Ooh beads!

Last Thursday, I was shopping at the JoAnn's fabric store and re-found a very cool bead store on the way home. I had been to Eclectica www.eclecticabeads.com once before years ago, so I decided to stop in again. Wow! I was blown away at the changes. They have expanded the store, have tons of beads, books and just about everything you need for beading. But, the best part is... they now have a studio. You can just walk in, choose a kit, and sit down and make your kit with help from an instructor!
When you buy a kit, you get free instruction if you need it. This is perfect for me, because in the past I have always just bought random beads and materials, not knowing what I was doing, and then I ended up having a bunch of stuff, and no idea how to put it together.
So, now I am all jacked up on a beading high because now I can get help on my schedule! Of course, I walked out of the studio with 3 kits and am planning on going in this week to get help making them. I'll post the pictures.

Finally, I have a free day to blog some more. This morning I went on a picture taking spree around the house, taking pictures of projects I am working on.
While most of these are knitting projects, my main project is my niece’s quilt. I have been working on this little gem on and off (mostly off) for several years now. This quilt was intended as a wedding present for Kerri and SuThanh when they got married FOUR YEARS AGO! Now they have 2 kids! So, needless to say, I really need to get this one done and out of here. It is slow going because I am hand quilting it. Lately, I have been doing a lot – basically forcing myself to work on it every day. It is an Irish chain pattern with a really cool blue/green batik fabric on a white background. The picture doesn’t do it justice. In person, this quilt is really cool. So, anyway that is my number one project.

As for knitting, now that my kids are back in school I got out the polar bear. This is a really fun polar bear rug made with Lion brand Fun Fur and Jiffy yarn. It is from Knit Simple magazine winter 2005 issue. It is fun to knit, and goes pretty fast. It is made by holding 3 strands of fun fur together with 1 strand of Jiffy. It does take a lot of Fun Fur so it is best to watch the JoAnn fabric stores for a sale before buying the yarn. My friend Deanna made two of these for her grandsons, so I got the “wait for a sale” tipoff from her. We both got the Fun Fur when it was $1.00 a skein so that was nice. I did encounter a mistake with the head instructions which is right where I am at now, so I am trying to find the correction on the magazines web site. Deanna fudged the head when she came to the mistake, so if I can't find the correction I'll have to as well. I think I am going to make this one for my son Blais, then I will have to get more yarn and make a different color bear for Zane. I think the hardest part is choosing a color.

Well, not suprisingly, this ate up a lot of time - because I am so technically inept. I finally got the pictures where I wanted them. So I think I'll call it a day. Now I am off to try to figure out how to get the software I don't want off of my Palm, so I can make room for what I do want! And I know it will take me 9 hours to figure it out, but I'll learn something new in the end.

Well - here goes!

I am hoping this blog will encourage me to finish all my old projects. Now I need to dig out all the old stuff and take pictures of them so I can list them all. Maybe that will get me started on finishing.

This summer I didn't do very much knitting because I realized that all my old stuff required me to read a chart or keep track of shaping or something to keep me from doing it while talking, watching t.v., etc... so that just left knitting socks....and I got tired of that. I did do a lot of reading this summer; Harry Potter of course, but also found a great series A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I burned through that series and am waiting for the 5th book in the series due out this year sometime?

Now that the kids will be back in school and fall is approaching I am getting back into the knitting, and spinning.

My other goal is to try to make a blog that is not too boring. I'll try to include lots of pictures. This picture is my small hobby farm which includes 4 Corriedale sheep -Thelma in front, and Cupcake in back, along with 2 Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs -Clover (in background) and Rex.