Kathy's Project

This was just too gorgeous not to blog about! This little knitted sweater is not mine, but Kathy's (a.k.a. Spinlady on Ravelry).

The pattern is called "Tulips" by Lindsay Pekny, a 'colorful cardigan for baby', and can be viewed on www.dreamincoloryarn.com ... wow! What a lot of nice patterns there!!!!

Left front:Back:

Chez Marie: Thursday Nights

This is where I am Thursday nights. With my knitting buddies. Pure bliss and complete ROI.


From left to right we have: Jane, Mary Beth, Linda, Patty, Kathy (hidden), Maggie our mentor in center, then Janet, Mary Ann, Linda (another Linda), Denise, and Marie's hands...

Of course Patsy (not shown) is busy making wonderful delights for us to drink and eat.

Pink Plastic Bag Tote

Ahhh... pink. The new black.

What woman can resist pink? (One who does not like pink, but those women are truly rare and wonderful, if not a little color blind!)

Here is my PINK plastic bag tote! The pink plastic bags are from National Wholesale Liquidators. And the brown bags on the base are from Publix in Miami, and the brown bags which are almost the exact same color, attaching the store bought handles, are from Krogers in Garland, TX.


Easter Saturday. The start... I was able to go to NWL and buy pillows and Easter Lilies and get lots of bags!!!!

The handles from AC Moore Paramus:

And the piece complete:

I just LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!

See my first one:

http://gottoknit.blogspot.com/2008/02/plastic-bag-tote-completed.html

My new work digs

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge some of the stress in the past few weeks has been because of relocating from Manhattan to NJ in my job. Yes, the views were pretty spectacular in NYC, but the commute is so much better in NJ!!!

Here is my new desk:


And here is the view when I leave the building:


Nice, huh?

Elizabeth's Baby Blanket

Here is the blanket I made for baby Elizabeth, Clarena and Greg's little girl. She is now 15 months old, and in this country since April 2008. I'm so happy for them!

See www.gregyclarena.blogspot.com

to see how adorable the new family is!

scroll to April 21 to see the blanket in Eli's crib:

http://gregyclarena.blogspot.com/2008/04/.html

And here is the afghan finished on a Sunday at Robert's cafe in Bayonne, with my knitting buddy, Marie. Amazing how the colors match her sneakers perfectly!

I'm back!

Wow -- I've been away so long. Where to start. First, my keyboard died on me. I thought it was my mac. Or was that what happened first. My whole world changed and went upside down on March 12, when my ex-husband was attacked. You take someone for granted, and God shows you just how much you need them. We were so lucky. I pray that the gang of kids find real meaning in their lives, and that the attacks on innocent bystanders stop happening.

Easter Lilies. A sign of hope. And renewal. And most importantly, rebirth.

Red Grey White Baby Blanket

Toni at church announced in February that she was a new grandmother. She is much too young looking and in shape to be a grandmother (but then so is Arlene)! I told her I could make her a baby blanket for her granddaughter, and brought in the pink white grey one to show her, and some other colors. She loved the pink, but said the accessories were in red. So I recreated the blanket substituting Lion Brand's Covered Bridge Red for the Boston Rose. I love it!

I gave her the blanket today, March 2, 2008.

It has only one small deviation in symmetry...
(but only a mathematical mind overly considered with order will likely catch it)

. . .

For directions, see Pink White Grey blanket, one post below

Pink Grey White Baby Blanket

This blanket was started November 11, 2007, at a art meeting. I needed something to do with my hands. It was finished in time for the GCVV Crafts Fair in December, but it was not until February 18? 2008, that it found its rightful home with Nikos's little daughter, Anais...

Here's the recipe:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This was made with a combination of the following: Lion Brand’s Homespun Hepplewhite / Metropolis / Black / Boston Rose

With size K hook, chain 85 + 2 more to turn. Double crochet for ~ 66 rows or to desired length

6 white
2 grey
4 pink
4 black
4 pink
2 grey
6 white
10 grey -- 5 is halfway
6 white
2 grey
4 pink
4 black
4 pink
2 grey
6 white

That's it!!! 66 rows

Now where in the world did I come up with the idea of pink, white and black together?

Yellow Green Red Baby Blanket

OK, this one was also created for the GCVV Crafts Fair in December 2007. I have a surplus of Lion Brand's Homespun in Sunshine State, that La Beth bought for me years ago at an incredible price of $2 or $3 a skein. Of which I haven't been able to use up.


I thought the colors of Africa would go well together. These are Sunshine State, Florida Keys Green, Coral Gables, with a touch of Olive for accent:

. . . . .

Yellow Blue Baby Blanket

And the last post of the night: the Lion Brand Homespun Sunshine State and Williamsburg baby blanket.

I was attempting to finish this one for the GCVV Crafts Fair in December 2007, but I only got halfway. I ended up finishing it in January 2008:

Maroon and Pink Baby Blanket for Kaylee!

This blanket was created in maroon and pink especially for Paula's little girl, Kaylee. Kaylee just turned one the other week (Feb 23), and I was able to start and finish it and mail it just before Christmas 2007.


The challenge for me was using maroon (Lion Brand's Antique, Boston Rose, Cotton Candy and of course Hepplewhite), together. It actually turned out pretty nice, and here it is photographed in an office at work!

Plastic Bag tote - completed!!!

Saturday, Feb 9, 2008

I went to join Marybeth and Gail at the Prayer Shawl Knitting ministry, and completed my very first plastic bag bag!!!


It originally was going to be taller and with handles in the same material, but I bought some gorgeous plastic handles at Knit-a-Bit's Superbowl Weekend sale, and wanted to use them on a shorter height, instead.

I'm so pleased with it. I had to crazy-glue the screws of the handles into place, and I'd like to try some future bags with completely recycled material, but this is nice:

Here is the recipe:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Plastic Bag Tote

This is my very first tote bag made with plastic bags as the yarn. I used four bags of Krogers, imported from Garland, Texas, and I don’t know how many Pathmark bags from Jersey City and the Bronx.

---

With four Krogers’ bags (a nice brown), chain at least 25 stitches. Then single crochet (sc) around both sides. When you get to about the third row, single crochet 3 scs in each of the “corners”. You’ll need to eyeball this as it is not an exact science. I ran out of brown after using four Krogers’ bags. Then I switched to the Pathmark bags, stopped increasing in the corners, and worked “up”. When it get high enough to cover my Bible plus an inch, I stopped. Then I made the handle connectors, which are three rows of 14 scs, with a tail to sew them onto the bags and handles.

Note: I thought the handle “connecters” would make an attractive design element, but upon sewing plastic bag thread to plastic bag crochet, it kind of melted visually into each other like modeling clay. Next time I’ll try a contrasting color.

See also the start and how to and what else you can do with plastic bags...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12 Step Program / My Yarn Overfloweth

Oh my God, do I have yarn...

I probably now have MORE yarn than I could possibly use in two lifetimes...

And bags.

On my way to knitting tonight, I stopped at Deals, a $1 plus store in Bayonne, to pick up crazy glue, to secure the screws on the handles of my plastic bag bag. And sure enough, they had some yarn. I had spotted some in there last December '07, when I went in to buy Christmas gift bags. Being that it was a dollar (plus) store, I was taken completely by surprise to see they had YARN. And being that it was still 2007, I had to gasp and really control myself, since I had resolved not to buy yarn that year. It's one thing to go to AC Moore, knowing that there is yarn and mentally preparing oneself before entering. But to come upon it unexpectedly, at the price of only $1.00, was extremely difficult to deal with, so close to the end of the year's resolution.

Flash back to the present. This time they had Lionbrand Ribbon yarn, and Lionbrand Boucle. The boucle was bright orange and bright green, but the ribbon had two different multi-colors. I bought three skeins of one mixture for myself, and four skeins of another color that included orange, for my colleague Carin, at work. (See, I only got three for myself, and four for her.) So I get to Thursday night knitting, and I'm showing off my new purchases, when Linda B. told me she had bought in bags of yarn that her daughter was throwing out, and did I want any? Of course I did. I picked out a few skeins, trying really hard to control myself. Twenty minutes later she tells me that the rest will be thrown out, which killed me, so of course I took the remaining lot, which filled half a garbage bag! For Carin, of course! Not just for myself.


My yarn overfloweth...

And the bags! Not to get Linda in trouble, but she brought in 32 bags of a certain color, from a certain company, that are both grey and PINK! Add that to the sample one she brought me last week, and boy will I have a really cool plastic bag bag!!! She saved 32 for herself, and next Wednesday I hope to work with her and get us both started on new plastic bag bags. And someone else brought me in a SLEW of Stop and Shop bags.

And two Sundays ago, I stopped at my friend Beth's house in the Heights, to pick up the bags she had been saving. I accidentally called the landline on my way home from church, and when I asked her husband Michael if I could stop by for the bags, he cautiously said, "I don't know. You'll have to check with Beth. She's very particular about her bags." Way to go, Beth! So I called her mobile and she said, "Yes, please pick them up." And they filled my trunk.

Then this past Sunday, Andrea at church gave me a whole garbage bag full of bags that were sitting between her refrigerator and her cabinet. She was overjoyed to find a useful way to get rid of them. I was overjoyed to take them. But let me tell you, this garbage bag was chock full of bags. Solid. Unlike Beth's two bags, this one didn't move it was so FULL of bags.

I need to take a day or two off from work just to sort the colors and get it all straightened out.

Thankfully, my son is just 17, and knows not how deeply overboard his mother is into the knitting and crocheting ... or does he?

Which brings me to Carin's advice from 2006 that I need a six step program, based on AA's twelve step program, defined below:

Wikipedia defines the twelve-step program as follows:

A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles for recovery from addictive, compulsive, or other behavioral problems, originally developed by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for recovery from alcoholism.^[1] The Twelve Steps were initially published in the first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous ("The Big Book") in 1939; since then more than 25 million copies have been printed in many languages.^[2] This method has been adapted as the foundation of other twelve-step programs such as Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous and Emotions Anonymous and Knitting. As summarized by the American Psychological Association, working the Twelve Steps involves the following.^[1]

• admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion; Yes
  
• recognizing a greater power that can give strength; of course
  
• examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member / experienced knitter);
• making amends for these errors; ripping
• learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior; translated: buying new yarn or trying new patterns
  
• helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions yarn groups or conventions, (i.e., Stitches, Knit-Out & Crochet, etc.)
  

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
I think I can copy this text if I add the following:

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

Now, knitters and crocheters, does this fit us to a T
or what!?!?!?

All kidding aside, my heart and prayers go out to those killed today, and the families/friends/fellow students at Northern Illinois University:
Feb 14, 2008

Knit-a-Bit: Superbowl Weekend Sale!

Saturday, Feb 2, 2008

I'd never been to Knit-a-Bit before, and understandably when I walked into their showroom in Westfield, NJ, I was just a wee bit overwhelmed with the assortment of yarn, needles, buttons, kits, etc. (flowing into three rooms), and books in a fourth room. We were on a knitting field trip with Maggie, hitting the big two day sale.

I came only to buy needles...

But then I saw the bag. And after having shown off my incomplete plastic-bag bag to Pam and Pam, I decided I had to have a Knit-a-Bit bag. To show off my yarn, of course! But which size?

Decisions, decisions. Pam suggested I get BOTH! After all, they were on sale, as was almost everything in the store.

And it just went on from there. I was too pulled in by all that gorgeous yarn on sale (prices ranging from 20 - 50% off marked price) that I went a little Superbowl crazy. Mary Ann did her level best to be my financial conscience, but it was to no avail. And I wound up coming home with the following yummy yarns and colors:

Lang Mille Colori #88 and 06

. . .

Rowan Cocoon #805, 803 and 804

. . .

Boise #67 Wedgewood Blue and #64 Rose

(the colors on these two are way off ... oh well)

And I did get the set of Addi Turbo needles I came in for, and a book, "Knitting from the Top Down for Toddlers", a button, and cool handles for my plastic bag. But I beat Maggie and Marybeth's totals.

Didn't I realize I needed to pay my oil company!?!?!?


Ah, but look at how nice it looks in my two new bags, with newly purchased wool in the smaller package, and baby Michael's completed Homespun afghan in the larger package!

Who says only sports enthusiasts can have fun on Superbowl Weekend!

Julio's Blanket

Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008

I finished the blanket for Julio's son, Michael. The room is blue with white trim, and I used Homespun Sky Blue and Hepplewhite. 10 rows of each, seven rows total...