Mistress Stash Enhancer

First off I wanna say, shout: THANK YOU EVERYONE!! I'm overwhelmed and amazed by all your wonderful comments!! Thank you!! Wow!!

Second: Don't forget, the comment contest mentioned in my last post is open till Sunday. Good luck! (Could anyone tell that I was extremely tired when I wrote that post? damnnn)

Now.. onto business

I have 2 FO's! I was very busy this weekend, crafting away. A few things I can't share for a few days. I finally finished a Christmas present, that was due *ahem* last Christmas... yes, you read that right. Last Christmas. Just in time for this Christmas! Riiigghht. And the rug that I was (hoping) to give to my Aunt that has recently been sick. Here's what everything looked like before I threw it into the washer

  

click to embiggen

I was a little worried about how the rug would turn out, how the blue borders are a little wonky. Since I had to use a different yarn I new I was throwing caution right into the wind.

click to embiggen, trust me you want to embiggen.       click to embiggen (Model was well compensated for his time)

Notice the Christmas tree? See how its like 2 feet taller than me and freaking huge? Why is has this tree been up since last Christmas? well... I had asked Michael in January to take the tree down, then I asked him again in February, then in March I threatened to decorated it for Easter. When that didn't work I covered his room with stick-it notes "take down the damn tree". April, May, and June passed. The tree was still standing in the dinning room.  I contemplated decorating the tree for Christmas in July. July, August and now September. Really, what is the point taking down this monster now? When Christmas is 3 months away? My plan for next year: In January I plan on trying to take down the tree in his presence screaming and swearing all the way. (Which is how I get him to do something I don't want to do. i.e. Installing the drivers for my printer on my computer. hehee.) Slowly but surely, I'm becoming my Mother. My parents have left their tree up till April one year.

Back to the sweater, by Wednesday night, I was ready to admit that the cardi must die. This other yarn wasn't going to work. See how stupidly obvious it looked? Might have worked if it was more like the other yarn, or I didn't have so much more of the collar to knit. How about how BIG the sweater is? Yeah, I though, I don't know why I thought I should knit it to fit a 40" bust! Never mind my bust is 32"! Yeah 8 extra inches for extra layers! Yeah! That makes sense. Dope.

Once I admitted this, even said it out loud, ate a bit more chocolate, the cadi met its fate, look only if your brave

                                                    going                                   going

I was to mad to cry, I am more frustrated with myself.  I told my (now blogless, get your blog BACK GIRL) friend and neighbor MandaJ that I was going to tear my sweater out. She asked me "what the hell are you going to do with it?" I said "knit a smaller sweater." Yeah, Once I don't feel a deep hatred to this yarn and feel like flinging it into a open fire to watch it melt. Is when I'll knit that smaller sweater.

I knew I had *some* tea, but I really had no idea that I have 12 boxes of tea! I love fruit teas and mint teas. I want to collect tea cups and tea pots. But my collection is very slow growing. The tea cup on the left I got from a DAR tea years ago with my Mom and Grandmother. If you embiggen the pic you can see my tea pots on the hutch in the background. My favorite tea pot is the blueberry one, my Mom gave it to me.

This brings me to what???

A few weeks ago, before my Aunt fell ill she gifted my mom with some yarn, which in turn was gifted to me. In the bag of vintage wool there are 12 13" crocheted squares in all.

With fall in the air, and it being so very chilly here I realized its time to start something new. A sweater, a nice bulky, cuddly cardigan. A few months ago I bought some yarn off of the DeStash blog, the seller said that it was Malabrigo. When the yarn arrived, I doubted that it was Malabrigo as its a 6 ply yarn and I beleive Malabrigo is two or one ply. When I subjected sample of this yarn to the burn test it melted like plastic. (When Mike comes home at the end of the month, I'll take pictures to share. My camera can't take close ups with out it looking like a blurry mess) I kept the yarn, because I fell in love with the earthy color way, and the softness of the yarn. Late Tuesday night I cast on, check out this yumminess

 

Its moving fast on my knit picks options size 11 needles. Finally I'm using them for knitting more than a swatch! I'm basing my cardi off the Gatsby Cardigan from A knitters Handy book of sweater patterns by Ann Budd.  Only 2 more inches before the underarm decreases. mmm, this yarn is so soft and cuddly its going to make a great sweater! Right now I'm dreaming of buttons and thinking maybe a zipper instead of the buttons...hmm...

Today Captain Mikie turns the BIG 40!

 

Happy Birthday

 

Big GuY!

 

  

Since Mike was scheduled to be at work during his birthday, we celebrated Mike's birthday last weekend while he was home on break with family.

  

 

Mikies nephew James was so happy to see his Uncle. Look at all those candles!

  

He really enjoyed his cake that Allysa picked out and his present       Thanks Julia for sharing your story about Morton's steak house, and how there is a cookbook. Excuse me, steak bible available! I told Mike, since I will probably never be able to go to one with him,at least I could cook him something from there! He got a kick outta it. Happy Birthday Mike!! The kids and I love you!!!

All day I've been thinking of the words to say. And came up with a whole lot of nothing. Having a hard time expressing my thoughts, my feelings, and my fears about what happened 5 years ago today. Thinking all day about what happened, where I was and what all has changed since that fateful day 5 years ago. Remembering how I was still married to my ex, sitting on the couch in our living room nursing Bryce who was only 8 months old reading Corra (age 2) Rhyme time, story time. How my (ex) husband was still in bed. I remember how the phone rang, it was one of his friends calling to ask if we where watching the news. Justin flipped the tv on to Fox News and at that moment we saw the second plane crash. If it wasn't for the Fox News emblem on the screen I would have thought we where watching a movie. It seemed beyond my thoughts that anyone would ever attack us, hurt innocent people that they had possibly never met. I don't think I'll ever forget that feeling, hugging my small children close and wondering what is going to happen next. I remember finding out some time that day about flight 93 crashing into a field in Shanksville and finding out how close they came over where we lived. We lived in New Bethlehem, PA. 2 hours away. Just thinking about where that plane could have landed...

I don't believe that I will ever understand why these terrorists hate the United States and its citizens so much. But I do know

I, and my family. Will.never.forget.

Here is my Saturday Sky taken at 2pm of the side of my front porch.

This morning, I woke up to rain. More rain! urgh! Thank goodness it stopped raining late this afternoon, the sky is now a overcast of clouds with some bright sunshine peeking through at times. *sigh* Sunshine, how I've missed it!

I signed up for the knitter's tea swap 2 today

there are still spots open! I can't wait to start, I enjoy tea (coffee too!) especially when its chill out and I'm waiting for my kids bus. I can't wait to start this swap, maybe I'll be lucky enough to have a international pal!

I keep forgetting to mention this but Bev over at Comfy Bev has started the October Birthday swap. If your birthday is in October, go sign up! I had so much fun with the August Birthday swap those October Birthday gals are going to have tons of fun too.

Hope everyone is enjoying there weekend, Allysa is (sorta) taking her nap. I'm off to enjoy some quiet knitting time, with a hot cup of tea a non-kid show while still in my pj's at 2:30 in the afternoon. I love weekends.