Saturday, September 20, 2008

Another new blog!

The new blog replaces the other new blog I just started. LOL So if you want to go to my "OLD NEW" blog to find out why I started a "NEW NEW" blog, you can read my post at:

CoffeeBean's Corner


and then put my (final? it better be!) new blog in your Bloglines or whatever you use:

Eileen's Blog (I decided not to spend the time thinking of a catchy title, what can I say).

Hope to see you there! Please leave me a comment if you visit!

Monday, August 25, 2008

My new home!

I started my new blog. Come visit me at CoffeeBean's Corner!

It's going to take me awhile to get things just the way I want them but I hope you will come and say hi. Please comment here or there and let me know if you stopped by!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Changes brewing...

I have 4 blogs right now - this one, one for general family news, one for what I'm reading, and one for sewing. I can't keep up with any of them. LOL I'm sorry I haven't been posting here or commenting in other blogs much lately. Life has just been busy and as usual I am so behind on everything. I am still reading your blogs though!

Anyway....

In September I will start homeschooling Lindsey (Kindergarten), and I've been thinking about doing a blog with more of a homeschool focus - what we're learning, accomplishments, struggles, and misc. ramblings. But I still want to write about reading, knitting, and occasionally sewing so I've decided to combine everything into one blog. I've decided to start this blog at Homeschool Blogger. I haven't decided on a name yet so I don't have a specific URL to share with you. I would LOVE suggestions on what to call this new blog! I am so uncreative. I don't want the word homeschool in the title since the blog will be about more than that. The same goes for any one subject such as reading, knitting, etc.

I'm thinking I may lose some readers when I go to this new blog but I may gain some too. I would love to have you follow me there, but I understand if you're not interested.

I hope to have my new blog started in the next few weeks and when I get a URL I will let you know! Thanks to the faithful readers/commenters of my many blogs.

On the knitting front, I have been knitting only about twice a week lately. Sigh. But I am 3/4 done with a small felted bag and last Tuesday I started a pair of Monkey socks (from knitty.com). I worked on them again last night. Again I'm sorry I've been such a horrible knit blogger lately! I am just as obsessed with knitting as ever and subscribe to new knitting podcasts all the time! My new favorite is the Brown-eyed Mom podcast. I think about knitting all the time. I guess I have more time to think about it than to actually do it but that's just the way it is right now and that's okay. It's not going anywhere. :-)

Happy knitting!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Mid-Year Knitting Resolution Update

Since the year is more than half over I decided to report on my 2008 Knitting Resolutions again. Back in April I revised them to say:

  1. Make 4 pair of socks.
  2. Learn to cable in the first half of 2008.
  3. Learn to do either intarsia or fair isle, sometime in the second half of 2008.
  4. Knit at least one item for charity.
  5. Learn to use dpns, at least do one project with them.
  6. Knit 5 times a week (would love to knit every day but I think that's impossible).
The updates:
  1. I have made 2 pair so far and had the 1" of ribbing of one sock done when the tangled yarn disaster hit. :-( I don't have the money right now to buy more sock yarn. I do have yarn to make the fuzzy feet slippers from knitty.com and I think I might start those soon. Would those count toward my sock total?
  2. I finished the mini-messenger bag (except the felting as you know!) and while the cables were nothing complicated and they were just on the flap of the bag, at least I put my toe in the water with cabling. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to doing another cable project at some point.
  3. Have done nothing toward meeting this goal as of yet.
  4. I haven't knit anything for charity yet but I am thinking of doing a baby blanket. Something fairly simple for times when I don't have the energy I spoke of in a past post . I would like something mindless that I can work on during those times. Given the speed at which I knit (slow) I'm not sure if I would even finish a blanket in 2008 but as long as it was, oh maybe 3/4 finished by the end of the year, I might consider that a goal accomplished. Anyway, any pattern suggestions?
  5. I haven't knit anything with dpns yet either. I'm thinking about trying to knit a hat with dpns. Haven't knit any hats yet. I don't wear them but maybe now is the time to start. :-)
  6. I did fairly well with this goal for the first 3 or 4 months of the year but then my dad got sick and passed away and immediately after that summer hit and I'm just too busy or tired many days. I think I've knit at least once a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times. Ugh.
These are the things I said I do NOT want to do in 2008, and this hasn't changed:
  1. Make anything without a pattern (I LOVE following patterns!)
  2. Design my own pattern (I am not that talented.)
  3. Do a lace project (will probably be a 2009 goal).
  4. Spin or dye my own yarn (Although so many knitters seem to love this, I have NO interest in these things! Maybe someday I'll look back at this post and laugh, but for now it's not for me.)
Have YOU made 2008 knitting resolutions? If so, how are you doing on them? Comment and let me know!

Happy knitting!!

******************
**I've had a few people from my local knitting group offer to wind balls of yarn for me. THANKS! I am most definitely going to be taking you up on that. :-)

Friday, July 11, 2008

I'M SO MAD!!!!!

Last night I threw out another ball of yarn. Yarn I paid $21 for. Yarn I had my eye on for over a month before buying. Yarn I've had since January just waiting for the right time to knit a pair of socks out of. It's this yarn:



Once again it is due to my horrible center pull ball winding skills. The first skein of yarn I had to wind was Cascade 220 for my first felted bag. No problems whatsoever. No problems winding, no problems knitting from the ball, no tangles, etc. The second ball was also Cascade 220. I tried to wind that one myself without help from hubby and I got it all tangled up and had to throw most of it away. Not until after spending over 2 hours trying to untangle it. I bought another skein and had my husband help me this time and it went fine.

That brings me to this yarn. My husband did help me wind it but I was in a bit of a hurry to get to my knitting group. I'm not sure if this is why things went awry or not. Anyway I did about an inch of the ribbing on my Jaywalker socks when the yarn would not pull out of the center anymore. Somehow it ended up in another tangled mess. Once again I spent a few hours trying to make sense of the mess to no avail. I just pitched the whole thing out.

I'm going to be sick! I'm not winding any more yarn into a ball by hand. I can't afford a ball winder so hopefully I can find someone who will wind yarn for me if I need it. I can't go through this again.

Not so happy knitting here in Wisconsin!

P.S. I have been so busy lately and haven't been visiting your knitting blogs very much. I do plan to get caught up at some point and will let you know I've visited! I know I really appreciate when people comment on my blog and I do like to comment on yours. Please be patient with me!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Knitting Jeopardy

Answer: All of these are in short supply in my life.

Question: What is time, energy, and money?

Correct! You win a lifetime supply of yarn. (You know I'm kidding about the yarn, right? LOL) I am so obsessed with all things knitting but unfortunately I don't have as much knitting time as I would like. Often when I do have time, I have no energy. And while I currently have enough yarn to keep me knitting for awhile (which is actually not very much, I'm a s-l-o-w knitter), I would love to be able to buy more, more, more yarn. :-)

I live a very blessed life, I'm not complaining (okay maybe just a little) but I'm just stating a fact. I would love to knit more than I do. For now I just knit when I can, listen to my multitude of knitting (and other) podcasts, browse Ravelry, and read Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's books. :-)

Happy knitting!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Another boring knitting update

Good Morning Knitters!

I'm not knitting nearly as much as I would like to (insert big heavy sigh here!) but I have been doing some. I started the little dog toy for my 5 year old. I started a pair of Jaywalker socks for myself. The messenger bag is done awaiting felting. I finished knitting the iPod cozy but it needs to be sewn up and, yes felted. That one can be hand felted so that will probably be felted before the bags.

That is my super exciting not to be missed knitting update! (NOT!)

I don't have any pictures of my knitting right now and I think a blog post looks better with a picture, don't you? So I'll give you another picture of my girls for now. :-)