Monday, August 30, 2010

Someone buy my furniture...please!!

So far there has been one bite on the furniture.  I'm hoping it will sell very soon because the mistress (aka the Chevelle) will want to be brought home soon.

I spent some time today going through the room and making a pile for keep, donation and for sale.  Surprisingly there was not as much stuff in there as I thought.  I should be able to make a nice pile in the center of the room while I take down wallpaper and do wall repairs.  I was originally planning on painting the room red but figured it would be too dark for knitting and sewing.  DH said we can do the master bedroom in red which makes me very happy!!  Now I'm back to looking at light colors.  Here a just a few I grabbed from the store the other day that caught my eye.  So far, I'm partial to the coral color (center top row).  Please note the tacky a$$ wallpaper that I need to remove.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Finally starting on my craft room....

Today DH took his mistress (aka the Chevelle) to his shop so we could fill the garage with the furniture that we are trying to sell from the front guest room.  All the furniture is out and posted for sale.  Tomorrow I plan on spending the day going through what's left in the room and purging some stuff, perhaps donating some fabrics.  I'm very excited about finally getting started on my craft room!!!  I have a good idea how I want to set it up with my sewing table, cutting table, fabric cabinet as well as adding bookcases and a small couch or futon.  There is a lot of ugly a$$ wallpaper to take down and old carpet to rip out.  There is also dry wall that needs to be fixed from before DH bought the place.  I think bribing dad with some of my home cooking should do the trick to get him to replace it.

I'm going to try and record the progress from start to finish.  So, for now, here's the room now (pre-purge).  When I get a chance I'll post dimensions as it's a good size room but hard to tell in the pictures.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Gray hair

First, let me share with you that I have gray hair.  Not a few hairs here and there and not totally snow white (yet).  I do have my generous share of gray and I'm only in my mid-30's.  I have embraced the gray, grown to like it actually, and refuse to ever color my hair again.

Today I stopped by a discount department store (no names please) and purchased a new handbag.  I didn't quite pay attention to the total that the sales clerk gave me, but when I got in the car and checked the receipt the total was less than the cost of the bag.  I thought there was a mistake or maybe I didn't read the price of the bag correctly.  As I looked over the receipt, there it was, clear as can be "Senior Discount".  While I'm happy to have the 10% discount, part of me has to say:

"COME ON NOW!!!! Do I SERIOUSLY look over 55!!?!?!?!?"

Saturday, May 29, 2010

One knitter's de-stash is another's knitter's stash

Today I'm attending the "de-stash" party at a fellow Boca knitter's home.  I have combed through my stash and selected the few items that need a good home - some yarn, books, magazines, needles and tote bags.  Hopefully they can find a new home, if not some of it will be sent to Goodwill.
I was also up bright and early this morning to make some little sandwiches for the gathering.  At Easter my Uncle made these fabulous little sandwiches with cucumber, cream cheese, dill and lox.  At dawn I was in my kitchen cutting out fancy little shapes in the bread, slicing cucumber and lox, spreading cream cheese and viola!! My little sandwiches.  Just call me Martha Stewart.  (I hope the bread I choose doesn't overwhelm the flavor of everything else.)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The rain's a coming....

We've been watching the weather all day and we are in for a rough night tonight.  We've seriously thought about staying over and enjoying one more day of the market, but our budget's couldn't handle it.

Stitches South 2010 has been fabulous!!!!  I will definitely be back but I'll have to give it a few years for my yarn budget to recover.  Today we met up with Jan and her daughter and sister.  It was nice to see familiar faces from home.  Unfortunately pictures aren't allowed in Stitches so my photo's will be limited.  Sometime tomorrow, when I recover from the drive, I will start to post pictures.  (hopefully all the loot will fit in the car!)

UPDATE:
Here's some of the photo's from Stitches South 2010

My loot:


My Mom's loot:


The Ravelry party on Thursday night was a blast!  They gave out a nice little thank you bag with samples and coupons for Stitches.  We got to meet Jess & Casey.  Mom even won a raffle item.






Friday, April 23, 2010

STITCHES Postcard

Hi everyone! I thought I would show you what a good time I am having at STITCHES!





You can view more at STITCHES Live!
Sincerely,
Mary & Carolyn< /font>

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

On the road to Stitches South



just testing to see if emailing to my blog works.

I've started the trip on the road to Stitches South!!!  Staying the night at my Mom's house tonight so we can leave out nice and early in the morning.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Gauge on....

My mother recently saw Shirley Paden on an episode of Knitting Daily and fell in love with a cabled cowl coat from her new book, Knitwear Design Workshop.  In the book there is a beautiful cabled coat that mom would love to have made.

http://eimages.interweave.com/knittingdaily/mail-by-date/2010/100119/KnitwearDesignWorkshop2.jpg

The coat calls for 3800 yards of aran weight yarn.  Yes, wow!!  3800 yards!  So today we picked up three different yarns to be knitted into gauge swatches to see which one we want to make the coat out of.  We chose Trendsetter Merino VIII, Berroco Pure Merino and Cascade 220 Superwash.  Tonight I started knitting the first gauge swatch in the Trendsetter Merino VIII and already I found an error in the pattern.  Just a minor thing in the chart legend and thankfully I figured it out before I started knitting the entire coat.  Stay tuned for postings of the swatches.

This will be the knitting projects of all knitting projects for me.  I hope I make it to the end.

"I want a balloon animal..." - Mom, 2010


Boy, was Mom surprised that the gentleman making the balloon animals actually heard her.

Today was a fabulous day spent with Mom and my best buddy on another yarn store crawl.  This was Mom's first trip to visit Miami's yarn shops.  We first went to The Knitting Garden in Coral Gables were she bought some beautiful worsted weight yarn by Punta Yarns - so soft, it reminds me of mmmmmMalabrigo.  Our next stop was Anneke's Needleworks.  At Anneke's we saw newly hatched baby ducklings, sooo cute.  Anneke said they just hatched yesterday.  Finally we stopped at Elegant Stitches where all three of us managed to find some yummy yarn to tempt our yarn budget.

So, how do balloon animals come in to play??? Well, we discovered that right across from Elegant Stitches is a mall.  I couldn't tell you how many times we've been to this store and didn't know it was there.  We decided to eat at Johnny Rockets (after we finally found it, courtesy of my best buddy confirming the location with two people in the know - aka employees of the mall).  We each had a delicious hamburger and yummy milkshake.  There was a balloon artist making balloon animals for the kids.  Well, the place was quite noisy with the music playing and Mom jokingly said "I want a balloon animal!".  The balloon artist actually heard her and promptly came to the table.We couldn't stop laughing and he kindly made her a red dog (to match her blushing face), my best buddy got an orange alligator for her husband and I chose a flower.

How can you beat this day??  Spent with family and friends, yarn fix, milkshakes and balloon animals!!

Life is good.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Tattoo'd monkey

I was able to make a little crocheted heart tattoo for Richard the sock monkey, unfortunately I couldn't fit "MOM" on it.  Oh well, it's still very cute!!!

Richard Cranium is alive and well....

Richard is the name that my fabulous husband gave to the sock monkey I just finished crocheting.  It was a very fun project to make and I will be gifting Mr. Cranium to a wonderful friend as a gift for her new nephew.  I'm going to attempt to crochet a heart "Mom" tattoo for it.


So, here you go ladies - I've finally updated my blog after no entries for over a year.  I vow to try my best to post regular updates.  It's a little hard because I see ya'll at least once a week, sometimes more...

Thought I'd share this picture of my hairy hairless dog.  He's overdue for his grooming session. Wham's looks so peaceful, boy will he be in for a surprise.  Stay tuned for a post-grooming photo!