More Finished Projects!

Hi All!

Here's another Poncho, done in the Lion Brand Boucle "Wild Berries". Isn't it a great color!! I love it!!

Here's Sally's sweater finished. Its a summer Tee style, done in Red Heart Speckled Aran 4 ply. It came out really nice.

I've been fooling around with left over yarn, making 12" square blocks that are copies of quilt patterns. here's a diamond pattern.

And this one's my favorite, a pineapple, done in the Trinity stitch. Does it look like a pineapple to you??? Let me know what you think!!

Parker's afghan is still coming along, I've got about 20" left to go on it, and boy, is it beautiful!!

I'm also working on a scarf to Cousin Tina, and a sweater jacket for ME!! I'll keep ya'll posted!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

New Project

Hello again!

I wanted to share my latest new project with you. Work on Parker's afghan and Sally's sweater is progressing slowly but surely. And in the meantime, I found some Lion Brand Boucle yarn on a clearance sale, and you know how that goes!!

So, I found a cute little pattern for these ponchos. They're straight garter stitch, so they're what I call "mindless" knitting, I just sit here and watch TV or read forum posts online, and knit. Isn't it adorable!!! The color of the yarn is called "Jelly Bean" and the Fun Fur trim is red. I just got a 9 more skeins of the boucle in other colors, and they are really pretty. And a dozen more skeins of the Fun Fur, too. I love shopping on Ebay!! I just started a poncho in the "Wild Berries" color, and I've got purple fur to trim it in. I'll post a pic when its done.

The pic I've posted above makes the poncho look larger than it actually is, I guess hanging on an adult size hanger doesn't help much either!!

My surprise package came from cousin Tina!! And boy, was it a surprise!!! A big box of yarn. Bless her heart. It was like Christmas!! And TastyKakes!!! Butterscotch crimpets!!! My favorite!!!! Thank you so much, Cuz!!!

Now she's going to send me books from the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series. I read the first one when I was home in VA at Christmas, and I told Tina I was looking to buy them, so she's sending them to me. You can't ask for a better cousin than that!!! Its always so nice when someone makes you feel so special!!

OK, enough for today. I'll post more the next time, and who knows when that will be!!! LOL

Thanks for visiting, Char

I'm a bad blogger!!!

OK, I guess this just isn't my forte!! LOL!!

But, I've been busy!! Honest!! My wonderful cousin Tina and I spent a lot of time working on our common PIERCE ancestors, she sent me a bunch of stuff, including TASTYKAKES!!!! They don't sell them around here, the nearest place is somewhere in GA so being the wonderful cousin that she is, she sent me some!!! Bless her heart. She does a blog on our Pierce family, very interesting!! Check it out!! She also posts great pictures and recipes and talks about the great books she's reading. She's a much better blogger than I!!!

http://www.pierceresearch.blogspot.com/

I'll be knitting her a cool scarf for this winter!!! I've got it all planned and I can't wait to start it. I won't be posting pictures til its finished though, cause its a surprise!!

I also met a terrific new cousin from California, and we did some concentrated genealogy research that turned up a little more information for us. My GGGGrandfather and her GGGGrandmother were siblings. Pretty Cool, huh?? Her name is Barbara, she knits, and makes some awesome jelly!!! Thanks Barbara!!!

Since I was last here, I got Parker's afghan about 3/4 finished and discovered I made a major booboo about halfway back. Oh well, I wasn't too happy with it anyway, so, I frogged the whole thing and started over!! Yes, I did!!!

Here's a picture of the new one, its about 26" now, and looking good. Let me know what you think.

I found a new online shopping site, lots of neat stuff to buy, and I'm thinking of opening a store there myself, check it out!! Its called Silk Fair Of Course, I've got to get all this family knitting done first!!

Here's the sweater I'm working on for Sally, I've got the front finished, but, had to go get more yarn.

I had to get more yarn to finish the pillow covers too, one's finished and one's 2/3 done, I'll finish it up tonight.

I'm also whipping up a couple of kid's ponchos. I had some boucle yarn I got from a clearance sale, and found a neat pattern at LionBrand.com so, what the heck, they're done all in garter stitch and great for mindless knitting. I think I'm going to sell them when I get them finished. I'll post pictures when they're done.

Well, that's all I've got to report for now, more next time, and I'll try to make it sooner!!

Take Care,

Char

Sorry it took so long

Hi All! Sorry it's taken me so long to get a new post up here. I guess you're supposed to do this more than once a month!! LOL I've been a little busy since I last posted, my nephew Parker sent the yarn, and it is beautiful!! Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds in Deep Red. I started the basketweave afghan they had originally chosen, but, there were problems with the pattern, (typos and such). So, I emailed Parker and suggested he send me more yarn and let me design a nice Aran Cable afghan for them. I've got about a foot done so far, and it is gorgeous!! I'm using a double strand of yarn to give it a really thick, rich texture. Can you see the detail of the center cable? Its the Ring of Fire cable stitch pattern from Lionbrand.com and it is really knitting up well. I love it! My sister sent the yarn for me to do her pillow covers to match her afghan. I've got one done. I took picture of the process so I could show you what I was talking about in my last post. And the finished project.

Isn't that a beautiful color! Its called Painted Desert from Red Heart.

Let me hear what you think!!!

So, Now I have a blog

I'm still not too sure exactly what a blog is, lol, but here goes.... My name is Char, I live in Alabama and I love knitting, and genealogy. My mother tried to teach me and my sisters to knit and crochet when we were very young. Being left handed, I presented quite a problem, but once I figured out for myself what the yarn was supposed to be doing, I got the hang of knitting, but, crochet was out of the question! I have tried to teach myself to crochet, but, I can never figure out where the row stops. lol! Everything I made had very wavy edges!! lol So, I stick to my knitting!! My sisters and I still laugh (and curse!) about how we'd take our little practice swatches to Mom, and she'd find mistakes and make us rip out all our hard work to fix it. Now, when we find a boo-boo several rows down, we try to tell ourselves that "Nobody will notice that", ah, but Mom's voice rings in our ears. We cannot ignore it, so we rip, laughing and cursing. Above is the Irish Fisherman Afghan, and pillow covers I made for my son. Its from a Columbia-Minerva leaflet #2625 called Heirloom Afghans copyright 1976. I made a few modifications though. I hate those "Popcorn Ball" stitches, and the second pattern was a row of them. (Please, no offense to those that like them, but, I think they're silly looking.) Anyway, I replaced them with the Baby Cross-cable Stitch from "The Complete Book of Knitting" by Barbara Abbey. It looks pretty good, doesn't it!! I made the pillow covers from another stitch pattern in Barbara Abbey's book, its called Cross-stitch block. Sunday, I found this pattern for Twining Trees http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/afghans/twiningtrees.htm and I thought it was beautiful, I couldn't wait to try it. It was my very first time reading a chart! I thought my old eyes would fall out!! But, I muddled through it. The practice piece I made turned out so well, I made a pillow cover out of it!!! Neat, huh? I make pillow covers that can be slipped off and laundered, rather than sewn together, I do a couple of inches of K1, P1 ribbing, then about 8 inches of stockinette st, then a couple of rows of reverse stocknette stitch (this gives a nice fold edge) then I go into the pattern for the pillow front. When the pillow front pattern is done, I reverse the process, then sew the side seams with the back overlapped. See pictures below. I spent the Holidays in VA with my sister, and while I was there my niece and her husband asked me to knit them an afghan. So, they picked out a pattern, and bought the yarn and will be mailing it to me any time now. I'll keep you posted on how its going.

Well, for someone who's never blogged before I sure can go on and on. Let me know what you think!!