Saturday, February 18, 2006

Ode to a fountain pen...

Yay me! Finally figured out how to put some fancy buttons for my webrings and links. Check out the sidebar. Guess my miniscule bit of knowledge about html paid off a little. And I even managed to move the links to sidebar all on my very own. :-)

Had a college flashback today. My daughter attended a birthday party at the bowling alley at Wichita State University. It was neat to walk around and see all the changes and how some things are still exactly the same. I walked around the bookstore looking at all the sweatshirts, hats, keychains and stuffed WuShocks. While browsing through the children's WSU merchandise I found an extremely cute tiny little baseball hat for my extremely cute tiny son. He now looks like quite the little man.

And in other exciting news I nearly jumped up and down when I found my favorite pens. In college I always bought these disposable fountain pens at the bookstore on campus to take all of my notes in class. They write so smoothly, the ink just flows out. I can remember taking notes in class and watching the ink spread out on the paper feathering ever so slightly away from the penstroke I had just made. Believe me, at times watching the ink was much more interesting than paying attention to the lectures. I loved these pens but couldn't find them anywhere after I graduated from college. And then today, ten years later, I was reunited with my beloved fountain pen. Evidently that's the only place in Wichita that sells them, and believe me I've looked. Everywhere. Even when on vacation if I'm in a stationary aisle in a store I look. I've looked online for them but somehow never found them there either. So at least now I know where to get them. Yes, that's the exciting life ten years after graduating from college. You find fountain pens exciting.

I took my son's counted cross stitch Christmas stocking with me to work on but didn't end up being able to work on it. I'm going to try the cable cast-on tonight for the mittens. I'm feeling a little more in the knitting mood with the downright frigid weather that we're having. Time to get dinner in the oven: roasted chicken with red potatoes and steamed veggies. Yum...

Thursday, February 16, 2006

A hat, a bunny and yarn, oh my!

Here they are: real, color photos!

Yes, I've finally managed to take a few quick pics of my knitting projects. First I have a long overdue Thank You! to Amy. I won a little trivia contest on her blog and she graciously sent me a big box full of yarn.


Yay! Let's open the box and see what's inside!


Look at all the beautiful yarn! So excited! Thank you Amy! Most knitting blogs catch a cat in the background of their yarn, not mine. That's my son's feet speeding past in the corner of the picture. Some of you may be wondering who the cute little bunny is. On the front page of Amy's blog I noticed a cute little bunny in the picture. I recognized that bunny, my daughter had the same one. Then I read the very touching and sad Saga of Bunny. When the yarn came I thought I could pay homage to their Bunny with a little photoshoot featuring our Bunny. Amy & Emma, I hope you enjoy knowing that your yarn is now being watched over by another bunny :-)

I haven't been accomplishing as much knitting as I would like. Been busy with the business and kids. But, I do have some pictures! That itself is progress if you ask me. Here is the Sunshine Hat (really known as the Child's Bulky Knit Rolled Brim Hat):





Here are the little crocheted flowers that I need to sew on:



Now here's what's been holding me up:



My first mitten. It looks great. Except, when I went to seam up the side I realized that my daughter would never be able to squeeze her cute little hand into it. The cast-on edge is way too tight. So, now I'm going to have to frog the whole thing and start over. I'm going to try a cable cast-on and see if it will work better. So that's where I'm at. I was making some fabulous progress until I hit that snag. So I sat it aside for a while but I'm ready to jump back into it and complete it. Hopefully it will work!