Knitamazoo(tm)

So, we woke up Thursday morning to around 3 inches of snow and darling hubby got up and snow blowed the driveway. I did my part by getting up a little earlier and getting my shower out of the way so he would be able to get cleaned up when he was done and head off to work.

After my shower I went down to the basement to feed the cats. I opened the door to the laundry room, turned on the light and thought to myself . . . “Hmmm . . . I don’t remember getting an indoor swimming pool.” There was at least 2 inches of water on the floor. I’m not sure if the drain on the floor clogged or if the city sewer backed up but the kitties had to swim to get to their food. I called for the hubster and he managed to get the water to drain. Now we have a fan going to dry out the rugs on the floor and we had to put down a bridge of towels so that the cats could get to their food and litter box. What a day!

In knitting news, I’ve been working non-stop on The Mystery Sweater. I haven’t even done a stitch on a sock. (I’ll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor!) I am just enamored with this sweater. You’re changing yarn so often that you can’t get bored and since you have no idea what the finished sweater will look like it’s fun to watch it take shape. My mom wanted to see pictures of it so here you go.

When I took the picture I didn’t get the stripes all lined up like they should but you get the idea. For awhile I was dealing with over 500 stitches! I’m glad I’m past that point and it’s only taking me 15 minutes to knit a row instead of an hour. That gets real depressing after awhile since you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. But I knitted on and soon I could see progress.

After all the striping is done on the body, the sleeves are done and then it’s time to pick up stitches and put in a button band, collar and edging along the bottom. I think at one point I have to pick up 192 stitches (I may put the needle through my eye before I get them all picked up.)

And here is a closeup of the different yarns that I am using. The dark brown stripe above the fringy looking stuff is Softy. This stuff sure lives up to its name but don’t drop a stitch . . . you might just kill yourself trying to find it.

I’m excited as Beth Brown Reinsel will be teaching at my LYS in March. If I could afford it I would sign up for all 3 workshops she is doing but since I’m not rich, I’ve only signed up for one. I will be taking the Swedish cast-on and techniques class. I can’t wait!

Well it’s been forever a really long time since I posted anything. Things got turned upside down at work and life hasn’t stopped since. All of a sudden they fired a bunch of people and we got really busy so that meant more work with less people to do it which equals STRESS!!! Plus they were rolling out a whole new desktop environment and we were spending most of our time running around fixing problems after people were upgraded. So now that is winding down and things are getting back to normal.

My father-in-law passed away right before Thanksgiving and we made a quick (read: 22 hours each way) trip to Florida for the funeral. He had been battling cancer so in a way this was a blessing.

For Christmas, we loaded up the car and drove to New Jersey to visit my family. At least that’s only a 12 hour drive each way and we stayed several days. My brother and sister-in-law were there as well and we had a really nice time being with family.

In September I took a spinning class at our local art institute and fell in love! Before our class was over I had ordered up a spinning wheel and couldn’t wait for it to arrive. This was my 10th anniversary gift and I just love my Ashford Traveller. I’ll have to upload some pictures of both the wheel and what I have spun.

In knitting news, I’ve completed several pairs of socks and not much else. I knit a tam and a pair of fuzzy feet for my mom for Christmas though. I have also been working on a few sweaters. I have Salt Peanuts on the needles in Malibrigo, a top-down raglan in some wool I picked up at Zeilinger’s, and the Mystery Sweater. I just finished up another pair of fuzzy feet for myself as well.

I continue to teach classes at my LYS. Monday I had a class of total beginners and they are working on a felted bag. They picked it up quickly and I am looking forward to the next class this coming Monday.

Well, I think that about covers what’s been happening. I’m going to try to update a little more often in the future. No. Really. I am.