DD got her grades and did well on all her exams even the math one which she was very concerned about. She insists that they must have massively curved it but I prefer to think she just did better than she expected. Her best friend got out of the hospital and is doing much better but still has to take it easy. She'll probably not be herself again till the summer is over.

DD continues to knit if only for short bursts. Now she is talking about making her first project, a pair of leg warmers from Sally Melville's Knit stitch book. I have to trade in the yarn for my February Lady sweater. The one I picked, Cascade Pistaza was too fuzzy for my taste and I found it too scratchy as I worked with it. So, I am trading it in for some Cascade 220 which should be in at my LYS tomorrow or Wednesday. In any case, I am going over to the LYS tomorrow to finally work out the problem I have with my aran sweater. I am up to the sleeve and it seems as though two of the cables are merging and I am not sure how to handle it. So Val is going to sit with me and work it through. There is a posibility of holding onto the Pisatza to make a felted bag but I am not sure about that yet. The lace scarf I made for my friend got rave reviews from the crowd at the LYS as did the scarf that I made for DD. Always nice to get that kind of ego boost. I tend to be very critical of my own knitting and getting having other knitters say nice things about it is a treat.

DS was in for a week (hence the lack of blog posts). It was a wonderful visit. He was better than I've ever seen him on a home visit before. He spent most of his visit in the time honored fashion of teen agers, hanging out with his friends, playing video games and sacking out in front of the TV.

I am doing Secret Pal again this round and here is my questionaire:

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

I suppose my all time favorites are merino and cashmere. I don't like "scratchy" wools or plastic like acrylics.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

I have a needle roll and a tin I keep needles in. I could use something for my growing collection of circular needles. I've been switching from straights to circs the last couple of years.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

I've been knitting for over 40 years and was taught by a combination of my mother and my brother's girl friend. I consider myself to be a fairly advanced knitter.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

I have an Amazon wish list.

5. What's your favorite scent?

I like woody and spicy scents.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

Unfortunately for my waist line I have a sweet tooth :). My favorite candy is anything that is sour

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I am learning how to spindle spin.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I like alternative, classic rock and jazz I can play MP3's.


9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

Earth tones are my favorites especially dark green, burnt orange and brown

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I am married with two kids who are in their teens, we have a guinea pig

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

I wear scarves, hats and mittens but not ponchos.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Socks and lace.

13. What are you knitting right now?

A pair of socks, an aran sweater and the February Lady Sweater

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Yes!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic

Circ's are prefered. I don't care for plastic needles.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

I own both

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

About a year old

18. What is your favorite holiday? What winter holiday do you observe?

My favorite holdays are Passover, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. We celebrate Hannukah

19. Is there anything that you collect?

I collect penguins

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

I'd love Cookie A's sock knitting book, and want to try Knit Picks Circular needles. I don't subscribe to any of the magazines I prefer to pick them up when one of them has a pattern that I must have.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Knitting socks from the toe up and knitting socks on two circular needles. I've tried to learn how to do the two circ method and just cannot get my mind wrapped around it.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Yes I am a sock knitter. 8 1/2 inches around the ball of my foot and also from my heel to the tip of my toe.

23. When is your birthday?

August 20th

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID?

Yes, you can find me there as Fizbin.

Went to the LYS on Saturday with DD and the imposssible happened Val the very sweet woman who owns Knitting on the Lamb got DD knitting! I've tried over the years to teach her but never had success. DD either was too young to grasp it or professed no interest in learning. Well she did a fair amount of knitting while I sat and worked on a gauge swatch for the February Lady Sweater. We were both quite happy and DD has been practicing on some stash yarn I gave her. She's making the occaisional beginners mistake but for the most part has a handle on it. I'm proud of her!

Thanks to all who wished her luck on her exams. They are all finished now but we will not know the results for a bit yet. I'll be sure to clue you in when we get her marks in the mail.

Finally put the fringe on DD's Slytherin House Scarf (from Charmed Knits). The process reminded me why I never put fringe on scarfs; it's a pain in the neck. Here's a picture of DD wearing the scarf:

Can't see the fringes on this picture, but DD insisted on choosing the one I post and this is the one she picked :)

















We went to visit DD's best friend at the hospital this evening. Poor kid has a bad case of Mono and has been unable to hold down food so they have her on an IV drip to keep her hydrated. She missed all their end of year testing and will have to take the statewide Regents tests at another school in August. I really feel for the kid, having once had a case of Mono myself. It's not a fun thing to be sick with. They hope she will be well enough to come home by Friday.

Can't believe I haven't posted since June 1! Things have been busy. I got some wonderful Spud and Chole yarn from a contest I won on Knit One School Two. It's gorgeous stuff here's a picture of it:
















Got another Traveling Tea Box from the Cuppa Tea group on Ravelry. This is the second box I have gotten; DD and I had a grand time going through it to pick out our goodies. Great fun deciding what to put in too.

Here's a picture of what I took out of the box:


Lots of lovely tea (to which I am as addicted as I am to knitting), a cool pack of note cards and some spoon rests that had been made by hand by a previous participant.

The box gets sent on to the next person this afternoon so I get a Hot Potato award from the coordinator of the box. Not sure what it will be but I am excited to see it.


I am well on the way with the Double Moss stitch socks and should be done by the end of the week if not sooner. Didn't do the best job of Kitchnering the toe of sock one. Pulled the yarn too tight. I must remember to be looser on the next toe. I have to order the blocking wires from Knit Picks to block out the shawl and the scarf I made. I've been waiting to do it because I also want to get the blocking mat from KP and they are out of stock on it till June 24. I hate to order from Knit Picks unless I can put together $50 so I save the postage hence the long wait to block things. Hope I find out that it was worth it. I will also be hitting my LYS this week to buy yarn with the Gift Certificate I got for Mother's Day. Most likely will buy for the February Lady Sweater, as DD said the other day "All the cool kids are doing it" :)

Speaking of DD she starts her Regents exams this week (if you are not in New York State these are like statewide finals). Today is Geometry which she is quite concerned about. Math is not DD's forte and she is worried about her grade. Here's hoping she does well enough so that she doesn't have to retake the test. She also has Regents exams in Global Studies (her best subject), Spanish, and Biology.

We had a wee bit of excitement with DS. Some one who lives in his house at school got the flu that's going around so they quarantined the whole house for a week. They let them out for walks and to play the odd game of basketball and kept a close eye on them. No one else got sick, thankfully. Sadly, not long after they went back to school DS's Vocational teacher passed away (no idea what he died of). DS seemed to take it well, they had the kids make up sympathy cards and he went to the funeral. The psychologist also talked to him to be sure he was OK. He comes home for an extended visit on the 26th of this month. I am looking forward to having him!

Thanks to Just April who offered to help me decipher Wendy Johnson's sock book. I don't own it right now I just took it from the library for a look see and have already returned it. But I may take you up on the offer in future. Thanks!

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Mostly from a mystery series called the Tea Shop Mysteries by Laura Childs. Set in and around Charleston South Carolina, they are great fun and also mix in some interesting information about tea as well as giving recipes in the back of the books. Found out about them on Ravelry and was immediately hooked. Got a whole pile of them from the Library the other day. I go through cycles with my reading. Most of the time I don't read many mystery novels. Then I go on a tear reading piles of them. The library runs a summer reading program for adults where you can win prizes depending on how many books you read (the more you read the more raffle tickets you get). It's a lot of fun and I've been doing it for the last few years.

Tomorrow is Meals on Wheels and I will be taking DD with me as my regular partner is away this week. DD has done it before with me, she enjoys it and I think that its a good experience for her. After that, I have a progress meeting about DS's schooling. Don't expect to hear anything I don't already know but it's nice to get the official update from them, must remember to call his Program Specialist and remind her to call me for the meeting. I usually do these things by phone as it's such a long drive to DS's school. They put me on speaker phone and everyone chimes in with what they know about DS and his progress. I'd love to do it in person but I get very sleepy on long drives and I am afraid to drive there alone as a result. I once got into a small accident once when I fell asleep at the wheel after one of these meetings. Very scary and I don't want a repeat of it. DH handles all long distance driving ever since the incident.

Spent most of today in bed and all of yesterday. I've been laid low by a virus (or at least it feels like one) Was feeling so crappy that I couldn't even take advantage of the time by knitting. I'm a bit better now, still feeling weak and a little light headed but that could be because I've not eaten all that much for the last two days.

Went to the Supermarket with DD and DH on Saturday and stopped to look at the tea section with DD, while we two talked about the relative merits of what was on the shelf DH walked over and asked "Don't you have enough tea already?" We both looked at him like he was crazy. That's like asking me if I have enough wool, there's never enough :) At least DD understood.

Got the gift tags I won from Knitterella today. She has recently had a baby (yeah!) and so was late in sending them off and to make up for it she included an extra pack. Not something she had to do at all but it was nice to get them. Here's a picture:


Aren't they cute? And there's room on the back to write care instructions (well that's what I'm doing with them YMMV) She also sells wonderful note cards.

Got the new Wendy's new toe up sock book, from the library. It's got some nice patterns in it but the problem is that she does them with two circular needles and I've not been able to wrap my mind around doing socks that way. I'm not especially good at changing around directions (yes I'm one of those people who actually knits like the designer intended one of these days I will break out of the box ) so I don't know if the book is going to work for me. Saw Cookie A's book in Barnes and Noble and loved it she does her socks on dpn's like I do so I won't have any trouble following the directions. As soon as I can get my LYS to order it for me, I'll get the book. I like to get my knitting books from her it's worth it to me to pay the extra money to help support a store I love.

I seem to have developed a fair amount of luck lately. Today I found out that I had won a blog contest for some of the new Spud and Chole yarn on Knit One School Two. Can't wait to see it I've been hearing so much about this new yarn from Blue Sky Alpacas. I'm sure it will be wonderful and promise to post pictures on the blog as soon as it comes in.

This is the fourth blog contest I've won in the last several months. First was a copy of Charmed Knits and a hat from Alison of the Blue Blog. Then it was a copy of Fiber Gathering from Cindy Moore who is a friend of mine on Facebook (sorry Cindy I can't find your blog address). Next came some funny gift tags from Knitterella who has truly lovely gift tags for sale check out her blog and website. I honestly don't know what to say. Before this I had a fairly unbroken record of losing every contest I enter.

Hello all. Sorry it's been so long since I posted. I keep telling myself that I need to make a blog entry and other things get in the way an suddenly more than two weeks goes by.

DS is home for the holiday weekend but I have to work for much of it, it's a big sale for us so all three of us in the department have been scheduled this weekend. However I will probably not go in on Sunday so we can have a family BBQ. I discussed it with one of my co-workers and he thought it was dumb for me to come in anyway. We don't need three people and I have some days coming to me.

On the knitting front I have been busy. I am working on Branching Out and should be done with it well in time for my friend's birthday. Here's a picture courtesy of my new camera:














I am also working on a pair of socks for myself out of some Kroy sock yarn from my stash. I am using Charlene Schurch book Sensational Knitted Socks for the pattern. Here's a photo of that:

As you may be able to see from the photo I am still using four DPN's to knit them. One day I will conquer using 2 circ's but for now this method is working for me so I continue to use it.

I've been hanging around the Cuppa Tea group on Ravelry and just had some fun with their traveling tea box. A large box goes around stuffed to the brim with tea and goodies. When it reaches you, you take out what you like and add some more. It arrived yesterday and I got it mailed off this afternoon so I get the Hot Potato award from the Moderator. More importantly I got some yummy tea and goodies for myself and DD (who I cannot get interested in knitting but is as stuck on tea as I am)

Secret Pal 14 is still in the works. The blog for it should be up and running very soon, I will link to it when it goes live.

Thanks to all the kind people who sympathized with me over the loss of our little furry friend. We still miss him and had intended to wait some time before getting another pet but an opportunity fell into our lap. After we were done saying goodbye to poor little Midnite, our Vet gently asked us if we might be interested in a little guinea pig she had up for adoption. A family had brought him in to be put down because he had a small cyst on his neck. She was horrified and told them that if they didn't want him she would take the responsibility of taking off the cyst and find him a home. Well after a week of thinking about it we decided to take him home with us. It has not been easy to see another animal in Midnite's cage but we feel good about giving him a home. He's a little skittish, and not as cuddly as Midnite. Probably the people who had him before didn't handle him much and he's not used to it. So we are being patient with him and trying to tame him down by giving him extra attention.

On the knitting front I've started Branching Out for my friend Sally's Birthday. It's in early July so I have plenty of time to get it done. It's an easy pattern and I am having fun with it. Progress photos to follow.

Secret Pal 14 is in the planning stages. It should be open for sign ups in June. I will be a hostess this round and am taking the job of posting Twitter updates (when there are any to post). When we have a blog up and running I will post a link here. In the meantime you can join the Secret Pal 14 group on Ravelry to keep up. If you want to follow the updates on Twitter follow secretpal14.

Got some yummy tea in the mail today. I discovered this seller on Ravelry where Troy is a member of the Cuppa Tea group as I am. He'd mentioned a tea that he was drinking and it sounded interesting so I asked where he got it and found out that he sells tea and does mail order. I ordered his Cinnamon Toddy and some Jasmine Green tea, smells wonderful. He also kindly included a couple of samples for me to try. I am nearly as obsessed with tea as I am with my knitting. I've a good sized tea stash. Usually my favorite is the one I am drinking at the time :).

One of the historical societies in my town runs a Sheep to Shawl festival on the first Sunday in May each year. For a long time I kept saying I wanted to go and never seemed to make the time for it. This year, despite the fact that it was raining I went. Not all that much to see since it's a small operation but what I did see was interesting. There were some spinners there and they invited me to come to their Guild meetings so I could learn more. I think I will take them up on the invite especially since they set aside time before the main meeting starts for socializing and teaching. As you may remember I've been trying to spindle spin and not had much success with it. I found out on Sunday that part of the reason was that I didn't have the roving prepared properly. I tried doing what they said and it did go a bit better but I still would like some hands on teaching, so if the next meeting is on a night when I am not working (and perhaps even it is on a work night, I do get a few personal days that I never seem to use) I'll go. The festival had some animals including a llama, a station where they had a rigid heddle loom, one where they had crocheters , one where some women were doing needle felting, one where a lady did some lovely bobbin lace, a craft that I've done in the past and two stations with spinning both by wheel and by spindle. Sadly, there were no knitters to be found and no fiber goodies to buy. You'd think that a sheep to shawl festival would have some yarny goodness around but unless you count the stuff on the spinners bobbins and spindles, plus the few examples of crochet, there were none. I did walk around the historical society's little antiques shop. I nearly bought a tea pot but I could see that it had had a piece broken off the top that had been inexpertly mended and for $75 gave it a pass.