I'm pea Green with Envy

Pea Green I tell ya. LOOK! I'm sooooooooooooo excited. Purple and green are my daughters favorite colors. She wears lots and lots of purple and green. Over Christmas she picked out this purple and green Baby Alpaca Yarn and wanted me to make her a scarf. Well...it is super super soft and I hope she's happy with it, as well as warm. I had to go back and get one more hang of each color, making it far more expensive than most scarves I make. Shhhhhhh, don't tell hubby how much I spent. I knitted this using Close checks in multiples of 6+3. One day, I'll buy some for myself because it feels so nice around your neck.


And drum roll, the purse....no I didn't make it. Not that talented with thread and needle. Karen did. You can look through all her wonderful creations on her etsy site as well as her blog. I highly recommend her work. And in a few days will show one I splurged and bought for myself. Her prices are reasonable, her workmanship is excellent, and her creative flare for putting together colors and patterns is awesome. Be sure and tell her I sent you.

Love it!

Hope you can see the texture in this scarf. Remember you can click to enlarge the picture. I really like this, think both the texture and color look very manly. This is the start of a scarf for Daddy. It's slow going though, so wonder if I'm gonna get it done anytime soon?

I've never used this yarn before, and probably won't too often ($12.50 a skein); though it is the softest yarn I've ever felt! I love working with it, but at this price it's only for special people! And, since I only bought 2 skeins, it won't be a long scarf; though Daddy wouldn't want a long one anyway. The yarn is made in Peru. Rowan Lima 84% Bably Alpaca and 8% merino wool and 8% nylon. A cake is only 109 yards, requires hand washing in cold water etc. So, expensive and lots of care. But...I LOVE it.

I'm using Checks and Ridges stitch which is a nice completely reversible stitch in multiple's of 4 +2

Inviting you all to hop over to my travel blog and enter a contest! Click here, or on my Traveling Suitcase badge on the side./

Magical Bookcase

Magical bookcase? The title and the picture must have you scratching your head. Let me fill you a bit. The bookcase is old, it's scratched and in need of paint...that you can see from the picture. It's sitting in the garage here, in what hubby calls the staging area. It was loaded onto a moving truck about a week ago and hauled out to St. Louis for our daughter. There it received 2 coats of new paint. No pictures yet of that. Maybe in a couple of weeks, but back to the story.

This bookcase will now reside with our daughter, as I indicated. It's the 3rd home for the bookcase, the 3rd generational home that is. We've had it since she was a baby or soon thereafter. I think it was black when we received and it got painted white, cream, and yellow along the way. Magical, the shelves were moved around and my daughter and I turned it into Barbie's house. We covered the walls with paper, covered blocks and other items to make furniture for Barbie. It was a town house of course with multiple levels. I wish, really wish I had a picture of it. She and I played and spent many great mother and daughter hours together around this bookcase.

When I was young this same bookcase, the magical bookcase was in my parents home. There again it received multiple layers of paint and a variety of colors. During the year it was a bookcase in the living room; but...at Christmas it became the chimney that Santa came down. Yep...Mom used to remove the books, cover it with crept paper. In those days one could purchase crept paper that looked like red bricks. She made a fake fire with a little flickering light bulb. I guess we kids weren't too bright. We watched her do this, and I think even helped from time to time. Then she hang the Christmas Stockings. I need to look through old photo's, I think there's probably a picture somewhere. (though my scanner's not working). We'd sing Christmas Carole's around this magical bookcase. On Christmas morning it wasn't uncommon to find Santa's footprints in front of it, proving of course to us...that he did indeed come down the chimney using his magic dust.

Yes, this bookcase may be old; it may be beat up a bit; but to me........IT'S MAGICAL!

Mom was very creative indeed. Do you see a chimney when you look at this ordinary bookcase? Fond memories for me, both as an adult and as a child.