzas about 5:30 and called me about 5:45 which I thought was unusual.  He usually calls me when he is ready to come home (after 9:00 or even up to almost 11:00).  Well the reason he was calling was that they had five delivery drivers standing there, the phones were NOT ringing, NO ONE was coming in the door, and they had NO orders (on a Saturday evening of all days).  So he asked me to pray as they were going to send everyone home otherwise without any work.  I guess his manager heard him telling me that and gave him a funny look.  Anyway, I told him I would get right on it and hung up.  I immediately asked the Lord to open up the floodgates for pizzas and to make sure David let them know it was from prayer and God was providing, and then I thanked God for what He was going to do.  Then I actually fell asleep.  David didn't get home until around 9:30 or so, and he said five minutes after I called the phones were ringing off the hook.  I guess during the day they had 15 pizzas, and before they finished that night they had over 200 more.  He said about 8:00 the manager turned to him and said I think you can tell her to stop praying now.  I just laughed and praised Him for the opportunity for them to see His hand at work.  If only people would realize He can do things like that in their own lives.  The manager who was on that night is pretty rough, so it was a very good example for him.  Isn't that a great story!!!!!!!"

The Next Best Thing To Heaven...

...The long awaited invitation came today! I've read and heard so much about this new knitting, crochet, and loom knitting circle. Being left out waiting in the cold for so long (a two whole weeks of agony) made me feel like, well, like a sorority wannabe. Not that I couldn't sign up to be on the waiting list ages ago (they are adding people pretty quickly now, I hear). I heard about it first in my needle knitting group and was just too busy to care. Then, the "fire" jumped over to the loom knitting communities I belong to and I started hearing about it AGAIN. I once again was too busy to care. Then, I started to see so many of the gals with their Ravelry IDs proudly displayed at the bottom of their posts and email messages, I started to feel like I was leaving myself out of something and just had to find out what that "something" really was. I looks to me like "the next best thing to heaven" a gal could get with a passion for anything fiber arts related..."the next best thing to heaven" a designer/future designer could hope for to get exposure to their patterns. Well, yeah, "the next best thing to heaven" a spinner could get if they want to showcase their handspun yarns! Ohhhhhhhhh, yeah. Heaven indeed! Don't delay, get on the bandwagon today! See ya there!