Another Day, but no Dollars

I can’t believe it has been more than a week since I last posted on my blog. I can say that I last week when I was writing my post I had every intention to post again before the end of the week, but nothing interesting or exciting happened between when I posted and today. I can honestly say I am probably currently leading one of the most boring lives you can imagine. Sure to me my days are filled with fun and exciting things like knitting and rubber stamping, but lets face it those things are only fun and exciting to other people that share the same interests.

Anyway, since last Monday I have been doing a lot of stamping. I am signed up to attend a benefit crop for the Leader Dog for the Blind and I really would like to spend the time working on my Christmas cards. So this week I have designed 6 or 7 different cards, which I plan to make multiples of. In an effort to make my time at the crop as productive as possible I have taken the time, prior to the crop, to cut the layering pieces for all my cards as well as stamped all the images. Now all I have to do is color, cut and assembly, which should go rather quickly. I am hoping to complete all 60 or so cards during the 12 hour crop, and if I finish all of those cards I have a few other card kits to keep me busy. But I am also planning on taking a knitting project or too, because I always seem to be over optimistic when it comes to exactly how much I can do in a 12 hour period. I always seem to think that I can accomplish ten times more than is humanly possible.

Even though I have been spending a lot of time stamping, I have also been knitting too. I finished the cute little vest for Chace and I also finished a pair of felted clogs for myself, although they haven’t been felted yet. In addition, I have been working on another secret project, which I can’t show here because the recipient reads my blog. I have a feeling between now and Christmas there will be many more secret projects that won’t be able to be revealed until December 26th. But just think of all the knitting goodness you will get to see at once.

Here is what I can show you.

The vest for Chace.

Felted Slippers for me, before the felting.

And I leave you with the gang. It is very rare that all 5 of my babies are in the same place at the same time, but this is what I found when I entered the bedroom today. From the top right, you have Marty, below Marty is Mickey, and then Crystal, Cody is on the left, and Sami is down in front. 

Here is a similar picture that was taken many years ago before Marty, Mickey and Sami, and before Bailey, Brandy and Max passed away. I had Steve’s help with this picture, too bad he wasn’t home to help with the picture above. I even considered pulling out the tripod, but figured they would all get up before it was set up and ready. Anyway, I guess you can only ask for so much. From the back next to me is Max, in the middle from left to right Baily, Crystal, and Cody and down in front is Brandy.

Hope everyone has a fabulous end to the week.

Blogging, Family and Knitting

Being unemployed you would think that I could update my blog more often, but it is just amazing how busy I have been since being laid off. In addition to not updating my own blog, I also haven’t been reading blogs either, which means that I haven’t been keeping up on what all my blogging friends have been up too. This is the biggest bummer of all because I really feel as if I get to know the people who’s blogs I read on a regular basis.

Although I haven’t been writing about knitting, I have been knitting a lot. In the past three weeks I have completed a number of projects, including Tomato, a test knit for Jae, Wallaby for my nephew Chace, and I am just about finished with another secret project. I have also progress on my current sock projects, but I have been so busy with the others that the socks have taken a back seat to the rest.

Here are some pictures of the finished objects that I can share with you. Obviously I can’t share the secret project, and the test knit is still a work in progress, so to speak, so I have for you Tomato and Wallaby. You can read about all the details of both of these projects on Ravelry.com, user ID BloomingKnitter.

I absolutely love how Tomato turned out and I adore the yarn, which is Knit Picks Main Line. I think I have mentioned before that I will definitely be using this yarn for other projects in the future. Wallaby is also becoming another favorite pattern. This one is for my nephew Chace and I will be making another one for his twin sister Taylor.

I was able to see Chace and Taylor recently when I went for a visit the last week in September. It is amazing how quickly children grow and advance. I saw them last November when they were only 5 months old, now they are just over a year old and they are now walking and talking and have developed their own personalities. My sister really lucked out with these two because they are such good kids, and she is a single mom. Although she does have two other children who are 14 and 11 and they really help out a lot. And I am such a dope because I didn’t get any pictures of Britney and Cassidie while I was there. Here are Taylor and Chace.

While visiting my mom, my knitting to-do list grew by leaps and bounds. I had been thinking about knitting the Wallaby sweater for the twins, but I didn’t have the pattern and being short on extra spending money I hadn’t looked for it or even thought about ordering it. But while I was visiting my mom we went to a few of the knitting stores in her area and I found the pattern and bought it. I was going to make the Wallaby for my nieces Britney and Cassidie also but they didn’t take a liking to it so they will get Felted Clogs instead. My mom even surprised me and ordered all the yarn for the slippers, which really helped out since fun money is at a minimum right now.

Since I have been home, actually just in the last two days, I have been doing a lot of rubber stamping. I use to be a consultant for Close To My Heart, but in May I decided to devote my time to knitting instead, so since then I haven’t done much stamping, but found that I have really missed it. Like knitting I to tend to be a hoarder of supplies so I have plenty to keep me busy for a very long time, but so far I have only been completing card kits that were previously made up for workshops. Needless to say I have finished an enormous amount of cards in the past two days and I plan to stamp more today as well. Hopefully later this week I will have all the kits completed and I can start creating new designs.

This week I hope to catch up with all my blogging friends, and I hope everyone has a great week. Hopefully I will have another post before the week is out.