Mystery Baby Sweater and Stinky’s being helpful

I’m now a grandmother of Nee’s assessory dog, Sweetie Godzilla Princess Moahnee Stinky Choy (name changes each blog) and she was visiting after a bit of a scare. She must’ve eaten something really bad and was acting disoriented and wobbly and wouldn’t eat or drink. We almost had to go to the 24 hour very expensive hospital, but waited. She’s fine now after a big bill for xrays, blood work, sedation and xrays. Everything, except loose bowels — yuck …which explains why she’s convalescing at OUR home, not with the other Princess.

So we had a low key day of knitting with grandma in the backyard on a somewhat blustery day. At one point, she sat on my lap and had the strand of yarn go through her mouth before it got to the knitting needle. Had to put a stop to that little trick quick. “Grandpa” was cooking on the grill and came home early to make sure Sweetie was ok.

I rumaged through my bags of stuff from our Maine trip in April and lo and behold found a kit we purchased in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at a very cute yarn shop, The Yarn Basket on Ladd Street (yarns you yearn for). The lady was so nice and the place was small and cozy, jammed to the ceiling with great looking yarn of many different variety. Examples of very creative and beautiful scarves, sweaters, capes, ponchos, bags, scrugs, you name it, were literally piled on top of each other in this shop. The owner’s name was also Elaine and I felt it was God’s will that we linger and stay there to touch, shop, look, dream, touch some more and ooo and ahhhh.

Well, Pauline and I ditched our spouses and children and stayed there for quite awhile and bought stuff that we forgot about till now. The kit was 2 balls of yarn – MY (Muench Yarns) – Tessin (made in Germany and imported by Muench Yarns Inc of (where else) Petaluma, California (yeah, right next door practically), a pattern and 2 very cute sheep buttons. There is no finished product picture, so we’re going by memory and pattern alone. I think the finished product was a baby striped sweater with a yoke flap in front that buttons on either side of the baby’s chest under the chubby cheeks. We will soon find out. A #10 needle is called for.

This blanket was the finished product for Theresa and Glenn who’s journey to this point of having #2 is nothing short of a miracle. We are still, by faith, anticipating the arrival early next year of their special baby. I used Baby Cloud yarn, #10 again and the 4 square pattern.

The finished pink and green square blanket for Cortney and Kyle’s #1 on the way — shower is this Saturday.

The turquoisey blue part of this diagonal square was yarn bought at Portland, Maine on sale, and since I didn’t plan very well, I ran out of this yarn but found something similar with a lighter blue. This yarn has a mohairy feel to it and I double up with another yarn to mute the turquoise so that it’ll have more of a baby-ish look. This finished baby blanket will be going to Kim and George for their #2 baby, a boy due this year. In Riverside, they don’t need too thick of a blankety, so this should be a good throw for them to use. Big sister Samantha is about 2 years old and has the same birthday as my Princess Nee.

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There is a flurry of knitting during this time of the year, the hottest time of the year, of course, because the rest of the year is devoted to my wonderful first graders. If I had my druthers, I’d be knitting for them. They all need at least a scarf to wear for those 2 – 3 days of real chill in California and their snow trips to Tahoe.

Summer Blankets

My good friend Diane said that she didn’t want a scarf, but her legs get cold while sitting at her desk in her office, so I made her a lap afghan which is basically a big diagonal square with Homespun and some kind of mohair-ish light brown.  The Homespun is a lot more green-er than the picture shows and is called Mediterranean, reminscent of Diane and Sandy’s European cruise adventure.  Yeah, we both miss Sandy still.  This was for Diane’s birthday in October and I finished it in June –hey, it’s worth the wait,right?

This square patchwork pattern was something Pauline told me to try and I did.  The blanket is for Cortney and Chris who are expecting their first daughter.  I used 2 strands of yarn to get some color changes but trying to stay with the pink theme.  I hope little Caitlyn will like this when she arrives in September.

Christmas presents

Here’s a scarf for Keith, my nephew – I don’t know if he’d want one, but being auntay, I know he needs one…Homespun again in some hand me down gray combo – cast on 32 and did 2 knits 2 purls rib stitch.(posted by Elaine)

Hiding Yarn

Whenever Pauline has a day off, and I’m not working, we try to have a “DWWDWP” which stands for “do whatever we…….” Activities are varied but always include some kind of knitting theme. Before I left for my jaunt to Shanghai, we were on such an outing on a Friday, thinking that I would be leaving the following Tuesday. We looked for potential knitting projects to bring safely onto the plane, etc. and had a wonderful time even though my gout was on the mend and had the wonderful side effects of the meds. That evening our other sister, Doreen called and told me that we were going to move the trip up to Sunday for take off. I dumbfoundedly agreed and off we went to Shanghai. Upon return, I was a major jet lag victim, but because Pauline had a Friday off, we went out and spent money on yarn, looked for sales on yarn, went up to Stoneridge and bought Origins stuff and came home. I totally forgot about the bag of yarn and back to school goodies I had purchased 2 weeks before when we had a DWWDWP day. So the challenge is great these next few days to alleviate the guilt of purchased yarn and forgetting what we had intended it for. It was intended for good and cute, I’m sure, but getting old is the pits – can you imagine how much we could accomplish if were energetic 7 year olds? mrsekc still jetlagging (planning to use this excuse for the rest of the year) P.S. I finished the scarf – turquoise surprise for Doreen immediately while riding up to Napa to see Joanie.

Mini Projects -hat and scarf

I made the baby hat with the baby yarn, because that yarn caught my eye and I said, “I think I need to make something with that.” The scarf is one that was promised to Rebekah because I had made one for her sister last school year. It’s floofy and hairy and fun. Beckah likes blue and she’ll be a senior this year at Valley Christian Dublin.