Ruby Tuesday 2

This project is finished now and came out very
pretty with a lot of fringe on it. It kept me out of the heat while working on
red yarn that made me happy to work with it. I used size
15 knitting needles and it worked up very quickly and
because the yarn is so bulky it looks full and pretty.

Our Ruby Tuesday host is Mary, the Teach. On Tuesdays you can post any photo you like (it must be one of your own) that contains the color RED. Your photo can contain lots of RED or a little bit of RED.

Eduardo on the way

Talked to my daughter a while ago and they are getting ready for the tropical storm, Eduardo that will be coming in late tonight. She lives near Galveston, so they are right in the path of the storm. He was at home putting patio furniture away and she was at her office trying to send faxes about being closed. IMed my friend in Galveston and she is stocking up on beer and ice and icing down the beer. I love her attitude about all this!

This may be a storm that doesn't cause a lot of damage and may bring us some relief from the horrid heat up here in north central Texas. We've had 16 straight days of over 100 degree heat and we are all worn out with it.

My cat has even come in from outside. She likes to sleep in the shade on the patio. I sometimes think it is like a heating pad for her little elderly kitty bones. I'm sure she has arthritis, too. She has even started sleeping in her little kitty bed that has the catnip package inside the bed. When she first got it she soooo loooved it. She bit it and rolled in it and loved it. Then she didn't love it so much and it got put away, and we thought she just didn't like it anymore. Then this summer she started sleeping on all the patio furniture...and I mean all the patio furniture while she was shedding. At that point we put her little bed outside under the patio cover and rejuvenated the catnip secret place. Now she loves it again...mostly. I have to go now and blow the cat hair out of the computer and roller it off me. I just had a kitty love attack while I was writing this. pffttt

oh man...I forgot The Dackel Princess oops

I knew there was one more! Maribeth at The Dackel Princess....I feel so bad that my memory is shoddy. I hope you can forgive me! Please accept this as a token of my appreciation for your coming by and frequently to boot.

If I've forgotten you, please forgive me. It will come to me someday soon and I'll be all appalled and stuff.

Super Commenter Award

I was supposed to gift this award to five other folks, but there aren't that many who read my blog who didn't get it when I did. However, I would like to share this with Pyewacket Cat of Kicking Squirrel Butt and Judy of Living On the Other Side of the Hill who sometimes come by and comment. I meant to get this up last week, but got sidetracked with knitting and stuff.

I truly appreciate you so much. It is good to know there are four or five people out in the entire internet who read my junk and actually post something, too! Thanks, you guys!

I found this over at This Garden Is Illegal and was sort of a surprise.

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Circular knitting

Today I've been looking at several of the you tube knitting videos and some are way better than others. I don't know or understand the continental knitting stitch and probably never will. Just don't go there. I got so confused on a circular knitting needle video my brain nearly shut down. There was another one where I finally figured it out. Last week sometime I bought some yarn that said to knit it on circular needles, cast on 106 stitches and knit 11 rows. Well, that sounded just wonderful so I rushed out and bought some of those needles. I started casting on and noticed that everything was all tangled up. I stopped and started again thinking that if I just kept my stuff straight it would all be good. It wasn't. I took them back.

This website has some good videos about how to knit and all the ins and outs. There is the most adorable hat pattern there that I must do. It will require my buying another set of circular needles. One weird thing about the circular ones is that they make a stockinette stitch! How cool is that!

Here is the link to Knit Picks. Here is the link to the you tube one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlNn2ph4HDc

Here is the you tube hat one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hl7HGMDy0&feature=related


The kid is back today, but not for knitting. She brought a movie....real high brow..."Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo". See ya'll later.

Hot knitting

Have been so away from the computer for the past few days, but we have food to eat now and the house is way cleaner, too. My daughter came over late this afternoon for the knitting lesson. The lesson today was casting on and I was having some trouble showing her how, so we turned to the computer for knowledge. This young woman has the best tips for casting on I've ever seen. I'm casting on like her from now on, even if it isn't her favorite way. Here is a link to the you tube about How To Cast On.


It is so hot here right now I can hardly believe it or even think about it. Today it was 103 and tomorrow it is supposed to be 105 or 106 with a heat index of 110 to 115 through Monday. We are just going to slow down even more and watch tv, read, and I'm going to knit some Christmas gifts. Hey, can you have to many scarves in the winter? The ones I've made in the past week have all been in the garter stitch, because you don't have to think very much while knitting it and I needed to get the feel for knitting back. I did a little sampler today to show my daughter how each stich looks and I think she is going to like making some knitted scarves for herself and friends. She told her boyfriend she is going to knit him a coozie for his beer can. He got really tickled at that. She is coming back tomorrow for her next lesson...actually knitting. She is going at a pace that is comfortable for her and that is fine for me. We even made a trip to the yarn shop to look around. She is starting with an inexpensive man made yarn before she goes on to the natrual fibers she prefers.

I just found instructions to make a basketweave scarf that sounds fun and I have plenty of yarn to make it. Now I need to go to the other computer so the instructions can to be printed out. I don't have a wireless printer and after reading OC's review of the one he has, I'm pretty sure I'm not getting one.

Anyway, that is what we have been doing the past few days. Hubby has his work cut out finding where there is a leak in the sprinkler system. The good part is he could turn the system off this morning at the source when he noticed part of the yard was flooded. We have it narrowed down to one corner and it is either the faucet I had put in to be able to water the very back part of the yard or one of the sprinkler heads. If it is a junction, then that is a little more complicated, but they have the parts at Home Depot now. That helps a lot when something goes wrong.

Well, Hello Dolly!

After what has been a very dry spell, Hurricane Dolly has come to our little corner of Texas bringing showers. She went in around Brownsville and then into Mexico then over to New Mexico and now is coming back through North Central Texas. It was such a wonderful surprise to wake yesterday morning and see the streets wet from rain. It was only a small shower, but so very welcome. The sage (see picture above) has been blooming like mad for a week, and we couldn't figure out why. It blooms usually two days or so before rain. There were no forecasts for rain in our area. The weather forecasters said west or north of us. But it did rain! And it rained a really good shower again in the evening. I'd gone to the fabric store to pick up some embroidery floss and could see the black rain clouds coming. Just as I was leaving there were huge raindrops falling and I was so happy again. It is the simple joys of watching, smelling and totally enjoying rain for me. I have pictures in the camera, but haven't had time to download them. They only show rain falling in the pool and a couple more.

I still haven't gotten started on the vast embroidery projects I have planned. The knitting needles and yarn keep getting in my way. Hubby asked me to look and see if I had all the embroidery stuff I needed before I bought more and there were the knitting needles and some yarn that had been hanging around for years. Anyway, I'm reteaching myself to knit, and occasionally it is a good thing the internet has little videos showing how to do a stitch. The leftover yarn is now scarves for this winter. I'll snap a few pics to bore ya'll with my handiwork. OH yes..my daughter called last night to inquire about the scarves and wanted to know if I could teach her to knit. I told her I could try. She requested I knit her something, but only in natural materials, which she would be happy to purchase. I wished her good luck in her quest. There are so many really soft man made yarns now, that I'd so not want wool. I'll give it a whirl, but I'm teaching her with a plain Red Heart yarn so she can see what the stitches are.

While we were attending a luncheon last Saturday I mentioned to a gentleman in our group that I'd started knitting again. He said his wife was knitting a lot these days, because their church is involved in a project making layettes for newborns at our charity hospital. He told me that if the baby doesn't have clothes to leave the hospital they wrap them in newspapers. That was the saddest thing I've heard in a very long time and I just could not fathom that our county didn't have receiving blankets in which to send a newborn home. Anyway, I'm not a member of their church, but may be soon. While I was at the fabric store I picked up an ad and they are going to have flannel on sale this Saturday for $2.99/yard. I don't know how to crochet, but I can put a pretty blanket stitch on them to finish the edges.

A friend is moving to a retirement center this weekend and I'm taking her to lunch today. Her husband died about a year ago and the house is very large for her. This center is a really nice one out by a local lake and she wrote in an email that I must come visit, because she has a great view of the lake. She was on the waiting list for nearly two years. It just bothers the heck out of me, because she is only a few years older than I. The main thing is, though she have a smaller house in a very safe environment. They have a guarded gate and you have to have business in there to get in. I'm happy for her. I'm not ready to settle that far down yet, though.