An Early "Merry Christmas!"

Blog to be re-worked

Well, it's been a very long time since I posted here. A lot has been going on, but not a lot in the way of Knitting.

While I was gone, my husband and I found out we are pregnant with our first child! This is something we had been trying for for awhile, and we are very excited. In Sept. we found out that she is a little GIRL! Avery is due in Jan. of 08!

I will be re-working this blog to be family oriented as well as crafty... and I have several new crafts to share. =o)

My first skirt sewing project..

Well, It's been a lot longer since I last blogged than I meant for it to be. I have made a rule for myself, that I will not blog until I have replied to my comments.. unfortunately Blogger has not made this very easy. I would love to be able to reply by e-mail, but I sure can't figure out if there is a way to do that. If anyone knows.. please let me know.. I'd be oh-so-happy to learn!

So.. you may wonder what happened with the Leftovers vest? Did I finish it in time to wear for Easter?






Well.. no. I decided the week before easter, that instead of trying to rush to finish the vest, that I wanted to sew a new skirt instead. I had stumbled across some sites like Wardrobe Refashion and was feeling extra inspired. (.. and I wasn't going to let a little thing like the fact that I had never sewn clothing before discourage me... ).

A little back history... when I was very small, my Mammy (aka my grandmother on my maternal side) was always sewing clothes & things. She died when I was 6, but I do remember her, and her sewing. In the year (1985) before she died, she found out that she had cancer, and was doing things to live her life to the fullest. One of the things she did was get a state-of-the-art sewing machine with lots of bells in whistles. I remember sitting on her lap in the show room when she was trying it out. When she died, she left her sewing maching to me. Due to some conflicts of classes in school, I was never able to take sewing or home ec. .. so years go by, and although my dad tried to show me how to use the machine once, I never figured it out, and it has been most cherish, but most unused in the many years since. ..... fast forward to a year ago. I got the sudden desire to try quilting, and the stubborness to figure out how to use the sewing machine somehow- someway. I do not have the owners manual, so I got a sewing 101 manual, and muddled through. I even sewed a quilt (unfortunately I didn't learn the valuable lesson of how to lock stitches until AFTER that.. and the quilt is unused in a drawer in the hopes that I will one day go back and fix all the places it's come unravelled...) Then my husband & I moved, and all my sewing stuff got packed up until I decided to drag it back out again to make my skirt.

Here is the wonderful & much cherished 1985 New Home Memory Craft Sewing machine left to me by my Mammy:

Needless to say I haven't figured ALL of those fancy stitches and letters out yet, but I did figure out the strait & zig-zag stitches. I found a place on ebay that sells a version of the users manual, and I think I will get that to help me out further.

Here is the items I picked up to make my skirt (and stuff to make a shirt that I haven't tackled yet):



... and although this is far from the best picture, and prior to washing (which made the skirt a lot closer to a good fit...yay!).. here is my First ever made skirt & clothing sewing project! (From a side view)


I so wish I had a better picture, but I promise one the next time I wash it. Overall, it has some mistakes, but for a first project I'm very pleased! First time I wore it to work I had several compliments on it, and people were surprised to learn that I sewed it myself. =o)

Well, this is getting pretty long, so I will stop talking now. Knitting wise, I'm working on baby blanket squares. 2 babies in the family due to be born next month, and I don't have either blanket finished yet! Eek...

We have a LOT going on outside the world of craft, but I'll get to that anouther time. =o)

Leftovers Progress...

It's been a little over a week, and a few things to report. Last weekend, while out of town, I took some of the dollar tree yarn with me "just in case." One of my neices saw it and asked me to make her a scarf. I made it very thin. CO 8, knitting all. Added tassles. I did not have a camera with me, but she's promised I can take a picture later. Even though we were in the 80's here last weekend, she's also requested a matching hat & mittens. (Guess I need to learn how to do those huh?) My nephew also requested a scarf in red & black "Georgia Bulldog" colors. I picked up some yarn for it at Walmart, but it hasn't been a top piority (i.e. temps in the 80's! LOL).

I've had some difficulties with the leftover vest, and I've done several sets of frogging & re-knitting after (stupid) mistakes. Mistakes & all I'm really happy with how it is turning out. Here is a picture from 2 days ago out in the sunlight:



I've made a little progress since then, here is a more up close picture:



Isn't it turning out cute? I can't wait to wear it. Maybe just maybe I can finish it and wear it for easter? I measured and I have about 4 more inches until I split for the armholes.. Hopefully I will have some more to report next week.

P.S. Does any one have a first sweater without mistakes in it I wonder? LOL.. even with all the frogging & re-knitting I still have a few.

Light headed...

Okay, so this is completely off the topic of knitting.. but... I decided to cut my hair today. Some background: About 2 years ago I had decided to grow it out. I have what my family calls "baby hair" that fine/thin whispy stuff that you usually only find on the head of a baby. It wasn't quite so fine/whispy when I was younger, but it got more so as I got older. Even though I really love longer hair, I finally decided that my hair looks better (on a daily basis) shorter. I cut it myself using a self trimming method & had Randy even it up. I'm REALLY glad I did it.

So without further introduction... the back of my head:



Randy has been teasing me about going all "Brittany" on him. =oP

My hair long hardly *ever* looked this good.. but for the sake of remembering:



Wow.. actually thats enough to make me *wish* I hadn't have cut it.. that is if I didn't know that my hair had been more likely to look like this on a daily basis:



... which isn't nearly as nice. Okay going to knit now. =o)

Curious Kitties... (and other Knitting things)

After work today, I had a few non-knitting related items I wanted to take care of. My first stop was by the dollar tree... little did I realize that I would come face to face with tempation! Can you guess? Tempation won.



See all that colorful yarn that the kitties are snooping out? I kept looking at it and seeing a scarf for me, and some baby things. It practically jumped into my basket... honest. =oP I *did* manage to put back some twine that made its way into my basket though.

While taking the above picture.. I realized that I didn't show a full picture of my new yarn storage the other day (A.K.A. Cody's favorite napping spot).



In other knitting news... I did get the ribbing complete on the leftovers vest last night. After doing some clarification with Alison today, I'm ready to pick it back up again.



So.. I know I promised kitties. There has been more of Cody than my girl kitty Kasey. Here she is looking sweet.

Wee Tiny Sock.. where are you?

I'm beginning to get a bit worried that my wee tiny sock hasn't made it to it's destination yet. I realized when I received mine yesterday that I forgot to write "hand cancel" on the envelope. I'm hoping this hasn't delayed it.. but I'm keeping my eyes on a certain blog to see if it arrives.