Lemon Aid Stand

This is my g'son's Lemon Aid Stand. He set it up over the weekend & made $12 with it. He was so proud of himself & had so much fun. We don't live on a very busy street, but he did get some traffic & everyone was more than willing to stop & buy his Lemon Aid. The neighbors came over too, so he was very pleased with the project. 

I am going to start on a new box of scrappies. I promised not to buy anymore yarn until I have used up what I have, but it is sooo  tempting. I love to go look at all the beautiful colors & am thinking of making some baby clothes for the women's shelter as they said that they need them. 

I like to use Andino for my summer baby clothes & Trenzado for my winter baby clothes. I have plenty of both. When I buy yarn I buy in bulk. I know that no matter what color it is I will find a project for it so buy lots of different colors. I buy in quantities of 6 cones of each color, as that seems to work out the best. 

I was reading Mary Ann's Oger's blog, & she cautioned against buying yarn just for the sake of buying it. I am afraid that is a habit that I have fallen into. Over the years I have gotten more yarn than I can possibly use, but I love every cone or hank completely!! I always thought of that as a good habit, but can see now it might not be. I still have a full bin of Bramwell & they have been off the market for a while.

Mary Ann also cautioned against buying too many machines. I have 5 machines. 2 of them haven't been used for a year, my longbed(great for making baby blankets) & My Brother 270 bulky. Last time I used that was over a year ago when I made Diana Sullivan's Slippers. I have 3 Standard gauge machines set up & am thinking of taking down 2 of them, & the bulky if I can force myself to do it. LOL 

 While making scrappies I have been using up all the partial cones & hanks first, then will start on the full cones etc. I have barely made a dent in it. I am using mostly the worsted weight yarn first because I have so much. Then I will start on the lighter weight yarns. 

Scrappy Sweaters Delivered!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the last sweater for my box of scrappies. My DD & I took them to the shelter.  Now maybe I will see some child wearing one. LOL I hope they are well received. I am going start on a new box. 


I finally had an order come in although it is a small one. Every little bit helps. After I finish it I am going to make some more 'Ready to Ship' covers.  They usually sell pretty good. I bought some new colors in the 'Patons Classic Merino Wool' & I am wondering how they will look knitted up. 

I found this online & decided to add it to my website. I took an early retirement due to Breast Cancer. I had 4 tumors & infected lymph nodes. No one, including myself, expected me to live. But I did. 

Facing my own mortality made me re-evaluate a lot of my goals in life, along with my perspective of what is important & what is not so important. Having bin after bin of yarn stored away is a waste. Knitting it all, is now my goal.

I have always been a 'caregiver' & with that crisis I became even more so. I was so fortunate  to have caring, compassionate nurses & doctors + a caring family  to encourage me to live. I know I could not have managed to keep a positive outlook without them, & I love them all more than life itself. 

After I recovered I started my Wool Diaper Cover Store & also sold knitted baby clothes. The diaper covers took over & I quit making baby clothes, as I didn't have the time. Now that things are slow I thought I would put up some baby clothes & see how they do. 

Turning This into That!!!!!

Before 

After


Monday my DD & I are taking the box of scrappies to the Women's Shelter. I still have plenty more yarn to work  on through. It is a very satisfied moment for me!  I hope I get to see at least one child wearing one. That's the only thing I don't like about charity knitting. You don't get to see your garment being worn. Seeing someone wearing & enjoying a garment that I made for them really lifts my spirits. 


As you know, I do volunteer work for the Catholic Community Services. I was helping a mother of 4 last week. She had some medical problems, & life is very difficult for her & her children, esp since her DH left. She had some knitting that she was working on & I commented on how beautiful the yarn was. I told her that I hand knit & machine knit. She said 'that's something I would really like to learn, machine knitting.' That was music to my ears. I have an Artisan 70D that has been in garage for several years. I have heard that machine called 'the worst knitting machine ever' by more than one person, but I used it in my business for 5 years. It was my first mid-gauge machine. I bought it when they first came out so it doesn't have the newer carriage that turned out to be such a disaster.  I told her if she was interested, she could have it. I also told her all the negatives that I've heard. She jumped at the chance. We are going to take it over to her as soon as we can get to it. My garage is packed & we have to move a lot of things to reach it. Score one for Machine Knitters!!

Business Slow............Knitting for Family & Shelter

 This sweater is a size 4 designed with KnitWare. It is a raglan sleeved pullover with short-rowed neck & grafted neckband. Made from Red Heart SuperSaver with a partial skein of variegated blues & solid blue sleeves. 

Business is slow so I have time to work on charity & family sweaters. I am used to knitting at least a couple of hours a day, everyday but Sunday, so it doesn't take me long to make things. I know some people are a little awe struck by the speed that I exhibit in making my scrappies, but this is my job. I go to work everyday, it's just that my work is at home. When I don't have orders I work on reducing my stash.  

This sweater  I am not happy with.  I ran out of the plum & couldn't find any other color that looked good with it, so finally gave up & used the blue.  I almost didn't post it, but that would be cheating, in a way. If you want to show the ones you're happy with, you have to show the ones that you're not happy with too. I actually thought about running to WalMart to find something there that would match it, but that would be counterproductive as my goal is to reduce my stash, not add to it.

It is a size 2 designed with KnitWare.  It is RHSS, & a nice warm sweater. I am hoping that the little kid that gets it will love it. The younger kids are not so swayed by  appearance & like what looks good to them. That isn't always what looks good to us adults. 

I am not going to make any more mis-matched stripes. Altho I've made a lot of them, for some reason seeing the sweater from my last post on my computer offended my sensibilities.  I found that the mis-match mildly annoyed me, & I even received a comment about it.  So no more. LOL

Still No Orders.................. Scrappie Finished ...............What's Up /Blogger??

Still nothing coming in as to orders. I think the weather is too nice. Everyone wants to be outside enjoying the sunshine, including me!! I did finish my scrappie. I have only small amounts of yarn to work with. I am on the last of the Red Heart SuperSaver saved in that bin, but do have lots of sport weight yarn to work on next. For this scrappie I used Navy, Brown, 2 shades of Red, 2 shades of Yellow & 2 shades of blue. Also, the stripes don't match but with scrappies that is just fine. When I run out of one color I sometimes find a similar color to work with , but sometimes I use an entirely different color.

 This sweater is a size 6 comfortable fit sweater.  Red Heart SuperSaver is the yarn knitted up on my SR 860 at tension 6. The ribbing I do at tension 3. When my g'son was little he actually liked the mis - matched stripes better than he did the' perfectly matched'. I know some people get tired of the stripes but I like them. I can calculate the right row to start the stripes on so they will match but don't do that with scrappies as lots of times I don't have enough of one color to use it all. The dark color on the body of the sweater is navy. The dark color on the sleeves is brown.On another blog I saw a cardi made with short rowing that was beautiful!! A nice change from stripes too.

This is J.R's first haircut. He was 1 on the 4th of June so mom decided it was haircut time. Sometimes I wonder if he gets tired of having his picture taken. LOL He is their first baby so that explains it. 

Everyone is worried that blogger is going to fold because of all the error messages, problems posting etc. Some people are moving their blogs to be on the safe side. I have downloaded my blog & template to my hard drive just in case. 

No Orders..................Making Scrappies

I haven't had anything come in so am back to making Scrappies. I am getting down to the bottom of the bin  I have been working on. I am having just small amounts of yarn left on cones so this sweater is going to be what my g'son calls a 'RainBow" sweater. They always remind me of the story of 'Joseph  & his Coat of Many Colors' that I heard in Sunday School. I'm afraid it has been a long time since then, but we don't forget the things that we hear as children. 

 This sweater is a size 6 & made from the Red Heart Super Saver. I think I can get 2-3 more 'Rainbow' sweaters from the yarn left in the bin.  Then I will make some mittens & booties from the smaller amounts. 

When I make mittens for the shelter I don't worry about making matching pairs. I just make a bunch of mittens in all different sizes with a thumb on the side so that they can be worn on either hand. The kids can choose the ones they like without worrying that they don't match. 

My back is feeling better but still hurts some so am not doing any bending or lifting. I am able to sit & knit now, so am making progress. My Dr. says 'the older we get, the longer it takes for things like this to heal' so am still taking it easy. 

Blogger seems to have fixed the problems it was having. My 'navi' bar & followers are back. I am able to edit & post so am glad that is good to go. 

Some Pictures of Past & Current Projects

Here are some pictures of the baby bunting for my g'daughter. On the left the bunting is snapped to form legs for access to car seats that are required by law in the US. On the right it is snapped for a sack like bunting when not using a car seat.

 My model is 'Cindy.' My g'son named her when he was 4 & in preschool. He took her to school for show & tell + some of the baby clothes I made for her, both knitted & sewn. He told me I could get a new baby & he would keep her. He kept her for about a year, & took excellent care of her, then brought her back when he became more interested in cars & trucks & dinosaurs, & all the things little boy's love.

This is the sleeve of the sweater I am working on for my g'son.  It is Stitch World pattern #551. It is a GC sweater in Piropo by Millor. The color is Christmas Green.  I haven't been working on it for several days as I am a little bit down with my back right now.  

I have back, front & one sleeve finished. I think you can see where the black star is on the sleeve. That is where my dropped stitch is. Drat!! I hate weaving stitches in GC garments. It never looks right to me & then every time I see that garment my eyes go straight to the defect. 

When I do the cut & sew on this sweater I am going to document it for the blog & also republish my C&S neck templates. I seem to get lots of hits for C&S so thought I would update the blog.