Obsessed with Kitties

These two precious felines have started visiting my house lately.  (There's a third one, but she runs away!) I have been feeding them and loving them and trying to get Andrew to let me let them in the house.  One day....

Oh, and I lied.  Not on purpose.  But the hats called to me and I finished them.  Now the only thing on my needles are 2 Christmas gifts. And I'm trying to finish them because they are terribly boring to knit.  I've really loved my selfish knitting spree this last year.  Saying no to others has helped me work through my stash and it has also given me a huge stash of hand knitting things just for me!

Giving up

So, I've spent most of this year preoccupied with Selfish Knitting.  I've only been making things for myself as I try to work down my stash (HA!).  Well, I've decided to make some of my Christmas gifts this year, so I'm now focusing on Unselfish Knitting.  In order to get that rolling, I have a few WIPs to finish.

A couple of days ago, I finished my Martian Rainbow Leftover Sock Yarn hat.  It is so,vivid!  I also have 2 more hats to finish, but I'm focusing on getting my gifts done early.

I took this lovely sock to Columbus to see if it fit my dad.  It does! Now I'm working on the other one,

Other than these two items, it's been a slow week.  Lots of practicing for football games, getting home late, and just being pretty darn tired.  2 more games and I have my evenings free for a bit....

WTHeck?

Here are my current WIPs. SIX!! You'd think I'd learn from last week when four projects were too many.  And I consciously knew how stressed out this would make me and I did it anyway.

Clockwise from upper left corner: Slouchy Hat from Vogue Knitting Fall 2014, sock yarn hat in Martian Rainbow, socks, socks, sock yarn hat in Russian Rainbow, socks.

And to make things worse, I bought 5 more hat patterns yesterday!  B r e a t h e . . . . .

Complete!

I was feeling overwhelmed last week with a stack of projects that seemed to never want to be finished.  Then, my school district had a three day weekend and I finished 3 out of 4 of the projects that were in progress.

Here are my Regia Stripemania socks in Lake.  This is a DK weight yarn and these socks are super squishy and warm.  And a little too big.  They will be perfect for weekends and snow days!!

I also finished an original design of mine.  It is just a basic hat but it uses up the left over yarn I used from a favorite pair of socks.  The hat is light weight, but still very warm.  Perfect for fall!  I'm currently writing up the pattern in user friendly terms if you are interested.  If you can't wait, I posted a rough sketch of the hat pattern on Instagram.  Just look for this picture!

I also finished a shawl for my mother in law.  I must have deleted the photos, but it is just a basic shawl done in purples.  I used the Sunset Shawlette pattern by Moogly as a guideline.

And I also completed 2 years of marriage to this guy! His card was so mushy and sweet it made me cry--and he just laughed and walked away. (He hates tears, the big softie.)

Slow progress and Christmas gifts

Decided to make Juanita's Christmas gift this year.  (Mother in law). She mentioned she wanted to find a good pattern for a shawl to keep her warm in church, so I thought it would be easy to whip one up for her.  This is the Sunset Shawl by Moogly.  I'm using a red heart boutique acrylic so she can wash it and get lots of wear out of it.

Here's the start...

I'm working (still) on Dad's sock.  More boring stripes.  Argh.  

I'm still working on my Regia Stripemania socks in the Lake colorway.  Another slow go-er, but only because I'm distracted by the other WIPs.

On my day off I worked on a pointless, yet cure craft making chains out of straws.  It is fun to work on and I'm considering making another chain in Christmas colors for my new skinny tree.  I got this idea off Pinterest and I've been trying for ages to find the striped straws.  I finally found them at Target (of course!)

I'm still working on the striped hat, but it's tucked safely in my car.  I work on it at traffic lights (don't judge me) because I sit for ages on my way home each day in construction.  Hope you're doing great. The weekend is almost here!!!!

Mental Health

So, I was a bit off my normal axis last week.  Decided to take the day off Monday and managed to still be irritated. Tuesday, back to work--still irritated.  Then I took sleeping pills and turned in early Tuesday night.  Today? A brand new person.  What was the fix? Sleep and prayer.  I had talked to a coworker about all the stress of working and not getting ahead while Andrew struggles to find work.  How it was affecting life and happiness.  She told me this morning that she prayed for me and I believe it worked. Thank you Miss Rhonda.  Sometimes we forget to ask God for his guidance and I'm thankful that Rhonda did it for me.