It's my party and i'll knit if I want to.

Knitting research Book, a fun read.
Author Sharon Aris
‘It’s my party and I’ll knit if I want too’

It occurs to me that knitting is the ultimate ‘stuff you’

Dinner can be late, they say ‘stuff you’, I’m knitting.

So my house isn’t tidy ‘stuff you’, I’m knitting.

So I haven’t saved the world, lost 5 kilos, waxed my legs, ‘stuff you’ I’m knitting Dimmit!.

Angela's pattern

Fun play suit for the naughty knitter

This is my friend Angela's design. She designed it a made it for a cat walk show as part of her HND in fashion and textile. It's fun and she is extremely talented, she would like any one to have ago at knitting her pattern as she aims to be a knit wear designer/pattern maker so she needs it road tested. It's a little out of my limits and a tad short but if you wanna have a go I'm sure she like to see your results.(And of course feel free to customise) Contact me if you'd like a copy of the pattern.

This week I have been mostly Crochet-ing.

A picture of the lining from my elegant shell bag.

Pretty random, I made a circle with some left over yarn from my last dress and then decided to fold the shape in half and went with it from there. It's all in one piece and I even made a green lining so that the contents of the bag wont fall out.

It looks good laying down flat but I need to think how I can make it retain it shape when it's used. So back to the drawing board!

Stitched on an 8mm hook and three different stitches used.

I've been busy cooking dinner for tonight and tomorrow so I can give my complete attention to the Boston/Yankees series starting tonight. At least I have the appropriate good luck footwear for the games.



They are just some quickie socks done in 2 strands of Heilo. I'm finishing up another pair and I estimate I have maybe 4 more pairs of thick socks to knit to use up all my DK weight yarn.

And now for some less boring knitting, here's my pitiful progress on the Selbustrikk gloves. I am looking forward to finishing because these gloves will look terrific with my dark gray wool coat.



I really need to sit down and force myself to knit more. I want to get working on the Halloween gloves and finish the Aran afghan some time before it gets cold here.

more treasures!

Saturday afternoon was spent freezing corn, grown by my dad, to enjoy over the winter...

In the morning, on the way to get feed for the horses and chickens, we stopped at a couple yard sales around the corner from us. I was happy to find some bargains and spent less than $10 for everything ~

~ a basket perfect for embroidery or knitting

~a pile of Do It Yourself magazines

~ 2 'new' vintage full-size percale sheets to make pillowcases like Anna's

~ a large wire basket

~ and this great table

Hope you had a wonderful weekend too!!

Lotrrh meets Octopussy

If you seen my earlier post of Lotrrh. You would see that the bottom is now new. I was never happy with how I finished Lotrrh the bottom edging(left unfinished I moved on) I needed to make it more dramatic. Then when I displayed it on my mannequin for the blog, looking at it, the idea came(my brain working over time that day)
I was going to try and crochet all the hanging pieces, to link them.

Some how?

I wanted to make the bottom look as if it was 3d shapes and not to look like knitting.(crochet)

I think that i have managed it!

It's almost as if it has an Octopus bottom, tentacles and defiantly very dramatic.

Sandia Crest

I am hoping to have the glove cuff to show you some time this week. I hope to get some serious knitting done during the Red Sox/Yankees series.

DH and I were complaining about how hot it was this morning and suddenly we realized there was somewhere we could go for a walk where it was much, much cooler.




This is the crest of the Sandia Mountains which overlook Albuquerque. The crest is around 10,700 feet and it is quite amazing what an extra 3000 feet will do to lower the temperature. It was a bit dark and rainy and unfortunately too slippery to walk over to the tram.

You can see most of Albuquerque in the distance.



This is called the steel forest and the lights on these radio towers are visible from my house and pretty much everywhere on both sides of the mountains for many miles.



The gift shop offers everything you might need, including oxygen.

Unexpected delay

Fortunately, everything is fine here at chez TECH (and many thanks to those who have written to inquire!) However, due to unexpected delay in managing the non-knitting parts of life, TECHknitting will, regretfully NOT resume right after Labor day, but will resume instead on September 20.

Stay tuned for 2 new ways to create beautiful left-leaning increases.

Have a good rest of the summer, and knit on.

--TECHknitter

today's plan

Todays Plan:

::launder & hang out clothes

::pick up around house

::can tomatoes

::put enchilada casserole into crock pot

::head out to the pool and enjoy the hot sunny afternoon of which there will probably not be many more

Have a happy day!

the pantry

Today in the kitchen...

Harvest season has begun and the k/>itchen is starting to fill up with some good stuff from the garden. Cherry tomatoes that my dad grew, and today my mom brought over pears and plums from their orchard. Somewhere recently I saw a great plum recipe - was it in Martha's magazine - not sure...
I really need to get out to my own garden and pick tomatoes for canning.
I also have two 8 quart baskets of Red Haven peaches from the farm stand, and I just put a peach/blueberry pie into the oven.
A picture of my cabinet since I painted some of the inside blue...
The kitchen pictures today were inspired by a book I just heard about ~ The Pantry: It's History and Modern Uses by Catherine Seiberling Pond. The picture on the cover alone makes me want to buy this book !!
A Google search brought up her website, which has some great pictures from the book and a link to her wonderful blog. I think you might want to check it out...

counting sheep

Before I left for Florida, I managed to finish these pajamas. In fact, sewing them up went so smoothly I was amazed ~ it generally isn't the case with me!!

I found the 'woolly lambs' flannel at JoAnn's earlier in the summer when all their flannel was on sale for 1 - 2 dollars a yard.

I did not use the vintage pattern for the pants as they had a thick waistband and were very high waisted. Instead I used Simplicity 7229 which I love for skirts and capris as well.

The buttons I used were some from my collection...

These pajamas are comfy and cozy, and if I can't sleep I can just count the sheep.

I know this sounds really stupid but sometimes my stash annoys me. In particular my DK weight yarns annoy me because I never use them. I've decided to knit this yarn up as quickly as possible.



Here are some "8 hour socks" using 2 DK weight yarns. I figure on 3 to 4 full skeins for a pair of socks so I should have this yarn knit up pretty quickly, especially since there are lots of interesting baseball games to watch now. I finished the middle pair and started a pair with 2 skeins of red Heilo last night in the very exciting Angels/Yankees game that was on until almost midnight.



Peaches is still trying to figure out how to fit her enormous body in her pet bed.

the weekend

It was a beautiful weekend to enjoy some horseback riding. Friday, Mike took the day off and we trailered Sparky to a small horse show about an hour away...
Stephanie's been a bit nervous/frustrated since Sparky put her in the pond during a cross country schooling event earlier this year...

Happily, they both did great and ended up with a First and a Third Place ribbon.

Sunday was perfect weather for a trail ride ~ me on Jessica and Stephanie on Sparky.

some fly spray...

warming up...

ready to hit the trails...

Hope you had a fun weekend too!!

Monet's frogs

My daughter is mad about frogs at the moment. She discovered this web site whilst researching frogs(googling)She worked it out (how she sould use crochet) I helped cast on and she was off!.......Her very own frog production line.

"A chip of the old block" as they say.

Web site from ggogle image.

http://mpatrizio.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

Uppsala's yarn and new tools.

A visit to Uppsala for the day, one of the 5Th major City's in Sweden. Mmm pretty but blink and you missed it. Luckily for me I had my new project and my book (It's my party and I'll knit if I want too)

Found the Yarn shop and I looked really impressive and I was in it's lay out nice staff and great colours but! it was all the expensive hand died yarns (The type I'm not good enough yet for)

And it had so many mannequins with exquisite knits on that I didn't feel worthy of being there or that inspired just a little deflated.

I did purchase (of course I found something) A glittery crochet hook size 10mm and a wooden carved size 12mm with a groove for your thumb? new to me and I cant wait to use it.

"So much to knit so little time"

I was hoping to have part of my new project to show you by now. I am trying to become more skilled at charting out letters for knitting and I'm starting on some fun Halloween witch gloves with long cuffs that say "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble". The quote is from Macbeth although I admit I always thought it was "bubble, bubble, toil and trouble".

I am learning that "N" is the biggest pain in the derriere to chart out. Still, I want to get the practice because I'd love to come up with a Christmas design with a Christmas carol charted out on some mittens. Anyway, I hope to have the Halloween gloves (with the quote from Macbeth) to show you next week.

I am not a fan of summer and I can't wait until the weather cools off! I find myself spending lots of time staring at pictures like this from one of our big snows last winter.

a tea towel for the camper

While camping at the lake, I was happy to sit overlooking the water and work on this embroidered towel. I used a pattern from Sublime Stitching called Camp Out! I followed Jody's example and added ric rac across the bottom ~ only I think hers came out much better. Does my ric rac look a little too large??
Anyway, it was a fun design to work, and I'm definitely going to make some more.

More of my maxi dress in the making?

My maxi dress

Terrible picture of me but my plans for strapless did not work as the bottom part weighed too heavy. So this is unfinished as I need to do the ends and the back needs work as If it stretches the bottom (My bottom) at the back will show.
So I'll need purple pants or a patch up.
Its all one piece and I have made it using 4.5, 6mm and 8mm crochet hooks.
6 or 7 balls of wool at 99p for the Chanel (£1 shop UK) and £1.19 a ball of the DK (from a small dept store in Wallingford UK)
3 metres of ribbon cost 15:- (krona that's £1.25 ish)
£9.05 but in hours spent unaffordable. I love that when you make it your self it truly is a one of original.
I will be posting lots more pictures, as I love it.

my sister's birthday surprise

City Place

I didn't mention this for fear of spoiling the surprise...but, last week one of my sisters and I flew down to West Palm Beach in Florida to surprise our youngest sister for her birthday. All courtesy of my brother-in-law who made the arrangements months ago! My sister was very surprised when she got home from work and there we were. So we had a wonderful four days of sisterly fun which included...

~dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant

~antiquing

~lunch at Serenity Garden Tea House & Cafe

~shopping at City Place including Anthropologie, which was my favorite stop

~a drive along S. Ocean Blvd in Palm Beach to see the amazing homes and architecture ~ so different than up here in the north!

~lunch at Benny's on the Beach

~more shopping, lots of relaxing, and time to talk

It was as much a treat for me as for my sister!

[All my pictures are on 35mm thanks to a missing card for the digital camera, so I'll try to post some later.]

~

I wasn't able to do this before I left, as I would have liked, so I want to take the time now to thank you ladies who have nominated me for the 'Nice Matters Award' ~ Kathy, Deb, and Sandra thank you!! I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and I think you are all most deserving of a Nice Matters Award as well.

Thank you for stopping by!

Knit maddness

When a project becomes just to big to carry around? I guess if your a stay a home for your eye's only type of knitter (I would imagine some people still think it's taboo to knit in public)

Or like myself, where ever I go my knitting comes too.

So now I have the problem with the more projects I advance with! is the bigger that they become.

Another reason for this is that in making the pattern/design as I go along the garment tends to be in one piece and getting heavier and heavier.

I must work on this but for now once they get so big (for now lets say bigger than the bag I guess it will have to stay at home and the next project can start to take shape. So many ideas/yarns so little time.

That famous sentence that I keep reading and hearing and am currently now saying my self!

"Just one more row"