I have been knitting away on the acrylic shaw. My aunt passed away on Good Friday and today was the funeral. She was quite the talented crafter. Everything she did was well thought out and executed beautifully. Tomorrow we're all back to work and school. We did have great fun watching the squirrels eating corn in my uncle's backyard. Quite the acrobats! I'll try for a photo tomorrow.

Easter, flowers, and socks

Easter preparations and house cleaning are happening here. The Amyrillis that I got for Christmas and planted in February is blooming for Easter. It's amazing that something so large can come out of a bulb that's comparatively pretty small.

After cleaning, laundry, shopping, et cetera, I did have some time to put in on the current pair of socks. I'm really pleased with how the stitch pattern is turning out. I doesn't mix up the varigation in the yarn, but I really like how the stitch pattern shows up. I should be pretty close to being finished with this sock before I head off to bed tonight.

I'm cooking the ham for Easter dinner, which my DM is hosting. Since she has pneumonia, we'll try to keep it easy on her. We usually share the cooking duties and we really keep Easter dinner a bit more simple than Thanksgiving or Christmas. She also has the largest table and area to eat in. So, I'm cooking the 17 pounds of ham (semi-boneless and already cooked). I'm also going to make deviled eggs and a coconut custard pie (pie is for here at home). So, I'll need to do some internet research on the pie. The deviled eggs, I'd like to check out some recipies for something special. I've been hard boiling eggs and another trip to the store will be necessary.

We'll try this again. Here's the photo of the mini-ripple sock.

Socks it is!

Socks it is! It's been awhile since I've made any socks, which is something that I really enjoy. These are a variation of the Broadripple Socks that were featured in Knitty. I wanted more ripples so the basic stitch pattern I'm using is K1, yo, k1, ssk, k2tog, k1, yo, k1. I'm working that over 64 stitches, because I have big legs and feet. I'm also working on in my head a variation that substitutes a "m1" for a "yo" to eliminate the hole and just have ripples. I'll keep you posted on that. The yarn is Esprit from Elann. I have enough Esprit for two pairs. I've never used Esprit before, but I have used Cascade Fixation and it makes comfortable socks. This pattern is one of my favorites. I've made several pairs of socks with it and it's always a hit.

Weekend recap

It was kind of an exciting weekend. First, I finished up Clapotis. I'm going to do some minor blocking -- the corner where I ended up is kind of pulled out of kilter. After blocking I'll finish up with a photo. It was a really fun thing to knit. It's really neat how it rolls up or spreads out depending on how you handle it.

On Saturday we were back to Penn State for Women's Gymnastics. Penn State Lady Lions hosted Rutgers, Temple, and William and Mary at Rec Hall. Lots of fun! The Lady Lions won. (as expected) A good time was had by all! Even the Nittany Lion made an appearance at the meet. Of course we've also been following March Madness all weekend. Even DD (the 10 year old) is keeping a pairing bracket on her own. If you're a college basketball fan, it's a great time of year. Of course, the PSU men's team didn't get a bid. The Lady Lion Basketball team went to College Park, MD yesterday where they had their hopes dashed. Well, there's always next year...

Sunday involved laundry, cooking, and computer repair. I have to explain that we have three computers at our house. One is my daughter's. One is a brand, spanking, new Dell purchased mostly for gaming. The third one is the old war horse that we use for internet and general computer use. (It has the best virus software.) Well, the old war horse took a hit earlier in the week. It all started with a virus. I think we've got that cleared up, but I think now we've got hardware issues. It wants to shut down on it's own if it's been running for a long time. And it's having trouble booting up. And it's very noisy and just about six years old. Could still be virus problems, but my gut feeling it hardware. Anyhow, it's going to the computer hospital later this week. So, DD's computer is rotating up to be our main on-line unit. And that's involved major housecleaning. (we got rid of the SpongeBob software that hasn't been played for about a year.) I also broke out the bucks and bought the latest version of Norton. So, I've been installing, updating, and restarting.

So you can see not much knitting happened. Just thoughts about what the next project will be. Definately got to finish the other felted slipper. It's been waiting since January!

Also, I had a comment from Elayne about my software. I'm using Picasa and Hello both from Google. They work very well with Blogger. Thanks for the comment!

I have this lovely skein of Lion Brand Incredible that I've been trying to come up with a project for. At this point I've just been petting it. I'm leaning towards some sort of triangular shaped scarf mixed with other yarns that I have not yet added to my collection.

And here's my other shawl project. As you can see it's very simple. I can pick it up and knit pretty much mindlessly. I'm using up some Red Heart yarn that I had laying around. No need to be wasteful and throw it out!

Baby sweater

This is the baby sweater that I've been working on. You can find the pattern here. I've very simple. I'm going to work some blue ribbon through the eyelet rows. I don't have a particular baby in mind, I just really want to enter it into the local county fair this summer. I'll need a hat and booties to go along with it. The pattern is real nice in that it's all knit in one piece, so there's no seaming to do.

Spring is springing!

Spring is slowly creeping up on us as evidenced by the crocus poking their purple heads up through the ground. The Rhodadendrons are perking up too. I see greenery from the daffodils and even the tulips are beginning to pop through the ground too.

And here's an artistic collage of my Flower Basket Shaw. It's something I can do with the software that I use to upload my photos to the blog. I really enjoyed making the shawl. I learned a lot and I'd make another one -- maybe not the same pattern, but something similar (i.e. from the center neck down and out.)

And here's the complete patchwork scarf. A very successful project.