Sunday, April 21, 2013

Best Intentions and Plans

I had great intentions to blog more regularly the last time I posted. Clearly that didn't work out as I had hoped. We've been quite busy at my house over the last few weeks.

First, we had "some sort of a serious situation" in the laundry room, as Chandler phrased it, a couple months ago. Long story short, the internal pump in my front load washer got stuck on and my basement laundry room and bathroom got seriously flooded.  We cleaned it up but just couldn't seem to get the laundry room to really dry out.  And then it started to smell mildewy....  So I convinced DH that we needed to rip out the laminate flooring, dry it out really well and replace the flooring with tile.  As it turns out, we discovered after we ripped the laundry room apart, that the pressure relief valve for the house water pump had gone bad too.  The pump is on the other side of the laundry room wall, and THAT is where the on-going water issue stemmed from.  3 weeks later we have a new floor, new sheet rock, new cabinets, new color on the wall, etc, etc.  It was a slippery slope once we started.  This picture is mid project.  We just have some trim painting left to finish!
Lacrosse season has also started.  So we're off to the lacrosse field at least 2 days a week.  (Chandler is #7)
So those are the Life things that have taken over our family.  I have done some knitting too.  I finished the socks from the January Rockin Sock Club Kit.  This pattern is Roadside Attraction by Star Athena, and the yarn is STR medium weight in the club color Portland Plaid.
I'm still working on my Irish Coffee.  I'm about 3 inches below the sleeve separation.  I really love this pattern and when I work on it for a couple of days in a row, the progress really shows :-)
I finished the 1st sock of Ernie from the February shipment of the Cookie A Club and have turned the heel of the 2nd sock.
The April club kit form Cookie A arrived a couple weeks ago.  The yarn is Dream in Color Everlasting Sock and the color is called Violet Hour.  This will be a new yarn for me to try and I'm looking forward to it.
I made one of the cookie recipes from the April shipment and they were super yummy!
The March Rockin Sock Club kit came too.  The color is called Hope Springs Eternal and I love it!  I'm going to make the sock pattern that came in this kit with it.
It's vacation week for us this week.  Tom and I are off to St. Kitts Tuesday night.  He won this trip for a sales promotion at work and it just so happens to be the same week as school vacation.  Chandler did not want to come with us because he didn't want to miss a week of sports, so we're going off without him and the boys are staying home together.  I have my clothes mostly pulled together to pack but I'm still waffling what to pack for knitting. We have 7 hours of flying each way. (2  3+ hour flights with a layover) I'm definitely bringing the Ernie socks to finish and I'm pretty sure I'm going to wind up the RSC yarn too for the sock pattern.  I'm just a little worried that it might require more attention than I want to pay to it for plane/beach knitting.  My other options being considered are My Kind of Saturday which I got at Sock Summit 2011 and would qualify for the Irishgirlieknits KAL, Old Joe socks which I've had the yarn wound for 6 weeks, or Tulip socks from the Cookie A club.  If you have an opinion, I'd love to hear it!

I also have The Orchardist and Whiskey Beach loaded on my Kindle.  It's probably optimistic to think this way, but I'm thinking I should add one more book just in case.  Any suggestions?

Have a great week!  If I can remember to take some pictures on my trip, I'll share them next time!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

WiP Wednesday


Welcome April!  It's a new month, a new season, and I think the perfect time to renew some activities that I once enjoyed.  That includes blogging more regularly because, honestly, I have missed keeping up with the blog.  The knitting isn't always exciting, but it's nice to keep track of my progress.  I plan to include more fun stuff too.

Starting with knitting, I have 2 projects that are getting my attention right now.  The first is Irish Coffee.  I've loved this sweater ever since the pattern was released and have had it in my queue for 2 years.  I decided to use some Madelinetosh Vintage that was in my stash for it.  I think it will be a great spring/fall sweater.  I'm going to modify it by making a shorter version and I may make the sleeves longer too.
I'm also working Ernie which is one of the patterns form Cookie A's February Sock Club.  I'm using the club yarn for it, which is Indigodragonfly MCN Sock.  Let me tell you, this stuff is fabulous!  It's so soft and round, but not too fluffy so it's holding up the stitch pattern beautifully.  I'm definitely keeping these babies for myself and will be tucking them away for fall :-)
The April club is shipping on Saturday, so I better get a move on with these!  I'm trying desperately to keep up with my clubs this year!  2012 was a train wreck for that.  Here's hoping 2013 is better!

We still have some snow in NH and it's been below average for temperatures too.  This is the week that we usually have "ice out" on my lake.  I don't think we're anywhere near that though this year. This is what the lake looks like from my yard as of noon today.
I'm going to guess that ice out will be April 13th.  I'll keep you posted!