Happy Birthday Mom!

So today is my Mother's birthday, we will not mention how many although I believe she would not mind. My Mother and I share a birth month, love of sparkly things, handcraftiness, interior design and Victoriana, among other things. I was the first girl after two sons and my room was appropriately girly. Apparantly I spent most of my young life in frilly dresses,LOL. I am sure this is where my love of purple stems from. So today Happy Birthday, Mom and thanks for your part in making me who I am.
I will depart from knitting a bit more to say Happy Birthday also to my SIL,Linda(also today) my sister,Dorene(tomorrow) and my newest SIL, Kim ( a bit later in the month). Hmmm...there may be one BIL in there as well somewhere. Happy February birthday to us all. May they be filled with sparkly amethysts.
OK tomorrow this will return to a knitting update, lol.

CABLES

I guess you love them or hate them...I, for one am in love. Always have been. Many many moons ago I made Aran knit sweaters for Mom and Dad and children from acrylic. Lordy.....Mom gave me back Dad's sweater after he passed and I treasure it. It is acrylic and it is old, but I made it with love. Now I make most things from wool, bamboo,alpaca or some combination of...However, today's fiber folks have done wondrous things with acrylics. The "Cardigan for Merry" I am making for Ana is a microfiber, it is so soft and perfect for a baby. It has the cables from the Arwen Cardigan. They are magnificent reversible cables and I want to put them on everything. They are sturdy and tactile and this is the kind of cable I want on a sweater I will design. It works grandly when there is a hood where both sides of the cable band are visible. The same knits and purls you use for everything moved around a little produce these wondrous things we call cables. I have always loved them braids, gum wrapper braids, all of it. Look at what I am gushing over...

I finally have a picture of where the mittens have stopped as well.....
Just a brief interruptioon...I fully anticipate the sweater being done by Monday night and then back to the mittens. It will be good to have some things finished. Next week also will show progress pictures of the swap mittens....
OK just a quickie post, getting ready for work and will post again Sunday night.

Hi Mom, right now 90 percent of our snow is gone, I will not be fooled though I know there is more coming. But when the snow melted we had a sudden blossoming of dog toys. I picked up 20 so far that were buried so they are currently in the dishwasher.

Hot Dawgs!!!

will add pics Friday morning....promise...please check back

I don't mean my puppies all snuggled under a blanket, I mean real hot dogs!!

I am watching the travel channel and they are on Coney Island eating N*th*n's hot dogs....is it me? I LOVE HOT DOGS!!! I love them boiled with a soft bun, onions,mustard, relish...grilled with a toasted bun and onions and cheese,sliced up into spaghetti and a small amount of sauce....but the very best way to eat a hot dog is raw...peel it like a banana and eat it, it is like a very little roll of bologna. And yes I do love bologna...the best is on two slices of lightly frozen white bread with a slathering of yellow mustard. I have not had raw hot dogs or bologna in years! You get to be a grown up and the medical community says these are bad things...I have had hot dogs on a plate no bun, or IK*A hot dogs, c'mon they are like 2/$1.00 or something like that....Perhaps my birthday meal of choice this year will be hot dogs or bologna sandwiches or fried eggs and fried bologna or spaghetti and hot dogs or....

Knitting is moving along, I wish I could report the mittens were done, but I cannot but I do have this much done...

They are warm and beautiful...

They were not done as we spent a lot of time getting ready for the appraisal and then I worked. I have been knitting a lot the past two days as I am making a sweater for a friend's very young daughter (This sweater is the pattern, not my sweater,lol)
...I had aspirations of finishing this by Saturday, we shall see...I just cast on Monday and am through the back and 1/3 of the way through both sleeves. I am saving the cabled parts for last but don't anticipate much trouble. I am just not sure I have adequate time for finishing but I will try very very hard. You never know what people are willing to put on their children or have much time they have to devote to care so I am using a microfiber acrylic yarn. It is very soft and drapey and splity, but it is a small sweater so I will deal.

I have received my Wollmeise from my anniversary gift order, look...yes that is Poison Nr 5
and Barista
...gorgeous eh? AND In hopes of doing some color work I procured two skeins of Schwartz.
Claudia is doing some solids and I keep missing her updates but my stash is telling me not to complain so...I have held off other yarn purchases, have made it through one month so far, 5 to go.(except Wollmeise, DH says it doesn't count, LOL).

I am again in the No More Humdrum Mitten Swap and have decided on these mittens
with these yarns(from stash)
I will use the top yarn in the Lorna's the pinks.
I have been observing others mittens and they seem rather short to me so I will be adding length and hope for the best.

SO let's see, working on sweater, mittens and then finishing Love Song which I have added another skein to...yea!!! I cannot wait to get to the saddles at the shoulder. I also got the new Vogue Knitting and really want to make Jared's new gloves.....have you seen them?
I ordered a 000 circular needle once I discovered this scarf
in this magazine
is made from yarn in my stash....I think it makes a very lovely male scarf and will make one for DS1.

We have been buried again in snow, yesterday we were hit hard again. DS2 slid over a small median and we had to tow him off, he was fine, thank goodness and his car was fine. When he was taking driver's education his dad enrolled him in a class that takes place in the winter. It teaches driver's how to react in winter situations, they have them speed up and slam on the brakes to spin, etc...it is very weather dictated as they want similar conditions . Such a unique and worthwhile class to take. DS1 and DSGF both slid in the exact same place DS2 had gone over the median but they managed to stay off it. Again, thank you. This is a snowman DS2 and I made after a long day. We splashed some of the red food coloring accidentally on his chest which then became intentional and murderous.
OK my latest stash entry is up to 615, not skeins just entries, FPS...that is a lot of yarn!!! I will add the individual skeins and post a total as soon as I know it...prepare yourself.

I have two incredibly sweet puppies hoping for a walk even though in is in the 20s so I will end here. I had them weighed last week and Oliver, 13 months is back up to 87 pounds, and Phineas, 7months yesterday, is 71 pounds. That is a lot of dog to walk when I hold them in one hand, LOL. But here we go.....
That is not a picture of Oliver, it is on a pet magazine and is frighteningly similar to Oliver. The closest I have ever seen....

This sugar syrup
Whips up into this fluffy sweetness
Which becomes these chocolate dipped marshmallows, decadent.....


Hello Mom, hope you are all dug out, do they make snowmen on the golf course? they should..

A little sidebar, I am so disappointed they suspended Michael Phelps. I realize what he did was wrong, I am so against drugs, but there are so many more important things to focus attention on. He was a young man giving his all in a sport that is suddenly in the forefront. he brought much honor to his country. You cannot overwhelm someone so quickly with fame and attention and not expect to find a flaw. We spy on and harrass our superstars to the degree that no mere mortal person could ever measure up to. It had nothing to do with the anti doping standards. Yes, it was a mistake, but especially in a country where the laws regarding marijuana are loosening ... It is a shame he had to be made an example of. I wonder if he would have been had this been prior to all the gold he won? Just my opinion on my blog. I am confident he will come back from the three months stronger than ever before, and also a little wiser.