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!

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!

Ten on Tuesday

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know there was a BIG Powerball jackpot this weekend. I generally don't play, but when the jackpot gets big, I'll buy a few tickets just for fun. Except for this weekend when I forgot to buy a ticket! As the saying goes, you can't win if you don't play. So play I do when the prize is big and then we have some fun dreaming about what we'd do with the money.This week's 10 on Tuesday prompt is:

 10 Things I'd Do if I Won the Big Powerball Jackpot

1. Tell nobody!  Except my husband, of course.
2. Hire somebody to clean my house for me.  I love my home, but some days I feel like I am a slave to it.  Paid help would be awesome!
3. Meet with our financial advisor and attorney.
4. Pay off the house.
5.  Set up educational funds for my kids who still need it, my niece and nephew.
6. Buy my dad a new car. I don't think he has ever had a new car and that would be fun to do for him.
7. Go on a luxury vacation in Italy.  It's one of a few places that Tom and I would both love to visit.
8. Buy a vacation home, somewhere away from it all.... :-)
9. Do something fun, like restore an old home that's fallen by the wayside to it's former glory.
10. Make some anonymous charitable donations.

That's a little bit of the fun that I would have.  What would you do?  Visit Carole's Blog too and see what other people would do too.

A Finishing Fest

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged, and I've been busy looking back at what's been on my needles. I've decided to finish a few things and to let go of a few things. So let me show you what I've finished!

This Tulips Sweater may be the cutest darn thing I've ever made! I made it for my sweet niece who turned 1 last month.  I did purchase a kit from Webs so that I didn't have to buy full skeins of 8 colors but I didn't like the color that they chose for the border.  I was able to get a skein of Cool Fire at Spinning Yarns to substitute and I loooove the end result :-)

The only thing that I didn't love about the kit was the pattern.  Honestly, I found it to be poorly written and I would not recommend it for a beginning knitter.  To be honest, I'm not sure if it's the original pattern that's included in the kit or if it was reformatted to fit on one page for the kits and "stuff" got left out.  But I did more ripping back and reworking on this sweater than I think you should have to.

Next, I had a request from my Bama Boy to make a hat for his friend Ashley.  Apparently she loves the hat I made for him for Christmas and was constantly "borrowing" it.  Her birthday is next weekend and they are going skiing in Colorado this week for Spring Break.  She was pretty excited when he received his care package this week and there was a hat in it for her.  Happy Birthday Ashley!

I needed a new pair of mittens this winter.  I had intended to make myself a few pairs this year, but my time got sucked up by the hockey hats.  When I finished those, the first thing I did was finish these Fallow Mittens that I had started for myself.  I used Madelinetosh Vintage in the color Norway Spruce.  I wasn't able to get a good picture of the color, they are more green than this picture shows.  I love them! They are by far the most comfortable and best fitting mittens I've made for myself.  The pattern also has instructions for making them as fingerless mitts too.

Last finished project is my Hamantaschen socks.  The pattern is from the October 2012 Cookie A Sock Club.  I started these in October with the Hazel Knits October Club yarn, Artisan Sock in Sandlewood.

I was glad to have a finished pair of socks.  I hadn't finished a pair in 10 weeks!  I signed up for the 26 Pair Plunge and this is pair #9.  The plunge ends June 30th. I don't think there's any way that I can finish another 17 pairs by then, but I do intend to keep going and see how many I do finish.  There's always next year too :-)

I hope you're enjoying some Spring weather.  We still have lots of snow in NH!  Warmer weather is on the way next week.  I'm looking forward to it and doing some spring cleaning!

Mission Accomplished!

The Great Brady Hat Challenge is complete!

It all started with this hat...

A simple hat with earflaps, in school colors that looks like his hockey jersey, complete with his number on the back.

And then in January I began the challenge to knit hats for the entire team.  Some of these I've already shared, but I thought it would be fun to see them all together.  So here they are....

The seniors.... Thomas, Craig, Carter, and Casey.

The juniors... Mike, Shelby, Birdie, Nick, Brandon, & Derek.

Next up was Pickles.

Somewhere along the way when the kids were trying to guess who was getting the next hat, I told them that if they scored in a game and didn't have a hat yet, they would go to the to of the hat queue.  In the next game...

Spenser scored!

and so did Zach!

Next up were the Andrew's... Andrew Y and Andrew C

Then it was Brendan's turn

then Matt's

And last, but certainly not least Michael and Byron.

So there you have it. 20 hats!  19 of them knit between January 7th and February 23.  I really was not sure that I could get it done, but each hat that I finished made me more determined to finish all of them before the end of the season.  I know the kids love them.  I see them around the rink, waiting on the bus, and a couple other times around town.  A few parents have told me that their kids wear them ALL the time, and one dad told me that "if it made sense to wear it in the shower, he would wear it then too!"  Is there anything that warms a knitters heart more than knowing their hand-knits are this loved?  This ended up being such a fun and rewarding challenge for me.  I'm so glad I did it!  Thank you to all of you for cheering me on too :-)

Goodbyes

I don't know how to start this.  I've been thinking about it for days and I really could not come up with a good way to begin. I thought that maybe I would not talk about it here, but really, how could I not?  If you're friends with me on Facebook, then you already know that my mom passed away last week.  It was a shock, and yet it wasn't.  It's heartbreaking and yet it has brought some peace to my family.  Her health had been failing over the last few years and she had been in and out of the hospital for months.  It's been really hard on her in all the ways you can imagine.  Physically, mentally, and emotionally.  She missed her life as she knew it terribly, and as much as we all tried to help and support her, it did not bring her the comfort she needed and craved. Last Monday she left all the pain and struggle behind.  I know that she's at peace now, I know that she has that wonderful sparkle back in her eye and her smile.  I also know that I miss her.  I don't think you can ever be prepared for the day that you lose your mom.

In preparing for her memorial service I came across this picture from Christmas 2008 and wanted to share it. It reminds me of how beautiful she is and of the many happy times we shared.

Cora Claire Hancock

March 11,1943- February 18, 2013

Wife, mom, grammy, friend

If your mom is still with you, call her today and tell her you love her.  You'll be glad you did.

The Great Hat Challenge Continues

I'm still knitting hats as fast as I can! May I present "The Juniors"

These are for Mike, Shelby, Birdie, Nick, Brandon, and Derek!  Chandler is a junior too, but he got his hat first.

Grand total: 11 hats complete, 10 to go.  I've officially crossed the half way mark and am still on track to finish for the end of the season on February 23!