Yarn Cabinet

A knitting friend, Michelle, inspired me to do something about displaying my yarn so that I can see what I have. She bought a new beautiful yarn cabinet recently and hers is full. I, being a newbie, don't have nearly as much yarn, but it's nice to have it out where I can see it, instead of being in plastic drawers. I used one half of a 6 ft. bookcase for the yarn, as well as a shelf of mostly knitting books. The shelf is sitting right in front of me as I work on my computer, so I can look at it often, and get inspired. Thanks, Michelle.

We babysat the two granddaughters last night, ages 6 and 11, and what a joy they are. They're quite well-behaved and we have lots of fun playing games. We took them home to their parents this morning after church and had a wonderful prime rib dinner. This made up for the rather quiet Christmas we had since some of the family were sick.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas to all of you out there. It's just the two of us spending the day quitely, after we got a call from our daughter saying both she and one of our granddaughters were sick with the flu this morning, and they were not going to be coming down to our house. What a bummer to be sick on Christmas Day. So, I don't have to fix a big dinner, and am in my office cleaning off my desk which I can no longer see the top of! Last night we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It's always a lovely, meaningful tradition for us - a great time to sing Christmas carols and hear the real meaning of Christmas.

I finished the garter stitch scarf I made as part of the monthly KAL class at my local Pacific Fabrics store. It was a challenge knitting the loop to pull one side of the scarf through, but figured it out. The yarn was quite splitty and I don't actually like the colorway. It looked good in the ball, but oh well, I did learn something new.

We still have snow on the ground (well over a week now), which is unusual for this part of the Northwest. Usually we have snow for a few days and it melts away. We're actually supposed to get more snow each of the next two days. We're all ready to be done with it.

Well, back to cleaning up this office.

Let it Snow - Let it Snow!!!

We live in western Washington state where it doesn't snow often, and we may get a few days every winter below freezing, but are we ever getting it now. For over a week we've been getting snow every day and the temperatures have not risen above freezing during the day. It's beautiful, but enough is enough!! We got down as low as 10 degrees one night, but today is sitting right at the freezing mark. It is predicted to get freezing rain later this evening, then snow flurries nearly every day this coming week. We have about 6 inches of snow on the ground right now and it's still coming down. Note the one picture of the house where my pansies are still blooming in the window box. These are called "winter pansies" and so far they are doing just fine.

Went to my knitting meet-up yesterday at the Austin-Chase Coffee house and had a great time. There were 6 of us there and I think everyone was just to glad to get out and about and talk about something besides the weather. Some of us cleaned out our stash and library shelves and brought items to "gift" to each other. Worked out real well, and we'll probably do that again.

Well, must get off the computer and get the rest of my Christmas cards addressed and sent out. Some of them are probably already too late to get to their proper home in time.

WE HAVE SNOW & COLD!

We have a cold front coming at us from both Alaska and Canada. Saturday it snowed and the roads were quite treacherous on Sunday - so we didn't go to church. The temperature at our place was down to 12 degrees F last night and only got up to 27 today and supposed to get even colder the rest of this week, and snow again on Wednesday and Thursday. Those of us in the Pacific NW are not used to it being this cold for more than a day or so, and have very little snow, as a general rule, which goes away in a few days, but not this week. Will be glad to see it go away, but it is very pretty. Here are pictures I took around our house today.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

Those of you who have followed my progress road starting from dishcloths/washcloths, know I have been hesitant to "branch out" to other more difficult projects.

WELL.....I finished my first pair of socks after taking a 3-class session at my LYS. Had a wonderful teacher and it all went pretty smoothly. Now I just need to start another pair in a sock yarn and see how I do on my own.


Finished the Dolores Park Cowl. After first making it with 60 cast on stitches I found it was way too large, so frogged and re-knit with 40 cast on and it fits just perfect and there was plenty of yarn (Patons Shepherd Chunky Tweed) to finish with just less than one skein. This was a quick (2-hr.) knit and the yarn is so soft next to the skin.

I'm now working on a Garter Stitch Scarf found in the 101 Designer One-Skein book with a Sierra Pacific Katyil wool/soybean - yummy soft yarn, but sorta splitty. This scarf is for the Monthly KAL at my local Pacific Fabrics store



I wanted to show you a picture of Mt. Rainier that I took several days ago with what's called lenticular clouds that make the mountain look like it's exploding. Really was quite spectacular.

Is Customer Service Out There?

I just had to write, in frustration, with lack of customer service at some companies. This one being HP. We sent a laptop in for repair nearly 30 days ago, and today tried to find out the status. After being transferred to 4 different technical service departments, (each one asking for the whole story all over again, including customer service work order # and other service order #'s) I asked for a supervisor and was told he was on the phone with another customer and it could be a while on "hold". I asked if there was only one supervisor, and was told that there was only one assigned to this particular tech! After being on the phone for over an hour prior to this last step, I just hung up! Maybe I'll try another day when I've calmed down.