My Other Vice

I've been spending a lot of time with my other vice, scrapbooking, recently.


Mainly, I'm making a dozen of these memory books as favors for a family reunion we are having in Maine this summer.


I purchased these accordian albums and I'm decorating them so that the guests can add their own pictures when they get home. (Most are coming from New Jersey).


The fronts are mostly all the same, but the insides are all different - using up my paper stash, which is as large as my yarn stash. At least paper is flat and doesn't take up as much room!



The last panel on the right side of the accordian is a pocket that we will be putting a DVD slide show of old family photos in. That is if I ever get them all scanned and e-mailed to my DD who is the slide show expert.



The reunion is the weekend of July 17,18 & 19 and will be held at the Bluff House Inn.
We have the whole Inn reserved - I'm really excited about it!

I haven't completely neglected my knitting though.
I made another baby hat for a baby girl expected in July. Our cook at school is about to become a great grandmother! This was knit with Plymouth Encore Sock yarn and is being modeled by .....a vase?

This Song is for You!

I had an X-ray done today. They found you in my heart.

The doctor said that if they took you out I would die, because I could not live without you as an on-line friend!

Feel free to send this heart along to all of your on-line friends that you could not live without!

And look what one of my very best on-line friends sent me! She knows I am retiring next month and she also knows I've been wanting to learn how to spin so she sent me this spinning kit with a spindle and some alpaca roving to practice with. I met Mary Lynn when she was my upstream pal in a swap and we've been on-line friends ever since. She's also become my partner in crime on the Whoduknit Group. Thank you so much MaryLynn for this gift and also the gift of your friendship.

This song is for you! And for all my other special on-line friends.

And.....I even have an FO to post
I knit up this lace-edge hat with some Alpaca sport weight yarn from Knit Picks just because I felt the need to finish something!

Was I Ever That Young or That Thin???

I pulled out some old prom pictures to add to a scrapbook page I'm doing of the twins prom pictures. This is my DD and her DH (the twins mom & dad) at her Junior Prom in 1987. Diana was the Prom Queen, and she is still just as pretty and just as thin as she was then. Jayson has a lot less hair now but still a good looking guy!

And, that's me and my DH on the right - at his Senior Prom in 1960.

Notice the DA haircut on Steve?

And, yes, we are still just as pretty and as thin as we were then LOL.

Actually it's hard to believe I was ever that thin - I think I weighed around 95 pounds!

And finally my labyrinth Carpet Bag finished and felted. I'm not crazy about it. Sometimes when I put something away for awhile and then take it back out it looks better - so that's what I'm going to do!

It was fun knitting it, but if I make another one I won't use the color sequences in the pattern. Some of the rows only called for one round of a color - and those rounds didn't even show up when it was felted. Like the bottom right hexagon which looks like it only has two colors but should have a blue round. I should have realized that when I was knitting, but I followed the pattern like a good girl!

Prom Pictures

All dressed up -

My grandson and his girlfriend

My granddaughter and her boyfriend
Jacob, Sarah, Jordyn & Trevor

The twins.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

I hope you are all having a wonderful Mother's Day! These beautiful flowers arrived yesterday from my son who lives in Austin. We went out for dinner last night with my daughter's family and my other son. Today I've been playing with the new laptop computer my DH gave me for Mother's Day - quite a surprise, as I wasn't expecting anything, much less a laptop!

I'm almost finished with the Labyrinth Carpet Bag - just need to finish up the I-cord handles, which I decided to make instead of the leather, since I'm not at all sure this bag is going to come out looking anything like it's supposed to. The felting is going to have to work miracles and cover up a bunch of mistakes -

Can't wait to see how it comes out!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

To all of you underpaid, overworked and sometimes under appreciated colleagues of mine, including those of you who home school, which has to be the hardest job of all!

We are fortunate to have a wonderful PTA group at our school that raises money for all those little extras that have been cut from the budget. Today they catered a luncheon for us in a building across the street from the school. Now - we don't have a cafeteria, so we eat in our classrooms with the kids every day, and never get a chance to eat lunch with the grown-ups, so this was a big treat! They had a Cinco de Mayo theme, with Mexican food, sombreros and maracas on the table and Mexican Music. There was a drawing with prizes for each of us. I won this great quilted tote bag, which I love. When it was held up I thought "That's mine!" and surprise, surprise, my name was drawn! They even had a pinata filled with school supplies for us to bring back to the kids in the classroom, who were being supervised by volunteer parents. One of the little boys in my class wanted to know what 'preciation' means. I said it means 'be nice to your teachers today.' He said, 'Oh - I thought it meant, get away from your class for a little while today.' - Yes - that too! We were scheduled to do an ACES (All Children Exercise Simultaneously) walk with the kids this afternoon, but the postponed it until next week.

I hope all of my teacher friends out there are feeling appreciated this week!

Knitters are just the best!

What did I do before Ravelry took over my life? It's hard to imagine. But two of the places I used to hang out were The Knitter's Review and The Knitty Coffee Shop. (I'm janev on both of those). I made friends there, and brought some of them with me to Whoduknit and met some of them again on Ravelry. I was ready to toss my Labyrinth Carpet Bag in the driveway (see previous post) and back over it a few times when I couldn't find a solution on Ravelry. Than I remembered my old friends and went over to see if anyone there had an answer for me. Sure enough - within 24 hours of my post on Knitter's Review I had an answer - IT WASN'T ME!!!! The pattern was wrong. The corrected pattern makes way more sense, and after some frogging, I am back on my way again. Aren't knitters just the greatest? In case you've never been there, the Knitters Review is owned by Clara Parkes who lives in Maine - in fact just an hour from me. I've never met her but hope to one of these days. The Knitty Coffee Shop is, of course, part of Knitty.com, where all of those great free patterns are posted 4 times a year. If you haven't been to either one - I'd recommend a visit.

Knitting Slump

Yes, I'm in a knitting slump - I know, you've all been there - how do you get out of them? I was sailing right along on my Labyrinth Carpet Bag, about half done, when I realized that one of the triangles that connects the hexagons was at the wrong angle, which made the bag a very weird shape indeed. I checked on Ravelry to see who else had made this bag and only one person said that she had the same problem, the rest said the pattern was easy to follow....so I'm pretty sure it's me and not the pattern. I had to put it aside for a couple of days - just couldn't look at it! I'm going to try to pick it back up this weekend do some frogging and see if I can figure it out. My other UFO - the dresser scarf from Rachel's mystery KAL is in a slump too - just can't seem to get interested in finishing it. I did feel the need to complete something this week so I crocheted some of these coasters with left-over Sugar & Cream cotton. The pattern on Ravelry was too complicated for me to wrap my tired brain around (you know those DC around the post thingys) so I made up my own very simple pattern - simple enough to do when I am brain dead and the Red Sox are losing 13-0 and Francona has put the right fielder in to pitch and the pitcher in right field - okay I digress! I think I'll make dozens of these - and then think of something to do with them.

Crocheted Coasters:

Small amounts of worsted weight cotton yarn in two contrasting colors.

Size G or H crochet hook

With Color A Ch 4

DC in 4th chain 11 times (12 DCs)

DC twice in each DC around (24 DCs) End Off

Attach Color B, Ch2, 4 DC in next DC, Sk next DC, 5 DC in next DC, repeat around. (55 DC), end off.

Attach Color A, SC in each DC. End off.