Santa Fe

Right now I'm sitting outside and borrowing some internet from someone. It's really bright and I can't see my monitor very well. Today we drove to Santa Fe and again there were 2 very old churches there. I have the info about them at the house and I'm not there so I'll fill in the blanks when I return home. One of the Churches had a spiral stair case that was believed to be built by an angle. It doesn't have any nails or screws. The church need stairs to get to the upstairs and this stranger came into town and said he would build one and then disapeared right after.





Again the town was full of beautiful hand made items both Indain and Mexican made. There was so much jewelry I would never be able to make up my mind. I'm still in awe of the mountains and the desert scenery. It's just beautiful.

western flavor

Look at that. I was impressed to see my cousin's business and her name up on the building. What a beautiful person she is. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to meet her. She also has two adorable little girls that I hope to get to meet before I leave.





Weeeeeeee.What can I say... Trader Joes.!!!!!!


More pictures of Old Town in Alburquerque. There was this nice little band playing outside as we walked around seeing all the wonderful hand crafted items. They were playing easy listening music I think.





My dad was saying that this is a really old church. He didn't know when it was built. It was beautiful because of the simplicity of the design, wood benches and brick floors. Then up at the Alter was beautiful marble and statutes. I don't think the pictures do i justice. .

fun in Alburquerque

So far I'm having a wonderful time on my vacation. My parents took me to old town yesterday and there was this wonderful little yarn shop there. Of course I had to go in and I picked up this little 4 oz roving. Mostly there were hand crafted items from the local Indian tribes. The Hopi and Navajo. Beautiful pottery and jewelry. I'm borrowing internet right now and people are waiting for me so I'll blog more tomorrow. My flight here was actually pleasant and the time went fast. I got to go to Trader Joes today and bought some yummy goodies and reconnect with family that I haven't seen in years. It's wonderful!!!

gezz I can't make up my mind!!

Right now I'm packing for my trip tomorrow and having a hard time picking out which shoes I should pack. We will be walking and visiting some local sites nothing too vigorous. I decided to pack 3 pairs. A somewhat dressy pair, a comfy pair and casual. My clothes are basically nice casual in pink, off white and black. I'm keeping it simple. It should be easy to pick out which ones to bring but I keep changing my mind. What ever I pick has to fit into a small carry one with my clothes and toiletries. Of course I will have a large .. and I mean large purse with my netbook and knitting projects. I also bring some easy snacks that are healthy to pick on. My total travel time is somewhere around 7 1/2 hours because of a 2 hour stop over and plane change. My dad doesn't have internet so I probably will not get to blog until I get back unless I can find somewhere close that has wifi. So my last picture of Florida for now are the little tomatoes that are growing in a pot in my entry way. I'm bringing a camera and hope to get some nice pictures. Until then.. happy knitting!!

crochet mystery

I started this project a week or so ago and this is what I have been working on when I can't work on my lace. It takes less concentration than knitting lace. I must crochet weird because I seem to need to change hook sizes when I change stitch patterns. I just started the mess stitch and it was so much smaller than the rest of the piece so I ripped it out and went up a hook size. It's a little better but is still pulling in. Width wise the fit is perfect but it seems to be a little short. I notice in the picture that the mess portion seems so much bigger than mine looks. I might have to rip it out again and go up another hook size.
I'm just about ready to run out for the day. Today is the day I set aside for picking up all the little things I need for my trip like toiletries and of course snacks. I have my music and knitting projects already. I'm still not sure of what to wear there. It's very warm during the day but gets chilly in the evenings. And of course I have to decide on foot wear. I'm only bringing a carry on and need to fit everything including shoes in there. I will probably wear my Steve Madden cowboy boots on the trip because believe it or not they are super comfy.
I'm off and running!!

more of the same

Nothing much to report knit wise. Just more of the same and I haven't been knitting much this week. I'm a couple rows away from the 3rd repeat on my Gail shawl.
I saw this picture on the mason-dixion blog and thought it was pretty funny and wanted to share it with you
Next week I will be in Albuquerque visiting my Dad. Not sure if I'll have internet access or not so I'm not sure if I will be blogging at all.
Tonight is my knitting meeting and can't wait to go. I haven't made it to the last 2 meetings because I loaned my car to the bf and then the next meeting I was sick so I'm really looking forward to going tonight.

Gail #2

Since my last post .. Gail has been frogged. I felt the yarn was just too busy as pretty as it is. I will use it for a simpler pattern. The yarn is very soft and has wonderful drape. There is a drop stitch scarf I have in mind for the yarn that I think will work out better. So.. I decided to use this pretty lace yarn for my Gail shawl instead. This yarn is a coral/plum color 50% merino 50% silk. I really haven't worked much on it in the last couple of days but even the little bit that I knit already looks better. I can see the stitch pattern even though the yarn is marbled. I like it.
In 2 weeks I'm traveling to see my dad. I haven't seen him in a few years and I would like to spend some time with him. This shawl will be one of my travel projects. I'm also working on a little crochet cardigan that I'll bring also. I have to pick out one more small project as a back up to bring also. Maybe a pair of socks that I have been wanting to knit for a while. Last fall I purchased 2 sock flat feet and have been wanting to make the socks ever since but of course other projects keep popping up. I already did a gauge and have the needles I'm going to use. This will be a 7 1/2 hour flight so I'm packing a DS and Ipod just in case. Tomorrow I'm going to Ross and Walmart to see if I can pick up a carry on bag. I'm looking for the duffel bag type with wheels and a handle. They are lighter and seem to fit better in the overhead luggage compartments on the planes.
I added a link to my etsy shop in the links. I will be adding more items in the next few days and will be having a sale .. so keep an eye out. (^_^)

to knit or not to knit

My Gail is coming along very slowly. I'm on the 3rd repeat. As I knit I keep smelling this perfume smell and I don't know where it was coming from. I hadn't noticed any smell from the yarn before I started knitting. But I smelled it today and it smells like dryer sheets. Very strongly like dryer sheets. I hope the smell goes away because its not a very nice smell. I have never been fond of that dryer sheet smell. I'm also starting to think the yarn is too busy for this pretty pattern and the pattern is totally getting lost in all the colors. For some reason I hadn't pictured the yarn knitting up like this. As you can also see I decided to just knit the double yarn overs in the center of the shawl. While I think about what I want to do.. to knit or not to knit.. I'll work on my crochet cardigan for a while. I will be going to visit my Dad in a couple of weeks and the only flight I could get is a 7 1/2 hour trip. That means I have to pack some small knitting or crochet projects with me for the plane ride and for my stay. There is no internet there .. omy... I might get a lot of knitting done..!!

gail

The beginning of Gail. I did cast on last night.. maybe you shouldn't start new projects when you are sick. I have read the pattern a few times and totally forgot everything when I cast on. Some words kept going through my mine..( when you think you have to do a double yarn over DON'T) but I didn't listen and at row 35 when I was tired and going to go to sleep last night I looked at the chart again and saw the yellow line that marks the center stitch... 0.o' And it hit me.. I was supposed to do a center stitch inbetween the center yarn overs where the yellow squares are on the chart.
I woke up this morning and now have to decide should I just start over or continue with the double yarn overs in the center. The double yarn overs really don't bother me because the Frozen Leaves shawl had double yarn overs in the center. I guess it depends now on how I want it to look. I'll have to think about that while I fold the pile of laundry that has piled up while I was sick and then I'll have more time to think about it after I clean up all the dishes.


.

temptress

Temptress!! I finished spinning this last night. 372 yards of somewhere between fingering and lace weight yarn. The merino is soft but in places the blue sparkly mylar gave it a kind of crispy feeling. Besides that I like the colors and would like to make a little lace scarf with it. Maybe another Ishbel. So.. now I have quite a little collection of lace and fingering wieght yarns. I received the last skein of yarn in the mail yesterday. 630 yards of handpainted bamboo fingering yarn. It's called Dreamscape and I bought it from lotusblossom on ebay .. and I love the colors. Now there are so many colors to choose from and so many shawl patterns.. but I have given myself to make the final choice today. So sometime today (inbetween blowing my nose and drinking tea) I plan to cast on... something. Yes I'm still under the weather. I have that horrible fatigued feeling today. Hopefully one more day of rest will fix me up.

wips of the day

Wips of the day. I've been casually spinning up this pretty batt over the last few days. Little by little I've been tearing off strips of colors trying to keep the strips one or two colors at a time rather than blending. Sometimes I get more colors in one strip because of the nature of the batt and in the middle is sandwiched lots of blue mylar.
I think I caught what ever Jayden had and have been pretty sick for the last 2 days. I feel somewhat better today but still not 100%. I rested most of the day yesterday and that probably helped a lot. I hate being sick and haven't been sick in a while. I was going to bring this to my knitting group last night and finish spinning there but that didn't happen. If there is enough yardage when I finish.. maybe I'll use this for a small shawl. As it is now it doesn't look like enough. Talking about shawls.. I now have 3 skeins of yarn and a few shawl patterns I would like to start but still can't decide. The group I joined on ravelry has a KAL every month and the shawl they chose this month is a bit more than I think I want to take on. It's the Echo Flower Shawl and here is a lovely picture of Kailill's finished shawl. I haven't completely ruled it out yet. I'm still considering it.





In the mean time.. while I try to make up my mind I started a crochet project. I bought the pattern on etsy.com from Diane Langan. I'm using J&P coats Royale fashion crochet thread in tan and a size F crochet hook. The thread is very shinny almost like a purl cotton. So far I finished the 11 motifs at the bottom and now I'm starting the body of the cardigan. I wasn't able to find this pattern on ravelry yet. Maybe I'll listen to some audio books today while I work on project.