Traveled Home No 78

I'm a member and moderator of a Traveling Scarves Group #78 on Ravelry.  If your not familiar with TS groups, its usually about 12 members total.  All take part in knitting and/or crocheting each other a scarf.  Each member starts a seedlet scarf, knit/crocheted traditionally (vertical) or lengthwise (horizontal).  The member (owner) of the seedlet, only starts the scarf, then packs it up and sends it onto the next member in the chain.  The next member, continues adding to the scarf, and packs it up and sends it onto the next member in the chain. 

It continues in this fashion, until it finally reaches the last member in the chain, which by then adds the finishing portion to the scarf, and then sends it home to the owner who now has a finished scarf that has made a journey around the USA, sometimes to Canada, and back being knit/crocheted by all members in the group. 

I received my scarf home this past weekend, it was originally 300 stitches, started lengthwise, unblocked without fringe it measured 57 inches long. Blocked its measuring 65 inches, with the fringe its 73 inches.

It is the 3rd Traveling Scarf thus far that I've received, having been in 3 groups, well 4, but one group went south.  3rd time is truly a charm, such a gorgeous scarf all the members of Group 78 knit for me. 

I truly do love it and appreciate all the work each member put into it.

I can't wait to wear this proudly and I will tomorrow at work 8-)

Thank you TS#78!

Bad Blogger!

What happened to me? I’m sure everyone is long gone 8( But I’m back, I’ll make sure to win your hearts again! So, let the fun begin!

I joined and am mod’ing another Traveling Scarves group on Ravelry, remember this is the type of group you join, typically with at least 10 other members. You knit small portions of each other’s scarves and send onto the next. Before you know it, your scarf comes back to you having been a small seedlet last time you sent it, now it’s a full fledged scarf. I’ve participated in 2 of these prior and got 2 great scarves out of it, not to mention I enjoyed the social part.

Here’s a couple of scarves I just sent a few weeks ago, they really are pretty.





Aren’t they gorgeous? This group is lengthwise scarves, #78, and for the top picture, I added Fiesta sock yarn, in Rhubarb colorway, it blended in pretty well. The pink one I added Noro silk, don’t know the colorway, it really blended in well.

Ooh! And and FO, a fun and such pretty one!

It’s Mary-Heather’s pattern, Simple Things, knit with Scout’s Swag sock yarn in, ???, gosh!, brainfart! Ok, let me think, it is “Tidal Pool”, I think, it’s just beautiful. This was made for my spoilee in the Twilight Edward vs. Jacob Eclipse swap, Vberry. These are her favorite colors, some of them at least, and I swear, it reminds me of the ocean. It’s knit with the full skein of Scout’s wonderful yarn, I had been loving this yarn for so long, one that I had got in Scout’s Swag Sock Club from I think it was 2009 or 2008, not too sure on the date. I was so happy to send this gem on.





But wait, you think my present is nice, Vberry returned the favor twice over. This was her gift to me, an Ulmus! Just look at these colors! I absolutely fell in love with it and cant’ wait until the weather gets a little more chilly so I can strut this gorgeous thing.





Isn’t it beautiful! So no more “bad blogger”, I’m in full blog mode now, so I’ll catch you Wednesday!

Please drop me a line 8)

~Rocky

An interesting day

What did a majority of American's do today? Get ready to either host or attend or simply watch the NFL Superbowl, correct? That's what we planned to do, host to be more specific. My hubby and I planned a little BBQ for the big day, inviting some close friends and family to share with, but our day didn't start that way.

Late Saturday night my hubby's cell phone rang, we weren't in the mood to answer, so we let it go to voicemail. The next morning, about 6:00 a.m., we awoke, and enjoyed our morning relaxing in bed watching Howard Stern shows (yes a guilty pleasure of ours). At about 7:30 a.m., my hubby decided to check his voicemail, but before he could, the phone rang and it wasn't good news. Apparantly, my Mother-in-Law's husband, Ed, died Saturday night. The cause is not known yet, but based off of the description of how he was found and the position his body was in, it appears to be a heart attack or unfortunately drugs. I won't be around the bush, my hubby's Mother, I love her, and we get along like best friends, but she's made her own choices in the last 10 or so years, so it's been not that often we talk to her. We love her dearly, and her husband isn't my husband's Father nor was he ever considered a Step-Father by my hubby. It's a troubled past, but an unfortunate end. We spent a portion of our morning checking on my husband's little sister, she's about 18 years, but slow, so she's special, and visiting with my hubby's Grandma. To make this more unfortunate, his Mother wasn't around to know her husband died, she's at the moment "taking a vacation", which will hopefully end come tomorrow. I think most of us have that part of the family that just seems to have troubles. So that was our morning, by noon, we tried to shrug off the sadness and get ready for our little get together, but amidst all this, all I could think of was "I could never handle losing my husband, he's my life, literally, he's all that I cherish, him and my kids", when things like this happen, it makes you stop and think. I'm so thankful to have to him here with me and I pray that God allows us to be with each other until were 90 years old.

Once things got going for the BBQ, our moods lightened, we had a few drinks that did help, and got into the game. I was rooting for Arizona, because I didn't want Pittsburgh to win a 6th ring, but in the end, Arizona just couldn't hold onto the lead, and Pittsburgh won. It was a rookie defense that needed to hold their ground until the play clock expired, but they didn't and allowed Pittsburgh to score the winning touchdown. A slow starter game, but a good ending one, I did enjoy it regardless of the outcome.

In other swappy news, I received 2 great packages from 2 different spoilers in 2 different swap groups I'm in on Ravelry.

First off, my "Rubberswap Redux" swap, apart of the RR group on Ravelry. This is from AngelaRae, and I love everything in it.







–1lb of fresh 100% Fair Trade coffee from Planet Bean
I love this, and made a fresh brew this morning, very smooth and tasteful!
–1 bottle of real Canadian Maple Syrup
hmm… I’m thinking freshly homemade waffles next weekend!
–1 pure beeswax pinecone
This smells so fresh and is hanging in my office, it’s smells so nice now, it cleans out impurities in the air
–3 packages of Origami papers, for making different fishes, dinosaurs, and animals
My hubby and I already made 2 fishees
–1 bar of handmade soap in the shape of a sheep face?
I love this, smells awesome, AngelaRae can you share the store for this? I’d love to get some more
–1 pair of green earrings
Very pretty
–1 skein of 50% mohair, 50% merino in “disagreen� colorway
Very soft and a very gorgeous disagreen color
–A lovely card with a picture of the oldest church in Guelph
I love the story behind this, it’s a church believed to have a vortex in it that pulls people to Guelph, I love that type of stuff!

I can't thank AngelaRae enough!

Onto my lovely "Love Bites" swap package from the group on Ravelry, this comes from Gherkin who is just an awesome spoiler.

-I received the most luscious fiber, 100% Imported British BFL, this is to die for, a full 6.7 ounces!
-3 cute white knitted sponges
-A cute decorative box
-The cutest knitted Vampire Heart that had a label "Careful he's a biter!", so cute!
-Custom Love Bites Stitch markers, one is heart with a bandaid, soo cute! Gherkin had these custom made by ScaryMerry on Etsy, you'll have to check these out.
-The prettiest and coolest hand made bracelet by Gherkin herself, check out her wonderful Etsy shop
-A knitted/felted Skull keychain, this was so thoughtful of Gherkin knowing that my spoilee from my previous Day of the Dead swap flaked, she knitted/felted me the skull in honor of that swap
-Yummy chocolates & Valentine’s stickers
-And the funnest “pull me� yarn ball with a prize in the middle, can I say the yarn scraps from this ball are so nice, I think I can knit a a small pouch out of it, and inside was 2 cute magnets!
-Ooh and a 50% off coupon for Gherkin’s Bucket.











Such great packages I received, I couldn't be more thankful. I have some other projects I'm working on, I'll share soon. I need to get a bit more headway on before I share, and also I'll need to provide some updates on my Swallowtail, which sadly has been moving slowly because of so many other things I've been working on. But I swear it will get done in order to show off at Stitches!

Hope you all had a good weekend, and now for the grown-up stuff, work 8)... I'll post tomorrow.

Swaps and TGIF

First off, I'm so thankful it's finally Friday! I did have this past Tuesday off in honor of Veteran's Day, but the remaining days after just seemed to drag on, literally!

My list for this weekend is:

--Get house clean and ready for Pop's 13th Bday party tomorrow (Sat)
--Order cake (last minute, I know!)
--Get BBQ food, carne asada, chicken, hot links, hot dogs, fresh salad, ingredients for potato salad, chili beans, chips, dip, soda...
--Send out about 8 packages of completed Traveling Scarve's sections (Whew!!) I swear I knitted 2 full scarve's this week. Each section I'm knitting is about 6 x 6, so maybe at least a scarf and 1/2. I'll be happy when these are in the mail.
--Send out my Starbucks & Yarn Swap package, Tea Swap package, Glamour package
--Start stalking my new Christmas 2008 Swap spoilee
--Finish knitting my Pocket square for my Tech Square Afghan
--Forgot, make food for party bright and early Saturday... I'll be consuming many Venti White Mochas for this *-)
--Buy last minute present for my son
--Take my daughter to get a trim before the party
--Go to Green Planet Yarn and buy some Alpaca Tweed yarn at $7.95 a skein! about 200 yds.! I've decided to go with this for my CPH.
--Start CPH 8-)
--Pay bills (uggh!)
--Save the world 8-)

My list is long and I'm probably leaving out a lot of things, but I've got to try and make it happen. It is going to be a turning point for me with my son, who will be 13 years on the 19th of this month. Once he hits that 13, I will officially have 2 teenagers, no more babies, even though they still act like toddlers, well sometimes.

The years are flying by so fast with my kids, my daughter who's 15 right, only has 3 years until she's 18, which is freaking me out, and my son, only 5. I will have 2 adult children by the time I hit my mid-30's. It's been quite an experience raising them, and growing with them as I obviously started young (do the math). I wouldn't recommend starting as young as I did, but in retrospect there are alot of advantages to it, as well as disadvantages. I would repeat it again if I had the choice. It is a harder road to take, but if you can make it through it is definitely worth it. My hubby and I are both looking forward to our mid-30's because we hope and plan to spend alot of time doing traveling, in small fragments, like 2 days here or 3 days there. It's amazing how your born by youself, in a way, you do have your family your Mother at the very least, but as soon as your 18 years old (for most people) your on your own in a world alone working or going to school or just doing what you want. When you have kids you start your own little circle of life and it's just really amazing as the kids grow how you in a sense create this micro-society with it's own culture, habits, you name it. Maybe it's me, I think way to much, but it is a pretty fascinating experience.

In other Swappy news, I'm sad so very sad to say that my "Day of the Dead" Swap I participated in has turned out bad. I've been in more than a few swaps and this is the first I've encountered this. It's upsetting and you'll be upset when I tell you. Basically my "spoilee" who I was spending time getting to know and putting a package together for, has seemed to "fall off of the earth", literally. I had been in constant communication with her since the swap started back in August, and she was so nice, then after our last chit-chat via PM on Ravelry on 10/29/08, it's been total silence. I've gotten no response from email's, PM's, blog comments to her blog, nothing. I sent my DOTD package to her at the end of the swap, got a delivery confirmation of 11/6/08, and there's been absolutely no acknowledgement from her. I've been stalking the DOTD swap thread in "The Odd Ducks" group on Ravelry, and still nothing. I finally sent a note to the Swap organizer, and sadly she magic linked me today to inform me that myself and another member of the swap have something in common, my spoilee is her spoiler, and besides my spoilee just not acknowledging my package sent, there was also no package sent to out to the other member in the swap. My spoilee didn't send her spoilee anything and hasn't responded to anything.

I'm in denial of this, I'm holding out hope that maybe there's a valid reason she's not responded? Could there be people out there that pretend to be nice just to score free stuff? Isn't that a horrible thing to do? Even though this has burned me, I'll still join swaps, and know and hope that not all swappers are like this. This is obviously the ugly side of swapping but the good side outweighs the bad. You get to meet others who share the same love of fibery things as you, you meet friends, you get fun surprises, and overall your heart grows bigger for it.

I'm going to make a suggestion to the swap organizer of DOTD who has admitted that for some reason the DOTD swap has been hit with a good amount of flakes this time, that possibly there's some type of a swap reference check made when people join swaps. Maybe they can give references from other swaps they've joined to account for their swap worthiness, what do you think? I'm kind of for it, but at the same time it's kind of a like a credit check, and I'm usually against those. Because of this turn out, I'm glad it's Friday, and an end to the week I found out I was burned in the DOTD swap.

Enough of that, let's get onto some goodies! If you remember I missed my Skein Lane Retreat 2008 this past October because my Grandfather fell ill and things weren't looking good, thankfully he's healthy now!

Well I got in touch with Carolyn from Skein Lane afterwards and she is just awesome! There was a "Cable Pillow" project for everyone to make at the Retreat, and she offered to send me the pattern, goodies, and yarn for the project to boot! Isn't that awesome!
I got my package yesterday, and the yarn is greeny good, I can't wait to make this project not that I need another project.







Check out these cute "Hand-made" labels!



Carolyn is just so sweet to have sent me this, I'd also like to wish her doggy good luck in getting better. I would go crazy if anything happened to my doggy, so I understand what she's going through. Let's send her good thoughts!

Last, but not least, I have so many Traveling Scarves that I've finished that will go to the post today, but I didn't bother taking any pictures of most of them because I didn't have time, however I did have time to take a snapshot of this scarf. It's owner is "Gramma's" on Ravelry, and it's been flagged as a quick turn around. Gramma provided her own yarn, some red malabrigo and blue malabrigo, it is very pretty!

Here's my contribution to this lovely soft scarf, I give you the "Mock Cable" pattern:



And here's a full view of the entire scarf.. it's so long I could barely fit it in my picture.



That's all folks! TGIF!

Dia De Los Muertos "Day of the Dead"

These are depictions of the "Catrinas". The Catrina was made famous by a zinc etching from "La Calavera de la Catrina" by Jose Guadalupe Posada. To find out more click here.


I joined a "Day of the Dead" swap on Raverly, and I just got my swap partner, Cheryl. She has a blog http://knitdevotion.blogspot.com , in one of her more recent entries she had pics of her kids in some clothes she made with clothing tattoos (I think that's so cool), here's a peak at them.

This is a piece of a dress, just look at those tattoos! I love the women with wings on top of the rose, so pretty! I really love the idea of clothing tattoos vs. actual body tattoos. I have wanted one at one time or another, but never thought it was a good idea, for me at least. Cheryl is already turning out to be a great swap partner, she pm'd me right away via Ravelry, and even blogged about me. I just love swap pals like this! I can tell were going to enjoy ourselves with the DOTD swap.

By the way, if you like to swap, there is an Odd Ducks Swap group in Ravelry that holds polls to setup new future swaps to join, plus you can suggest swap ideas, share swap info, a really cool group. Here's a link to the group's blog.