you got the right one, baby...uh huh!

i dunno if i mentioned this before or not, but one of mz's friends recently found out she is pregnant. of course, as soon as i heard this i started itching to start a baby gift for her. i picked up some yarn at my LYS the other day, and decided that it wasn't quite the right thing, so i went back yesterday. i learned how to use my drop spindle (and that reminds me, i have to practice for at least 15 mins today!), and bought some more baby-appropriate yarn. ever since, i have been looking for patterns, swatching, frogging, and looking for more patterns. i wasn't entirely sure what i was looking for, but i knew i wanted it to be crochet, all one piece (no stitching squares together for me!), easy to memorize, not too difficult and definitely nothing that started from the center and worked outward. should be easy to find something like that, right? as my high school chemistry teacher used to say, "WRONG-O!" but finally this morning i found just the right pattern and started crocheting a swatch:


this is the pound of love hooded baby blanket from lion brand and it is JUST what i was looking for! i will keep the swatch for my knitting journal. i probably won't work on this too much until after christmas but i was determined to find the right pattern so that when i AM ready to work on it, i can just get started.

oh yeah, check out my new bamboo crochet hook. it's fabulous. now i need to get a bunch more ;-)

~mz

SCORE!!!!

the other night while i was exploring ravelry, i saw a post from someone in one of my groups that said one of the local yarn shops was having a holiday open house last night. so, i grabbed up one of my friends after work yesterday and we went. how fun! this is a shop that i haven't been to in a few years and now it's under new ownership. everyone is very nice and helpful. there were a bunch of women sitting in the comfy cozy sitting area knitting and chatting, and best of all, everything in the store was 20% off. so.......i bought a few things! can't take good pix right now because my camera is at canon being fixed (but it should be back to me next week). i will tell you that i bought about $99 worth of goodies...for only $79! most of what i bought is yarn to make some sort of baby gift for a friend who recently found out she is pregnant. not sure exactly what that gift will be yet. shame on me for buying yarn before i had a project in mind!

later today i'm going back to that same yarn shop for a "spin in" event. it's been ages since i've spun any yarn and i have completely forgotten how to use my spindles (one top whorl, one bottom whorl). so i'm going to go re-learn. and maybe buy some more stuff, who knows. i also have to do a bit more christmas shopping, run some errands (pharmacy & hardware store) then it's all about sitting at home and working on finishing some knitting projects.

hope y'all have a great saturday, too!

~mz

new apartment pix

pics ... just like i promised

so ya wanna see pictures of my most recent projects, do ya? well, here they are!

first up, the knitted log cabin blanket that i finished a couple of weeks ago. isn't it a beauty? it's all washed and folded and stored away in my "stash" of baby stuff :-)


_____________

next, the log cabin blanket that i'm crocheting.

this is a close-up of the center square. it's about 7 inches square and i've stitched on 3 flowers that i crocheted.

and this is the most recent picture of the whole blanket. it's a little bit bigger now, though. i hope that this will be between 36" and 48" square when it's all finished. i was thinking i would crochet more flowers to stitch randomly on the blanket. but we'll see how it goes.

that's it for now, friends. it's way past dinner time so i better get a move-on.

~mz

thinking about winter ... already?!

good grief, i know it's only early september, but i'm already thinking about winter knitting/crocheting. besides the half-ton of baby stuff that i'm going to work on (including log cabin blanket #2), i think i will FINALLY make myself a hot water bottle cozy. i first got hip to using hot water bottles to warm the bed when i spent a semester in london back in the dark ages (okay well it was only 1996). it was fall semester and i was there from early september thru late december, right before christmas. dude, those england winters are COLD...makes ohio seem almost balmy! anyway, i soon figured out that a hot water bottle filled with hot hot hot water and wrapped in a towel really helps keep a girl warm all thru the night, and even allowed me to keep sleeping in my birthday suit (okay maybe that was an overshare!). seems like every year around this time, i get a little "london-sick" and nostalgic about the awesome time i had there. a hot water bottle cozy is a lot sexier than a towel so i think i'll make it my business to make one. i thought i'd share some of the knit and crochet patterns available on the web:

BAWK hot water bottle cozy

Felted hot water bottle cover

Hot Water!

Hot Water Bottle Cover (craftbits)

Hot Water Bottle Cozy (blue sky alpacas)

Tartan hot water bottle cover (Panda Yarns)

Toasty Cosy

well, then, now i should get back to watching the sound of music (which is one of my very favorite movies!) good night, friends, and happy knitting!

~mz