Just finished the little knitted bag.  The leaf detail is so fun to make – it’s super easy.  Well, I’m calling it an early night.  Brian’s fighting off a cold and I want to stay healthy, so off to bed soon.

My mom taught me how to knit about four years ago while I was sick during Christmas.   My mom is always working on some knitting project.  I haven’t knitted for many, many months, but with her here visiting, I got inspired to do a little knitting again.   I know if I ever drop a stitch or get stuck, mom can lend a hand!

Today’s piece is a little knitted bag that I learned how to do a few years ago in a class.  It was my first venture into decreasing and increasing and is a great standby for when I want to have a finished product in a relatively short amount of time.  I still need to finish up the i-cord and the little leaf detail, but I’ll do that tomorrow.  Felt good to be working with yarn and needles again.  Maybe my next project will be the felted dog collar pattern from the teacher I took my other classes from.  I think Emmett would like that.

Our book club pick for this round was artist Beatrice Wood’s autobiography, “I Shock Myself.” Francisca dished up a delicious bohemian spread of lentils, quinoa, beets, salad, pita bread, hummus and all sorts of other goodies. Christina picked tangerines from the tree.

As an homage to the creative process, Francisca asked us each to bring pieces we’ve been working on. Christina, Francisca and I shared some knitting, Kristen brought photos and of course Lily brought her latest creation…

… Jacob whom we all met for the first time.

We are on our seventh year of our book club. And even though we hardly talk about the books, we know it’s more about just spending time together laughing, eating, enjoying each other’s company and…

just being silly together (Francisca and I sporting our “Blue Steel” Zoolander poses).

Ahhhh, another perfect book club afternoon!

Was tagged by Matlide for a 7 random things about me meme. Thanks Matilde!

Here are the rules:
Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 random people participating in nablopomo at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So, here it goes…

1. I can burp the alphabet.
2. I’m a really speedy speed player (and quite a sore loser when it comes to pretty much any card or board game, so watch out).
3. I missed my high school graduation day to compete in Dramatic Interpretation at the national speech championships in Fargo, ND (was cool to be able to say I’d been to Fargo once the movie of the same name came out!).
4. My husband and I met at our college newspaper.
5. My favorite movie when I was in junior high school was Sixteen Candles. I could recite practically every line. Ironically, my brother got married the day before my sweet 16 (in the movie Samantha’s sister gets married the day after). Alas, there was no Jake Ryan and no red Porsche waiting outside the church for me! .
6. I’m a total Elmyra when it comes to my dog . He’s just so cute I can’t stand it!
7. My mom taught me how to knit a few Christmases ago when I was sick with the stomach flu and bored out of my mind.

I’m tagging:

1. Paul at Invisible Lives
2. Shea at Cakes and Icing
3. Caren at The Skeptic Yogi
4. Marilyn at The Land of Moo
5. Bodhi Dreaming

I’m tired and need to go to bed, so I’ve just tagged 5 and I’ll call it a night.
Today I felted yet another spotty basket. I went to the yarn shop yesterday and got some different colors, so I’m looking forward to experimenting with new color combos now that this one is done.

This weekend was all about catching up.

Yesterday I got to catch up with my college roomies. Matea was in Sacramento visiting for Thanksgiving, so we all met up at Julie’s house to hang out. It was amazing to see how much Carson had grown in the several weeks since I last saw him. We missed seeing our other roomie, Katie, who also just had her second son not too long after Julie. Times sure have changed since our college days!

I had no idea how tired I was. Upon coming home after the long drive from Sacramento, I fell asleep before 9pm and was out for about 15 hours! Yes, 1-5. Guess I had to catch up on some much needed sleep!

Today, I’m getting caught up on my knitting and on my AEDM and NaBloPoMo posts that I missed yesterday. Finished my second felted basket. I like how this one has more structure than the first one I did. I actually refelted the first one, too, and am happier about how it came out this time.

[tags]National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, Art Every Day Month, knitting, felting[/tags]

I’m knitting my second felted basket. This one has a cute spotty pattern. Even though this pattern looks more complex than the first basket I did, it’s actually much easier to follow and I’m having more fun with this one. My neighbor also took the felted basket class with me, so a couple days ago we did a quick show and tell outside our house. She had already felted her spotty basket and it came out really great and will make an excellent plant container. Can’t wait to see what mine looks like when I’m done!

 

I finished decreasing and binding off the basket this morning. Next up, the whole new world of felting! Following felting instructions from my Stitch n’ Bitch book, I turned my washing machine on to hot and threw in a pair of jeans, my knitting and a couple of drops of dish soap.

After about 15 minutes of agitation, I had a felted basket! It’s still drying upsidedown and I wasn’t able to shape it all that well, but I’m excited to have finished my first felting project.

[tags]National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, Art Every Day Month, knitting, felting[/tags]

I just got home from a knitting class at Article Pract. The talented and creative Julie Weisenberger, of Coco Knits, is teaching us how to make adorable felted baskets.

I was totally frustrated with myself because I didn’t get very far, was rusty with the needles and I forgot to practice casting on beforehand. I was reminded of how I tend to feel “remedial” when I’m learning new skills, especially in a group class. I do the whole comparison thing, get distracted by other people and I really hate reading instructions that have numbers or things to count. Lots of gremlin thoughts wrapped up in all that! My friend kept reminding me to just have fun – otherwise my stitches would be too tight .

It usually takes me awhile to get comfortable with a pattern. Once I can see the pattern taking shape, I find my groove and start to really enjoy myself. I think that’s probably a pattern (pun intended) that shows up in my life, too! When I’m trying something new, I can be really hard on myself and have high expectations. Then once I ease in and start to get a feel for where things are heading, I allow myself to enjoy the process. Would be nice to accelerate that ramp up time!

Anyway, I’m excited to do my first felting project and I think the end product of a wavy striped green and blue basket will be really cute. Must practice patience!

[tags]National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, Art Every Day Month, Knitting, Felted Baskets[/tags]