The Theme Today is Blue

I must be in a blue mood. Not blue as in sad, but blue as in color. I find myself leaning toward it when choosing colors to make things of late.

I finished a new beaded ornament cover in pastel blue, silver, and white.


The pattern is by Deb Moffett Hall and it's called Deco Dangle Ornament. I had to make a bit of an adjustment. The pattern calls for 5-hole spacer beads that are quite a bit narrower than the ones I could find around here. I had to remove 1 pattern repeat so I have 7 instead of 8. All in all, I'm happy with how it turned out. I'm planning on giving this to my son-in-laws mother for Christmas. She is always seeking to increase the size of her Christmas ornament collection. I aim to help her.

I have finished another pair of bootees using the Seamless Circular Bootees pattern, making the change of 2x2 rib for the cuff instead of stockinette stitch.


The yarn is a vintage fingering weight white acrylic Pompadour with a blue thread in it. I used a plain blue acrylic for the i-cord ties.


The next Knitwits meeting is tomorrow. Here are all five pairs I have for turning in.


Call my biased, but I think they are so darn cute!

I am going to stop the bootee making now and go on to something new. I've cast on for a lace shrug.


Knitwits has orders for dozens and dozens of them. The assisted living centers around the area like them for their residents. I've had this cotton blend boucle'/slub yarn in my stash for about 25 years. Someone gave it to me. At that time, it was an old yarn. It's in great shape though. (I take good care of my yarns.) It's knitting up very pretty. There's actually a pale blue thread mixed in with the white and grey. It doesn't show in the picture though.

This week we are having nice weather. The sun is shining and the temps are in the 50's. Much better than snow, that's for sure.

We had a really nice little vacation on Halloween. We took off with brother-in-law Dan, his wife Sue, and son Nate and visited our favorite hot springs resort. We even took costumes with us and went to the Halloween party held by the resort in their bar. I had a lot of fun. There were some really clever costumes for the contest. I didn't enter the contest cos my costume was, I thought, really lame. Originally I wasn't going to bother with a costume. But sweet hubby and Ruth talked me into it.

As we were leaving town we stopped at a store that had Halloween costume supplies. I bought a purple wig. That was it. I wore that and my purple suede coat with the Mongolian lambs wool trim on the cuffs, collar, and hem, and a pair of blue jeans. If anyone asked what I was I said "Purple People Eater", or "Purple Whore" depending on how much I'd had to drink when I got asked the question. I guess it must have been a hit cos I got lots of compliments. Ha ha! Anyway, we had a good time and that's what's important.

Have a great day.

Have a Happy Halloween (and Spock)

Well, this is the last picture of Spock for October. It was a lot of fun searching the web and deciding which ones to post here. Who knew there are so many of them? Today's pic is old Spock, and I feel most appropriately, new Spock (and Kirk).

Wishing you and yours a safe and happy Halloween.

Beam me up Scotty!


P.S It's gonna be quiet around here for a bit. Sweet Hubby and I are going out of town for a short relaxing vacation.

First Snow of the Season

Mobster Spock, and Kirk.

As I type this, there is snow falling outside my living room window. Yes, I said snow.


Winter has arrived. Morgan refuses to get out of bed. I don't blame him.


Snow before November. That is something--------cruel. Rumor has it that it will melt off later. Good news.

I've got a busy day today too. I've got my knitting class this morning. With snow I doubt any one will show up, but I have to be there just in case.

After class I'm taking a few things to the down town Coeur d'Alene Library. They are having a fiber/fabric exhibit in November and I am entering a few things for said exhibit. It was kind of hard to decide what to take down there because most of the really fantastic knitting I've done is no longer in my possession. I'm going to take my Pomatomus socks, a lace mohair scarf, a jacket I machine knit for my daughter several years ago (that hardly got worn but did win best of show at the fair that year), and I'm thinking about one of my bead knitted amulet bags. I'll let the exhibit organizers decide if they want any of them or not.

We had a bit of a chew fest in this house last night.


Mmmm, chews.

Have a good day.

FOs, and Spock

Older Spock.

Not many days left of the month to post Spock pics. Enjoy them while you can.

I have finally given satisfaction to the beaded Christmas ornament craving. I've made this cover in preparation for a class I'm scheduled to teach in November.


I used 2 colors of size 11 Japanese seed beads, dark rose and white, and some 6mm cloisonne beads with little pink flowers on them. Me likes.

I've finished the Opal 1292 bootees. For this pair I did 2x2 rib in the cuff.


Another view.


I've started another pair. The yarn is a vintage baby pompadour with a medium to dark blue thread running through it. Very pretty stuff. I'll take pics later.

A couple months ago I joined an internet thing, game, whatever you wanna call it called Pay It Forward. Basically the way it works is that you post on your blog that you're joining the Pay It Forward game, you post the rules which say you will make something and send it to the first 5 people who leave a comment on your post, and then you do it. Everyone who posts a comment then has to do the same thing. I posted a comment on the blog where I saw the PIF post, then posted on my blog.

Well, to make a long story short, last Thursday this arrived in my mailbox.


It's a bead knitted amulet necklace. It's even in my favorite color. It came from Julie Harper of the Jewelry Goddess blog. It's her PIF to me. I was so surprised!I love it. It's so pretty. Thank you Jewels! It was so much fun to find it in my mail box.

Now, to figure out what to make for my PIF commenters.

Have a great day.

Bootees, Blue Jay, and Spock

Spock playing futuristic chess.

I just keep cranking out those bootees. Here's the next pair all done.

The pattern is Free Seamless Baby Bootees by Megan Mills. The yarn is an unknown old acrylic baby pompador in white with a silver grey thread. I used size 3 needles. I like the results much better than the 2's.

I found these bootees while digging around in boxes.


I made them a few years ago, models for the shop. The pattern is in the book 50 Baby Bootees to Knit by Zoe Mellor. I think I used Patons Look at Me yarn, if I remember correctly.

And I've started another pair.


Still the Free Seamless Baby Bootees by Megan Mills with left over Opal sock yarn from the Petticoat colorway 1292. I'm having so much fun with this pattern I don't want to do anything else. Heh heh.

Had an unusual visitor to the Parkarosa Bird Buffet yesterday. This Stellar's Jay spent the whole day eating sunflower seeds.


He has a little bit of white on top his head.


That little feeder was full to the brim with seeds before he started.

Sweet Hubby's cough is almost gone. Hurray! But now I've started coughing. Boo! Hopefully it won't get as bad as his did. I'm taking steps to help it go away. Oddly, Morgan does not seem to be bothered by my coughing like he is Dougs. Very strange, but welcome. It would drive me crazy if he ran every time I coughed. It was bad enough having that happen to Doug. Anyway, things are getting much more peaceful amongst the fur kids. As I write this, all 4 of them are sprawled around the living room snoozing away.

This afternoon is the Rathdrum Knit Along meeting. I missed the last one because I had to take Morgan to see the eye doctor. I'm anxious to catch up on what everyone else is knitting.

I haven't done any beading the past few days. Instead, I've been buying beads-Sarah and I went to the Bead Stampede in Spokane last Sunday afternoon. I found all the things on my list, and then some. There weren't as many vendors as before, but who was there had some gorgeous stuff. I spent way too much money.

I've also been looking for beads. Somewhere in this house is a small green bag full of 90 bucks worth of beads I bought a few weeks ago to make a Christmas ornament cover. I've unpacked and put away all my beading stuff now and it's no where to be found. I must have put it somewhere safe where it won't get lost. Oh yeah! It's safe! I can't even find it it's so safe.

I hate it when that happens.

I've also updated my beading class schedule page. I will be teaching two bead ornament cover classes in November. I don't know yet what I'm doing for knitting classes yet. I'll find out later this week and update that page accordingly.

Have a great day.

I Made Key Rings and Spock

I have finished Ray's key rings. He is pleased. I'll be popping them in the mail to him next week.


I will wait patiently for the sock yarn.

It's been a busy week. I've been working on what I'm calling The Great Purge of 2009. I'm going to go through the whole house and get rid of stuff we don't need any more. I've started with the boxes yet to unpack that were packed for the floor remodel. Most people probably would have had all that unpacked and put away by now, but I've been dealing with the flu at the same time so I've been doing a couple of boxes a day. I've also started going through cupboards. My goodness we've got a lot of stuff we haven't used in years!

One of the things we are getting rid of is the desk that is in the sun room. We don't need it any more and really don't have a place for it now that the treadmill is in it's corner. Right now it is sitting in the middle of the room being annoyingly in the way. I found a new owner for it yesterday. Hurray! Daughter Sarah just happens to need a desk. How convenient! Now, to get it out of my house and into her apartment.

We've moved the piano from the sun room to the dining room, and moved my beading stash to where the piano used to be in the sun room. I am very excited about this. I'm finally getting my craft room. In 1992, when we bought this place, it was the sun room (and the open floor plan) that most attracted us. It would be perfect for my assortment of knitting machines and whatnot. It was going to be my craft room. However, on moving in day, when my brother in law brought the first machine in he said "Where do you want me to put this?" Sweet Hubby pointed to the small bedroom off the kitchen (I call it the 10 foot cube-10 foot wide, 10 foot long). I was pretty upset, as you can imagine. But there was no arguing with him on that particular day. I didn't get my wonderful craft room. Now I do. It's about time!

I did not go to the Yarnies meeting this week. I was sick. I'm not so rude as to pass my sick germs on to my friends.

On Thursday I put out my bird feeders full of fresh new seed. I don't feed them in the summer time because there's lots of wild stuff around for them to eat they usually just ignore the feeders. In October, though, it gets pretty cold at night and I put them out. I've already got a fairly large flock of chickadees that have returned, along with the little nuthatches.

We've been having a very difficult time with Morgan. Sweet Hubby got a cough with his sickies. It's slowly going away, but he's still got a few days of it left, I'm sure. Morgan has developed an extreme fear of the sound of the cough (he's losing his hearing, but he's not completely deaf yet). Every time Doug coughs Morgan runs off and hides. At first he was running out through the doggy door and refusing to come back in, freezing himself outside. I managed to stop him from doing that. Now he tries to hide in the kitchen, or the bedroom. Mostly the kitchen though. We're trying to help him overcome this sudden fear. For instance, giving him treats at the same time that Doug coughs, and whatnot. Trying our best to desensitize Morgan, but we're losing the battle. The cough needs to go away.

There is a Bead Stampede today in Spokane at the fair grounds. Sarah and I are going together and see what we can find that we can't live without. Should be fun.

Have a great day.

Bootee Mania and Spock

Musical Spock

I am still in bootee mode for Knitwits.


I've finished another pair.


These ones are made with leftover Kiwi green Opal Solid. I used a leftover bit of a ribbon novelty yarn chain stitched to make the ties. I had just enough of it to do that. If the ties had needed to be any longer I wouldn't have had enough.

I have another pair half done.

I'm modifying the pattern a little bit. I'm doing the cuff in a 4 x 2 garter rib. The yarn is some unknown ancient baby Pompadour that is white with a nylon silver grey strand in it that I brought home from our last meeting (As usual, Jean talked me into bringing more yarn home for bootees). It's actually very soft and pretty. I'm enjoying working with it.

Some time ago Dawn asked me a question in the comments. I want to answer that question.

"Dawn said... Oh my gosh! I love your kitty scratch post! I've been looking everywhere for one for my two cats. Can you possibly let me know where you ordered it from? "

I got the kitty tree from CSN Stores online. It's called the Sugar Cat Tree. It comes in several colors (I got brown), and I can say it's very well made. My cats love it. They have tons of really cool cat trees. It was hard to decide which one to get.

Sweet Hubby has been staying home from work way too much (5 days now). He got a flu bug of some sort to start with, which then brought on a bit of a cough. He's fine now, except just a bit of cough left, yet he won't go back to work. I went to the store today and loaded up on various assorted cough remedies which are helping immensely. I intend to kick him out tomorrow. As much as I love him, having him home when he isn't supposed to be is cramping my style.

I heard from Ajay, the winner, so the contest is officially completely over.

Have a great day.