crafty tuesday

If you've been hanging around ellyn's place for very long, you know what yesterday was! That's right....

 Five of us gathered for crafting yesterday. Stephanie was knitting cotton washcloths.....

 Trae took this mound of beautiful floral fabrics.....

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And fussy cut them into these lovely hexagons for a quilt....

 Christina was filling 80 of these cool wrap scarves with magic crystals (I'm pretty sure she had a better name for them! LOL) for Girl Scout camp leaders....

And Joellen and I were English Paper Piecing Hexagons for our quilt along. I love our crafty Tuesdays!

the yarn store

Monday morning, my pal Joellen wanted to take me to a big sale at the yarn store. I didn't really have any yarn projects in mind, but I agreed to go along. I had never been to a real yarn shop, I always just bought yarn at the craft or fabric stores. Why not? We went early.... she picked me up at 8 AM, & when we got there the parking lot was jammed!


As soon as we went inside, I felt like a little lost sheep (sheep! Get it? Yarn? wool? sheep?). First of all, almost all of the books & patterns were for knitting. Now, as you know, I don't knit. Oh, you didn't know that? There's a story about it here. Second, all of the ladies in the shop obviously knew what they were doing! They were all lugging big shopping bags, loaded to the brim with lovely yarns! Sigh.


Never fear! I finally found an adorable crochet pattern book with lots of do-able projects! I picked up three skeins of wool yarn to start on one of the projects. Yes, I felt a tiny bit foolish standing in line with my feeble purchases! But now my little crochet bag is almost finished! Hope to have a picture of it for you soon. & no, I wasn't the least bit tempted to try knitting again after my visit to the yarn shop! It was a lovely shop & a fun day.

another attempt at knitting

ok, so about once every five years or so, I decide that I should learn to knit. I remember my mother trying to teach me when I was very young. fail. And the summer I went to visit my Grandma & Grandpa, I was about 12? fail. And many many times after that. Most recently, about 5 years ago, Ally decided she wanted to learn. We bought all the supplies.... including books on beginning knitting. We both failed. Seriously??? Lots of people knit. How hard can it be?


So today I decided to try again. Lisa sent me links to Youtube videos that demonstrated all the steps! Yay! Finally I am going to master knitting.


The first video showed me how to cast on. I casted on 30 stitches, no problem!

Then I learned the knitting stitch! Yes, my needles are backwards. I am left handed. & I found most of the Youtube videos done for lefties too! Hooray. I knit a few rows. And now, I had 32 stitches. Where did those extra stitches come from? That's not a good thing, is it? To add stitches?And then I watched the casting off video, and it seemed pretty simple. Here's my finished sample. Lovely isn't it? No?

I think I'll just let Lisa do all my knitting for me. This was my final attempt! I swear.

Just so you don't think my day was a total waste, I did make this cute bag....

I had done the embroidery months ago & didn't know what to do with it..... I think it looks so cute here! Yay!

So, if I ever mention knitting again, someone please refer me back to this post. Really. I won't be mad!