Trish Knits.com

Category: Knitting

A Card for Genny

I couldn’t blog this the other night when I made it, but Lookie!!

Birthday card with flowers on it

I really enjoyed making this! I got the idea for the flowers from this hat pattern, and went into my button stash and a jar of confetti for the rest. I printed the saying on my computer first, directly onto the card paper. I found the saying on the internet (thought it was appropriate for the person I made it for) and set it using my greeting card maker software.

Several people have asked me about the card stock I use. It’s this one by Avery (the label people). Their plainer cards come in boxes of 30, and with these, you only get 20 in a box, but the paper is really quite lovely and worth it.

I find that making cute little cards is the perfect antidote to the problem of big project monotony. Often I find that I can’t focus on a large project very well. This happens to me during times of stress, or when there’s a lot going on at work or something. With small projects like these i can feel like I’ve made something cute and it does usually involve yarn and it offers a sense of accomplishment–and the all-important break from the project that I can’t seem to concentrate on anyway.

Tonight we had a family pool party with my Mom and Tony, aunt and uncle, and cousins. It’s an almost annual event that includes a ton of wonderful picnic foods. I supplied the steak and hot dogs. Yes I said steak. We eat GOOD in my family. There was only a scrap small enough to give my cat a good snack later. It was a beautiful day, too… hot, but not humid at all, and breezy. This is rare for a Maryland summer and I’ve learned to take full advantage of days like this when they happen.

I did bring some knitting along but only knit about 8 stitches in total. The company was just too good.

it was a great day. Too bad it has to be over… sigh.

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June 27, 2009
Back to Everyday Knitting…

…On what turned out to be a most unusual day. It seems hard or somehow inappropriate to even talk about my mundane knitting when there was such a horrific accident on our Metro system today. I am not the most praying person, but I am indeed praying for all of the victims and their families this day.

But, on to the knitting, even with my heavy heart. I realized earlier today that it’s been a while since I’ve updated Jen’s Hello Kitty Scarf. A solid 6 weeks of knitting, and this is what I’ve got:

Pink scarf in progress

It’s probably close to three feet long now. I figure I’ll knit until almost the end of the ball, then fringe. So it will be however long it is. Thankfully, Jen is small and so it doesn’t need to be hugely long. But it will, I am convinced, be quite long enough.

And ok, here’s a yarny confession:

Purple Yarny Goodness

Yes, I hit the Knit Picks yarn sale last week. I got 22 balls of Andean Treasure yarn, with which I am going to make Ysolda Teague’s Coraline Sweater. I met Ysolda at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year and she was wearing that very sweater. I was smitten! And totally thrilled when she said she had made the pattern in larger sizes. Wow.

Then today? I ordered small quantities of brightly colored sock yarn for another birthday card project. I’ll be rushing. Shhh… it’s a secret.

Oh, and Jon and Kate? I’m so over them now. So sad for the kids.

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June 22, 2009
Father’s Day Hearts

I had to give up on the knit necktie greeting card for now… it just wasn’t working out. I’m sad! But I came up with this instead:

Father’s day card with knit heart

I have a long way to go in the “it doesn’t look like first grade art” department, huh? But, I hope he likes it. It has a knit heart, sparkly Mod Podge (because the plain mod podge wouldn’t do!) and carefully printed upon and then recklessly torn up paper. I still have to learn the art of effective yet not overkilled and messy gluing. (Is that a word? Gluing? It looks weird.) Any advice for an inexperienced card maker? I’d love to get better at this.

Of course, Tegan had to get into the middle of my photo shoot:

Tegan gets in on the photo shoot

And then my daughter spent 10 minutes digging the cat hair out of the card. Ick.

Today was a busy day. We had a party at my mom’s house, where I made homemade guacamole and lime fizzies. Both seemed to be well liked. I’m on a lime kick these days. I had never made lime fizzies before so I sort of “winged” it. Basically I squeezed about 5 limes into a measuring bowl, and then added enough sugar to make it syrup-y. Don’t ask me how much, but it was a lot. Then mint leaves and stirred it all around. Then poured about an inch or so of the lime/mint syrup into the glasses, over ice, and then filled the glasses with club soda and stirred. (The glasses were actually small plastic party cups, so for a tall glass, perhaps more lime syrup would be called for.) Yum! Someday I’ll post my guacamole recipe but I don’t know proportions for that, either. I’m a very seat-of-my-pants sort of cook.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day but we don’t really have any big plans. Some years are like that. We have lots of housework to do and grocery shopping. Maybe I’ll surprise John with a meatloaf. He’s pretty easy to please.

I miss my dad.

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June 20, 2009
Not Knitting, But…

I’ve been obsessed with making greeting cards this week. More thinking about them than doing, but here’s my first attempt:

Birthday card with sleeping cat on the cover

The cover says:

“I herdz u wants naps fur ur birfdays…”

Inside:

“Already took dems… Srry.”

Now I need to figure out how to knit a father’s day card for the DH. Thoughts of what could go on it? I thought of a teeny knitted necktie, but not sure how that will work. I need inspiration. Thanks for your help!

PS–yes that’s my own cat on the cover. I took the photo about three months ago and have been waiting for something to do with it.

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June 16, 2009
Worldwide Knit in Public Day, 2009

Today was Worldwide Knit in Public Day, and the Bowie Knitters rose to the occasion! We all showed up at the usual time in the usual place, needles, cold drinks and yummy snacks at the ready. It seems most of us were working on wearables today. I took a few photos, so here you go. As always, click to make them bigger and read the details.

I decided to work on my February Lady Sweater today

Marie had her February Lady Sweater today, too… but wasn’t working on it while I had the camera out.

Leslie was working on a beautiful ribbed top

Helene brought her sweater coat to show today

closeup of the top of the sweater coat

closeup of the hem detail of the sweater coat–stunning

Kathy joined us for the first time today

Melodye was casting on a new scarf project

Helene and Alice studying a pattern

Today we welcomed Kathy (is it with a K?) to the group, who brought along her Amazon Kindle
to show. Boy oh boy, do I covet one of these! Dina, who works in the publishing industry, worries about how this device and others like it are changing the way people read books. For me it would make a huge difference to have one, because many books are too bulky and heavy for me to manipulate. Sigh… the device is still too expensive for me… plus I have other big projects to work on later this summer. Can’t talk about that now, though. I’m veering off subject. Back to the knitters.

Helene brought her amazing sweater coat that she just finished and blocked, for all of us to ooh and ahh over. That woman’s knitting is amazing! Just look at it! Isn’t it stunning?

We even had a power outage at our Borders today, which made alarms go off and the air conditioner stop working. For the most part though, the knitters were undeterred and just kept on knitting.

I also got some more card making supplies today. some decorative papers, lots of hole-punchy things with different shapes, some glues and a paper cutter. I’ve decided for sure that my knitted cards are going to have some added flair. I can only hope that I can somehow make it work, that my fingers can do what I see in my head, and that I can create items that don’t look like kindergarten refrigerator art. Wish me luck on that!

One more thing to show you before I leave you for today:

Halloween Scarf

It’s a slightly better photo of the Halloween Scarf, complete with eyeballs. I wore it to work the other day and got some weird looks! But hey, it’s ready for the Harry Potter movie release next month. I’m hoping it won’t be 100 degrees that day.

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June 13, 2009
FO Report: Halloween Scarf

Halloween scarf completed

Project Name: Halloween Scarf
Source: http://circe.canalblog.com/archives/2009/04/23/index.html
Yarn Used: Various, but featuring Vitreous Humor, by Insubordiknit
Needle Size: 13, for the eyeball yarn
Date Started: June 2, 2009
Date Completed: June 9, 2009

Notes: I knit most of this scarf on my Singer Cord Knitter, so each cord went fairly quickly. The eyeball yarn cord was knit by hand on size 13 needles. I actually have a little bit left over so I’m trying to decide what to do with it. I think I’ll keep it for decoration. I braided most of the cords loosely and tacked them together a little bit but I did not tack down the eyeball cord in case I ever want to recycle it for another scarf. I’ll try to get a photo of my daughter wearing it tomorrow. It looks much better on a person than on a chair!

Yarn Yummies

Look what I got in the mail yesterday!

Cascade Eco Alpaca

It’s Cascade Eco Alpaca which I purchased from The Loopy Ewe for 20% off. Sheri is hosting a knitalong for Jared Flood’s Girasole pattern, and well, I had to jump on the bandwagon! The knitalong is supposed to run through October 1, but I doubt I will finish in time. But, wow, the yarn is SO soft and SO yummy… I had to jump at the chance to get some at a discounted price. Oh wow, even though I know I can’t start my blanket just yet, I really want to! I can’t wait to have that yarn in my fingers. Yummy!

Well, I guess I better get to bed before I turn into a pumpkin… just wanted to share the day’s knitting news with people who I know would understand and share my joy. I’m sure most of you know what it’s like to live with people who love you but only tolerate your knitting? That’s what it’s like for me most of the time. Nobody here shares my excitement over the softest yarn ever or the joy of a completed project. (Though I do think my daughter is coveting a skein of the Eco Alpaca at the moment–guess I’d better be sure to count them before casting on for my project!) So, thank you for reading and sharing in the moments with me. It’s great having a community of knitters to share these little things with.

Until next time…

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June 9, 2009