Busy Hands are Happy Hands!

OMG!  Spotted this the other day on Facebook and just had to share it with you all.  It's been YEARS since I've gone camping...pup tent, sleeping bag etc.  My card is fully punched on that with no desire to do it again; but this.....what can I say!

 Finished my potato chip scarf yesterday.  Love the colors and the way the yarn drapes, but not the way it looks on me...even if the picture weren't blurry and I knew how to take a decent selfie, which I don't.  The color is more accurate in the first picture, not the one with me wearing it.

Believe this is going to be donated to Bridge and Beyond, think a teen might enjoy it.

Finished another afghan.  This one is called Pippy Longstocking.  It too will be donated through my charity, Bridge and Beyond.  It was assembled from strips that were donated.  Had to do a fair amount of over stitching...as the person who donated it did the dreaded cut the yarn right after the knot and left no tail.  I shored the edges up as best as I could, but you can see in some places it's not super straight...due to the over stitching and extra stitches to fortify it.  But...I put it in the wash with fingers crossed.  Here it is being blocked....it made it fine through the wash, so I think all is well.  I named it Pippy Longstocking because it's so mixed, wild, un-tamed...a mish mosh.  When I designed it, looking through lots of different colored strips, thought it would be fun and funky.

LOL!  Anyone relate?  I've been doing a 5 minute plank routine, a 6 minute full body stretch, and a 7 minute work out daily here at home, so haven't actually made it to the gym....but what can I say.  Actually I had tried out several different apps, but din't find one that fit my need as a senior.  Did you know you can exercise with Alexa?  If you have an Echo Dot, or other Alexa model check it out.  In the menu area find skills.  I really like it and am finding it motivating.  

Continuing to work on this jewel toned scarf, it's grown a couple of inches, but is slow going with this very thin yarn.  My needles were a 4 wooden knit pics, but they kept coming apart, so I switched to my turbo's which are a 5, doesn't seem much different to me size wise.  But, it's easier to see without the green cord and dark needles.  The silver needles is an improvement.

Startitis, Un-knitting And Cocktail Hour

LOVE this color, teal and brown.  Forgot I had this yarn, but came across it the other day when cleaning out my office area (or at least partially).  Decided the startitis I've had lately that I've been trying ignore just kicked in when I spotted this yarn.  I wanted to use the multi-directional scarf pattern.  You start with a triangle (what you see at the top where you see more brownish.........then when it's the size you need you start doing short rows  (what you see on the  bottom) and up to the ridge.......which is the join of the 2 triangles.  You go back and forth.  This pattern recommends using shaded, self striping yarn, or variegated yarn; but.......I found this yarn just didn't seem to change color frequently enough to see the changes in direction?  Soooooooooo, after knitting several hours, I did the un-knitting.  Will put this yarn aside and use for something else, as I really wanted to do this pattern.

Potato Chip Scarf has grown quite a bit since the last picture.  It's now 38 inches.  So am chipping away, snarky pun.

Have mentioned I don't decorate a lot and I don't start early; but I do love cocktail hour, cocktail napkins........and well this seemed a good place to start.

The snow-flake napkin holder is on top of the wine rack in the dining room..so decorating did begin about 10 days ago.

 Before the cocktail napkins were switched out, a Manhattan and fancy nuts cocktail evening.

Then another night it was an Old Fashion and chips and guacamole night.  We do enjoy our cocktail hours.  We sit and talk without the tv on, tell each other about our days.  Then we move onto dinner.

On the Old Fashion, Chips and Guacamole night, we had chicken enchilada's.  First time I've made it, turned out yummy and will be repeated.  Found black beans with jalepeno's  and lime, very tasty.  Definitely a repeat.

And leaving you with a bit of humor.  I'm not a fan of winter so this had me nodding in agreement.

Yarn Purchases, Potato Chip Scarf and.............Dieting?

I've got a case of start-itis.  I've been fighting it for awhile. 

•  The red and gray are very basic sock yarn but, it's Berroco's Comfort Sock and is beyond super soft.  AND these are Buckeye Colors, and each skein has 447 yards soooooo plenty to make something.  I'm sorta seeing a striped shawl, or scarf...perhaps a Diagonal scarf, or something along that line where the stripes really make the project.
• The larger cake upper right Plymouth Yarn Hot Cakes is 404 yards of WW yarn, also kinda Buckeye Colors, which I bought before the solid sock yarn. Since this is self striping and due to being heavier weight yarn would work up quickier, perhaps this is the one that should be a diagonal scarf.  Or might this make a fun potato chip scarf?
• Then there's the 2 yummy Queensland collection, Perth....like the fun purple and gray I'm currently using to make the potato chip scarf.  But, oh look at those yummy jewel tones

No, I'm not done with any of my current projects (2 afghans, plus the yellow shawl, and the purple potato chip scarf.

But, it is now just over 33 inches, so lots of headway since my previous picture showing you how well the 2nd lucky skein matched.

 Then there's also this Cooper Corgi YUMMY YUMMY yarn from Savannah, Georgia I bought while in Hilton Head a few weeks ago.  Two pictures so you could see the front and back of the hank to see the colors.

It's hand dyed and twisted thus the $45.00 price tag for 460 yards of 100% superwash Merino.  Softer than butter...

This is the sample of a shawl on display at the yarn shop using the above hand dyed.  I really wanted to be able to lay this sample out so it could be seen but was limited with space.  I did purchase this pattern.

We've all just eaten a bunch no doubt at Thanksgiving, so perhaps we're thinking how to drop a few pounds before Christmas and New Years.  I am not vegan or vegetarian and have NO desire to be, but this tickled my funny bone.

Do you get start-itis?  Which one would you start with?  Is there a pattern that calls out to you using above fibers?

Are you dieting after Thanksgiving?  Let me know in your comments.

Shawls For Me and for You, Drink Up

YIPPEE!!  In my previous post I discussed the possibility of adding the orange -green yarn to this potato chips scarf, as it seemed I wasn't going to have enough yarn otherwise.  I asked for some input on whether or not the two would work together and got mixed reviews.  One of ladies I asked is a high school friend who works at my local yarn shop.  She said, "I don't think  you'll be happy with it if you do."  Love people giving you a honest answer.  I bought this yarn on the West Coast months ago and didn't have the label to give me a color number of anything to match it with.  On line searching didn't look like anyone carried this yarn, but my yarn shop had a few skeins and my friend remembered it.  Yippee, problem solved.  See where the red circle is in the picture, that's where I added the new skein........so I've made some good headway with this scarf and am really liking it.  Pleased you really can't tell.  Who knows if the dye lot was the same.  I still have some of the 1st cake so will get to the 2/3rd's point and switch back to it.  

AND, I've made really good headway with my drop stitch shawl.  In the previous post you can see I've just gotten to the 5 rows of lace in the first solid yellow section.  After that lace section I've done a section of garter stitch of solid yellow, garter stitch darker bland, garter stitch solid yellow....which is the half way point.  Beyond that I've done a garter stitch section of light blend, followed by another solid yellow garter stitch section and am now at the end of the yellow lace section.  Quite a few additional inches.  Will move back to the mix sections of light and dark blends with lace and garter stitches.  Then, I will add yellow I think to both ends to pull it all together.

When last I showed you this gray blend shawl it needed to have it's ends worked in.  Yippee........got that done, something I put off.  Here's the shawl nicely draped with a fabulous hand made shawl pin.  I'm very pleased I found that, think it really finishes it off.  This is a gift for a very good friend who likes gray and hinted at that when I made the pink and green for myself awhile back.

A close up of the pin with those gray stones......I really thought it was perfect.

This is my upper arm, 4 days after getting my Shingles shot.  It was hot to the touch for a week, but got better each day.  Muscle type soreness.  My cost after insurance was $143.00.....and I still need the 2nd go round several months down the road.  Even with all that said, it beats getting the shingles, so I do recommend you get yours if you haven't already.

LOL......spotted this recently in a little gift shop and it spoke to me.  And with that, I'm heading to the kitchen to make Manhattan's for tonight.  Hubby just called and said he's finally leaving work.

Bet You Can't Eat Just One, Potato Chip Scarf.

 Well...a bit of start-itis hit me.  I've been anxious to start working with this yarn, Queensland Collection, Perth 3.5 oz 437 yards and finally decided on this ruffle scarf.  The pattern is called Potato Chip.  I'm adding a link to a video that describes how you accomplish this using short rows.  I didn't find this video until I was at the point you see above.  In the video she goes from a small amount of stitches to a larger, the pattern I used did the opposite.

VIDEO HERE

The pattern I used though is HERE, but I am not using worsted weight yarn, and therefore I used 1.5...in that I cast on 30, and used 12-9-6 for my short row count.  Then thought it wasn't quite full enough and periodically changed to 15-11-8 and then would go back to 12-9-6.  My problem now is wondering if I'll have enough yarn as I was going to use both of this in fairly large blocks.  On my recent ladies trip to Hilton Head, my friend talked me into just using the purple.........gotta get my scale out and weigh how much I have left and decide if this is going to work.

Have done a few more rows on my mellow yellow (just decided on that name) shawl.  The drop stitches show up so much more on the solid yellow because you can see the carpet behind.

I've not signed up for the official challenge, but am using this photo to try and limber up with yoga a bit.  Still having a few issues with vertigo; but trying to work through it.

Night two of my 50th class reunion.  YES.......I am that old!  We were setting things up here before the non committee classmates showed up.  A fun, but tiring weekend.  It was just one day after that when I headed out of town for ladies week.

Was nice to get away and relax afterwards.  How's things going with you?