Off to a Good Start

  First thing on the agenda (2nd week of the month) was to put the Christmas decorations away.  Had to say goodby to these little friends.

 

With projects I'm off to a good start.  The Mossbank is finished and soon to be delivered.  Father James is from India, so I thought the antique brass moose buttons were a neat touch.

I ran out of the main color of yarn just before Christmas, so I went through my stash, didn't find any, but found another project using the same Jamieson & Smith yarn, where I may run out of one color.  The postage for quantities up to 1kg is £8.95--a lot of moolah for just 4x25g of yarn.  Since that's a yarn that I plan on doing some designing with,  I ordered 19 more balls of various colors that I don't have.

 The Ginny is also finished.  This sweater is so cute, but its recipient is so tiny I'm worried that it may not fit.  However, I made the size that she circled in the book.

New on the needles is a mohair prayer shawl for a friend undergoing breast cancer treatments.  Since these pictures were taken I'm on the 4th ball and it's almost 5 feet long.

 Another friend was also just diagnosed.  For her, two other friends are chipping in for the yarn, and I am knitting the Rams and Yowes lap robe--another order went in to J&S for that.  Again I added 15 colors of yarn.  I now have most of them.  I'm also planning on making Rams and Yeows for myself later on, but I want to make it a bit bigger.  That blanket is so well planned, using all the 9 natural sheep colors of Shetland Supreme Jumper weight, that I will have to plan carefully to maintain the beautiful color transitions.

Seeds are coming in now,  so that puts on pressure to get the housework all caught up, get lots of R&R banked up, because in the middle of February we're back to work.

A Ravelry friend, Sheila Joynes, published a wonderful little Leisure Arts book called I can't Believe I'm knitting Fair Isle.  I've done some sample knitting for her, so I immediately ordered her book.  Highly recommend it.

I also got Charts for Colored Knitting,

The Art of Fair Isle Knitting,

and ...... I will get a lot of use from all these books.  Another friend gifted me a copy of Tudor Roses, an out-of-print book (which will be re-printed in 2013).  That book is a treasure--I have a few sweaters on my to-do list.

And since I've got "plump" and sluggish with sitting around and just knitting, I have to play on the WiiFit for an hour or so every day to limber up the joints and shape up my middle so I can knit some of the lovely waist-shaped sweaters that I've been ogling.

On Tuesday I went to a knitting group for the first time.  The Sherwood Park Daytime subgroup of The Edmonton Knitters.  That was a hoot.  I loved everyone's projects, didn't get much knitting done what with watching everyone else, and the lavish praise for my knitting wasn't too painful, either.  What a nice way to make new friends.

Finished and filed the last quarter GST (sales tax) report, and realized that the file cabinet is overflowing, so I started shredding stuff from as far back as 1999.  Also realized that it's time to review our estate stuff and make everything easy to settle (in 30 or 40 years or so)--organize now, while I still have a bit of a mind left.

Have a great week-end everyone, and God Bless You!!