Family Fun

The Last few weeks have been great for both Wes and Josh.

Those Two Babies have all Grown Up into

Two Wonderful Men

Wesley Graduated from the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.

He has a BFA in New Media.

In other words, he is a mean artist on the computer. He knows how to use all those really hard and very very very time consuming programs and creates magic with them.

Some of his portfolio is up on his website.

He has one more class this summer to finish putting all the rest of his work on the website and in all the other forms it needs to be in for prospected employers to view.

Great Job Wes.

We are so proud of you!

And then My Baby turned 23 this week.

That little one is now Tall and Muscular

Very Athletic and Brilliant

Talented in oh so many things

With one of the kindest Hearts around

We wish you a Fabulous and Prosperous year.

Dream Knitting

My taste in knitting changes a lot once the days get longer and warmer. I think many of us feel that change especially here in So Cal where the weather can be warm for half of the year.

Since I have just spent the last couple of weeks getting things off my needles I feel I can indulge myself in some "Dream Knitting".

Dream knitting : The gigantic queue of ideas that one creates with a real since that one could actually complete all the projects in such a queue within a proportionately small amount of time.

Shhh...... I am dreaming........

Yarn Dreaming:

It starts with a list of wonderful new summer yarns that I need to get my hands on and then find something wonderful to knit with them. Some of my favorite summer yarns right now are linked below. But there are soooooo many to chose from you could knit all summer and not have time to knit with all that is available.

Tahki Yarns Replay 100% recycled cotton

Tahki Yarns Good Earth Cotton 100% organic cotton in natural cotton colors

Rowan Purelife Revive 36% Recylced Silk/ 36% Recycled Cotton/ 28% Recycled Viscose in a tweed!

Misti Alpaca Tonos Pima Silk 83% Peruvian Pima Cotton and 17% silk. Hhand dyed in tonal colors. Love this!

Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy 40% Hemp/40% Cotton/20% Modal

Rowan Lenpur linen 75% Vi Lenpur/25% Linen What is Lenpur?????

Kolláge Yarns Milky Whey 50% Milk/50% Soy Great Colors

The Dream Continues: Summer Tops

Berroco's Peltigera, I saw someone wearing this at Stitches and man was it cute!

Inamorata Little lace top from Knitty.com

ButterCup (rav) This is done with the Hempathy listed above. There is also one done with the Rowen Lenpur linen

Petrie I love the shape of this shell

The Lace Dream:
Anything Lace is another great choice for the summer. The best thing about lace is you can use just about any yarn you want and come up with something wonderful.

There are so many choices out there it is really hard to choose just one.

Art Lace Bag scroll down. This uses bulky yarn!

Vogue Knitting Cover Lace Wrap.
There are several people wanting to make this one. You could join us!! Actually there are a lot of really nice projects in the current issue of Vogue Knitting.

Summit from the new Knitty.

Citron Not really lace but such a nice useful project for the summer. Out of bamboo??

Emily Dickinson with beads. Beads added to any lace is a beautiful thing!!

Crochet Dreaming:

My fancy often turns to crochet this time of year. Small projects for the home. They are fast and portable. The beach is always calling and crocheting with cotton is the perfect beach project. Here are a few fun projects that might be seen on my hooks soon.

Wavelength (rav)

Trinity Lace Shrug (rav)

Disc-Disc (rav) hotpads

Tiny Pin Cushion

I might start a motif blanket. I have wanted to do that for a couple of years.

Garnet Hill Inspried (rav)

Sock Dreams:

They are the perfect summer knit and your toes will thank you come next winter.

Nebula

Toe-Up Bayerische

Drops 100-20 socks

Get Rid of Terrible Sock Yarn. How cool are these!

Skew

Shhhhhhh......

I hear you mumbling about how I will never get this all done.

Shhhhhh.......

I am still enjoying all the possibilities and the options. This might be one of my favorite parts of knitting.
Dreaming it all up and changing my mind constantly about what yarns I want to use for which pattern.

Shhhh..... I won't tell anyone.....

What are your Knitting Dreams???

Inspiration

,I have a lot of blogs I read just for inspiration. The Creative blog community is amazing. To be able to sit at the computer and look at the amazing work from artist all over the world is the gift of the internet. No mater when I am in the mood it is there for me and it always lifts my spirits.

Here are just a few of blogs that have me drooling all over my screen.

NICOLE CHAZAUD TELAAR
"Wet Felting" taken to the extreme. I want one of these so bad. Can you believe she starts with fleece, roving, some water and soap to creat these?

Jamie is a very prolific Photographer that is very generous with his photos. He puts out photos each month that you can use for free as wall paper for you iphone. I love living into all the pictures on this blog.

I secretly want to create art journals like Debra

What better way to bring a smile to a cloudy day then one of Anablela's Necklaces

Sunday Inspiration

Knitted Tea Cozies to keep you Cozy

1. DSCF1744, 2. Christmas Tea Cozy, 3. Tea Cozy, 4. old knit cozy, 5. Hearts Valentines Tea Cosy, 6. Tea party, 7. Jilly's Funky Tea Cosies, 8. Cozy Tea Handknit Tea Cozy, 9. Sleeveless in Seattle - Twin Tea Cozies, 10. 4 Cup Handknitted and Felted Tea Cosy, 11. 4 Cup Tea Cosy, for Chantal Teapot, 12. 2 Cup Tea Cosy Cozy with Hotpad, 13. cottage tea cozy, 14. knitted_cat_tea_cozy, 15. Wild Tea Cosies - Sea Squirt, 16. Tea Cosy

FO: Holiday Gifts

My Christmas knitting has all been received and I can now post about them. I was pretty ambitious this year but I did complete it all in time, which has often not been the case. So I am feeling rather good right now.

I knit the Every Way Wrap for my Mom. (Ravelry).

Yarn: 12 skeins (1,176 yrds, 600 oz) of Berroco Ultra Silk.
Gold 6113

Make sure you down load the Errata before you start. The key to the chart is wrong.

This was a pretty straightforward knit with cables. I love that they are reversible so there is no wrong and right side. I have to say that cabling with yarn that has no stretch is a bit hard on the hands and made the progress a little slower then I wanted. Having said that, the yarn showed both stitch patterns beautifully and the sheen from the silk makes this very luxuious. I chose the silk because my mother doesn't like wools around her neck and I new this yarn wouldn't be the least bit scratchy. It was also on closeout at Webs so the price was right. The silk makes this something she can wear throughout the year in Utah.

I knit the Sweet Pea Jacket by Kate Gilbert (ravelry) for my youngest sister, JN, who also lives in Utah.

Yarn: Berroco Peruvia.
#4777 Blue Nile 7 skeins (700 gr, 721 yrds)

Needle size - 11

Size: I had major gauge issues (blogged here) with this. I ended up knitting the medium size as far as number of cast on stitches and such go, but used the measurements from the small size. This ended up working out perfectly.

My sister is amazed at how well it fits, as though we had fittings during the making of the jacket!! This was a very succesful knit and after I figured out how to deal with the gauge it was a fast and easy knit. Big needles and big yarn, almost instant gratification.

This is the Striped Clapotis for my other sister, LA, who is in the Bay Area.

Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden sock. I used three skeins of color 211.
Needle: #6

I used both ends of the same skein and alternated the two ends every two rows, like the Noro Scarf. I love the way the dropped stitches stripe one way and the colors striped the other. I love the colors. A few times I took out a color as it came up so I didn't have the same color on both ends of the yarn. But that didn't happen to much.

I was burning some late night knitting oil to get these done and in the mail before we left for our vacation on the Dec. 13. Even though I started them relatively early in the holiday process, LA's in Aug, Mom's in Sept, and JN's in Oct. that was still too late.

Next year I am going to reinstate the "knit the christmas present when their birthday comes up" rule. I did this one year and it worked so well I am not sure why I have not continued to do that. Their birthdays come in May, June and August so it works out really well.

I am telling you this now so that you can remind me in Sept or Oct when I come up with the big idea to knit a major project for someone for christmas you can refer me to this post. I have too many other things to knit, with class samples and all, not to be more organized about knitting the things that are really fun for me.

My family really appreciates handmade gifts so it is pleasure to knit for them.

Do you have any good ways of dealing with handmade gifts for the family?
Do you knit for your family and/or friends?

Merry Christmas

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
~Norman Vincent Peale

Bye Callie

We lost our dog of 13 years yesterday. She was attacked by another dog and was so badly hurt we had to put her down. She was a very small sheltie, the cutest sweetest thing ever. Very much the little lady. She was my boys childhood dog so with her goes a large piece of our lives.

Callie came to us on Christmas Eve 1994
and left us Feb 1, 2008
We will miss you