Mish-Mash Shawl

Remember my stash??? Well, I have 2 very small holes on the floor and 3 shawls are done. Here are pictures of 2 of them. These shawls were a lot of fun to make. I will be making more.

However, these two shawls have enabled me to be awarded my medal for the Ravelympics and my time on the Podium. Here is my award from Ravelry. The dog in the award is a picture of the owners' dog on Ravelry. He is the mascot, so to speak.

Now to finish the Bag and Stroke Backstroke.

Ravelympics

What you ask is the Ravelympics?? Well, Ravelry hosts thousands of knitters and crocheters and give us all a place to post our finished items and works in progress, amongst other things. There are groups to sign up in and you can post to others around the world about your hobbies and interests.

Soooooo... with the Olympics at hand they have an Olympic Competition of sorts. It is called Ravelympics. I joined the group. What your goal is, is to cast on during the opening ceremonies and be done before or during the closing ceremonies. I joined team Texas, can you tell??

Then like an Olympic athlete, you take part in events.

For my events, I am in the Bag and Tote Backstroke and the Shawl Relay.(Cute, huh?)

I have started the Vintage Bubble Bag and here is the photo for it. The Shawl is started, but I don't have a picture of it yet. I will get it up in a day or two.

Stash Busted!

One of the topics that is discussed amongst knitters(and spinners) is your stash. Most of us keep it hidden in a closet or room, at least behind closed doors. That way your family cannot see that you have an addiction. :) You can get away with purchasing more and more and stuffing your boxes with more and more. You may even have to start jumping on top of your boxes to keep fitting it all in, but you will succeed. Of course, there are yarns that are too delicate to jump on, so those get displayed in a basket and you dream of using those, some day...........

When I moved, over a year ago, I had taken yarns to different places to give away. That way, I wouldn't have to admit to some of my stash. I still had several plastic boxes to move, though. It was amazing. I kept telling myself, "Oh, you don't have that much. You have to save it for making shawls." Some of it is fuzzy, some silky, some bumpy and lots of colors. The other day, I saw my friend Laurie's shawl and she shared with me how she did it. So, I decided it was a great idea. Home I went and dug out my boxes and then the sorting started. It is safe to say, that I have to walk over the yarn to move around the den. Heehee!

Luckily, I am blessed with a great husband, who came downstairs and laughed at all this. What he doesn't know, is that this is just some of the stash. Or maybe he does, he helped move it and come to think of it, he was the one who suggested I come clean and take pictures of this work of art on the floor. But, you know, he did call it a work of art. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should go and get some more work of arts?????

Well, not today.

The pictures are of the same stash, just from different angles. The top one, I am on the floor and the bottom one, I am on the step stool. I thought they looked like they were worshipping Crayon, the Kiwi Spinning wheel, that made me laugh.

The Brown Paint is GONE!

I am pleased to introduce to you, the newly painted hallway. Many folks know that we moved into a fixer upper. It is a great house, with LOTS of potential, as my friend Liz pointed out. She was right too. It is with great excitement that I can say the brown paint is gone. Yippee!

Yes, in the top picture you are seeing in the background a 5 gallon bucket of paint. I know, it is just a hallway, but this color takes at least 3 coats
of paint to cover it up. So, we wanted to have enough. Below there are two

pictures of the after, one with the hall light on and one without it.

This is the entry, what you see when you open the front door. Over to the left is the railing in the picture above. Jeff, my fantastic remodeling husband, pulled out that panelling you are looking at

and put up wall board in its place. Then he textured the wall and painted it, using a great ragging technique. (I get to paint the fun parts, the plain walls and trim, heehee!)
He also, put in moulding on the ceiling and floor.
I am excited to see how wonderful it looks now.

Hope you like it too. When putting everything back decided to move the mirror.

New Yarn

Well, I mentioned in my last post that I was able to go yarn shopping while in Austin. Here are some of my yarns. Five of the skeins are Noro Kureyon and the other skein is from Lorna's Laces. Not until I arrived home and arranged them for the picture did I crack up laughing, all are basically the same colorways. I purchased the Lorna's laces on a different day and at a different store than the Noro. The Lorna's laces skein is slated for a shoulder shawl and the balls of Noro are slated for felted purses.

Yesterday, I went out to Ravelry. For those that don't know, Ravelry is an internet place set up for knitters and crocheters. You have to join, which is super easy, and then they give you a place to post pictures of finished projects. Also, there are different groups set up, so you can click on your favorite group and see what folks are posting. Well, in reading around yesterday, I discovered that they are having a Ravelympics during the Beijing Olympics. So, I signed up. The idea is to start and finish a project(or more) during the Olympics time. One of the events that I decided to participate in is the Bag-n-Tote Backstroke. I will be knitting a felted bag using the Noro and some Ashford Tekapo. The other event that I am planning to participate in is The Shawl Relay. I will be knitting a shawl, for that one.

My Diamond shawl pattern is just about ready to be put up for sale. I am working on the final details now. I also have another shawl ready to go. When listed they will be on my etsy site.
www.TerrificCreations.etsy.com

Lake Travis

We had the honor to visit with family and friends this last weekend. Jeff's aunt and uncle live on Lake Travis near Austin TX. Judy is in the picture to the left. We drove down and visited them, and as always we had a wonderful time. The temps were making their highs at about 107F, but it didn't daunt us. We had fun. We went swimming in the lake, and the fish thought Jeff was bait and kept trying to eat him. Then we went for a boat ride on their SeaDoo, which we took to 32mph, so that I could ride faster on water than our daughter, Anna, has done. Heehee! I would've liked to go faster, but we decided to keep it at that speed. Here are some views from their deck on the back of their home. I was able to sit out there and KNIT! What a glorious view. When we arrived on Friday night, we went to the movies and saw The Dark Knight. It was good, although long, and a bit gruesome at times. (I closed my eyes at those parts) On Saturday, we went to a great kitchen store and then a yarn shop. I found some great yarn in there, but narrowed my purchases to a couple of skeins, for a shawl.

The picture that has the island and the brown thing in the front, is a picture of a brown dock/boat ramp. It is for sale! If anyone is curious, the folks selling it are asking $150,000. Yep, you are reading correctly. Anyone interested?