It must be spring...

...despite the snow on the ground. The sun is shinning and our pair of Red Tail Hawks that live in the woods by our shed are busy picking twigs from the trees and flying back to the nest with them. Looks like they are thinking of having more babies! (Wonder if they are going to need any baby sweaters?)

Winnie The Pooh quiz

Well, other than the "follow the crowd and let others make the decisions," do any of you think it fits?

Which Pooh character are you?

You choose your friends wisely and even though they may be few in number, they are high in importance.You feel most comfortable when you can follow the crowd and let others make decisions. But that's not to say you can't make up your own mind if you need to.Faithful and true, Piglets make the best friends.
Take this quiz!

One way to spend a snowy couple of days

First you take a nice skein of yarn,
and then you wind it into two yarn cakes.

 

At that point you cast on for a sock. Then you knit some ribbing, and then for the sake of science, you do it all again on the other brand of needles you have "in the same size." After that ribbing is done, you keep knitting for the leg, and when that is done, you go back to the first set of needles and make another leg. If you start this on a snowy Friday afternoon, there might be stopping for the dinner fixing thing and sleep at some point, but only when you are so tired that you are having a hard time keeping your eyes open. Then on the snowy Saturday you finish the second leg and move on. From there you make a heel flap, and then a second one, turn a heel, and then another and make a gusset.

Then you get to make another gusset, and you are all ready to knit a foot or two. Once again you might be interrupted with the dinner cooking, and making a cherry pie for a friend; leaving you here, all ready to knit a couple of feet and toes. But I am certain there will be a finished pair of socks come bedtime on Sunday.

 

There was some admiring of glaring at the six plus inches of snow we have gotten since Friday morning. After all, Thursday at noon we could see the grass greening up in the yard and the beginnings of bulbs coming up in the garden.

YES!!!!!

BULLDOGS RULE!!!!
OK, as most of my family knows, I don't usually get very excited about sports, but there are exceptions. The last time I got very excited was when the girls high school football team had an undefeated season. For the record, I never even saw a football game in my life until DTE was a sophmore in high school and in the marching band. Isn't really about the band?
Soccer? I have seen lots of soccer over the years of three kids playing from the time they were each four years old. Soccer I understand. I think Hubband got tired of trying to explain football to me even after several years of going to see the band.

Wee Tiny Sock Swap

Yarn Miracle has just opened up her annual "Wee Tiny Sock Swap." This is pretty easy, all you have to do is knit one (wee)tiny little sock (she even gives a pattern) and mail it off in an envelope. Fast, easy, and no SSS.

Frozen Four is down to "Frozen Two"

Bulldogs and Badgers will batle for NCAA Title Saturday at The DECC afer 3-2 UMD win over New Hampshire.

X of Minnesota Duluth (center) reacts after defeating New Hampshire 3-2 in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinal game at the DECC in Duluth Thursday. The Bulldogs will face the Badgers in the championship game Saturday. [Derek Montgomery/News Tribune]




DTE says

The team won in an AMAZING game. [There is a] Picture of us being excited about scoring.... not the greatest pic but oh well. Our girls are amazing. There was almost a whole minuet of us being down by two players. Our goalie is really good.

The girls and goalie being really good and amazing probably has somehing to do with them being ranked in the top four or so in the nation on a regular basis.

I thought the picture was just fine.

UMD pep band members DTE(from left) X, and Y cheer after Minnesota Duluth scored its first goal against New Hampshire during the NCAA Frozen Four Womens Ice Hockey National Championship semifinal game at the DECC in Duluth. [CLINT AUSTIN/NEWS TRIBUNE]

Wishing for a new tool

Have you ever wished someone would invent that cool new tool?

The one where they take one of
these

and combine it with this?

It looks to me like there is enough room in the ball winder to stuff a computer chip inside and space for a digital display on the base. Until someone markets such a thing, I will have to resort to a multi-stage approach to achieve what I need want.


This is the deal, someone gives you a nice skein of yarn and you just want to knit a pair of socks. That skein has to be wound into a ball first, and because you would like your socks to end up about the same size, it would be really nice if you knew when half of the yarn skein was in the ball.
What you do is wind the whole skein into one ball and then put it into a bowl on your scale (luckily the scale I have has a wonderful tare function for the bowl). Then you start to wind a second ball from the first.

You wind on past here,

and here,

 

until you get to here.

 

You end up with two balls of yarn to knit two socks the same size. A little extra step, but it works.

 

Except, I could have done without some of the help I got.

 

Maybe she'll get to stay in her room next time.

Life distractions

It has been a bit busy around the home front, but in a laid back kind of way. DTE came home late Saturday night for a shortened spring break. She had to leave this morning to get back to school, even though classes don't start back up until Monday. She needed to be back for Pep Band at Women's Frozen Four. If any of you out there follow Collegiate Women's Hockey, I am sure you have heard of this team more than once. If you have a favorite team that isn't UMD, you probably tremble a bit at the mention of Bulldogs. I will add that DTE is a bit disappointed to be going to nationals in the same town she spends most of her life in these days. She is hoping the team does a repeat next year and they'll be "Band in Boston."
Mostly we were busy hanging out together, cooking, watching a movie, etc. You know, weird family bonding things that distract me from writing a blog. I knew it would still be here after she left.
There was knitting involved while she was home (by me, she doesn't knit). I made her a DW facecloth, but it was not allowed to be photographed. Maybe its owner thought it was shy or something. I also made one for the kitchen, since the first one was claimed by Hubband. (I am not entirely sure what he is going to do with it besides look at it on top of his radio.) Once again, I am drawn to yellow and sage green. I am guessing the West Desert of my childhood isn't blooming yet, but the colors remind of what is to come.

I finished up the last of my Knit For Lent hats. I used red and blue held together until I ran out of the blue and had to finish up with just red. It wouldn't have been my first (or even second or third) choice of how a hat looked/turned out, but since part of what I wanted to do was use up some yarn that I didn't have other plans for, it worked out. Plus, if the yarn is used up, it won't be something I would choose again! All twelve of my hats have been squished into a box and mailed off. I do still have some yarn left, and since they collect hats through out the year, I probably will be knitting some more.
I also knit up the dishcloth pattern/yarn that I got as a prize for my Three Bags Full entry over at WhoDuKnit. Not that my entry was necessarily the best; the prizes are given as a "random draw" from all the entries in any given month. Though some months there aren't very many entries. (I didn't knit anything for the February book, but you can stop in over there if you want to see some one's knitted DNA.) For those of you wondering about it, WhoDuKnit is fun. Great book suggestions, a lot of them that I never would have heard of otherwise, fun swaps and contests, and it is run by a really great lady! It is always open to new members, so feel free to join us!


Oh, I guess you might want to see the dishcloth from another angle.....


Just reminder that since today is the first day of spring (according to the calender anyway), registrations for the Spring Fling Coffee (and yarn) Swap are open from now until the 25Th of March. Short window of opportunity but I am guessing there will be quite a few folks involved.

Homage to Jessi

Yesterday Hubband and I went for a car trip for the day. I am sure you all know this means knitting time! I took along the yarn and needles Jessi gave me a while back. I had decided to make the "Darrell Waltrip" dishcloth that I had seen on her blog. How could I not do something to keep with the Jessi theme? I have to say I agree with her about her about the whole Nascar part, but I also agree that it is a really great pattern.

 

I have a feeling this will soon be my second favorite/"go to" dishcloth pattern! It is a really fast and easy knit and it looks awesome! (Just in case you wanted a close-up of the stitches.)

Hubband's slipper's part 2

Hubband was very kind and took a few pictures of his slippers for me while I was out so that they would be ready to toss in the washer.

 

It would seem that Someone took a great interest in them.

Apperantly before they were all done, she decided his ankle needed a hug.