Knitters are cool

What can I say? Knitters, and I shant forget, Crocheters, are so cool!

I have received 2 completed Traveling Scarves groups this week, both are beautiful.

First is my SO's scarf, all in really nice black and gray colors.



To all the gals from my TS#25 SO group, THANK YOU MUCH FOR adding your wonderful knitting to my SO scarf!

Next is my NORO scarf



It is so pretty, and I love all the different NORO additions. THANK YOU TO all the members of the TS#37 NORO group, I really really enjoyed Mod'ing the group. It's been a pleasure and I'm sad to see it coming to an end. Everyone is getting their scarves in the mail soon, I was lucky enough to get mine's last week.

And now for a Knitter who can really put a package together! This is my package for my Harry Potter - A little bit of everything swap. It comes from the wonderul Minerva Wood.



She knitted me "Habitat" from Jared Flood, my absolute favorite designer. I love the red and the pattern. Everything in the package was perfect, and I got goodies for my dog and cat too, which they've loved playing with.

THANK YOU Minerva a.k.a. Yogaknot on Ravelry.

~R

And I'm off!

The De La Hoya vs. Pacquaio boxing get together party Saturday went great. We BBQ some marinated carne asada and chicken, I made a fresh macaroni salad. For orderbs we served Garlic & Cheese Toast with fresh Spinach Dip, BBQ Hot wings and Chips & Salsa. For desert, I whipped out my secret weapon.



I made some Cranberry-Pumpkin bread that I make every year around this time, it's delish!



It's a combination of fresh cranberries and pumpkin puree with seasonal spices. I know the recipe by hard and right smack in the middle of it, I realized I was missing my key ingredients, FUDGERS! Well, not wanting to waste more time, I decided to improvise and make my own combo of spices, and boy, what a great thing that was, my bread came out better than it's ever tasted. So good in fact, I'll stick with my new combo of spices and will no longer make the original recipe. My bread was a complete hit and before I could snap any fresh out of the oven baked pictures, it was almost all gone! Here are a few left over morsels...



I'll be making more later this week because I still have 1 bag of fresh cranberries left. I shared the original recipe click here if your interested 8-)

Our get together was fun and relaxing, but the event we all gathered to watch, De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao turned out to be horrible. I was hoping that De La Hoya would pull it off, but he did such a horrible job, in fact he didn't even fight? Pacquiao had such an easy job to do and win when all De La Hoya did was just stand there and get hit. I never saw De La Hoya do this before, it was so upsetting. He may just be done with boxing as a fighter, but as a presence and force in the sport, he'll be around forever.

Friday evening before the party, I finished off the last 3 Traveling Scarves I had, which I had one from each group.

Here is Purpleturtle's scarf from Group 25 SO, I added the top brown section using Lamb's Pride Wool, I strung 2 ends of the yarn together to get the right gauge for the section. I went with a Box Stitch.



A full shot of the scarf



Here is Mspalmtree's scarf from Group 37 Noro. My section at the top, using Noro Silk Garden in 245 & 279 knit with the Box Stitch.



A full view of the scarf



Finally here is Adore1's scarf from Group 42 Tweeds. I added a Mock Cable stitch using O'Wool 100% Organic Brown Tweed yarn.



And I'm off finally knitting my Christmas gifts, starting with my husband's beanie that I've been improvising the design on. It's nothing fancy and nothing cutting edge, a Cable beanie.



I'm slow at cables, it's annoying, and I can get slower if I let the cables annoy me. I need to get this done by Tuesday, if I can without wanting to kill the cable needle.

Last, I'll leave you with a snugly picture of my doggy sleeping by our Christmas tree, she looked to precious to not take a picture!

I'm getting there

Things have been very hectic, as they probably are for everyone else during this time of year. I actually believed that over the past holiday I would get a ton of knitting time in, when really I got almost none. Since this is my first holiday season knitting, I've never known how to balance my holiday tasks with knitting and I failed, obviously, because I knitted nothing. I did however manage to send out a total of 5 swap packages to 5 of my spoilees. Yes, you read it corectly, "5"! I had signed up for some swaps without knowing the due dates for at least 3 of them. 2 I knew of, and one really wasn't a swap, more of an exchange of gifts. You can imagine my alarm when I found out the due dates for all of packages and looked at my calendar to realize all were due within the same week, and that week happened to be Thanksgiving!

I didn't have the heart to drop out so I forged on stalking my prey spoilee and chatting it up with them. I knew getting out these packages last week would be almost impossible so I made sure to keep my spoilees informed that I would send out this week and YAY! I did! I dropped all of yesterday nice and snug at the post office, PHEW! This is the last time I'll balance that amount of swaps I tell you, it was pretty crazy there for a minute especially when a few of them had some pretty specific requirements for knitted items or type of items, etc. I am very happy though with how each turned out and I'm hoping all my spoilees like the gifts I choose for them, including the yarn I scored for them too! Now I'm down to just 1 wee bit swap, which thankfully isn't due until the middle of January. It is a secret swap so I can't say who my victim is, but my stalking has already started.

Now that's done, I had 3 Traveling Scarves in my posession from 2 of my groups and new these were next on my list to finish and send on there merry way, but as fate would have it, I received another scarf yesterday, this time from my Tweedy group, and AHH! Now I really have to start moving my booty. I finished Gramma's Noro scarf last night, I had this done prior but I didn't like the way it was looking for my addition so I frogged and started over and am happy with the turnout. Gramma's scarf is really turning out pretty indeed!



The end with the brownish color to it is my addition, using a Box stitch pattern. It's hard to discern from this photo what the pattern looks like, but it kind of looks like a checkerboard effect.



I'll weave in the ends on lunch and mail this out today and quickly finish the other 3 I have so that tomorrow I can start my vastly late knit gifts for my family. I'll be making a pair of fingerless mittens for my daughter, a scarf for my son, and a "Che'" hat for my hubby, which about 30% done. For my compadre, Lynda, I'll be making some cabled socks (unless I find a different pattern), and for my godson I'll try to make him a blanket, a blue and red one at his request. He said to me, while touching my own knitted blue wave blanket knit in Alpaca mist blue with Blue Hand-maiden silk, "Nina, I, um, I, can you make me one? But, um, with red and um, pink?" to which I said "Are you sure pink or red?" to which he said "Um, yah, yes, red, ok thank you Nina". How could I turn down a request like that? He's so adorable and looks like a 2nd grader who's really only 4 years old. Or maybe I knit the blanket for his birthday which is in January, and knit or crochet him a Scooby-Doo with a toy gift for Christmas? He goes bonkers for Scooby-Doo, can't say I blame him, Scooby-Doo is my fave of all, and I can still watch the cartoons if there on T.V.

I got me some knittin' to do...

~Rocky

Back to normal

My site is now back to normal, Halloween is officially over 8( As much as I love this time of year, it makes me sad sometimes because it goes by so fast. At least Thanksgiving comes late this year, so it gives us more time!

I have updates on my Traveling Scarve's groups.

First up, Group 37 Noro Knit & Crochet combo, I decided to just knit this time, as opposed to crocheting. The stitch pattern I went with is "Mock Cable" pattern. You can't really tell that much from the pictures, but it looks like cables but is really a combo Knits & Purls. The color transitioning is just beautiful, but too bad the pattern doesn't show up much.



This is going in the mail, either today or tomorrow at the latest. The scarf's owner is "Trustcrazyideas" on Ravelry.

Here's a full view of the scarf so far:



It's coming out very pretty! My contribution is on the far right end.

Onto the Traveling Scarves Group 25 Significant Others, this piece is knitted, only knitting allowed in this group. I went with the "Broken Rib" stitch, which doesn't pull like regular ribbing. I strung balls of Koigu together to get the right weight. The scarf's owner is "Lizabee" and her SO obviously likes greens, one of my fave colors. I was going to wind one of my greenie yarns, but I remembered I had 2 balls of Koigu from a previous project and thought, why not string together? Worked out perfect! I love the various tones of green? Don't you??? This too will go to the post no later than tomorrow!



Here's a full view:



That's my contribution on the end of the far right. I really love this scarf!

I still have 2 more separate scarf's to make, and then I'll be "scarf less" for a bit, at least until the next section comes.

For some updates, I've been searching around for some reasonably priced tweed yarn to buy for my Central Park Hoodie I want to make, and have been unsuccessful. Is it too much to ask for a reasonably priced luscious soft green or brown tweed yarn??? Is it? For now I'm still searching and its upsetting me because I really want to get this one started. Hopefully by next week I'll have found what I need. Soon I'll have some snapshots of a seedling CPH!

A goodie for you, I received my latest shipment from my Scout's Swag Sock Club, I give you "De Young":







Happy Wednesday!