A few more skeins of yarn please. :D

Yesterday, I found a few good yarn deals that were just too good to pass up. ;)

A skein of Caron Simply Soft Baby at Michael's for one dollar.


Two skeins of Moda Dea "Baby Talk" at AC Moore for 2 dollars each.
(That yarn feels wonderful!)


A skein of Lily Sugar 'n Cream at Michael's, in a cool color called "Midnight Magic" for one dollar.


A skein of Bernat Baby Coordinates at Michael's for a couple bucks.


And 3 beautiful skeins of Madil "All Seasons" in a lovely rosey shade. It was 40% off, on the discount porch at Cottage Yarn. :D It is SO SOFT and beautiful!


It was fun to buy a few skeins of yarn, just for fun. :)

Knitting in the Land of Oz

This morning, I decided to spend the day at home.....relaxing and knitting. :)

It's been like a DREAM!!!!! So nice to have no commitments or responsibilities.

I started out the morning by having a nice breakfast with my hubby. Yummy omelets!

Then, while he spent some time on the internet, I went to my craft room to knit and listen to "The Wizard of Oz" on the Librivox website. I just love being able to listen to books for free!! :D

To make my day even better, I received a package from an eBay seller. It's a really cool crewel embroidery kit of a knitting bag with an initial on it. I think I'll use an "S" for "Shandeh". ;)


The other day, I went to buy a few skeins of yarn. I haven't done that in a while, and I was just itching for a yarn purchase. I got 3 skeins of baby yarn for our Oddball Preemie Baby Blankets, and 1 skein of Patons Lacette for myself.


This morning, I was trying to make a lacy scarf with the "Patons Lacette". I spent a couple hours looking through my knitting patterns and knitting design books. I chose a few different designs to try out. I started one design, using size 10 1/2 needles, just to make it lacy, but I didn't like how loose it was. So, then I switched to size 5 needles to see how it turns out.

After a few hours of listening to "The Wizard of Oz", and quiet knitting, I became drowsy. So, I took a 3 hour nap, and woke to have lunch. I sliced a tomato, and covered it with big chunks of mozzarella cheese. Then I sprinkled on some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and added some herbs and spices. After zapping it in the microwave for about a minute, it was hot and tasty. LOVE that stuff! I also had a few slices of turkey with it. Not bad at all.

Next, I decided to enjoy two cups of hot tea.

They were yummy.

Now I'm off to the Land of Oz and Knitting! :D

Crochet Border on Blankets

Last night, I had time to add a crochet border to the baby blankets I made for charity. I'm glad I did, because it really shaped them up nicely!

More Knitting for Charity

I decided that I wanted to make a baby blanket for the "Afghans for Afghans" project, so I mentioned it in the Knitting Help Forum. I needed 10 inch squares knit from Lamb's Pride Bulky. I knit 11 squares myself, and collected 13 from other knitters and crocheters. So, I was able to seam together TWO baby blankets! :D

Knitting Oddball Projects for Charity

Wow! Our Oddball Projects are growing like weeds! I'm doing my best to keep up with them, but it's becoming a full-time job. :D

Our fullsize blankets are coming along nicely. You can read about them on the blog.
http://blanketfinder.blogspot.com/
I'm always amazed to see how far they have come since February of 2007. Over a hundred knitters are involved in those blankets and lapghans.

Our Oddball Baby Blankets and Preemie Blankets are so fun and beautiful. There are almost 100 knitters working on the baby blankets all over the United States, Canada, and England.

So far, in the United States, we have completed almost 20 baby blankets, and are working on 50 more! England is working on about a dozen of them, and more than 20 are being made in Canada.

The baby blankets are quick and fun, and our knitters really enjoy sending packages to each other. Sometimes, they include small gifts, such as candy, tea, coffee, candles, lotion, or handmade soap. And of course, we sometimes give each other yarn or knitting patterns. :D

In addition to the blankets, we are also making Oddball Shawls, which are given to members of the Knitting Help Forum when they need encouragement. So far, we have completed 6 of them, and are working on 5 more. We have given two of them to deserving forum members. What a joy! There are about 20 of us involved in that project.

Right now, I'm working on SO many Oddball projects. I don't have time to work on anything else, so all my other knitting is just sitting in baskets, waiting for me. I wonder if I will ever knit anything besides Oddball projects! Ha!

Here are the things I'm working on right now:

Oddball Shawls
Shades of Pale Shawl (knitting middle section)
Barbie Shawl (adding fringe)
Misty Blues Shawl (adding fringe)
Candy Shop Shawl (adding fringe)
Magic Shawl (adding fringe)

Oddball Preemie Blankets
Citrus Punch (knitting last section, and adding border)
Cherry Blossoms (knitting last section, and adding border)
Spring Fling (knitting last section, and adding border)
Angel Kisses (knitting last section, and adding border)
Sunny Meadow (adding border)
Forest Greens (starting over again, because the other was lost in the mail)

Oddball Blankets
Oddball Blanket #1 - (finishing up, and adding border)
Oddball Lapghan #1 - (finishing up, and adding border)

Washing Yarn

Remember the yarn I won on eBay that smelled like an ashtray?

It was beautiful yarn, and I got it for a great price:




When I first got it, I noticed that it smelled like cigarettes. Very much!
So, I put it out in the sun for several hours.


This usually works wonders. But not this time. The yarn still smelled AWFUL.

So, I started unwinding it with my yarn swift, and let it rest in the storage room to air out....hopefully.


No such luck there. This yarn needed SERIOUS help.


This weekend, I finished unwinding it all with my swift, and it all ended up in nice hanks like this:


They still smelled to high heaven, so I washed each hank by hand in some laundry detergent and warm water. Then, I rinsed each hank with cold water, and hung them outside on tree branches to dry. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was crazy.

(I would have taken a photo of the drying hanks, but then I might have been committed.)

Of course, as soon as I got them all out on the tree branches, it started to rain. HARD.
:P

When the rain finally subsided, I went back out again, and squeezed out as much rainwater as I could handle. MAN!!! This was WORK!

I was almost brought to the point of using a few choice words, but I persevered. It smelled nice outside after the rain, and there were kids out playing in the streets, so that helped my mood a bit.

The skeins were left outside for several hours, and then brought back in when the sun was starting to set. They were still a little damp, so I had to hang them all over the house on every doorknob available. There were 11 hanks of yarn, but not that many doors in my house, so I improvised by using the knobs on the kitchen cabinets as well.

Now, three days later, I have dry hanks of yarn. They do smell better, THANK GOD!!!

An Afghan for an Afghan! :)

Whee!!

This morning, I woke up early, after having slept all night. ALERT THE MEDIA!!!
I NEVER sleep at night. I don't know what the deal was.

I know one thing....my hubby was sick, with a fever of 101, and he was actually sleeping under the covers. Maybe that made me feel all comfy and cozy. :D

Anyway, I slept all night, which was a wonderful thing.

So, when I got up this morning, I gave my hubby a glass of ice water, and a little cup of water with some Airborne dissolved in it. I also talked him into calling in sick at work. I was shocked when he did it! Wow!

Next, I made him ANOTHER glass of water, this time with Alka-Seltzer Plus cold medicine dissolved in it. By this time, he was up and walking around a bit. So I talked him into making himself a toaster waffle for breakfast. After eating that, he went back to bed to sleep off his fever.

The house was nice and quiet, so I went to the living room, and gathered together all the squares that I had for making a baby blanket for the "Afghans for Afghans" project. I counted all the squares, and pulled out 12 of them (each a different color). Then, I arranged them in a way that looked decent.


Next, I started weaving in all the ends of yarn that were hanging loose. The Lamb's Pride Bulky yarn is so thick, it looks like dreadlocks. (tee-hee!)

So, after weaving in all the ends, the squares got out of order somehow. I know this, because the completed baby blanket is completely different from the way I laid them out originally. :P



Oh well, it still looks good. I just did a basic whipstitch to seam the squares together. It gives it a nice "rustic" look. Makes me wanna snuggle under it in a cabin in the mountains. But, I don't get to snuggle under it at ALL. This blanket is for a baby in Afghanistan. ;)

Thanks to some members of the Knitting Help Forum, I had enough squares to finish the blanket. How cool is that? I knit about 9 squares, and received 11 squares from members of the forum. :D I'm close to having enough to make two blankets, so I'm gonna get back to work making some more squares. Hopefully, I'll be able to send TWO blankets to the "Afghans for Afghans" project! Woo Hoo!