Overdue Pictures and Other Things

I had promised to post pictures of what I had done towards reorganizing my second bedroom to accomodate all my crafty things so this morning I finally took pictures. I am dragging today. It's noon already and I have accomplished almost nothing. No laundry, no dusting, no knitting, nothing except to have two cups of coffee, play some games and finally take some pictures.

The picture to the left of the four shelf thingy is where I put a lot of my items that truly needed organizing. The top shelf holds miscellaneous items as well as a nice odd looking basket filled with all the doilies I have made by hand but which are NOT being used at the moment. You can also see the little two drawer chest where I keep a lot of my books and patterns. But the second shelf of the four shelf unit has a bin with lots of knit patterns. The third has a bin with crochet. The bottom shelf holds a lot of swapping related items (or still to be sorted items!).

This next picture (depending on how blogger posts it!) with the pink thing in the front is where I am storing my yarn. The white cabinet with the light blue drawers has all my cotton yarn. Top drawer holds full balls of variegated, the middle full balls of solid and the bottom is my leftovers which I am using for smaller projects. I have a full cone of variegated white and yellow sitting on top because there is no room in the drawers. That means two things. First, no need to buy more yarn. Second, time to concentrate on knitting A LOT MORE!! You may not be able to see it well but behind the pink thing (a rolling organing yarn bag, btw, that I bought myself with a gift certificate to Joann's from my daughter Ally last year) is a 3 drawer organizer where all my various other yarn. It is sorted this way: bottom drawer holds 100% wool which is lightweight. Middle drawer holds 100% wool in medium and bulky weight. The top drawer holds other miscellaneous yummy yarn I have such as a ball of cashmere and three balls of alpaca which I have yet to determine what I will make using it. With winter coming I will be able to get into these drawers, I hope. Just have to make time. I do know, however, that I will need to buy a couple of balls of a coffee-colored wool to make Amy's promised felted hat. And I notice that now KnitPicks has bamboo tips available (in bright swirly colors!) for their Options needles (another treat I bought myself last year) so perhaps, despite the non-need for cotton and the upcoming not-really-needed-but-wanted wool for winter, it is time to go shopping at KnitPicks again. Maybe after my birthday. Use my birthday money for that. :)

OK, the last picture on the right is of the two drawer bookcase I managed to snag at a Salvation Army for $10. Not big and not expensive. I had to nail the back board on but I figured it was perfect for my usage. The drawers are filled with pattern books and printouts and other miscellaneous things I use that are related to crafting. The top holds books and magazines and binders and other things.

Now I have just one final thing I would like to post. I hope I can get blogger to let me put one more picture in here...

To the left are two gorgeous dishcloths. No, I did NOT make these but I absolutely LOVE them. They did NOT come from an exchange. These two beautiful dishcloths were gifts from my dear friend Heather. I can't tell you how gorgeous these are! They are both crochet and I just absolutely love the stitch on both! I will have to get the patterns from Heather. She gave me a ton of wonderful things she had made for me and I am thinking I will have to teach her how to knit when I'm down there sometime. Unless I can convince her to come here for a few days and then we can shop, crochet, knit and cook. She is a very talented lady! She can sew and paint and do just about anything. Me, I knit, crochet, felt and shop. Oh yeah, in winter I can be convinced to cook (I love to cook and am good at it but cooking for 1 is *not* pleasant).

So there are some overdue pictures. This afternoon I will sit down and see if I can make some progress on my scarf and finish a dishcloth. I promised to make Ally a dress dishcloth and I have the yarn and they don't take all that much time, just getting to it. So hopefully I can do that this weekend, too. I want to have something finished today. I really want to have TWO somethings finished today. But I still need to do something about lunch. Maybe instead of Sunday being the day I stay home and do things it'll be today and tomorrow I will go out and do errands. It is looking more and more like that's the direction I'm headed. Oh well... as long as I get some crafting done. And at least I am starting to make progress. :)

One final comment. Even though I don't need it, I bought myself a booklet with some knit dishcloth patterns while I was at Michael's in Hemet last weekend. I am thinking one of those patterns would be interesting to make as a present for my mother. I have three weeks. :)

Any suggestions on what to take as airport knitting when I go would be appreciated. :) I am bringing a few patterns and maybe one ball of cotton yarn and I think the cashmere to make a scarf. Any other cotton I need I can buy while I'm on vacation. Or maybe I'll use that nice wool I bought in Dover last year. I can't pass up a trip to that yarn store, either.

INTERVENTION ANYONE?!?

A Picture and a Surprise

Here is the scarf I am making out of the beautiful rose wool/mohair yarn (hand dyed!) that Kaylee gave me last year. It is so gorgeous and working up so nicely! I wanted to wait until I found a pattern I liked. This one calls for you to use up just about all the yarn and then cast off. Here is the simple pattern:

Cast on 18

Every row: K1, YO, K2together across the row

It makes a beautiful pattern. And it works up so fast!

OK, now here is the wonderful surprise! Well, wonderful for me.

Last year the wonderful little port on my computer where you plug in the cord that you attach to your computer to download the pictures from camera to computer developed a severe looseness. The only way to repair it is to replace the camera or spend lots of money. I didn't want to do either. I lucked out and someone at WalMart knew what I was talking about and found the last universal card reader which is a small device that you put the memory card from the camera into and then the cord plugs into your computer and you can download your pictures off the card that way. Ugh. But it works.

So I take the picture of the scarf and think, ok, no big deal.

Those of you who know me know that if I get down on the floor, I'm likely to stay there a while. Just gotta love arthritis and my right knee... NOT. But the last time I had to get down and look at my CPU I noticed a slot that looked like a card reader slot. But I haven't taken any pictures for a while and figured I would check it out next time I had pictures to download. Quite frankly since I wasn't truly sure it would work I worried, like I do about everything, that the card would get permanently stuck in there, wouldn't work, you name it. But I thought it was worth a try. Worst case scenario was I would have to buy a new card for my camera. But they aren't expensive. So I plugged it in and IT WORKED! Now I don't have to worry about what might happen if the plug in card reader decides to stop working.

Not important to anyone but me. Well, except that it means I will be able to continue to post pictures for quite some time (presuming the camera keeps working!).

Grammy's Been A Visitin'

Yup, this really isn't craft related but here are some pictures from my visit this weekend with Ally, Sean and, of course, my beloved Matt. Don't Ally and Matt look alike? And of course, I had to have my own picture taken with Matt even though I'm not crazy about that kind of thing. The picture of just Matt is sitting on my desk at work. How it makes me smile to see him!

I will take a picture of the scarf I started and post it later. It's made with that gorgeous rose wool/mohair that Kaylee gave me last year. I had been hoping to find just the right thing to make FOR ME with it and ... well, you'll see.

I have some dishcloths I need to finish. Been too tired to knit or crochet, though. Will try tonight. And to remember to take a picture of the scarf to post!

Fall Swap

OK, here's my response to the topic for this week which is:

Now that in some geographic locations the weather is starting to turn cooler, do you change the type of yarn(s) you knit/crochet with? If so, what do you now knit/crochet with instead and why? If not, why do you not switch and what do you knit/crochet with?

I finally will be able to work with wool again. Back to felting. I have promised a hat to Amy and I have a few other little things I would like to work on to say nothing of the scarf I started while on my way to, at and back from Ally's. I will post pictures later. I anticipate still using lots of cotton for dishcloths, especially some of that gorgeous self-striping cotton I purchased last week at Joann's. I am fortunate that in my part of northern California, I can work with heavier yarn when the weather cools off. And of course cooler weather is a wonderful excuse to hit the exclusive little yarn store I found in Dover, New Hampshire last year while on vacation. Hmm... I do have that "frequent buyer" card. hehehe

Pictures and more soon. The scarf and, of course, the love of my life - Matt.