Smile Card

Phrase and smiley face stamps by Stampin Up (Smile) and background stamps are by Stamps By Judith.

Joan's Socks

Knit with 2 strands of Natural Heather Wool-Ease - these will be used more as house socks than socks with shoes. Pattern can be found here.

1 on 2 Socks

Friday night Dawn taught me to knit socks on two circs and here's my progress as of Sunday afternoon. Since I'm still learning the method I decided to just use a straight ss pattern for the socks and let the yarn do the talking. This is Lorna's Lace Vera and is in my current favorite colors - pink and brown! I'm using size 3 Addi's and getting a perfect 8 stitches to the inch.

Friday Night Frivolities

I am finding that the adjustment to working full-time with an autoimmune problem is a lot more taxing than I thought it would be. Most nights I pretty much come home from work, eat dinner, clean the kitchen and go to bed. And that's one of the reasons that last Friday night was special to me.


Dawn came over, heaving a big bag filled with stuff. She had warned me that she would probably wear her pajamas and sure enough she did! This shows just how comfortable it was. :) First we set up my winder and swift and started winding yarn. The picture above was at the end of the night and shows just how beautiful all the yarns were. Each yarn cake that came off the winder was sufficiently oo'd and ah'd over before setting aside. Let's see if I can remember what they are: Upper left is Candy Corn by an Etsy vendor (I'll look it up later); under that is Violet's Pink Ribbon by Lisa Souza (soooo worth the wait!); very top center and top right is Lorna's Lace Ice House; middle center is Socks That Rock Fairgrounds; bottom center is something wonderful from an Etsy vendor; bottom far right is a Sunshine Yarn from Etsy. And I am so not telling how many of them are mine and which are Dawn's!!!

Next she pulled out some beading supplies and off we went. The clever girl had looked up a stitch marker tutorial online and made a couple at home and that was all it took! She shared this knowledge with me and I really enjoyed it. I would say that I hope I don't have another hobby in the making, but need to add that I did notice that Hobby Lobby has their jewelry making things and beads on sale half price this week. I'm not sure I'll be able to resist all week. I do know that other friend Dawn makes jewelry, so if I do go to the dark side at least I'll have somebody to play with - LOL!


After the stitch markers Dawn showed me how to knit socks on 2 circs! I don't know if I'm ready to give up my beloved Lantern Moon dpn's, but I do enjoy learning new methods.

Joe started out the evening underfoot and in the middle of everything we did. And he happily dispensed wet doggy kisses to Dawn, though I'm not sure she really appreciated it much! But as the picture clearly shows, by the end of the evening he was pretty bored with us. :)

Grandbabies and God's Plans

Yesterday was such a red letter day for me - I got to watch my grandbaby for the first time! The kids had a doctor appointment first thing in the morning and when they got to work they not only had pictures, but also a DVD! It was such a miraculous, awe-inspiring moment to watch the baby move its little arms and legs, open and close its mouth and watch its little heart beating. It truly took my breath away.

Then last night when I got home Keith and I had dinner together, cleaned up the kitchen and then took Joe for a walk. I realized that this is really the way I prefer to spend my evenings and that's quite a lightbulb moment for me since I enjoy eating out so much. Now I'm going to have to rethink a few things!

For the day to have left such good memories for me is surprising because I started the day off with a big pity party before leaving for work. There's a lot going on right now, and not a bit of it is all consuming, but sometimes lots of little things can just sap the strength right out of you. But driving to work yesterday in my quiet car (I will admit that usually I don't have the radio on as I love the quiet) it hit me that maybe music would help lift my mood. My car is always tuned to one of two Christian stations and the one that came on is a program in the mornings called The Journey. He was talking about what a small speck we are in the big cosmic picture and the way he said it and the verses he quoted were so helpful in putting things into perspective for me. (I just looked it up online so I could link to it and discovered that the programs are available online and via podcast - click here to find them.) I was only able to listen to about ten minutes of the program yesterday, but it was enough to jolt me out of the mood.

Then it got me to thinking about the "speck" business. While I know that my piddly problems are nothing in the big scheme of things, it's also comforting to know that God knows everything always and has a plan for it. One of the best examples of this to me came about when petting the cat one day (sorry Joe!). While petting him I started really looking at his face and noticed all the different hairs he had. Different colors, different lengths and growing in different directions. How cool to think that God has a plan for every single hair on the cat's head! If He cares enough about cat hairs, imagine how much He cares about us. I find this very comforting. And especially exciting when I think of my grandbaby forming even as we speak.

~ Elizabeth

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11

LSSK Square #1

What an exciting mail day I had yesterday! I am in an online knitting group for the state of Texas and one of our traditions is to knit a square for all expecting moms and grandmas, then we can sew all the squares together to make a baby blanket. I received my first one yesterday!!! The picture is funny because this square is really more of a lime green, but you know cameras can be funny. Right now there are three of us grandma-to-be's - Theresa and I are expecting our first grandbaby and I think this is Vicki's third (maybe 4th???). So much fun and I had this square with me a lot last night loving it and petting it and imaging a little baby on a blanket made from these squares. Oh and I almost forgot to mention - this beauty and my very first square is from Enid, who is such a good little mama. Hard to believe how much knitting she gets done with how busy she is homeschooling her kids. Thanks dear! :)

Now I need to get going on mine! I have one square knitted, but no ends woven in yet and one more square to begin.