knitwit knits again

here's a hat and scarf set that i made for my niece's 5th birthday.  i think it turned out pretty cute...i especially like the hat!

cj's none too happy to have his tv time interrupted,
but i needed someone to model the hat for my photo!

i really like the way these self-striping yarns combined in this
mistake rib scarf pattern!  it was easy peasy too!

summer fun

i realize i haven't posted in a while.  not for lack of things to say, but rather lack of time to say them! 

i've been planning a really nice post about our trip out west.  only, i haven't had time (or energy) to go thru the bazillion photos we took to find the few really great ones i'd want to share here.  so, bear with me as i take my time and i WILL post about it...someday.  hopefully sooner than later!

top that off with it being Fair Week here this week which means eating lots of junk foods, rides for the boys, and checking out all the animals and other things that folks have entered.  i've been telling myself for years "next year i'm gonna enter something i've knitted."  and yet again, it's fair time and i don't have anything to enter.  seems like all my projects lately have been either gifts or things that i want to use right away--so MAYBE NEXT YEAR!  we'll see!

here's a couple photos of the boys at the fair

bubba and his best buddy, ty on the tilt-a-whirl

that's right...ty's dad took the big boys on the ferris wheel. 
they're in the blue carriage at the top!

cj enjoying the rides

another fun ride for cj

oh yeah...one more thing.  T ran his first 5K of the summer on the 17th.  placed 2nd of the guys in his age range.  {it wasn't a PR, but it was better than he'd expected since he hadn't been able to train on our trip like he would've liked!}

here he is just about to cross the finish line:

T--the runner in red

it's been a good summer so far.  hard to believe it's already july 22.  and yes, we're still doing a little schoolwork here and there when we can!

a sock fix

I love my hand knit socks. 

So I was rather disappointed to see a weak spot developing on the heel of a pair I made last April.  Less than a year later and you could just about see through the stitches in that one spot.  But I knew that a hole would be worse, so I set them aside with the intent to learn how to reinforce the weakened stitches aka darning. 

It only took me 4 months or so to get up enough gumption to give it a go.  On Monday, I finally did. I Googled instructions and other helpful info on sock darning.   I learned that the kind of darning I needed to do is called "Swiss darning" or duplicate stitch.  I found a really good video tutorial here.  Armed with this info, the yarn leftovers from making this pair of socks (saved for just such an emergency!), a yarn needle, and a darning egg, I set forth into the realm of sock darning to tame the mighty sock beast!  Uh. Oops!  What I meant was to fix the weakened stitches.  But taming a sock beast sounds much more exciting, don't you think?


Of course, I didn't think to take a "before" photo.  So you'll have to take my word for it when I tell you if I had but worn these colorful sockies even one more time, I would have had to learn how to fix a hole in my sock instead!

the darned socks!  

{note: only one actually needed darning at this time. thankfully, i've got lots of yarn leftovers remaining so this pair should last me a very long time now that i know how to darn 'em!}

{here you can see the darned stitches where the brighter not-yet-faded yarn is! :D}

So that was my knitting (repair) lesson for this week! 

Actually, I also learned how to do an invisible double increase as well.  But I won't bore you with that story.  At least, I won't today.  [grin]

ARGH!

okay, so i'm a LOST fan. we got sucked into the show from the start and have been watching every episode ever since.  tonight's finale was going to be the end.  the final episode.  i knew that i could then go on with my life without wondering if there would be another season of LOST or what twist or turn the storyline would take next. 

we sat down at 6pm tonight and watched the 2 hours of LOST review and interviews with the actors and all.  all was going well, until about 8:50pm.  suddenly, our local ABC channel froze up in the middle of a commercial break. after about a minute without it coming back on, i'm thinking "no! this can't be happening.  please come back on! please come back on! i don't want to miss a minute of LOST!" 

it's now 9:35, and we're watching a black screen.  as in, the tv's on, tuned to ABC, but nothing is coming thru.  so since we've missed over half an hour of it already {and if you know the show, you know that a lot can happen in that time!}, we're going to have to wait and see if we can watch the rest tomorrow night.  i'm hoping ABC will have it available online!  i can't believe what a let-down this has been for me tonight.  i even got my parents to watch the kids for us this weekend so we wouldn't have to worry about interruptions from them--requests for a drink of water, getting out of bed for no apparent reason, needing tucked back in, etc.--during our viewing of this epic finale. 

i guess it just goes to show that you can plan, but you can't ever know exactly what's going to happen!

My new 'do!

I know I've been a bit focused lately.  Obsessed, actually.  But changing my hair was and is a big deal to me.  So, now that the change is done, here are the before and after photos!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

My stylist did a great job of listening to what I wanted from my new hairdo.  Layers.  The ability to let it air dry and still look nice.  And not need to use styling products unless I want to.  So, that kind of threw out some of the ideas I was looking at.  They're much more high maintenance than I am!  {smile}

My hair cut ended up very similar to the style I had back in 2008 when my hubby and I went to Maui to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Same sort of layering and similar length.  I think the only real difference is that I now have side bangs which I did not have then.  As you can see, they kind of blend in (for the most part), but when I pull my hair back in a ponytail or bun, they hang down to the sides of my face.  It's a nice change.  And my head feels about 2 pounds lighter!   :D