My Lucky Day (yours too?)

I just found out I won the prize for the "Life's Importance" Necklace that I made for my KTC Joy Luck Club project.
Four skeins of this lovely cotton blend yarn and a mahjong bracelet!
Today, I also received the autographed copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Cast Off that I won on the Unknitted Blog. Thanks again so much girls!
Patty received the package I sent for the Whoduknit Spring Swap. I had posted a little contest on my blog to guess what I made from the yarn she sent me. Unfortunately no one guessed - that was a pretty safe bet! Here is what is was:
Glass cozies! Patty lives in Florida and has an 'oasis' in her back yarn - a cozy place where she goes to read. So I sent some things for her to enjoy in her oasis. I had fun knitting the glass cozies - each one was a different pattern. Even though no one guessed correctly- I do appreciate those of you who took the time to try - so I did a random drawing - and Vicki (Dandy)'s name came out! A cool windsock will be on it's way to you Vicki.
I love contests!!!

The Glass Castle

Believe it or not, I don't always read mysteries! I just finished reading an amazing book called The Glass Castle - a memoir by Jeannette Walls who is a regular contributor to MSNBC. It's a true story about growing up in poverty -in the most unbelievable circumstances - in a loyal but dysfunctional family, and overcoming all the odds against her. I highly recommend it!

Whoduknit Mystery Swap

I received my swap package today from Patty today and I love it! I really didn't give her that much to work with - I followed the rules and sent her just one small skein of fingering weight alpaca yarn in a pretty shade of blue/green, that I loved, but didn't know what to do with. I can't believe what she did with it!!

She made me this beautiful crocheted collar, which I really love, a pretty smelling sachet, and a cute bookmark.

She also sent this beautiful crocheted doily - she does such beautiful work! There is no way I could ever make anything like this!

The books she included were Rumble on the Bayou by Jana DeLeon, and (I laughed when I saw this one) Murder Can Depress Your Dachshund. I think Marielle (her doxie) must have put that one in the package. There was also some yummy candy and chocolate, which I managed to get a picture of before sampling.
Thank you so much Patty - this was a great package - I love everything!

Whoduknit Spring Mystery Swap

Patty's package for the Whoduknit Spring Mystery Swap is ready to go. Here is the yarn she sent -two skeins of a beautiful Artyarns Supermerino handpainted yarn, from which I had to knit something for her.

And...this is what is going back to her. Any guesses?

Well - of course there's a prize for a correct guess! And it's a duplicate of one of the items in the box!

A little knitting

It doesn't seem like I have had much knitting progress lately. But here are a few small FOs.
The first is my KTC project for The Joy Luck Club. I loved the book and wanted to make something that would remind me of it. Jing-mei is one of the characters in the book and shortly before her mother died she gave Jing-mei, her "Life's Importance," a 2" long apple green jade pendant, on a gold chain. Jing-mei put the pendant away until after her mother, Suyuan, died. Then she realized the great meaning behind the pendant and wore it every day. When Suyuan began telling her life's story to Jing-mei, she unraveled yarn from old sweaters as she unraveled her tale. So I knit the cord for my pendant from an unraveled black sweater to symbolize the past. I added a strand of metallic gold to represent their hopes for great riches in their new country. As I knit the I-cord and moved the stitches up the needle and down the needle it reminded me of the hilly streets of San Francisco, where they lived. The cord is bumpy in places, like the lives of the families in the book. The magnetic closure is the tie that binds the families in this book together. So...here is my "Life's Importance"


The next FO is the teeny tiny felted bag made from one skein of Noro. My granddaughter loved it!






I also finished my project for the Whoduknit Spring Swap - but can't post the picture until Patty has received it.
Now I am working on this felted bag. I'm making it in blue/pink/purple/green.
And that's my knitting update!

International Tote Exchange IV

International Tote Exchange IV has begun! I enjoyed the last two Tote Exchanges so much that I'm going to be a hostess for this one!

You’re invited to join International Tote Exchange IV. We hope you will decide to participate. So how does it work? You will make a tote/purse/handbag for your Secret Pal and a different Secret Pal will make a tote for you. The "totes" can be big or small, knit or crochet, felted or not - whatever you want to make. If you are interested please go to the blog http://internationaltotexchangeiv.blogspot.com/ and read the rules. If still interested, send an e-mail as described below. Hurry! Sign-ups close 05/15/2007.
The Sign-up Process:
Send an email to ToteExchangeHostesses gmail com Please include:
Your full name
Email address
Blog address (if applicable)
Blog Signature (e.g. Deb Brown is how my blog posts appear)
Street address
Phone number
This information will only be available to the Hostesses and your Secret Pal.
We will send you an invitation to join the blog.
Join the blog.
Complete the questionnaire and post your responses to the blog no later than 05/15/2007
Sit back and wait for partner assignment!

Red Sox 7 - Yankees 6

Congratulations Jeff! Jeff's guess of Red Sox 8 - Yankees 6, was the closest. (You must have been watching the game Patty). There were some other really close guesses - thank you all for playing!

Some scenes from Saturday's baseball party.



(I support two teams - the Red Sox and whoever beats the Yankees)

Contests

Karen, Kim, and Kris are three sisters who knit and have a wonderful blog (that you should visit!) called "Unknitted". This month they celebrated their 3 month blogiversary with a contest. To enter the contest all you had to do was comment on their blog. For every comment you made, your name would go into the drawing for an autographed copy of The Yarn Harlots new book

AND GUESS WHO WON!!!! I'm so excited I'm going to have my own contest!
If you read my blog, you know that I am an avid Red Sox fan. Today they play their ultimate rival, the NY Yankees. My sister and her husband (Yankee fans) are visiting from NJ, so we are having a Red Sox/Yankee party this afternoon complete with ballpark food - hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos, etc. It is such a beautiful day I wish we could take the t.v. outside! I also have a little contest going on during the game -guess the final score - 25 cents a guess, closest wins the money. So, I thought I'd let you all in on it. You don't even have to pay the 25 cents. Just guess the final score of Sunday night's Red Sox/Yankee game and you will win - what else - but some 'sox' yarn. One skein of Magic Stripes sock yarn - enough to make a pair of socks - not red socks - but socks nonetheless. To enter - post your guess for the final score and winner of tomorow night's Red Sox/Yankee game as a comment to this post before the start of the game at 8 p.m.(Eastern time). Good Luck!

What's that Yellow Thing in the Sky?

There was a strange yellow ball in the sky today - I heard some rumors that it might be the sun!!!
My sister and her DH are visiting from NJ and although they had a very wet drive up, it seems like they brought some sunshine with them. We had a pleasant day today. A drive out to Schoodic Point which looks relatively undamaged except for a lot of trees being down. The waves have subsided, but there were no fishing boats in sight. Then we went into town and had lunch, stopping on the way home at a used book store, where I picked up Death at the Bar by Ngaio Marsh. We are reading another one of her books, Died in the Wool, on Whoduknit in May. I have that book ordered on paperback.com. If you like to read and have lots of books to trade, you should check out that site. Then we stopped at Shirley's Yarns and Crafts- my favorite LYS. I was good - didn't buy any yarn! But I did visit, pet, and squeeze a lot of it. Pat bought some pretty fuzzy stuff to make a scarf with. We got back to my house in time to see the Red Sox win game three of their series with Toronto. Tomorrow.....Red Sox/Yankees at Fenway - what could be better!

Wild and Woolly, but Not White!

The storm that has come pounding up the east coast has reached us. Some parts of Maine are getting up to 10 more inches of snow! But, here on the coast at least, it is rain - torrential rain, and high winds, flooding and power outages. The ocean is roaring, and I'm anxious to go up to Schoodic Point and get some pictures of it in all of its awesome glory - but...I think I'll probably stay home and knit today instead! Maybe tomorrow I'll have some pictures to share. It's a holiday here -
Patriots' Day (celebrated in Maine and MA) and the beginning of my spring break (not looking much like spring!). I'm working on a project for my Whoduknit Spring Mystery Swap Pal. It's a fun swap, where pals exchange a skein of yarn, and then knit something with it, and send it back along with a book. I can't tell you what I'm knitting, since it's not a secret swap and she reads my blog - but here is a peek:

How to get to Paris

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type your city and state in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "Paris, France" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. click on "get directions" again
7. scroll down and read the directions

Have a good trip!

(Thanks Vicki)

And the babies keep coming!

Introducing the newest member of my extended family - my great neice Giana:

I'm working on some girly versions of the Mason Dixon bibs for her.

Happy Easter

I don't know if the Easter Bunny will find his way here in all of this snow (if he's smart he hip hopped down to Florida and is sunning himself by a pool), but if he does I'm ready. The plastic Easter eggs are stuffed with goodies and are ready to hide, the baskets are brimming over, and the ham is in the oven. The sun is shining but the ground is still white, so it will be an indoor hunt this year! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Snow Day

We didn't have a white Christmas, but looks like we will have a white Easter! 18" of snow today - more than we have had all year. School was closed, so I had the day off. The bad news is that we will have one more day added to the school calendar, the good news was that I got to watch the new Red Sox Ace - Dice K - the multi-million $ pitcher win his first game. We are going to celebrate the spring snow and the Red Sox win by grilling some steaks on the outdoor grill - why not!
We have some friends who live here in the summer and go to Arizona in the winter. They play golf every day and complain about the hot weather - so my DH posed for this picture to send them - It's supposed to be him playing a few rounds of golf - hitting a ball out of a snow trap.

The mail did make it through today and I received a package from my Whoduknit Spring Mystery Swap partner, Patty. In this swap, partners send each other a skein of yarn and then they knit something for their partner from this skein and then mail it back. Patty sent me two beautiful skeins of Artyarns Supermerino handpainted yarn. She also included some goodies - a beautiful washcloth in the colors of Easter eggs, a darling little lamb Pez dispenser (I think my 7 year old granddaughter will claim that!) an Egypt key ring, a reminder of the Whoduknit January book, which took place in Egypt, and CHOCOLATE! Guess she knows I'm a chocoholic. So, I spent part of my snow day looking through knitting books and magazines trying to decide what to make with the yarn that she sent. Any ideas? It's worsted weight - super wash, so no felting, and each skein is 104 yards - so 208 altogether. I have a couple of ideas - but would love to hear yours. She received the yarn I sent to her today too. A skein of fingerweight alpaca yarn in a pretty aqua color that I had no idea what to do with. I can't wait to see what she will make with it. She crochets, so I'm hoping for something crocheted.

Do you think we could just postpone Easter for a week????

Belated April Fool's Joke

That's what Mother Nature is playing on us this morning! And I can't say I care much for her sense of humor!

Bobble Heads

ROTFL - You are all very creative!
Yes, they are announcers - but not Monday Night Football - that is finally over and the Patriots won the Super Bowl (just checking to see if you are paying attention Cathy and Linda!)
Not - Rowan and Martin - (but at least I know you are in my generation!)
Don't know who Bill Rafferty and Dick Vitale are - but good guess since we've just gone through March Madness (but I'm not a basketball fan unless my grandchildren are playing)
Kim came pretty close - "Dave McCarty and Jerry Remy, and the hint about April 2nd would be Boston's Red Sox opening day!!"
But, Stephanie said it best "OK I think the guy with the mustache is Jerry Remy and the other guy is Don Orsillo; together they comprise the play-by-play announcer team for the one and only Boston Red Sox."

Yes - those bobble heads are Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo - two of my favorite guys in the whole world (and they don't even knit!). They announce the Red Sox games on NESN. And today was opening day. (My son -an avid Red Sox Fan gave me the bobble heads for Christmas.) For the next six months, we here in Red Sox Nation, will be living the disfunctional life of Red Sox fans, as evidenced by today's game. I will survive the season by knitting while watching the games - maybe even knitting red sox!

So...the winner is Stephanie - and the runner up is Kim! Thanks for playing!

Who are these bobble heads?

Do you know who these bobble heads are? If you do, e-mail me at grammieknits@yahoo.com before midnight on Monday, April 2 (that's a hint!) and tell me their names and what they do, and I'll send you some personalized knitting notecards!

On and Off the Needles

Off the needles: Striped tote from One Skein - 20 x 20 before felting. Then - OMG, what happened to it? It practically disappeared. I've knit this bag twice before, using the same yarn (Paton's wool) and I had the timing down pat for felting. The only thing I can think of is that we had a new boiler installed and the water must be a lot hotter than before. It felted down to 8 x 10 - it's cute and it's sturdy! I think it's too plain though. I will probably either do some needle felting on it or add some felted flowers.

Never Trust a Pull Skein!

I usually don't. I usually wind them up from the outside. But this one seemed to pull out easily and smoothly - right! Until about half-way through when it ended up in a tangled knot.

I had to cut and wind and finally ended up with three balls of yarn that will have to be spliced together. It's going to become a striped tote from One Skein. I'm using Paton's wool in a variegated blue, tan, brown color (do you recognize it Rose?) Never trust a pull skein!

Secret Leprechaun

The staff at my school does SP swaps once a month for one week as part of our wellness program. Although some think it is silly, there are a group of us who appreciate swaps for what they are (bringing a smile to someone's face, making their day a little bit more special, giving a boost to their mental health - you know what I'm talking about!) and we sign up each month. We usually leave a small surprise in our pal's mailbox each day for a week. This week is Secret leprechaun week, and my SP happens to be our custodian, and believe me she deserves to be spoiled! One of the gifts I will be giving her is a couple of these "Tribbles" and some Irish Spring soap. Thanks to Abigail for sharing the pattern for these cute scrubbies on her blog. (look on the sidebar for "Trouble with Tribbles") They take just a little bit of leftover dishcloth cotton and knit up in a jiffy. Today I got some chocolate covered cherries from my pal- don't you wish you had a secret leprechaun?

Saving Daylight!

I wonder how my computer knew we were changing the clocks two weeks earlier than we usually do?

It's warmed up quite a bit - like from windchills of 40 below to a temp of 42 above! The snow is melting and is being replaced with MUD! We don't have spring in Downeast Maine, we have 'mud season' and then come the black flies (tiny flies that swarm and bite). We go through a lot to get to summer! But I guess that only makes us appreciate it more.

I've been putting together some things for the Chinese Auction and Spaghetti supper that my grandchildren's 8th grade class is holding next week to raise money for their trip to Boston. In some places it's called a 'tricky tray'. There are items all laid out on tables and you buy tickets and put them in items that you would like to win. Then one ticket is drawn for each prize for the winners. I put together a 'learn to knit kit' - the bag is a Booga Bag made with Noro Kureyon. I added some knitting needles, 2 skeins of Wool-Ease yarn, and some knitting notions along with a learn how to knit book. I also put together a scrapbook basket with all kinds of papers, albums, stickers, stamps, books, and a photo box. Scrapbooking is my other obsession, although I haven't been doing much of it lately.

Global Warming???

The wind was whipping around the house (and into the house) at 40MPH Monday night - and the windchill was down to 40 below by the morning - I don't think it's ever been so cold. And tomorrow is supposed to be even colder. I wore my entrelac scarf to school today - and everyone was totally amazed that I had made it. It really looks so complicated, especially knit in Noro - like I had knit all of those little triangles separately LOL.
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I think I'm going to knit a headband with my leftover yarn tonight.

I finished another square for the Whoduknit charity blanket. This one is really easy. It's a Bernat acrylic yarn in a light green tweed worsted weight that's been in my stash for years, and size 10 needles.

CO 52 sts. knit 3 rows in garter stitch for border.

row 1: k 3 *knit into 2nd stitch on needle, pull through, but do not slip off the needle, k into first stitch on needle, pull through and slip both stitches off the needle* repeat up to last three stitches, k 3.

row 2: k 3, purl 46, k3

Repeat these two rows until square measures 11 1/2" and then knit 3 rows in garter stitch for top border.

I'm working on another square in a honeycomb pattern and I'm trying out this method of doing cables without a cable needle.

Babies are arriving!

This is my younger sister's first grandchild, Dylan Isiah, and she is ecstatic, as are his parents. He is the baby I knit this outfit for.

Emma Mae also made an appearance last week - she's the one I knit these for. Two more babies to go - both due in April. And the new Knit Picks catalog is all about babies - just too cute! I need more grandchildren!

In Like a Lion

March came roaring in like a lion and closed down most of the State of Maine on Friday. Here on the coast it turned over to sleet later in the day, giving us a nice coat of ice over everything! Fortunately, Saturday was warm (40 degrees!) and most of the ice on the roads melted. And, fortunately for us, my son-in-law has a plow on his truck, so we were plowed out by early Saturday morning. It would be nice to think this is winter's last hurrah - but the forecast is for a little more snow tomorrow and temps down below zero again.

I took advantage of the snow day to block my entrelac scarf, and make a square for the Whoduknit charity blanket.

This Bag is Mine!

This is what I found sitting on my dining room table when I got home today. I knew exactly what it was. You see I had seen this very package on the ITEIII blog and I had commented "who wouldn't want to receive a package wrapped like that!" I opened it carefully - not wanting to rip the beautiful paper - and was greeted with this:

Well - I knew what I was going to find inside. You see, I've been following this bag from its beginning on the ITEIII blog, never guessing that it was for me.

Out of all the amazing bags I have seen on the blog, this one just called out to me saying "Jane" all over it! It's perfect. The perfect color, shape and size. I really love it and it will be my go everywhere bag. Next came this cute handmade card revealing the true identity of "Annie Snuffleupagus" was Vicki - also known as Dandy.
But of course, that wasn't all. Pinned to the bag was a pin and a set of stitch markers - so cute! And a beautiful butterfly clasp. And look what else was in the box.

There was a skein of yarn hand spun from Vicki's own Alpaca "Uncle Buck" (I've been petting him),
some unspun fiber and a handmade (by Vicki) drop spindle so I can try spinning, a cute teddy bear key chain, yummy candy and gum, A crochet change purse with three Canadian coins in it. A Saskatchewan quarter celebrating their 100 year birthday, a quarter with the breast cancer ribbon on it to help support the fight and the bravery quarter to never forget the men & women who put their lives on the line everyday. These I will treasure!
And look at this cute sheep notepad and pen, with a lovely note inside.
And last, but not least came "Maple Bear" dressed in a hand knit sweater and socks with this note: "Through the wonders of the internet I come to live with you. I was made in China with "Canada" across my chest. My sweater 7 socks are Opal yarn, made in Germany, bought by a lady in Australia and swapped for Kool-aid from Canada. Now I'm living with you in the USA. Cool huh?"
So...do you think I've been spoiled??? Wow - I'm just overwhelmed and so excited. So much time and thought went into this package. There was a little note attached to each item telling me why she chose it. I am really touched by her thoughtfulness.

Thank you so much Vicki! I'll be visiting your blog often - please keep in touch!

GRAMMIE

What Grammie Means

G is for Gentle R is for Responsible A is for Artistic M is for Moral M is for Magical I is for Influential E is for Easy

What Does Your Name Mean?