A few days ago, I wondered what the hell I was going to do with some yarn I purchased, well I found it, but not without a little pattern switching and frogging. I first thought of water when I saw this, I also thought of peacoks, but I found a nice wave pattern and I started it, a few hours in the waves were not showing like I hopped so I frogged the whole things and found this scarf pattern using the broomstick stitch. It’s perfect because it looks like a peacock to me so off I went with it. There was only one problem, the pattern called for a size 35 needle. O.o What?

Well I don’t have any ridiculously massive needles so I used a set of size 8 DPN’s wrapped with a coil to hold them together and, I must say, it works perfectly! The whole of the project is more crochet than knitting but the effect it splendid. I made it thin so I can wear this as an accessory scarf year round, can’t wait to be done with it! Oh and this one is for me, i’ve been doing this for almost two years now and I’ve yet to make MYSELF something, isn’t that insane? So here it is, my first project for ME.

Scarf Pattern (I reduced from 5 holes to 3): Broomstick Stitch Lace Scarf

There are two small local yarn shops within 30 minutes of me. I don’t visit very often because 1) when I go there is always a gaggle of loyal shoppers sitting in a knitting circle giggling and I feel like the odd man out so I need to rush and get the hell out of there, and 2) the yarn is all friggin’ expensive. Still, sometimes I go. It’s a pull, like my calling to visit a candy store that makes handmade walnut fudge, expensive therefore it’s only a treat once in a while.

Well this is what I picked up this time, I’ve never had yarn like this, it’s gorgeous, but like a lot of my impulse purchases concerning yarn, I think, what do I do with it? I feel like this yarn lends itself to a water inspired something, maybe a wavy accessory scarf? It also reminds me of peacocks. I’m not sure yet so off pattern searching I’ll go, one thing is for sure, this is my next project.I’ll not be doing anything else until the two hanks I bought of this are gone.

Well, I know my friends birthday has come and gone, but I had some left over yarn from his birthday scarf project so I made a matching hat! This is the third hat I’ve made, the second one I have knitted and probably the one I enjoyed most. It took much longer than the ones I’ve done before, which always leads to a bigger feeling of accomplishment for me. Used the Husband as a model again, he just loves when I do that. ;D

Hat Pattern: Men’s Cabled Hat Pattern

Well I’m almost there. I’ve started this scarf, which was always a cable scarf with stripe detail about 3 times. Frogging in favor of a new pattern I’d find, thinking my friend would like it more than the last I found. And I’m finally 90% done. His B-day party is upcoming this weekend and I have about an hour of work left on it. After that I’m going to make a matching cable hat out of the leftover yarn, I’ll take pics of the hat when finished, but for now I have that great feeling of the end is finally in sight!

Thank you Needyl.com and Beautifulyarn.com for the great patterns.

Scarf Pattern: Bella Lana Reversible Cable

Hat Pattern: Men’s Cabled Hat Pattern

Yarn Used: Knit Picks City Tweed (double stranded to make a bulkier weight yarn)

So I’ve been itching to try the new reserve yarn from Knit Picks called Full Circle. I purchased two colors (Mocha & Latte) in bulky and worsted to make a scarf and hat in some kind of unisex style so me and my Husband can both wear it. I’m thinking the Bella Lana Reversible Cable  for the scarf and I’m not sure what hat yet. I also purchased 2 skeins of their new acrylic yarn Brava to see if Hubby liked the look and feel of it for his Slytherin House Scarf (yes that damned scarf is STILL in the works), he approved so I put in an order for enough to make a scarf, hat and gloves. Then last but not least I got some Wool of the Andes in bulky weight, it was a discontinues color and dirt cheap. The color is called Sweet Shoppe and I LOVE it. Don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet but thats not the point right? ;)

I desperately needed a break from a project I have been working on for my best friends birthday, I mean there is only so much cabling monotony I can handle, so I quickly made up this little hat for my youngest Daughter, she looks adorable in it! (I don’t have a pattern for the hat since I did this on a whim. I changed up a basic double crochet hat pattern to have large holes at the bottom, alternating them in a checkered manner, and then I added a simple scalloped edge. The flower is a basic crochet flower, double layered and then I added a fluffed puff ball to the center, easy peasy, took me about 2 hours to complete!)

Well I needed a break from what I have now dubbed, the “scarf from hell” AKA my Husband’s Slytherin House scarf. I had some Sugar N’ Cream cotton yarn in my stash and found some great dishcloth patterns on Needyl.com and off I went! I made 4 total. 3 knitted and 1 crochet. You can see the solid green is still a WIP. I also started a crochet dish towel with a shell design, take a peek below!

Top: Grandma’s Favorite Washcloth / Dishcloth Pattern

Left: Ridged Dishcloth / Washcloth Pattern

Right: Eyelet Washcloth / Dishcloth Pattern

WIP (top photo green): Bowlegged Washcloth / Dishcloth Pattern

(lost pattern, will post if I can find)

The house itself was great, there was hardly anything around but the golf course and later some restaurants that popped up in town, the worst thing that would happen would be that our windows would be busted from a stray golf ball, but we had storm windows so all in all it was fine.

Later when I grew older I ended up coming back to live in my parent’s house when I discovered I was pregnant with twins, at that point it was obvious to me that my then Husband was not the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. (though he’s a good man, it was just not for us, we are much better off where we are now) So I packed up and moved back home from the little apartment we had. After they were born I stayed, my Grandmother’s health started to decline so I sort of took over the day to day house care, my mom was not the domestic type God bless her, plus she still worked and my Grandpa, well he can cook about 4 casseroles and fry an egg and a piece of bacon and thats about it!

So I took care of the house and worked a 9 to 5 job, and life went on. In 2002 I started dating Randy and we married fairly quickly later that same year, we just knew we wanted to be together, even only after a few months of dating. We married when the twins were 2 years old and we decided that is would be best for him to just live with us in my family’s home. I just could not imagine leaving the house with my Grandma in poor health and needing so much assistance with normal everyday things and my Mother and Grandfather being elderly as well, so we stayed and we were happy.

During all this a casino was built on the front nine of the golf course, it was fairly small and didn’t really bother us, but then other things started to pop up, the most annoying of which was the Taco Bell / KFC that was built practically in my back yard! I could actually hear the drive through intercom from my upstairs bedroom, it was that close!

After awhile the casino grew, and grew and then blew up to be the Hard “friggin” Rock Casino and Hotel, which Randy and I dubbed Biffs, can you imagine? Our small town now plays host to a Hard Rock establishment, and a big one at that. The picture below was take from my back yard, you can see how close it was.

At this point in 2008 my Grandmother health too a turn for the worst and she passed away, it was a hard time because she raised me and I spent a lot of time with her. All my memories are of that house and her always being there since I lived in that house from the age of 2. Even though I was and still am severely attached to the house we knew we wanted to move away from the casino. So Randy and I set out to search for a house we could move our family into. It was a challenge because together we have four children, and of course we were bringing my Mother and Grandfather with us, so we were looking for a fairly larger home.

While we were looking for a new house we new we wanted to put our old house on the market. The house had of course been paid for for years and my Mom wanted to pay off all her and my Grandfather’s debt and save the rest for their retirement with the money from the sale, it was a good plan we thought. So we started to put on a new roof, new flooring, new countertops, all new paint, pretty much the works so the house would be nice and up to date to sell. Then the worst thing possible happened, the builders working on our home ran off with the job half done, but before the did, they managed to steal about 18,000.00 dollars from my family, which not only broke our hearts, but stopped out plans to move in it’s tracks.

The man not only ran off but sold his company first to an unsuspecting older gentleman, so when we called to see what was to be done about the house and the theft he was a wreck. So many people were left in the lurch and now he was financially responsible for the mess since when you buy a company, you buy it’s liabilities as well. Some of my friends think were stupid, but I just couldn’t hold that poor man responsible. He had been taken to the cleaners as much as we had. True maybe he should have done more homework on what he was buying, but I couldn’t poor more salt on his wounds so we let it go, filed a police report for the missing man that actually took the money and of course, nothing ever came of it.

So all plans to move now at a halt Randy and I had to quickly think how to get money to at least finish our roof, another 7000.00 to hire a new company to fix the old roof and also fix the damage done while the roof was half leaking and damaged from the old workers.

It was that bad, they left everything in a partially done state. Most of the new doors hadn’t even been hung so rooms were open, the roof was leaking, the baseboards left off, tiling half finished, they left all their tools and crap in our garage. It was a nightmare. We managed to get the new roof on and that was it, our money was all gone, we had no money to put down on a new house and my Mother and Grandfather being retired at the ages of 65 and 89 of course had no large amount of money set aside to help us either, not that we would have asked.

In the meantime Randy and I fixed things here and there and it was better, totally livable after a while, livable as in I didn’t want to rip some runaway builders head off every time I rounded a corner in my house.

So we lived in a half fixed house for 2 years. Lesson learned people, don’t trust ANYONE, even if you have a contract, like we did, and even if the company had insurance, like they did, we were still taken advantage of because we paid money before the job was done. DON’T EVER PAY BEFORE THE JOB IS DONE. Just some advice from me to you. ;)

Let’s fast forward to 2010, Randy and I still don’t have the savings we want for a house downpayment and the situation surrounding our home is starting to become very bleak. The neighborhood from the proximity to the casino is deteriorating fast. Twice the neighborhood has been graffitied. My neighbors, RV’s, cars and homes were all tagged, of course with very bad language you would never want to have your kids see let alone have to explain. Luckily ours wasn’t, maybe they felt sorry for the state of our house lol. ;)

Then the bums showed up. Now I’m a fairly compassionate person, I understand sometimes life kicks you in the ass, trust me I get it, but when we find a homeless man sleeping in your neighbors yard and your neighbor is the freaking chief of police, Randy and I new we had to get the hell out of there.

We started looking around and keeping our options open, and then the most unimaginable thing happened. My Mother passed away suddenly in November of 2010 and again our world crashed and came to a halt. She had been ill and had  needed surgery, everything was fine and the surgery went well, but her surgical scar had trouble healing, so we hired a few nurses come out twice a week to check and clean the area making sure it was healing properly. It was, she was on the mend and becoming mobile again, she was actually baking and learning to cook which we all thought was so funny because my Mom was not one to cook while we grew up, she would make us Micky Mouse shaped pancakes and thats about it, the cooking always went to my Grandmother who homemade everything from fried chicken to the pickles we put on our burgers. I guess in retirement my Mom tried it again and found she actually enjoyed making cakes, cookies and breads, and my kids loved helping her.

She was healing tremendously and then one morning she didn’t wake up as early as usual, it was probably about 10 in the morning but I wasn’t worried because it was Saturday and sometimes she would sleep in. My older brother Mike happened to be staying with us and he had checked on her and knew something was wrong. He ran upstairs into my room and and grabbed me, he was so upset and talking so loud I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I didn’t need to, I knew instantly by his face and demeanor it was Mom.

I ran into her room and called the ambulance while I tried to wake her. They instructed me on giving CPR so I shouted instructions while my brother tried to revive her, but we both new it was too late. When the ambulance arrived it was obvious she had passed away in the night. Now we know she had a heart attack but at the time we all were just so numb from astonishment. Even her home health care nurses were completely taken aback because of how much better she was doing. One of her nurses burst into tears on the phone and I tried to comfort her and thank her for the care she gave my Mom, but she was so upset. When she calmed down she asked how my kids were taking it and how I was doing, these ladies were really great and I still am surprised to this day how much care and patience they have, I could never do their job. My Mom will definitely be missed, I miss her horribly, we all miss her, it’s just not the same with her not being here to tease us or to gripe at me and my sister for bickering or scold my brother to have more patience.

Like with anything we got through it somehow spring and summer came. My kids, especially my older 12 year old twins played with their friend’s in the neighborhood more and more and I let them walk 2-3 houses down to visit since they now had cell phones. That all stopped abruptly one day over the summer when a man driving semi truck called out to my girls and their friends and told them to come over and talk to him. Truckers would park in Taco Bell / KFC’s parking lot to grab some food and then get back on the road, we saw it all the time everyday so nothing new there.

My twins and another girl from the neighborhood were visting a friend 2 houses down from my house. It was the girls grandparent’s house as she was visting. I actually grew up with the girls mother, I have known these people for years and had stayed the night in that house myself as a child. All the girls were outside in the backyard playing when the man walked up the the girl’s and started talking to them through the fence asking them to come over and talk to him, and would they like to come and play.

All four girls imediatly ran into the house and told the Grandma. She called the police and her husband went outside and chased the man off. The man went back to his truck, grabbed a reflector and came back over to the Grandpa and used it to punch him repeatedly. The cops came and arrested the man, I was called and my kids were hysterical and had to give statements. It was the absolute last straw.

Not prepared to buy a house, but being in a hurry to move Randy and I set out a search to rent a house for a year while we made more permanent plans. We looked all over, mostly in the town where the university that he works for is located. Eventually my Mother-in-law told us of a a house two doors down from her that had been on the market because the owners were elderly and they moved closer to town for health reason’s. The house was older, which we loved. I can’t stand new construction, all those houses look the same and they are just blah, we like older homes with character. We were immediately excited to hear of the house but weary, we wern’t ready to buy, especially on the spot like that, but my mother-in-law being the brave person she is, pulled some Sherlock Holmes style investigation and found the number to the owner’s son and asked if he would consider renting for a year or so while we considered to purchase and boom, we had an appointment to view the house the next day.

The house itself is in the country, very rural. Nothing but other settled homeowners and cows and horses. Very different from what I’m used to. I’m used to being in the middle of the city and hearing sirens and noise all night, not cows mooing in the distance. ;) The house is made of old red rock and was built mid 70′s. I sort of shuddered when MIL said she remembered the living room having wood paneling. Er, really, paneling you say? But we agreed to look and so we came. I remember my first thoughts were omg the living room is HUGE, it’s the full width of the house! It has this amazing rock fireplace on the full width of one wall at the bottom and indeed, it did have wood walls.

Before you run screaming, the walls are really gorgeous and I actually like it, its that really nice tongue and groove solid wood, not the fake “woodish” paneling you always see. You should have heard the sigh of relief I gave. Even though the wood is amazing and rustic it would look soooo nice painted or even pickled, my Husband vetoed it pretty quickly but I’ll work on him, I’ll have it pickled or painted in no time if we decide to purchase this house. ;)

The house overall had been nicely updated in the last 3 years while on the market, new carpet and tile flooring, new ceilings to get rid of that popcorn stuff, a new roof and new paint throughout. Really the only thing needing to be ripped out it the countertops which aren’t even horrible, just not our tastes. We were definitely impressed and we were ready to make the big move instantly, all 5 miles of it, into the open wide country.

So we went home and mulled it over for a week and a half and on the 6th of august we signed a contract to rent for one year while we think on whether to buy the house or not. It’s been about a month and a week now and so far I love it. The yard is massive, font and back so it’s quite a bit of mowing but it’s so peaceful out here. Every night we take walks with the kids and it’s nice the kids have their Grandparent’s just two houses down.

My Grandpa loves it. He can sit in the back yard or front and he doesn’t have to hear the Taco Bell intercom or deal with major roads being right there and making noise. He can see and hear the birds and work in the yard and then come in for his afternoon nap. All in all I think we made the right decision even though it’s scary to be renting at our age with a large family. We feel Renting here is better than staying where our children aren’t safe and living where we weren’t happy anymore. I had to get over the fact that the house now is not the home of my youth, it’s been taken over by the town and while I’m sad to move, I still will always have my memories of a better time in my childhood home.

Randy and I are seriously thinking we want to stay here in the new house. We always said when we buy a home we want it to be the home we stay in and grow old in because we are done having children, we don’t need to grow into any bigger homes later one. I can see us living our lives here and being happy for many many years to come.

With some research I discover my friends that “that” stitch is called the stockinette stitch and its beautiful. I love it, so I try it, and when I do, it’s not so beautiful. In fact it’s looks like the equivalent of some old mans toenail that hasn’t been cut in years. It’s curling all up on all sides, and is looking all deformed. Why is it doing that? Surely I’m doing something wrong, I mean I don’t see others walking around with curling scarves! Or not in this style anyway.

So epiphany! I decide to give it a border because that will stop the curling right! Ok, to be honest it wasn’t my epiphany, that’s what the wizard who lives in my computer (Mr. Google) told me to do after I told him that the curling just wasn’t doing it for me. So borders, I mean it looks ok, if I’m doing a pot holder, which I’m not, I don’t want my husband wearing a pot holder and I know I have seen scarves made out of the stockinette stitch with no pot holderish borders, hell I own some.

So I go and grab one of my scarves and I realize its doubled, as in a tube that lays flat. WHAT THE HELL?! My mind can not even begin to comprehend how this it done. I’m thinking circular needles and you knit into the ending stitch somehow, but damn, I just got stripes down! I have to say I’m starting to feel a bit discouraged with my scarf skills, and little more than daunted at trying to knit a tube. I think I might try knitting my kids some simple scarves and maybe some dish rags and such for practice and come back to my Husband’s fancy knitted tube when I’m more confident!

Here are some pics of my first effort, which was frogged in favor of the one further down…

OMG and look stripes! Errr…ignore those funny bumps where I joined the color please, I obviously have more practice to do on joining colors. And the weird row of twisted stitches in the stockinette, it was only my second time doing this stitch so sue me!

So, I’m all about hobbies, I really am. I see something I am interested in and I either go try it, or I read and research it to death to make sure I would like to. My interest finally came around to knitting one day when my Sister came over to my house and was asking me to give her one of my Grandma’s handmade prize winning quilts. She wanted it for her daughter and my instant response was a big “HELL NO! I’m not giving Grandma’s painstakingly put together quilts to a 10 year old!”. Seriously, maybe when she graduates high school and is old enough to appreciate it.

Since my answer was a echoing no, which she agreed on, this got us talking about all the afghan’s my Grandma used to make, and she asked if she could at least have one of those and I had to tell her they were all destroyed when our house was leveled by a tornado. Yes a tornado, I’m not kidding here. This in turn made my Sister give me a horribly sad face and my big mouth decided to say, “Don’t worry I’ll make you guys one!”. How hard can it be right? I mean I leaned to saw and blow torch silver for God’s sake, surely I can knit a blanket!

So with this comes the idea for my first project. I figure, with my amazing ability for logic, that it should be something fairly simple. Something straight and maybe stripped so I can get the hang of alternating colors. So off to the craft store I went for yarn and other various items to learn to knit my first scarf. Yes, I decided on a scarf, a probably much overdone Slytherin house scarf for my Husband.

So I do the research, I buy the materials and I come home and begin, and I find that knitting is fun! That’s right I said it, knitting is fun, but did you know that knitting can hurt? If your reading this blog your probably a knitter and already know this but, KNITTING FRICKIN’ HURTS! I mean it’s knitting, little old ladies do this! And did you know that it’s impossible to get the other needle through the loop to make a stitch? Yes it’s impossible. It’s too tight, and again, pushing the needles up and down to go through the loops, wait for it, HURTS! The tips of my fingers have holes in them from pressing the needles down.

So after a few hours, more than a few curse words, and ALOT of laughing from my Husband, I begin to Google what I’m obviously doing wrong because I’m pretty sure knitting is a non-violent sport and shouldn’t cause my fingers to bleed. I read a few articles, watched a few YouTube videos and figured that my problem is tension. Apparently the trick is to stay loose but use just the right amount of tension so your yarn doesn’t fall off the needles. Oh yeah? Is that the trick? Well your trick sucks cause it’s impossible! Ok ok, I admit it, it’s not impossible, and after about 3 days I finally figured out a nice rhythm where I wasn’t poking holes my fingers or having the yarn fall off the needles. Granted I’m not flying on 90 stitches per minute or anything, but I’m hanging in there.

This next part is where I get to use all the knitting lingo I learned, and I definitely earned the right to use these words. Words like “Frogging“. Oh yes, I frogged, I frogged like 14 times before I finally made some headway, and ok I may have only got a few rows done before I screwed up beyond repair, but hey, I can hold the result in my hand since its more that 2 rows. The next word I now like to use is Tinking. Did you know you don’t have to frog? Virtually destroying all your hard work, but you can tink! Of course you fancy talented knitters did, but I didn’t. Did I say I love YouTube videos for showing me how to tink? (that kinda sounded dirty.) Tinking is now my new best friend, no more ripping up my hard work, I can just slowly undo it instead, which granted still sucks but hell, its not a total do over! So here is my first “real” attempt, it failed (I horked up a row and couldn’t get back on track), but I was so I was proud I took a pic! And, yes, I am completely aware this is the world’s ugliest scarf and not suited to the garter stitch, off to research more on stockinette stitches.