It’s A Wednesday in Michigan

February 21, 2024Leave a comment

It looks like spring but for those of us who live here or are very familiar with how Mother Nature treats our Mitten, it could be winter any moment.

Yes, I’m still here. I’ve been knitting and actually sold a couple items. Neither one was a recent finished object. They were both holdovers from an Arts & Crafts show that I participated in several years ago. It’s encouraging if I do say so myself.

This year hasn’t been a year of sweaters so far. Most of my finished objects are socks, doll clothes, hats, and reworking a cardigan that I knitted a decade ago and never wore. There is one sweater that I made for my mom. She had shoulder surgery and wanted something to wear like a poncho but what she and my youngest sister described was not a poncho. Then, one day while I was at her house as her Support Person of the Day we were watching a show where twin sisters who are real estate agents in Oregon or Washington were showing the owners of a house around their newly renovated house. One was wearing a short sleeve sorta jacket with elbow length wide sleeves. More like a kimono.

So, when I went home I did another pattern search and found one called Not Quite a Cape on Ravelry for $7.50 and bought it and started over for the second time. The sweater is almost done. I just need to knit some loops for the buttons and sew them and the buttons on and it’s done.

Mom and L’il Sis seem to think that I could whip up that sweater in a weekend. They called me on a Friday with the request and I was there on Sunday as my turn. Mom wanted to know if the sweater was done yet.

Huh? Seriously Mom? You’re the one who taught me how to knit when I was 8 years old.

Time for a walk with my doggo. It’s a sorta nice and warm day here so we should take advantage of it. I’ll even take my cute little JBL speaker and entertain the birds and squirrels in our woods.

Take care all of you out there and come back soon!

Knitting and More Knitting

October 29, 2019Leave a comment

This is one of the sweaters that I’ve finished since I’ve been away. This one is #19 Drop Shoulder Pullover from a winter Vogue Knitting issue from about five years ago. The yarn is a close-out boucle from ICE Yarns purchased through Paradise Yarns. Since Paradise Yarns has such great prices, this sweater cost about $6 in materials and there’s a whole lot more yarn leftover. I’m thinking maybe a hat and legwarmers. I even doubled the yarn.

What else have I been up to?

For a few weeks I had a communications issue where I just plain old couldn’t access the world. Then, my phone would randomly turn off while I was using it. My mobile hotspot wouldn’t stay connected. That all lead to even more excitement.

While I was on the Verizon Facebook page in a conversation with several other VZ subscribers regarding our connectivity issues a customer service rep requested that I contact them through Chat. So, I did. They found that there was nothing wrong on their end and they were just as baffled as I was. I did some Googling and found out through one of the Windows Forums that the 1093 update may have something to do with hotspot issues. So, we created a new password and logged in again with the new information thinking that my laptop might think it’s a new network. It worked a little better but not much.

In the meantime – beware of any CSR that pops up in a Facebook chat in messenger. They may not be who they seem to be especially if their last name is Brown. I was contacted by two different reps with the last name of Brown wanting to know how my service was working. One had me so convinced that he was real that I gave him/her too much information which led to a new VZ account, new bank account, and an attempted bitcoin account creation.

Verizon is working with law enforcement to investigate since the person is impersonating one of their employees and used their logos and the exact verbage as the real person that I chatted with on the previous day right down to the order of the questions asked.

Beware. I never thought I’d be sucked in and there it was.

Oh yes, and a new phone made all the difference as well.

Geeze O Pete

July 27, 2019Leave a comment

Current Knitting Project

Half-Pint Hoodie by Bonnie Evans

So, those of you who are knitters. I have one extremely important question for all of you.

Why in the world do you not buy all the yarn before I get onto the internet every day? Huh? What is with that? Why are you leaving yarn out there for me to buy? Will I live long enough to knit with all this yarn?

Maybe I should start selling some off and start a yarn IRA or CD or some kind of investment fund. Are there yarn companies that sell stock? I could trade my WW stock and buy yarn shares. No. I won’t. I hardly paid anything for my WW stock and it’s doing rather well at the moment. Thank you Oprah.

What else have I been up to? I’m a grandma to fraternal twin boys now. They arrived one month early on June 26th. Their due date was July 25th but, hey, why wait? They tried to get them to change their minds but they weren’t having it. Both boys are home with Mom and Dad now and doing rather well. I haven’t visited them since the were reunited but will be this coming week unless they are still under strict house quarantine. They’re still tiny so visitors are limited to none or just Grandmas or Grandpas. That’s a crowd in itself.

Keep stopping by. Who knows? Maybe I’ll write something every now and then. I warned you, didn’t I?

June!

June 5, 2019Leave a comment

2019 Temperature Table Runner

I pulled this out on Sunday and managed to add four days worth of stripes. That brought me up to February 24th. Yes, it’s a little bit behind in progress but, we can’t finish these until after December 31st anyway. No worries. It will be done in a timely manner, promise.

Other actions going on around here are varied. I’m working on my vegetable garden and am thinking of expanding the size for next year. When I mentioned that to my husband he said “go for it”.

We finally found someone to work on our house so yesterday the porch on the east side was almost done with the ceiling painting. After the tongue & groove is done then the beams are next. All of us failed to put the work request/quote together properly to include the porch on the west side which is identical to the porch on the east side. No worries. It’s just more time and money and we’ll get it done. After the porches are done then it’s time to move to the trim boards up on the second floor dormer windows. All eight of them rotted where they come in contact with the roof. The house is 14 years old now so some things need to be done.

I’m knitting. The baby shower was Sunday so all those baby things have now moved to my daughter’s house. There are more in progress for colder weather wear that they will get after the boys are born and going forward as they grow. I’m updating all the photos of the finished sweaters on my Flickr and in Ravelry.

Right now I’m working on Same But Different by Anketstrick (Fallmasche) which is a variation of Walnus (spelling?) It’s a top-down project which requires more concentration if you ask me. If you miss something it makes a really big difference. I’m below the armholes now so there’s shaping and design elements going on at the same time. The yarn that I’m using is a recycled 100% alpaca that I purchased from a seller on eBay that buys sweaters and unravels them. This yarn is so soft and would have cost me a whole lot more than the $20 something that I paid for it.

I’ve also got a Shakerag top in progress for those times when I don’t want to concentrate so much. I’m using two cones of laceweight yarns that I’ve had for close to 30 years. One is silk and the other is linen – both in the same shade of sage green. They were purchased from Robin & Russ Handweavers for probably around $5 each. The yardage is non-stop.

We’ve got rain coming again and could be here any time now. They say by 7:44 it’s going to be in the town that southwest of here. Since I didn’t go buy the stain for the porch beams I’m hoping for a day of reprieve between the paint and stain.

Have a great Wednesday!