Happy & Healthy New Year Wishes.

An Andy Rooney quote comes to mind:
"Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes."

This year has flown by and over all it was a good year for my family & dogs. We were all healthy and that is the most important part, the rest ..... anything can be done or enjoyed as long as I'm healthy. The goal or "resolution" for 2010 is to stay healthy.

I may even start exercising! (ha ha ha ha ha) Well it could happen.

I am holding my annual "knit or frog" party tomorrow while I watch the Rose Parade. I love the Rose Parade and my favorite is:

KTLA 5's live, high-definition and commercial-free broadcast of the 121st Tournament of Roses Parade begins at 8 a.m. with expert and lively commentary from Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards.

And on the needles:
I'm knitting socks at the moment, preparing for a class I'm teaching "Socks the Easy Way".

Basically a toe up sock with short row toe and heel. I like to knit socks on one 9" circular needle and this "recipe" allows me to knit the whole entire sock that way. Starts with a crochet provisional cast on. Lucy Neatby demonstrates this brilliant cast on here.

Then the toe and the heel is done with the same double wrapped short rows.

This is one of the easiest recipes I know for knitting socks. Easy Breezy ideal for the beginner sock knitter and fun for the more advanced.

My Christmas present from my son.

A few years back my husband gave me a flashlight as a surprise gift and it was so bright it almost reached the moon on a dark night. Ok maybe not the moon but it was really, really bright. I loved my flash light, I used it all the time and showed it to friends and relatives. They all looked at my flash light with amazement! Wow that is really a bright flash light! They would remark, I even took it to my monthly police department meetings to compare it to the cop’s bright flashlight they carry. Oh you should have seen us like little kids comparing our flashlights to see who had the brightest.

One day my son came to me asking to borrow my flashlight, I hesitated. He saw that he needed to up the ante so he started to tell me that he was going fishing and early in the morning when it was still dark sometimes there were Bobcats around and if he had a bright flash light such as the one I had, it could save his life. He would flash the light in the Bobcat’s eyes this would blind it then he could run away. Well in that case here let me get a fresh battery for it and take it, DO NOT FORGET TO TAKE MY FLASHLIGHT!

He was happy, I said good bye to my favorite flashlight. I missed my flashlight so much and it was almost Mother’s day, my son came to me asking me what I wanted as a mother’s day present. I immediately said a new flashlight. He was so happy to buy me something I really wanted. I got a new flashlight, it was a different color but still very bright and my flashlight and I lived happily ever after. ….. Not so fast…. Soon after Mother’s day my son comes to me with sad news he has “misplaced” the original flashlight and now he was in danger again remember those Bobcats? Oh yes honey here take this new flashlight, but I want it back!

As you probably have guessed that flashlight got misplaced and then my birthday was coming up and I got a new flashlight. I don’t know how many times we have repeated this dance, once I misplaced the flashlight myself then my husband borrowed my flashlight so to make a long story short here is my brand new flashlight I got for Christmas. The only difference is this flashlight is MINE! Do not ask to borrow it because it will only work in my hands!

Here is my Streamlight PackMate BuckMasters

Merry Christmas

Lost in the Magical world of Moebii ....

I am knitting Moebii, that may not be the proper name for plural of Moebius but that is what I'm calling it, because it's like potato chips I can't just make one. It's such a fun knit and like Cat Bordhi says it is truly Magical. Cat has written a couple of books on the Moebius and if you have ever met Cat she is ... well to quote Stephanie Pearl-McPhee the "Yarnharlot" :

...I've met a whole bunch of people that have met or spoken to Cat Bordhi, and not one of them was lead to believe that the woman was a danger to herself or others, and no one has suggested that she is the adult child of an alien experiment, no one used the phrase "one skein short of a sweater" and nobody even vaguely suggested that we should form a petition to take her pointy sticks from her.

That's why, having started Cat's thrummed mobius Wednesday night, I am surprised to discover that Cat is absolutely out of her ever-loving mind. Brilliant, clever, genius likely....but make no mistake. That woman does not think like an ordinary person. I think she melted a small part of my brain with her pattern......

Yes knitting a Mobius is catchy, now I'm coming up with all kinds of new ways to knit this clever and fun project. I'm teaching a class tonight and will be teaching it on the Knit with Color Cruise next October. Here is the class description:

Introduction to the Magical World of Moebius knitting. Once you create one you will want to do it again and again. You’ll be able to step outside the box and let your imagination soar. In this class Ana teaches how to cast on a Moebius project without the tedious chores of knitting a gauge or counting stitches. Ana will teach her simple but clever way to cast on and also take the mystery out of how big will my finished circle be?

Yes NO GAUGE SWATCH or NO COUNTING STITCHES! What a relief to cast on and just be able to knit for the pleasure of knitting while creating something that is truly your own original design. “Stitch Bingo” is what Ana calls it. It It is a fun way to make up your own stitches and patterns. No more following instructions or charts line by line. You will be able to let yourself enjoy the process and enter the magical "knitting zone”, or being in the "flow" a form of meditation.

If you like to knit a guage and follow a pattern and can't take my class Cat has a free pattern on her web site:
http://www.catbordhi.com/documents/CashmereCowl.pdf
A Treasury of Magical Knitting
or A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting.

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.[1]
According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. It is the same mindfulness as ecstatic lovemaking, the merging of two into a fluidly harmonious one. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.[2]

The other day I made a "Honey Do List"

Trying to do a favor for my DH so he would not be bored on Sunday because I was busy teaching a knitting class. I usually do not schedule things for Sundays but it could not be helped or at least I was not willing to change this exciting new class I'm teaching.

I made up a nice short list of things he could fix for me around the house. He loves to tinker and he loves to fix things and he is very handy. I decided that I needed and extra automatic light for the path to the garage. No problem he said and took off for our local Home Depot for parts.

I came home and I did not see a new light but my bicycle was missing. Honey what happened to the new light and where is my bicycle?

Very proudly he points to the ceiling and there is my bicycle hanging way up towards the ceiling of the garage. He built a very complex hoist to get my bicycle out of the way. Oh the light? Are you sure you need a new light?

I'm just saying......

We are having Seattle weather

It rained, it's windy & it's cold. At last I have my wool sweater on & my wool socks!


-- Post From My iPhone