I love having Followers, Thank You

Showing posts with label afghans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label afghans. Show all posts

Friday, January 12, 2024

Starts and Finsihes, Irish Afghan, Always Audiobooks, and The Bathroom Project

 

Quite some time ago I designed this afghan along with many others.  People used to send me pieces parts and I would design and join the pieces parts to make warm afghans.  I always named them, and called this one Wee Bit Irish.  As you can see the pieces parts vary is style and size, and color.  Most are crocheted, but a few are knitted.  I've made over 70 of these throughout the last 14 ish years.  Once I need new projects to work on, I get the bagged designs out and find appropriate color yarn to edge and join them.

 Founds some light green/mintish in my stash.  Though in this picture (apparently a brighter day) the pieces parts look less green.  I bagged it up to take on the road as one of my winter away projects.


Step 3, I've begun edging the pieces/squares.  I begin with the largest squares and edge, then know the other squares have to become the same size.  Thus far, I've edged about 9-10 of the 25 pieces.  I think it's looking less Irish and more minty...how about you?  Think I'm going to change the name to Minty Irish.  Any thoughts?  Once these afghans are completed I donate them to a local homeless shelter.

This knitted teal and gray scarf was a car project.  I started it in the car when hubby and I were going to Williamsburg this past summer and finished it in the car on our way to our winter quarters.  It might get donated also, as I don't think I'm in need of another scarf.

A fun, but perhaps a bit bizarre book about coming of age, dealing with grief, learning about responsibilities and what is real love?  I say a bit bizarre because a daughter on a summer vacation seems to meet her mother....time travel.  I don't know.  Not really a believable book, and not my normal type of reading; but I did truly enjoy the book, gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.  I also enjoyed it because I've traveled to Italy and would like to go back.

A weird/sad version of Ground HOg Day.  I can't say I enjoyed the book, only gave it one star; but I also couldn't stop reading it...as I kept thinking things would be made right and I wanted things to be resolved.  It got much higher marks on Goodreads from others, so you might enjoy it?  If you read it, let me know what you think....I'm curious.

More my normal type of book.  Takes place during World War II in London in 1938.  The coming together of people taking care of each other, learning to love and trust during difficult times.....even for a German refugee.  Highly recommend this one.

More of a fluff book than I often read/listen to; but I LOVED it.  A fire, a chambermaid, love lost, mystery, a ghost, money, love, lust, and......well, a bit of everything.  Put it on your list and have fun!


A bathroom project.  We have a small bathroom, very much in need of being redone.  Removing the old heavy tub and putting in a shower is only part of the work that needs doing.  The tiles you see here are from the front of the picture back the flooring, the tile in the shower, and the small design for accent.  It's a bit hard to see in the picture, but the tiles are mostly white with a bit of gray.  The walls will be gray, the new vanity and commode etc will be white.  A long awaited project.  It's hard to remodel your bathroom when you only have ONE!

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

Projects, Books, and Exercise

 

The picture doesn't show much of the blue section, but it's more than it looks.  However, it's slow going and I've not worked on it in a couple of weeks.  Needed a break from it.  Not sure when I'll get it out of the project bag to knit more.


You might remember I started this in the car on my way to Hilton Head and had about half the gray section completed.  The remaining gray and heather you see was completed in the car on the return trip.  Like the afghan above, this has been put aside.  It's odd, quite unusual, I've not knitted in a couple of weeks.  Just been occupied with other things.

Been awhile since I've been here blogging as well.  Life sometimes gets in the way.

Not good.  Never got around to blogging about March.  Walks sick a week so did nothing during that week.

Walked 8 times 99.13 miles (down from Feb), took 3 bike rides  (also down from Feb), Yoga 2 which was up over Feb, Planks 9 (which is the same as Feb...except I increased my time mid month from 4 x 45 to 4 x 50 seconds and 13 second rest to 14.

I hadn't added the stats on my exercise page (see tab above), as I forgot to take Dec stats with me, so today added Dec, Jan, Feb, March, and April to my page.

April had some travel which also decreased stats (sigh).  Planks were down to 7, but still doing the higher time of 4 x 50, I also did one day of side planks at 20 seconds x 2 with 5 second rest.  I added High steps which I did 6 times during the last week a count of 60.  I didn't manage any yoga during the month.  Walking was normal day to day stuff, plus mowed the yard 3 times for a total of 97.28 miles, sligtly down from March.  After my travels returned home to day after day of rain and cold weather.  Hoping May will be a better month....I keep trying.

Another book about WWII.  This is based on a  true story and absolutely fascinating.  The book was a NY best seller.  A woman who's a book worm, mother, worked in a library becomes known as "Lady Death".  She mets Eleanor Rosevelt.  Timely I think to read now, as it deals with Ukraine being invaded by Nazi's.

Another book by the same author, Kate Quinn focuses on the important role women played in England during The War.  Also a best seller.    I highly recommend both books.

Several of you leave comments and choise anonymous rather than name and url, and then type the name of your blog in your comment; but when you do that, it is not a live link.  So thought I would post this note to show you how to make a live link if for some reason you don't use name and url.  When you use name and url, you simply type your name, and cut and paste the url from your blog post.  When bloggers don't have that option available you can do as above in the text of your comment so people can click on it and go right to your blog.  Hope this helps.  When you use anonymous it takes me or others several additional steps to return the favor of a blog comment.

Will get busy and visit you all so I can catch up.

Monday, March 27, 2023

Knitting, Eating, Reading Continue

 

Blue Ripple, I think is what I'll call this afghan.  I've made good progress since the last picture.  The variegated blue yarn section is a large section, as I have a lot of that yarn...though I don't like working with it, as it's course and hard on the hands.  I hope it softens up when laundered.  The section after the variegated is navy blue, which has not yet been used.  I started with the variegated, then used light blue, then a medium blue, and then the large variegated section, followed by the navy.  Then I think probably back to the variegated...we'll see how the amounts of the yarn work out.

We had another dinner party for 6.  We had pesto butschetta topped with diced tomatoes to go with our cocktails, broccoli, and heirloom potatoes seasoned with garlic and olive oil.


And Chicken Marsala.  

Cocktails were Classic Manhattans.

The Book of Lost Names.........Nominated as Best Historical Fiction in 2020.  I LOVED this book.  Nazi's tried hard to destroy many cultures, art, books, and libraries.  They really wanted nothing none German to survive World War II.  A  secret code, and the hard work of forgers giving people new identies as they escaped The Nazi's makes for book hard to put down.
While we all know about Helen Keller's blindness, and how she overcame the difficulties, I did not know how many other things she excelled in.  This autobiography was quite an eye opener for me.
tuesdays with Morrie, is at times uplifting and at times hard to read/listen to.  This memoir written by Mitch Albom deals with life and death and unusual friendship between Mitch and his Sociology Professor.  It also shows how impactful teaching can be.  Highly recommend this book.

Exercise will be down this month, as I had a nasty gastrointestinal bug for too many days, and we had more rain and more wind thus far this month.  We'll just have to see how the month's stats shake out.  Thank you all for your encouragement, it's always appreciated.  I really wanted this month to be gang busters, but it will not be.

Thursday, March 09, 2023

Yarn and More. You Can't Knit While Walking, or Biking or Planking


 Square Garden is complete.  It's laying out to dry/block.  I named this one square garden because with all the brown, and beige it reminded me of the ground this time of the year, with patches of green grass around it.  There's a name for this type of pattern where the squares are diagonal, but I don't remember what it is.  And since the squares aren't really the same, but similar it might not qualify to be called that, even if I could remember what it is, lol.


Here it is before edging and joining.  Very bland here I think.  I think the green brighten it up and made the colors pop.  Though some the difference you see colorwise is no doubt due to different lighting when the pictures were taken.

I'm done with the pieces parts afghans for now, as I only brought the 3 projects with me while we winter away.  This knitted ripple afghan is a long term project.  I can't work on this at night due to the darker colors, and it's not one I can knit while watching tv else my counting would be off...so this project bag has been put away for some time and I thought it would be good to bring with me to work on some before tucking it away again.  It's also yarn that's rather hard on my hands, so I don't work on this for long periods of time.  Who knows how long it will take to complete this one.

More beautiful roses.  These have been fun to watch day to day. They looked almost white with a slight green edge when they were buds, then as they started opening up you could see they were light pink.

Cocktail napkins (you know I have a thing about them), lined up for a dinner party of 6.  Everyone enjoys seeing what napkins I'll have when they come for cocktails before dinner.

The menu that night was beautiful asparagus, lightly oiled and seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper.  They're ready to pop in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Salad was spring mix, bacon bits, onions, strawberries, and shaved almonds with a light vingerette dressing.
One of my specialities is mac n cheese.  Though this is not mac n cheese to most people.  They call is my special cheese casserole.  I use 4 or 5 types of cheese (depending on what I have), and imported Italian pasta cooked aldente.  Layered, add milk and butter.  Cheeses this night were: Parmesean, sharp cheedar, romano, cottage cheese.  Mac n Cheese isn't perhaps a normal dish prepared for company, but it's often requested, as it was for this dinner.
Stuffed mushrooms served during cocktails.  Mushrooms are stuffed with parm. cheese, tomatoes, baconbits, and chopped spinach.

February stats:  Biking up from 4 rides in January to 6 rides in February, planks down from 11 in January to 9 in February, walks up from 8 in January to 12 in February.  Mileage down from 116.89 miles in January to 109.33 in February.  All in all not bad, given February is a shorter month than January, I'm feeling encouraged.  AND towards the end of the month on Feb 27th I upped the time on my planks from 45 seconds x 4 with a 13 second rest to 50 seconds x 4 and a 14 second rest.

A short read/listen , but cute letter from President Obama to his girls.  Light hearted and sweet.

Present Day in Oxford where secrets of the past during WWII come to light.  American Kendra interviews Isabel and the past unfolds.  The lives of two sisters separated in War grow up and experience two very different lives.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Coffee Latte Afghan, The Election

 



Coffee Latte has come out of the project bag again for awhile.  It was quite skinny when last I worked on it and showed you a photo.  It's about 3 x as deep now.  It still is going to take some time I think.


Close up so you can the color better, not solid brown.  Got a curling edge problem.  Should have done several rows of garter before starting the pattern.  So, picked up stitches  and knitting 3 rows but it's still curling.  Pulled out the picked up stitches and will probably crochet an edge when all done, that and blocking hopefully will take care of the problem.  Other thought, will it matter if I pick up stitches on the back side to start instead of the front side which is what I did and you can clearly see the fold?  Thoughts??

Ern and I when we voted early.  The line was pretty long, well beyond and behind the building and doubled up.  Took about an hour and 15 minutes, but the weather wasn't too bad, another advantage of voting early.


After voting we celebrated with a little bubbly in our back yard.


Our neighborhood had only Biden signs, which was nice.  I was happy I didn't have to see lots of the orange ones signs.  Though there were some as I did my daily walks.

Two recent books I've listened to as I walk.  LOVED Little Fires Everywhere, but hated how it ended.  Anyone read or listened to it?

This book along with Bolton's, and A Warning by Anonymous which later we learned was Miles Taylor all point to how completely dysfunctional this man is and how unfit he has been since day 1.  Counting the days til we can throw him out of our house.  So frustrated he won't permit the traditional transition.  It's dangerous on several levels, certainly the national security is at stake and no doubt more people will die from Covid without a smooth and coordinated effort between the outgoing administration and the incoming administration.  He obviously doesn't even care that he's putting even his own followers at risk.  Sadly, they don't seem to understand it either.






Sunday, April 26, 2020

Martini's and Face Masks, Strange Times

It's only happened once so far.....but it was nice to sit outside and have cocktails.  Life has been crazy for all of us lately, so this "normalcy" was very much enjoyed.  We love our cocktail hour, and we love to be outside, and so this was a bonus.  Short lived for sure, been cold, windy, and wet pretty much since.  **Edited to add I'm join The Flaunt it Friday Linky Party** A first for me, but sounds fun.  I'm Flaunting my bar tending skills.  Which are so good, truly...even if the bars were opened, we would cocktail at home before going to dinner.


Double thickness, with a pocket where a filter can be inserted, and nose clip.  I've tried multiple times to order masks on line without much success.  Sarah S a lady who's donated through the years for Bridge and Beyond made these.  She sent 2 for me and 2 for my husband........Thank you Sarah S.  These masks are so well made.  I had purchased some from a lady in the neighborhood, but they were too big for me, and too small for my husband, no pocket and no nose clip...soooooooooo appreciate having one that will work for us.  Dr. Brix indicates social distancing is going to be with us for a while...throughout the summer.  So want to be prepared.


Don't know how well you can see this. Remember you can click to enlarge it to see it better.  It's a start, a slow one for another afghan.  20 stitches garter, followed by 20 stockinette and back to garter.   Once I get a good amount done to have a block (every other), then will switch and do stockinette, then garter and back to stockinette.  The 2 small sections at each end are 5 stitches of garter so when the stockinette block is the end block it won't curl.  It's not coming a long very quickly, as the brown is hard to work on at night and even during the day we've had so much rain and gloomy days lately, it's not as easy to see.  When I put this brown yarn in a project bag I wrote the name Brown Marble...but I'm not sure I like that name.  As most of you know, I always name my afghans...suggestions anyone? **Edited to add I got 2 suggestions in the comments thus far, one from Elephant Child who said something about coffee, and one from Ellie Foster suggesting something about chocolate.  I'm not a chocolate lover, so decided I'd go with the coffee idea.  I recently completed an afghan I named Coffee Latte, a mix of browns and variegated.  So settled on Espresso for the name of this afghan.  It's not completely solid brown, but very close and is dark...strong, like Espresso.  Thanks ladies for the suggestion.  AND my knitting would also be something I'm flaunting.


One needs to keep laughing during these strange times.  Now I'm not a beer drinker, but could put a Martini in one room, or perhaps 


A Manhattan, and or an Old Fashion
Variety is nice, don't you think!

**Some Monday Fun** Click on the picture for the linky party