Sweater Class

Click on title to see sweater from White Lies Designs

At the last sock class a couple of the ladies were talking about taking this class. Our teacher was going to teach the Friday night class. She said she was going to use a specific pattern that had 3 different sleeves, and 3 different necklines. She was also going to teach a technique called short row shaping for the armhole shaping. I had read about that technique but had not tried it yet. I actually wanted to take the class but I did not want to take another night class. But the teacher was only teaching the night class and a couple of the ladies encouraged me to sign up for it. So I did.

I was a little bit late on Friday and everyone was there when I got there. There was not one person there from the other class including the teacher. And this teacher was letting everyone pick out their own pattern to knit. I was a tiny bit miffed about it all. But oh well, go with the flow. "Be the water and fit into the cup."

The new teacher is Denise and I think she owns the shop. She is always at the shop so if I need any help I can drop in a bother her. She also gave us her email address to get help that way as well.

As I was late I hurried up and picked out a pattern. I ended up picking a pattern I had bought earlier. It is a "Knitting Pure and Simple" design. Those designs are usually knitted from the top down. I want to learn how to do that. This sweater is a short sleeved tunic with a v-neck. Because I am an Ample woman and I wanted to do the tunic it requires 1,855 yards. So of course there is not enough yarn in the same dye lot. Denise said she would called the sister store in Greensboro to see if they had that dye lot there.

I went in the next day to find out if they found any. I brought another pattern just in case we could not find enough for the tunic. They had some but not enough. So I am going to use a design by Joan McGowan-Michael of White Lies Designs called "The Shapely Tee". She did a tank for the book "Big Girl Knits". Here is the address for the design.

http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/patterns/lpullovers/fbd.html

It is a free pattern on her site under sweater designs. Another good thing is she uses short rows in the shaping as well. So I will still get to learn that.

Sock Knitting Class

My first sock. I am so proud. I tried it on my husband. It fit his big toe perfectly. I have to knit the other sock just so I remember what I have learned. I have some cool yarn that will form a design something like Fair Isle design.

Our Anniversary

Yesterday was our Fourth Wedding Anniversary.

It truly does feel as if I have known this man all my life instead of 5 years. This is my 3rd marriage. Guess what?....3rd time really is the charm.

Ok, to get back to the subject. Our Anniversary. This last Christmas Jim got a very, Very, VERY expensive Mac laptop. At the time it was agreed the Laptop was "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy Groundhog day and any other day that might require a gift or even a Happy anything. I got a nice diamond and sapphire neck less and so I really did not think we need to get each other personal gifts. We needed a bedspread so I thought it be a good idea to just get something for the house for our Anniversary. He thought it was a good idea and told me to get some towels and bath things to go with it.
Missy and I went shopping yesterday for it. Missy thought we should go to the "Big" mall as our mall while not tiny is not as big as Crabtree in Raleigh. We went to every store that had linen. I did not find anything I even remotely liked. We ended back at Cary Town Center Mall. At JCPenney where I wanted to go to in the first place. I found a really nice green...it is not a mint green and it is not an olive green. But somewhere in between those two colors. It is a whole cloth quilt with embroidery bed set. It includes the bedspread, pillow shams, a throw pillow, a sheet set and a bed skirt. All in a box for $299.99. It was on sale down from $550. Of course it does not match anything in the bedroom. Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond. I go two sets of towels, a bath mat, a shower curtain and large rug for in front of the sink and a smaller rug for in front of the toilet. The towels and rugs cost $288.

We looked for curtains for the three windows. The curtains that are up there now belong to my husband and they are a nice manly blue and red plaid..Yuk. We found some O.K. lined green curtains for about $250 dollar. I just could not do it. I said I am going to make some. Missy thinks this is a mistake as I never really get around to making anything. But I am hoping the curtains are so glaringly wrong that I will be forced to make something else.

I bought the king size bed set but I have a queen size bed. I did that because I wanted the bedspread to be long enough to pull up over the pillows. I had pillow shams and they spend most of the time on the floor. I actually was hoping to just buy a bedspread and not a bed in the bag set. But I did not like any of them.

Our bed is massive and tall. I see needing some sort of stepping stool in my old lady future. The house is full of good quality massively male furniture. Dark wood and heavy. Nothing delicate or girly. Which is ok.

Anyway I have two pillow shams and at least a bed skirt to use for something else. I will have to figure out what to do with them. I could make some throw pillows or try to incorporate them somehow into the curtains. I am going to try and adjust the bottom sheet to fit but it doesn't work out there is another piece of cloth to throw into the mix. I am thinking about making roman shades lined with black out. Jim hates early morning sunlight. And then add some sort of window dressing on top of that.

We'll see.