Visit home in April

I went home in April to visit my family since my mom and grandfather's health has not been too well. Here are some pictures from my visit.

My nephew Jack and my niece Olivia

I think Olivia has found something she likes (Aunt Kelly's earrings)

My Sister Amy with her children(Jack and Olivia) swimming at the pool.

My mom and grandfather relaxing on the porch watching us play
dodge ball in the street with the kids.

Childhood friend and brother Rusty! We use to get in trouble
when we were growing up!

One sock done!!!

Ok, we had a snowday on Thursday March 26th and well that gave me plenty of time to get some knitting done. Here are some pictures of my sock.

I am so proud

It fits Kevin's foot perfectly!

I will post some snow pics and some skirt updates in a day or two!

Socks and Gardening

Well , of course I did not get as far as I wanted on my knitting this weekend. I was only able to knit on Sunday. I managed to finish the main part of the sock and have now started the heel. The pattern calls for 26 rows for the heel and I have completed 9 row. Only 15 more rows to go and I can turn my first heel! How exciting!!


As for my skirt, I did not get a chance to work on that, so I will post an update on that in a day or two. Something else exciting I did this weekend was start my garden seeds YAY!!! For those of you who do not know, Colorado has a late planting season. You are to start seeds 8 weeks before they can go in the ground. For Colorado that would be the weekend after mothers day (we still get frost in early may). This year Mother's day is the 10th, so I will put my plants in the ground May 17th, 8 weeks from now.
I will post pictures as they start to grow. In my vegetable garden I planted: onions, peppers, sweet peppers, broccoli, eggplant, green beans, roma tomatoes, beefeater tomatoes, cucumbers, romaine, and two different types of spinach. For my herb garden I planted: rosemary, dill, sage, parsely, caraway seeds, cilantro, oregano, morjam, and thyme. For the first time, this year I am trying something different. I keep buying flowers and those pesky rabbits keep destroying them. So instead, I have planted flower seeds to try to save money. Perrenials I planted are bellflowers, aster,coneflower, daisys,creeping thyme, and yarrow. Annuals I planted were snapdragons, poppys, merigolds, and forget me nots. I plan on planting a bunch of wild flower springs in may as well!

Sock and Skirt update

Well I have managed to get some knitting done this week! First, as I mentioned on the post before, I found an austermann step sock pattern and I am now using that . I started over on my sock on monday and was able to get about an inch of it done. Then I worked on it again wednesday and as of now I have 3 inches done. I know I will not reach my goal, but I would like to get it to 8 1/2 inches tonight, and work on the heel and turning the heel sunday. I am sure I will not get this far, but I like to set goals. Here is the picture below.


As for my skirt I had started over on sunday and got about 6 rows done. I worked on it again tuesday and got to row 14 of the top part of the skirt done. Last night I was able to finish the top and begin on the main part of the skirt. My goal over the weekend it to finish the first set of color row pattern. I may be able to get most of that done, it depends on our plans and how much time I have to knit Saturday. If I can have 4 hours I think I will get that far, but that much time is not likely. If I knit this weekend I will have updated pictures for you on Monday. I am planning on starting a third project, but will not tell you what that is and will not post any pictures of that until I finish it and give it to the person who is getting it. Its for Daphne, congratulations again on your new little girl. She reads this blog probably more than anyone else so I will not be posting those pics till later. Nothing else new in our lives ! Until next time!

Update on knitting

Well, I don't have pictures yet,because I had to and have to restart some of my projects. First of all , I try to not knit when I am tired because that is when I make mistakes. I started my skirt monday after dinner. It took an hour for me to figure out if I had the correct number of stitches on the needle ( I kept loosing count as I was casting on, remember I am tired!!) I was able to knit one complete round before heading off to bed. I was extremely busy and was not able to knit until saturday night. I managed to finish the entire top of the skirt(success). Well before heading to bed I decided to read my instructions and well of course I made a mistake in the very beginning. I started with #5 needles instead of #3. I decided I wasn't going to worry about it and went to bed. Sunday morning, I started to worry if the skirt would fit since I did not follow directions. After 30 min of stressing I decide to unravel and start on the #3 needles. I am glad I did, before I unraveled the skirt I put it around my waist and sure enough it was way too big. So I was able to get half of the top done, I had to do some things around the house. After dinner last night, I sat down to start my socks. After not being able to find a pattern to fit my guage and needle size I found one that best suited my needs. After knitting about 3/4 of an inch I went to bed (took me 1 1/2 hours to get this far with many interuptions). Today, at lunch I finally found a pattern with the same yarn, I don't know how I did because I have been searching for weeks. So tonight the plan is to unravel my sock and start with the new pattern. I hope to have some pictures midway through the week.

Finally going to knit!!

I have not really been knitting, because I have been extremely busy. I did, however manage to knit one hat for the homeless.

They are starting to collect hats for next winter so I will knit a hat in between each project and get it to them at the end of fall. I am starting my skirt tonight, below is a picture of the beautiful butterfly yarn I bought a month ago. I will try to update you as I go.

I am also going to attempt my first pair of socks (for Kevin) with some yarn I bought back in november. I originally planned to make a sweater out of it, but as I began I felt it was too small for my first attempt at a sweater.

I will hopefully have some updates in a day or two!

Things I have been up to.

What I have been up to is researching how to highlight my hair and do it correctly. I have learned that the first step is finding out if you are warm or cool toned (skin, hair,etc.). This will help you decide on a color to choose. If you are warm toned then you will want to get warm hair colors and if you are cool toned then you will get cool colors(example ash blonde) . The next step is to find out what level your hair is. Mine was level 7. Levels range from 1 (black) to 10(platinum). Once you know your level then you will know what your underlying pigment is. Why is this important, well let me give you my example. I told you that I was level 7 if you look at the image below you will see that level 7 underlying pigments are yellow/orange.
So How is this helpful? Once you know what your underlying pigments are then you know what color toner ( blue, violet, purple, green, etc.) you can use to tone down those pigments to get the color out. How do you figure this out, well go back to your younger years and remember the good old primary color and the color wheel( bet you never thought you would need this again).

Primary Colors (inner circle) - Red, Yellow, and Blue

Secondary Colors (middle ring) - Orange, Green, and Purple
Secondary colors are made by mixing 2 primary colors together:

• Red + Yellow = Orange
• Red + Blue = Purple
• Blue + Yellow = Green

Tertiary Colors (outer ring)
Created by mixing primary and secondary colors together:

• Yellow + Orange = Orange/Yellow
• Yellow + Green = Yellow/Green (lime green)
• Blue + Green = Blue/Green
• Blue + Purple = Blue/Violet
• Red + Purple = Red/Violet
• Red + Orange = Red/Orange

Why is the hair color wheel so important?...

1) All hair color is comprised of different ratios of the primary colors (red, yellow, blue).

2) It clearly illustrates which colors neutralize which...find the primary color you want to tone away and look directly across the chart to the opposite secondary color.

Now you know some basics to highlighting your hair. I did have some issues though. First, the foils kept slipping and it was hard to do my self. I may do the cap next time. Second, the lady at sally's beauty supply recommended 10 toner from wella ( I used wella products in my hair, another important point stick with the same brand for color, developer, and toner) which was blue-violet. I knew I should have gone with a purple since my hair is yellow/orange or maybe just a violet. She said the blue-violet would get the yellow and orange out of my hair. My hair was more yellow before I put the toner in. Well it ended up more orange after the toner, should have gone with my instincts. Any way that is why they make shimmering lights shampoo, by clairol. It drys your hair out but takes out yellow and orange colors. It did the job. Below are some pictures I took before I got my hair trimmed and the shimmering lights.
Over all, I am happy with the results. I will do it again in 6 weeks and probably do it 1 more color lighter with an ashy blonde instead of neutral blonde. I think it will work better and help keep the underlying pigments calmed down. I have done 2 washes with shimmering lights and have one more then it will look just like I stepped out of a salon.

The weekend

Well I had a very busy and very productive weekend. Saturday I went to the Colorado Garden/Home show and Paulinos gave me a coupon to get a free plant. So I went to their shop and I picked out this beautiful Ranunculus. I brought it home and repotted it and now it is in my dining room, so when you first come in you can see it. I think it so beautiful.

Then on Sunday we did a bunch of stuff around the house, after we got home from church and ran our errands . Drew came over and brought some hickory smoked Virginia sausage. Well they were very delicious, but needless to say Kevin went crazy because they were connected and I just had to take this picture.

Monday was Presidents day and I dedicated the whole day to knitting. In the morning I finished the last sleeve and did my blocking.Finally, Monday evening I finished my sweater. I am so excited!! I think for a first sweater ever, it looks great. I will admit there are a few minor mistakes, but it looks good to me! Now I can start my hats for the homeless.

sweater update

Hi All,
I know I have been promising you a photo of the updates of my sweater. Here is what I have so far. As you can see from the prior email, I have not had time to knit since we have been trying to spend time with rescue since he was sick. I have one sleeve done and have started the other sleeve. I hope to finish this weekend since I will have lots of alone time.

Rescue

Well I am sad to inform you that after 16 months of remission, our dog rescue has lost his battle to cancer. We had to make the devistating decision to put him down today. We uthinized him tonight at 5pm. He was a good, loving, and friendly dog. He will be deeply missed and always in our hearts and memories. Heather, do not give up hope. Rescue was almost 10 yrs old and his age was catching up with him as well. When I did the research on the alternative diet, the other dogs with his type of cancer lived 4-6 years in remission. We were happy to get 16 months. At the time he was diagnosed the told us if we did nothing he may have 3 weeks and if we gave him chemo he had 6-9 months . He lasted 7 more months then they had predicted and they were a great 7 months. Here is his story and some pics below. Rescue was found Wednesday, June 23, 1999 in Cambridge, MD by Mr. Matt Wheeler (to whom I am eternally grateful) in a manor that was nothing short of spectacular. On his way to visit us in Ocean City for the weekend he spies two puppies running across the road. The first was struck by a car and never found, while Rescue cowered in the middle of the road, passed over by a fire truck (spared literally from the clearance), and crawled into a drainage ditch too frightened move. Witnessing this Matt crawled in, pulled him out, and took him to the vet. They cleaned him up and removed dozens of ticks but otherwise he was fine. After spending the night shivering under some blankets, they showed up in OC on Thursday, a day late but with a vet estimated seven week old Pit/Boxer puppy under his arms. Matt knew I was thinking about a dog (he already had three) and I knew immediately that if he went unclaimed I would keep him.Unclaimed after several days and unable to think of a better name (thankfully in retrospect) Rescue Sours found a home in Ocean City. Ocean City in the summer is a houseful of friends and a party that never goes to sleep. Rescue loved a crowded house, a good party, and the timeline fit perfectly so we coined his birthday Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 1999). Every year for his birthday he enjoyed a big steak and an egg. He spent his puppy years in OC (a little in Florida) playing on the beach and in the bay with Bass Phillips and the Ocean City Summer faithful. In 2001 he moved to Colorado where he spent his days running, hiking, camping, playing, and swimming, his all time favorite activity nothing else even came close. Throughout the years he drove/flew back and forth several times to visit all of you on the east coast to play in the sand and swim in the water.. On September 25, 2007 Rescue was diagnosed with lymphosacrcoma, or lymphatic cancer, an incurable cancer of the lymphatic and immune systems. With treatment his prognosis was 6-9 months, but he fought for 16 months running, hiking, and swimming till the end. Rescue Sours was euthanized a few weeks shy of his 10th birthday on February 11, 2009 at 5:15 PM MST after the cancer came out of remission for the third time.

I thought this was a cute cartoon!

Some knitting techniques

Well I did not get a chance to knit this weekend. I am however going to be very busy the next couple of days trying to finish this sweater. So some techniques I am trying to finish the sleeves with, is picking up stitches (imaged below). I am trying to pick up stitches on both sides of the sweater, where the sleeves would go. This way I can just knit the sleeves from this point instead of sewing them on the sweater.


I am sorry that I did not know about three needle binding off when I first did the shoulders or I would have used that method since it seems like the smart and most time consuming way to do the shoulders.


Since I can not use the method above, because I have already bind off the shoulders, I will have to use the shoulder seaming method below.





Hopefully I can get through some if not most of these techniques (on one side) finished tonight. Maybe have some pictures for you tomorrow. Talk to you soon!!

Updates

Well, I know I have been slacking on updating this thing and I apologize. I have been working on my sweater and hope to finish it by the end of this weekend. I have had no luck finding the yarn in which I need to knit my skirt. However, I think I may have some substitute yarn that I can use. I will let you know as soon as I know something. On a sadder note, Rescue's cancer has returned and we are praying that getting him back on prednizone will help to put his cancer back in remission. On the post prior to this one, I had mentioned that he had a lump on his face. Well that turned out to be a blocked lyphmnode and the swelling has gone down. Kevin took him to the vet yesterday afternoon and they found a small inflamed lymphnode. I will keep you posted on his condition and so forth. Other then that, I hope to post pictures of my sweater this weekend. GO! Cardinals!

Sorry its been a while since I posted something. I am trying to write stuff daily, but have been extremely busy. Well this weekend I had issues with my sweater and ended up unraveling all the work I had done the week before. I have things almost back to where the are and hope to complete this project this weekend. Either way I will post an updated picture of what it looks like, by this weekend. We are all doing fine, except rescue has a swollen bump under his eye ( we found it this morning). We are hoping its just an infection and will keep you posted. Other then that not much else is new. Hope all is going well with everyone and I will keep you updated on rescues situation.

Well I am a little slow on getting all my posts in and get you up to date on everything. I am currently working on a baby sweater. My office mate and his wife had a baby boy November 21st ( 1 month early). Since he was early, I am very behind on this project. I started it the first weekend of January and have not had a lot of time to knit. I hope to finish it this weekend, but since I am a slow knitter that will be a hard task. Although, Kevin is planning on playing poker with the guys tomorrow night so I should get a lot done. I have one or two other projects in mind, but I am going to take a break from my projects and do something for the greater good. I recently found out that there is a program called knit hats for the homeless here in Denver. So I plan on knitting at least two hats for that, once I am finished this sweater. I was hoping to knit hats to save lives, but the deadline was December 31st. That is an organization that knits hats for newborns in other countries who are unfortunate. I will have to put this on my to do list this year. Once I finish the hats, below is a picture of my next project, which I am excited about. I am having trouble finding the correct yarn, but will continue to pursue.

I hope to get this finished before it gets warm so I can wear it this year. I think this skirt is so cute!!!!! Don't you?

Well is another beautiful day here in sunny Colorado. Yesterday we had a high of 69 degrees and today its suppose to reach 71! Don't get me wrong I love these spring like temperatures, but its suppose to be winter. Anyway, we have 1 more day of this type of weather then winter will once rear is beautiful head. There is talk of a possible snow storm Sunday night and Monday. Oh, I hope so I do love the snow! Let it snow, Let it snow!!!!

Recently finished project

Well back in December I finally finished my first hat and scarf. The project was to help me learn double ribbing and knitting in the round. I have to mention that I wish the books and internet would have told me that long tail casting on ( different from what I was taught) would be the best way to knit in the round. It took me a month to figure out how to connect one side of the hat to the other in order to knit in the round. Once I figured that out it only took me 2 days to knit the hat. Here are some pictures below of my finished master piece.

Introduction

Hello Everyone,
I am a beginner knitter and I thought it would be fun to post my progress on projects I have been working on, as well as giving frequent updates on my daily life. I felt this would be great for all my close friends and family. That way I don't have to email everyone pictures of everything all the time (Since we all know how good I am at that). I will have some more posts and projects later today or tomorrow. I am just busy at this time.
Enjoy, Kelly