A Little of This, A Little of That

Now that my yarn stash is up on Ravelry, I've had the opportunity to sell some of it at 30% off. And two knitting friends kindly took some Fleece Artist and Handmaiden, and not only did I get to have nice visits with them, I also didn't have to deal with shipping. I still need to go through my stash and move more of it to the Sale/Trade page, however I've made a note on my stash page that if someone sees something that they'd like to buy, and I don't have a particular project written down, they can ask me if I'm willing to part with it. That's how I sold some yarn recently.

I finished the baby blanket and then started the baby crib sized blanket. I'm using four different colours in stripes for it, but as it is pretty boring, I only work on it when my brain needs a rest. Same goes with the leggings that I'm making to go with a baby sweater.

I do have until the middle of August to finish these projects and the new granddaughter won't need to sweater and leggings until the Fall anyway. There are so many baby items that I want to make for this first granddaughter, and several that my daughter-in-law wants me to make, but I'm planning on making them to fit the baby for Winter.

I have three shawls to finish and last night I just sat and knitted on my second Calais shawl. It is an easy pattern for me to work on, plus the yarn is pink and blue and made by Yarn Candy, Sweet Fiber and it is so nice to work with.

My mother-in-law was in hospital for a week and now has a pacemaker. Hopefully this will help her ailing heart to keep working for quite awhile. At 92, she is still knitting and finished a baby blanket for this new great-granddaughter plus a toy.

My days have been very busy with visiting her in hospital, taking Millie out for walks or even driving her to her doggy day care and then facing the horrible traffic to pick her up. But she loves it there, has lots of dog friends that she plays with and is very tired at the end of her six hours there.

The weather finally cleared up today, and she and I went to a dog park and walked around it three times and she is tired now. She'd also had a good long walk this morning with my husband. He is quite good about walking her on the weekends, and as the weather improves, we'll probably do what we did last summer, which is to walk her after dinner. That way she gets a lot of exercise, we get exercise, and if I could figure out a way to knit and walk her, I'd do it.

She is a tad overweight, but my vet wasn't concerned about it as he was giving her treats. I do take her swimming during the summer, and even though she is a retriever, she'll only retrieve a ball in the house or in the water.

Our knitting guild is going to meet in Cloverdale on June 13th for WWKIP day. I plan to go to 88 Stitches on the 12th, as I've been going there for the past two years and it is a lot of fun to sit and knit and chat.

I made a lace bag and designed it myself. I used the cast on that we were taught at one guild meeting, and then did the gull lace pattern around the bag. I'd used some stash yarn and I amazed myself at how cute it turned out. I'd love to be able to design my own lace shawl, but at this point, it is easier to use patterns that others have designed and that are written well.

I still spend far too much time wandering around Ravelry. Finding new patterns that I just have to have, and then printing them out and of course my next major project will be to weed through all my notebooks of patterns and possibly do an inventory of what I have. That is a major job for me, but I tend to see a pattern, save it to my computer and then print it out. Many times I've printed out the same pattern several times.

Hopefully this nice weather will last more than just one day. I have a lot of gardening to do, but as I'm going pretty fast on the Calais shawl, I do want to finish it so I can actually wear it this Summer.

With Father's Day, my husband's birthday, our youngest heading back East for more schooling at the end of June, it would be nice to have a new Summer shawlette to wear.