. . . and seen again

I thought you might like a peek at the Interlocking Ballons scarf that I am working on for the Scarf Style knitalong. I picked this pattern because I love the undulating pattern but it is excruciating slow to knit. Usually, a repeating pattern has a right side and then a "knit or purl back" side but this often changes from side to side. Augh! I still like it but the design is not the easy point I was looking for. It will be a Christmas present - 8 more repeats of 44 lines more!

For relief, I am also working on the Fiber Trends "Sheep Tote" bag - a much easier felted style. I can almost close my eyes to knit this one! I am not putting the needle-felted sheep on the outside but I love all the extra pockets. I've never felted anything with pockets so I am looking forward to this treat.

The thread wrapped into the yarn creates a really interesting, almost aggressive texture that is very pretty when felted. Right now, however, those "jump out bumps" make me think I've dropped a stitch and I keep going back to check. So far - no problems.

Things seen . . .

Well, Saturday just got by me somehow - we had painting, cleaning, trips to the hardware store, dentist's appointments, etc. and I had a late afternoon/evening Movie Night with the Monday Night Book Club. We were celebrating Melissa's and Marti's BIG birthdays. You know that those are the kind of birthdays you can't just put out on the Internet So we went to see Sweet Land - a charming little Minnesota-made movie - and then went out to dinner at Beaujo's Wine Bar and Bistro in Edina. Very good food and really quite reasonable. The wines were great, too.

So, all this fun and frivolity took up the rest of Saturday. So there weren't any Saturday Seven photos. Here's what I had in mind.


I think I mentioned before that as I clean out my house, I've been finding both more and less to give away. I cleaned out my former girl scout supplies and came up with two very nice file boxes. One I am donating to my church library for library cataloging supplies and the other is going to Freecycle. The four books, two sets of mystery series, will go to the book exchange at my YWCA. The Seventh thing I didn't want to bring in from the garage. It's a a Fisher Price bed gate - the hinged gate thing that you use to help toddlers sleep in a big bed. Youngest Child moved from a crib into a toddler bed and never needed the bed gate. My older children never had a "toddler bed" and they always needed the bedgate. One daughter even fell out of bed once and broke her collar bone. Darn those high Victorian iron bedstands! We got rid of those a few years ago but I never got rid of the gate. It's going on Freecycle in the morning.

Knitting wise, I've been working on a felted bag in Noro - today was just boring garter stitch but I'm really enjoying the yarn. It's Noro Kuja - a funky yarn with a color-changing, contrasting thead wrapped around it. My colorway is mostly plum and green. It has a great felted texture because the thread doesn't felt. Kind of a flecked look. I'll take a picture and post soon, promise.

Good Night!

Soctoberfest Revels!

I finished Andy's Striped Socks in just the nick of time, late on Halloween night. Actually, I had to rip the toes out and redo them in black because of a funky little extra row that I put in way back by the heel of the first sock. That put off my striping pattern on the second sock as well. Despite this, they seem to fit well. Andy has very long, narrow feet with narrow heels so I always need to adapt his sock patterns. He is really a ragg sock kind of guy - he doesn't seem to like fancy socks - so almost all of his handknit socks are a variation on a ribbed sock.

Now that I have a little more free time, I worked on my Interlocking Balloons scarf from Scarf Style. I like the pattern but I think that I need to photocopy the page so I can cross out lines of graphing. And it's hand-dyed indigo/turquoise - a lovely color for bleak winter days.

Happy Halloween!

So this is the kind of fun a knitter (and spinner) gets up to! Spooky. Now, back to your regularly scheduled evening of knitting socks. Remember, candy coated chocolate doesn't get on your knitting!

Saturday songs - -

Today's Saturday Seven was easy - I heard a discussion on the radio about the amount of junk people have in their cupboards and drawers and felt inspired to clean. Wednesday, I went through my hall closet, the "party drawer" in my dining room sideboard and my kitchen drawers. I didn't find any money but I did get rid of a lot of junk and pared out some things to give away. The red coat is a favorite but about 10 years old and - to be frank - has a dry-cleaning kind of smell. My mother bought me the blue coat when I graduated from college - that's 20 years ago! It's still quite nice but I am never going to be a size 8 again. The plastic bag is full of holiday candle holders. The pink lightshade came off a lamp from Andy's mother. I haven't used the yoga blocks and belts in my practice for over a year. The party lights and the picture frame - I'm not even sure where they came from. . But everything is quite usable and ready for someone else. Off to St. John's Huge Sale.

I spent a great deal of today traveling to hear my Middle Daughter sing in the ACDA of MN (American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota) 17th annual combined Men's Choir and Women's Choir Festival. She spent all day rehearsing and listening to great choirs and then performing. I got to hear her sing in the Abbey Church of Saint John's University and it was lovely. Great acoustics and plenty of light to knit by! I've turned the heel and started the foot of Andy's second sock. Hopefully, I'll get most of the way to the toe this evening.

Calling all multi-colored ninjas! (Or, dyeing to get to Halloween!)

And just for your viewing pleasure - a little pre-Halloween fun with Youngest Child. He's wearing a fiber batt I put together for my Halloween Fiber Exchange and a "Ninja Hat" that he made today. Now, how can he wear that AND carry his candy bag?

Actually, we spent the day around Ye Olde Dyepot . . .

I decided to take a page from Cast On's Brenda Dayne and try my hand at natural dyeing with avocado pits and skins. Also, I've been buying a lot of avocados lately and it seemed a waste not to give them a whirl. So whirl I did with my little Oscar - first the pits and then the skins.

Each batch went into a separate canning jar, then I covered the material with water and simmered them on the stove. After a very stinky day - the stuff smelled like bad meat! - I strained out the dye materials and then put a small amount of wool in each to dye. Just like Brenda said, the pits had a very nice dye liquor. In fact, the materials seemed perfect. The chopped pits changed from a white, slivered-almond appearance into chopped carrots right before

my eyes. The skins looked like green soup.


Despite my best efforts and a long time in the dye pot, you can see the results were not inspiring. In fact, it looked suspiciously - poopy. Yup, I think I can post that word here. So, I dyed the whole thing purple with Grape Jello and right now, plan to use it with my final Halloween Fiber Exchange yarn. Purple covers a multitude of sins!

Pumpkin Moonshine - just in time for Halloween!

I finally got around to spinning my fibers from the Halloween Themed Fiber Swap I participated in. I laid out all the colors and decided to break them into two colorways. The first utilized orange roving, lime green lamb locks and copper metallic (sent by Velma) as well as a brown wool/alpaca roving I had on hand and some indigo/overdyed green roving. I further subdivided the material into two groups - one utilized the lamb locks and the second the copper metallic - for two different bobbins worth.

Because I simply picked bits and pieces of rovings and and hand fed them into the spinning wheel orifice, my first bobbin was very bumpy and organic looking. I brought out my carding machine and carded the second metallic grouping all together into roving. Thus, the second bobbin was very sleek and shiny - very easy to spin. I plied the two bobbins, steamed the yarn to set the twist and, voila, my own Pumpkin Moonshine! Named after the classic children's book by Tasha Tudor, this skein has shine for moonlight, brown for the stems, light green slubs of lamb locks for leaves, bright orange roving for the pumpkins and the green roving for the vines. I couldn't really come up with a "bug" themed name for this skein (I did consider box elder bugs but the colors weren't quite right!) but the remaining fiber/skein should be very spooky.

This second half of the fiber contains more orange, purple and green as well as some mixed blue-black of my own. I think I'll call it "Monster Mash." I'll post pictures of it when I am finished.

Nice try, dear!

For this Saturday Seven, I moved into the basement and garage attic storage areas. Once again, I had the obligatory two bags of something - this week, it was books - a stock pot I was saving some reason, an extra dog tie-out leash, a large plastic pitcher I bought originally for camping and - a full container of plaster of paris. The last item is a lovely large plastic dough container. A neighbor who knew I like to make bread bought me this but it was too large for my storage cupboards. I ended up keeping it in the basement and "out of sight" did equal "out of mind." I rarely used it. I have no idea why I had a full container of Plaster of Paris! I was astonished to see how much stuff in out in the garage! I think Andy might just be taking things he told me he threw away and putting them out in the garage. I'll just have to keep a better eye on him.



Today was a school release day in Minnesota so I had time to run the whole load over to Saint John the Evangelist. They had their "Huge Sale" on October 14th and now they are collecting again for their spring sale. They are a really dedicated group.

Knitting wise, I am working on the second sock of Soctoberfest. I also spent part of yesterday dyeing roving and yarn with my leftover indigo "liquor." It was so-so. I ended up overdyeing the whole bunch with a light turquoise. That actually looks really nice. The indigo makes a darker undertone. If I was naming this color, I'd call it "Ocean." Once I've spun the fleece, I might make a scarf from "Scarf Style." Once it's dried and spun, I'll post a picture.

Several days later, she was found in a puddle of wool.

No, you didn't miss a post. I just haven't had the time or energy to write anything about knitting. To start the festivities, I was out of town this past weekend at my 20th year college reunion. I had a much better time than I expected - some classmates were just as kind and funny as I remembered (send me that photo, Wendy!), some were just as stuffy as I remembered and some I just didn't remember. Ah well.

I did get a chance to stop by a local yarn store, the Otter Creek Store in Mercer, Pa. I picked up some natural roving and some skeins of a wool/alpaca blend, Berroco Ultra Alpaca, to dye with the indigo "liquor" I mixed up last week. I planned on doing that today but the cold I developed this weekend is slowing me way down. I keep droping stitches and unravelling my ball of yarn. I have been working on Andy's socks for Soctoberfest - the first one finished and the second on the ribbing.



Lovely Youngest Daughter and her Gnome Lounging Pajamas served as sock model. She couldn't actually wear the sock - Andy has abnormally large feet! I had to buy some black yarn for the sock toes because this pair is using one skein per foot.

I did have a chance to collect the Saturday Seven - an old scale, some tablecloths, a small tape player, two bags of teen clothing, a bag of little girls' dress up clothes and some adult clothing. I've been starting to enjoy the feeling of space when I open my hall closet! I'm going to start looking into my downstairs closets next. If I could only get Andy to let me work on the garage attic. . .

Welcome winter! (Just don't tell Annie Modesitt . . .)

This is a weblog about knitting, not the weather, but I just had to point this out. The weather this week in Minnesota veered from lovely warm autumn on Saturday to windy winter today. Last week? My roses were blooming again and the geraniums are full of flowers. This week? I am harvesting all my indigo and getting out the snow shovel.

Right now, it's 28 degrees F. outside. I was just running around pulling down storm windows and making sure all the radiators are warm. This is crazy! I thought I had until November at least to buy a new winter coat!

What's on my needles is helping to make my world a warmer place. I finally pulled out Puggy's lovely Shruggy and buckled down to finish it. I've had a row gauge problem so I had to adjust my increases and decreases to occur more quickly. I am going to try and chart out what I did and send the results off to Puggy. My alpaca blend is very stretchy and warm but also slippery. I plan to take it to my 20th college reunion Saturday. Just a parade and daytime activities - nothing fancy - but it will be chilly!

For Socktoberfest, I am on the foot of Andy's first sock and hope to get to the toe tonight. I organized my needles today and found a neglected felted pumpkin project to get worked on this week. I also have to work some rows on the Brown Aran sweater and that baby sweater. I really should work on some Christmas projects this month as well.



The best thing about this week (besides those Margaritas, Marti!) is that my Halloween themed Fiber Swap package arrived. I sent mine out a while ago and was very impatient. I'm a Bad Waiter. My box came from Velma from California and had every thing from chocolate to green dyed lamb locks and bright orange roving. I'm trying to decide which way to go with the fleece. Perhaps these Halloween M&Ms she sent me will help me decide . . .


Oh and knitting designer and teacher Annie Modesitt - please continue thinking of moving to Minnesota - despite the snow. It's simply a freak accident. Never happened before! Really.

Marti - today is your day to shine!

As I have mentioned before, I was out of town this weekend gallivanting off to Wisconsin with the Monday Night Book Club at its Annual Fall Retreat. Due to an unnatural amount of illness, family stress and dog maintenance (funny, all of those things make me want to leave town!) - we were down to three out of the possible nine. All that meant is that Miss Marti (and Miss Heidi) - TODAY IS YOUR DAY!



Here's picture of lovely Marti across the street from Northwind Book and Fiber and Book in metropolitan Spooner, Wisconsin. Saturday was a lovely day to shop but we really only had time for Yarn/Books and lunch. Inside, the book selection was really nice for such a small shop. I picked up two of the next book club selections ("Tilt" by Elizabeth Burns and "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen" by Julie Powell) as well the fabulous "A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns" by Barbara Walker. I've been checking this out regularly from the public library and it is excellent! It makes me want to knit every pattern stitch - I'm not so keen on the two-color patterns, however. Those are definitely dated.


See the charming Miss Heidi confer with Miss Marti over the floral paintings on display. Heidi is a great watercolorist - but I don't think she knits. Heidi? Any comments on this? Marti, author and engineer, also does not knit. We shall not speak of this.


In the fiber section, I went a bit overboard and bought four skeins of Artful Yarns' "Heavenly" yarn - two skeins each of
"Clouds" and "Trumpets." I am planning to make "Mrs. Beeton" wrist warmers from Brenda Dayne's pattern in Knitty as Christmas gifts. This yarn will be perfect.

After an uneventful relaxing weekend - we napped, watched movies, enjoyed the scenery, drank margaritas and attempted to use the hot -no, wait - "warm" tub, we drove home on Sunday just in time to fit in a short trip to the outlet malls.

My photography skills leave much to be desired. I'm the one in the corner, lurking and holding the camera.

Busy days at Chez Lazy - an oxymoron? I think not!

Well, I was so busy relaxing at the Monday Night Book Club Fall Retreat that I wasn't able to post the Saturday Seven this week. Actually, it was a pretty easy group to get rid of. First, I "offered" a child's potty chair and a large clear plastic tote on Twin Cities Freecycle board. They were quickly snapped up. Who knew that so many people needed a good storage tote? Both were in great condition but just not needed here so off they went. They left so quickly that I didn't have time to take my own photos but these show the exact objects. I am glad they found good homes.



The other items are a little more "knitting" related - I send a box of fiber goodies out to Joanna in New Jersey as part of the Halloween-themed fiber swap organized YarnPunk at Spinning on the Edge. Some of the box items I purchased so they don't count towards the Saturday Seven but the knitting pattern, the shetland fleece, the angora locks, the llama fiber and the notebooks I already had on hand. I thought the colors all reminded me of shadows so I sent a scary paperback, dark chocolate and beads so Joanna, my fiber swap partner at Knittygirl2006, could knit herself a cobwebby shawl. I can't wait to find out what I got my own fiber partner! I'll have to post pictures tomorrow of the MNBC Fall Retreat. We were down to just three out of the original nine members but that means, we all got our own beds! Lovely, relaxing, entertaining - and a lot of knitting time for me! Thanks, Marti!

Inching my way through Soctoberfest

I cast on Dear Husband's ribbed crew socks with size 3 double point needles and Regia sock yarn on Monday night but didn't get anywhere until Tuesday. Then I got the 3 and 1/2 inches of ribbing - the amount called for before changing to one size smaller

needles. So, now I'm on size 2 needles and I'm up to 7 inches. At 8 and 1/2 inches, I'm going to start the heel.

I've been using a ribbed sock pattern from The knitter's handy book of patterns by Ann Budd for this sock but I think I'm going to use a German Heel from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting without Tears. The color way is okay - black, red, grey and burgandy - but HE picked it out a couple of summers ago. So it goes. I am still planning a pair of Retro Cable socks for myself - perhaps out of two stray skeins of Koigu that I have. I am also tempted by all the fabulous sock yarn discussed in Lime and Violet. Hmm. What to do, what to do.

Cool, man, cool - just "Knit Out" and "Knit on"!

Although I'll be out town with my Monday Night Book Club ("Books so good, we're takin' them on the road!" is our motto), my local knitting guild, the Minnesota Knitters Guild will be hosting the 3rd annual Twin Cities Knit-Out from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 8th at Brookdale Center.

It may seem nerdy to embrace a "celebration of knitting" but for a knitter, it's Fiber Nirvana. What's not to like about knitting lessons, a fastest knitter contest, hourly fashion shows, knitting experts, charity knitting opportunities and displays of the latest yarns, patterns and tools?

Instead of chanting "Purl, purl, purl" with the devotees of Elizabeth Zimmerman, I'll be with my book group, road-tripping to Wisconsin. Hopefully, we will stop at Northwind Book and Fiber in Spooner, Wisconsin, for a double dip of what's fun - yarn and books. Their mystery selection looked really interesting.

Don't worry, Heidi and Marti, I'll try to keep my chanting to a low hum. And I'll use the words of Saint Elizabeth herself, "Knit on, knit on, knit on . . ."

Hi!

Check it out - me! If I were Japanese manga character! Oh, how cute!

Baa, baa black sheep - four bags full

Today's seven items were the simplest to assemble. My daughters went through their closets and I went through Youngest Child's closet to prune summer items - four bags full.

After I cleaned out the hall closet and removed two small three-legged tables with glass tops and my embarassing large stash of curtain rods (obviously, I was worried about production shutdowns), that took me up to six items. Number Seven was on my front porch. I love the colors of this ceramic planter but it doesn't fit any plants sold in the Twin Cities. It doesn't look nearly so good when the purchased Mum is sticking halfway out the top.

In the knitting world, I've been working late into the night on Puggy's Shruggy. I have had some row guage issues that she, Superior Knitter, did not have. That means I've been changing decreases and increases left and right. When you see this pattern, you'll get that joke! I've also decided to be part of Lolly's Soctoberfest; Luckily, I've been planning on a pair of socks since I cleaned out my stash boxes and found two skeins of sock yarn! Maybe for me, maybe for Dear Husband. Hmm. . .

First fiber swap offering sent off!

I am participating in a Themed Art Fiber Swap (unwieldy title, that) which centers on Halloween and bugs. Lime and Violet clued me into this group but it's run by Yarnpunk over at Spinning on the edge. She has some amazing yarns! I think mine are fairly pedestrian - they are strictly for knitting with. Yet they are mine own and that's what I like about them.

When I went to mail the package today, the postal worker asked me if anything was flammable, etc. and I said, "No, it's fiber and it would take a lot of work to light it on fire." He said, "A whole box of fiber? Like, fiber you eat?" I flashed on a giant moth there for a second but replied, "No, wool fiber. For yarn." I am not sure he believed me.

Just for the record, my "bug" theme was "Spiders" and I put in all kinds of things for making a shadowy yarn or a cobwebby shawl. Grey shetland, purple corridale fleece, lavender Angora goat and plum/silver/black beads. I also made a few stitch markets, added a free pattern for beaded shawls and to round it out, tucked in some chocolate bars and a fantasy/horror novel I found which featured "the Queen of the Unseelie, the queen of darkness and shadows." She's a baddy, through and through! Oh, and a few spiders.

This message brought to you courtesty of Lime (and Violet, too!)

Lime and Violet are officially my favorite podcasters!

As the official podcast of LazyDaisyKnits, they receive: nothing, nada, zero and zip. Sorry, Ladies! But I do take them everywhere and I'm having great time listening to back episodes. What I didn't enjoy was trying to save their darn button! I must be the only blogger who has such a blinkin hard time getting this set up. It all sounds so easy and then, two hours later, I've got nothing but a mess. You out there, you just listen to their podcast. They have earned an explicit rating over at ITunes but it's just because they let a few juicy words fly every once and a while. The actual topics are interesting and hysterical! And they really know their "Yarn Porn" - I've been checking out almost every yarn they mention. I'm especially interested in one yarn Lime is using called "Wicked Forrest." I definately think I'm more of a Lime than a Violet but they go perfectly together. Like peanut butter and chocolate - two great tastes that go together.

Unlike Saturday (when it poured rain and I cancelled a bike ride in order to listen - fully dressed for riding and with a bike in the car - to Lime and Violet), today is lovely so we're off to the gym. Later, a trip to a spinning/knitting store in order to pick up some extra fiber bits for the Halloween themed Art Fiber exchange on Swap Bot. I'm thinking spiders and cobwebs because I have some lovely soft grey shetland top to send. I'll post some pictures when I've got the whole batch put together.

Good things sometimes make lousy photos

I think I mentioned that my husband, Oldest Daughter and I biked the 30 mile version of the Saint Paul Bike Classic on September 10. It was a great bike ride despite the horrible weather. Andy just looked at me and sighed as we drove to the race start. By the halfway point, we all agreed that it was a great ride and the Peace Coffee served midway at Como Lake pavilion was excellent. We do most anything for a free teeshirt and some free Aveda lipbalm!

So it's no wonder we look so crappy in these photos!






Note to family: I am begging for a new helmet for my birthday this year - this is possibly the all time dweebiest head protector ever.




As for the Saturday Seven - The photos are horrible. Mea Culpa.

I had another little bag of boy clothes for Baby Karl, including a lovely new pair of Merrills. The saleslady at REI was the first lousy clerk I've ever had at that store and she basically sold me the exact same size Youngest Son was wearing instead of the next larger size. But she wouldn't admit it to me. So, enjoy them, Karl. The other nearly unidentifiable items are a purse I am returning to my sister and some clothing for the Saint Mark's rummage sale. A pair of boots, some too-small bike shorts, a swim suit, and a pair of zip-off combination pants/shorts - minus the lost pants part. Some hiker will someday find those pants legs and wonder, "What happened to the rest of her?"




As for knitting - the Puggy Shruggy marches on - and I've been spinning again. I spent today with the indigo dyed fleece - it's spinning up a lovely faded jeans color - and overdyeing the failure fleece/yarn a great green. I promise I'll make those pictures soar!

Ahoy ye mateys!

Not much piratey action going aboard the LazyDaisy. It was almost a case of "PuggyShruggy, we hardly knew ye!" when I discovered that my row gauge (not the stitch gauge, the one that I was checking out constantly) was horribly, terribly bad but I simply ripped it out and started over again. Some things you just need to face head on. Oh, and it turns out I am a slacker kind of pirate - but with good boxes!


Tell you about that one later!

Seven simple things . . .

Some days you really have a lot to say but that's not today. I've spent the week learning how to use Freecycle and getting items posted on their "free" bulletin board and I've been amazed at what people are wanting and needing in my community. I posted our old rug and it was gone the next afternoon.



The sofa - it will be gone by Oct. 4.

I took the shoes (never worn but lovely), my husband's old laptop bag, and Middle Daughter's old lamp (replaced by a cooler sparkly lamp) over to St. John the Evangelist for their sale.


The duck towel rack came from my second house and we moved/installed it in every kitchen since then but it needs a new home. It flew the coop to St. John's as well. Oh, and the seventh thing? I gave my friend Melissa back her "Yard Sale on Saturday" sign. We've had it since last September.





As for knitting? The horrors! I had to rip, rip, rip out the Puggy Shruggy back to the beginning of the back. I've been using Combination knitting and I did one row distractedly in "Western Style." Boy did it ever pop out at you! Back to the needles. Luckily, I'm watching "Big Fish" with the girls to be followed by "Kyle XY" on Tivo. "Big Fish" is an excellent movie about fathers. Lots of imagination out there.

Speaking of imagination, knitters will enjoy this one . . .

Finally, a few hours of daylight . . .

Like most bloggers, my best (and usually) only blogging is done late at night, ie., after my children have gone to bed. My free time is either spent trying to get in a little exercise (bike, run or swim), keeping a household on an even keel (about 45 degrees is the best we can do), cooking, preparing to cook, cleaning up after cooking and answering the question, "What's cooking?" (I have teenagers and toddlers - the bottomless pit of hunger combination!) Laundry, yard work, walking the dog, reading books, doing Sudoko and, of course, knitting are all quite incidental to what ever is planned for that day.

But, Youngest Child is now in preschool for two afternoons a week. Ahh! Near Silence!

I though I should use this time to update on the knitting front. Andy's brown sweater. Still working on it, don't rush me! Puggy's Neato Shruggy - love it and I'm about to the middle of the back. Baby Green Sweater - decided to change from Cottage Creations to Elizabeth Zimmerman's yoke sweater. I hated starting on the sleeves first so I ripped the whole thing (all of, what, three inches?) and started anew. A certain French teacher's Christmas present - which I will have to keep under wraps - but it is red, made of linen and uses a free pattern from Tia Judy's String and Air page. My lame-o green socks - I so tired of them only because I can't cable the Combination Knitting way on this pattern. Add in a few unfinished objects (a beaded bag, a needle felted bag, etc.) and I have the rest of my year planned out.

I have a short knitting attention span, don't I?

But, just to keep things fun - don't forget National Talk Like a Pirate Day, next Tuesday, September 19!



Try whipping up a little support at your house with Hello Yarn's wonderful free Winter Pirate Hat or Moth Heaven's great Kid's Pirate Hat. Ahoy there mateys, prepared to be boarded!

Another (pre) Saturday Night . . .

This has been a hectic week and I am glad to be sitting down. Youngest Daughter had her birthday on Labor Day, school is already going at full speed, I had an emergency turn as carpool driver on Wednesday and we are getting ready to redo our parlor so that means looking at furniture, rugs, picking out paint chips, etc. We are trying to do this in a frugal manner - we are doing the painting and no wallpaper this time. We are also investigating recovering a favorite chair versus buying a new one - that kind of thing. But it all filled my week!

As a result of all this furniture talk, I am now an official member of Freecycle here in Saint Paul. This is a bulletin board kind of group finding new homes for all kinds of items from a new set of king sized sheets to church pews. Next week's Saturday Seven will mostly be furniture and larger household items.



I'd like to say that the theme for this week's collection was "luxury items" but that would be pushing it. I was looking for my biking shoes in the back of my closet this week and found a bunch of purses and shoes that were hiding out. The two purses - Coach brand! - are still in great condition but they are both over 12 years old. I've owned the brown one since before I moved to Minnesota! I used to have only one standard when it came to purses - they had to be large enough to fit a videotape and/or a diaper. I was only looking for a Utility Purse. Now, I'm looking for something a little more fun. The really amusing thing is that these styles are still being offered at the Coach Outlet Store near me. Someone will get a good deal. The shoes were just poor choices for me - I can count the times I wore the flip-flops on one hand, the loafers are Wide (my Youngest Daughter contributed those), the tennis shoes stretched when I wore them during pregnancy, the black sandals make an annoying "flip" sound when I walked (I admit being picky!) and the boots are just too pointy to be in style. They'll be going to Saint Vincent de Paul on Monday morning.

On the knitting front, I've been toting around my smaller knitting project, Puggyknits' Puggy Shruggy, all week. Unfortunately, I've only gotten to the end of one sleeve and the start of the main back. It's a lovely soft project but the yarn sheds and makes me sneeze! I'll need it soon - tonight the temperature will go down to 48 degrees F.





I've tried to get some detail in the second photo but I am hopeless at photography. I'll have to pick up that skill right after crocheting, quilting, web design . . .

Seven Scattered Things

After a long day, I'm just checking in to display today's Saturday Seven. In fact, if I don't hurry up, it will be the Sunday Seven.


The first was my monthly bag of boy clothes, donated to Baby Karl. He's the first boy child in the family so I'm sure they can use hand-me downs.


The second collection is a much more mixed bag of donations. These four items were an extra cotton blanket, some outgrown teen clothes, a stack of religious-themed books that really should be passed on and a soccer net. I don't know how we got the net - we don't even have a soccer goal that it would fit. I dropped these off at St. John the Evangelist for their huge sale.


The two books are great resources for parents of gifted children and I am passing these on a parent at my church.


The last photo is a shower attachment for a tub. We bought this when Oldest Daughter had a broken leg and couldn't shower or bathe easily. She came up with her own system and we never even opened the package. Off to Goodwill! And the lovely blue background? My new wallpaper!! The kitchen may not be finished yet but it is very colorful.

As for knitting - I spend yesterday evening on Andy's brown sweater and tonight on my blue shrug. We also took in a very funny movie, The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club, about life and love in a retirement community. Very funny in a classy, Doris Day, 1960s kind of way.

Oh, and I biked this morning. 18 miles through the Grand Round in Minneapolis. A great trip.