2010 Dishcloths

Mid-July – Ribbons and Lace – Janet Nogle
August – Starfish –  Elaine
Mid-August – Ice Cream Cone – Andi Worthy
September – Mouse (Do I Smell Cheese?) - Elaine
Mid-September – Lacy Leaves – Andi Worthy
October – Spider – Andi Worthy
Mid-October – Witch – Alli Barrett
November – Peanut the Elephant – Elaine
Mid-November – Snowy Drops – Andi Worthy
December – Christmas Tree – Frugalhaus
Mid-December – Fire and Ice – Janet Nogle

Geez, I’ve been a slacker.  I didn’t post all winter!  These dishcloths were all fun to make.  I just got lazy about posting them on here!

A picture of our family and a picture of Vollrath Bowl, at graduation.  From left, Gary, Emily, Sarah, and Dawn, taken in our backyard.  At Vollrath, you can see Lake Michigan in the background.  South sits to the south, in red.  North sits on the other side, in blue. It’s so pretty.  The band (not visible) dresses in khaki and white, so they don’t detract from the grads.

June and July dishcloths: All fun to work on.  The contrasting yarn in the Peacock cloth made it more fun.  The Father’s Day cloth was knit sideways, so it was hard to tell what the picture would be!  The Flamingo was hard to see at first, because we started with the legs.  Eventually, you could tell it was a bird. I love doing cloths that you don’t know what they will be, before you start.

We are hoping that the flu passes us by. So far we””””ve been lucky, although Emily and I recently had colds.  Mine is still here, but getting better everyday.  So far, Gary has still been healthy.  Emily is hoping they DON”T have a “flu-cation” from school.  She thinks it””””s bad enough that we have to make up the wintry days on June 12th and June 15th.

Today, the sun is shining and the temperature is in the high 50””””s, which is a huge improvement over last week””””s rain. A few blocks from us, a sewer collapsed, so a major intersection is going to closed off for a month.  Ugh. I hope the time goes fast.

• February – Kiss Me (hot purple in Bernat handicrafter yarn on US 7 needles – Lisa Millan of Digknitty)
• Mid-February – Circle Cloth (Tan Sugar’n Cream and Fiesta Peaches & Creme on US 7 needles – Hakucho)
• March – Pot O’ Gold (Yellow Peaches & Creme on US 7 needles – Emily Jagos)
• Mid-March – The Windmill Dishcloth (Aqua Mist Peaches & Cream and Teal Sugar’n Cream on US 7 needles – Sew-Funky)
• April – Illusion Egg Hunt (White Peaches & Creme, Light green Peaches & Creme, Hot Purple Bernat Handicrafter on US 7 needles – Deborah C. Tilley)

Also, since we happened to be driving through Fond Du Lac today, and stopped at Animal Outfitters to buy some Sam’s Yams sweet potato treats.  Jasmine’s Gotcha Day is in 2 weeks and we wanted to get her a special treat.  You can see that she enjoyed her slice of dehydrated sweet potato.  It is crunchy and has ridges, so it’s supposed to help keep teeth clean.

Sarah got a new cellphone today.  It’s an LG Banter.  It looks pretty neat and takes awesome pictures.  She will have fun with it.

My family was very happy that Obama won the election and that it was a done deal even before we went to bed on November 4th. We look forward to the Inauguration now!

We had a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful Christmas, although I was so busy I barely got to enjoy it. Had fun at Christmas celebrations on both sides of the family. My family did a White Elephant gift exchange. Parameters were that the gift had to weigh about a pound and cost $10 or less. I ended up with some Charmin’ Ultra Plush toilet paper and while my sister thought toilet paper would be the ultimate gag gift (and we did laugh about it!), my family was in desperate need of toilet paper, at that precise moment, so we were glad to get it! LOL! Gary got a bundle of bungie cords, Sarah got some fancy hot chocolate mix, and Emily I can’t remember anymore. Gary almost got candy, but that was stolen away by a candy-hungry nephew! Bungie cords are more useful for him, anyway.

I didn’t get to open Gary’s present, until we were together with Gary’s family. He had it shipped to their house and then had my SIL wrap it in 3 different boxes, each one completely wrapped with ribbons and bows, too. It turned out to be an 8G iPod Nano in turquoise blue! So, I’ve been busy uploading music and getting that all set up to my specifications! Also, we had to delete a ton of music from my iTunes library that even Sarah wouldn’t be listening to anymore.

Emily earned all but $20 towards a Nintendo DS. She got Polar White and is enjoying it very much. Sarah was doing some video work for my nephew Ryan and got paid nicely for that, so she went out and bought a Wii. We’ve all been having fun with that. I bowl better on the Wii, than I do in real life! The cow racing game on Wii Play is hysterical. It’s also hard to play the game, when everyone is laughing really hard.

I’m way behind on posting pictures of finished knitting projects, but I was finding time to get them photographed.

We are also wondering how long it takes tomatoes to turn red! Can you tell we are impatient? There is one that is so big, too! Can’t you just see it in a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich? Yummy. [Insert green tomato picture]

I finally got a picture of my latest dishcloth! It’s called Summer Breeze, by Sue Schaefer. I knit it with Aqua Mist Ombre Peaches & Creme yarn and US 7 needles. You had to be careful reading the pattern on this one. Sometimes, there was a k2tog, that you wouldn’t expect and it kept messing up my stitch count, if I wasn’t paying attention! LOL! This is the 14th of the 24 dishcloths I expect to knit this year!

2008 Mid-July KAL - Summer Breeze

2 caterpillars – about 3/4 inch long
1 caterpillar – about 1/2-inch long
3 caterpilalrs – newly hatched today!

This is so exciting and we are out there all the time, keeping tabs on them.  We did research on the internet, to find out what the eggs look like and seen videos on YouTube to watch them hatch.  We discovered that there were lots of eggs on our two plants, so we have a lot of watching ahead of us.

Of the few that hatched today, one was so newly hatched, he hadn’t eaten his egg shell yet, and they do, since it has important nutrients for them to get started with.  Our leaves have lots of holes in them already!  These milkweed plants are in a shady spot, and don’t even have buds that would indicate they’re about to bloom yet.  I wonder if they will even flower, since most other milkweed plants seem to be blooming already.

Photos of the first two we discovered on 7-19-08:

They were only half-an-inch long, on Saturday. Today, 3 days later, they are about 3/4 of an inch and a little bit thicker. The front antenna are longer, too. It’s been fun watching them grow!

Here’s my July dishcloth. It was called Love to Knit, by Alice Imholte. I used light blue Sugar’n Cream, with US 7 needles.

I finished my second red scarf, too, last Thursday! Woohoo! I should be swatching my sock yarn, about now! LOL!

The weather has calmed down, although it could be warmer. I’m guess I’m not complaining, since it’s saving us a bundle in air conditioning costs.

This is the mid-June KAL with 2 days finished. I’ve been too busy posting my pictures to knit, this morning! LOL! It’s just yo, k2tog, p2tog, etc, that is making the cable-y design. We aren’t using a cable needle. I love the lacy texture! I’m having fun knitting it. The yarn is 181 Faded Denim Peaches and Creme yarn, on US7 needles.

Oh yeah. It finally stopped raining. My computer corner is all back together, with a new rug on the floor. I love how the new feels to my feet. It’s a lot cushier than the 10-year-old rug was. The laptop was nice, but my regular computer, even at 7 years old, is a lot faster and has a much better monitor.

My heart goes out to the people still affected by the flooding. Ugh. Even when we had 18 inches of water in our basement, 10 years ago, it still wasn’t as bad as other people had it.

It was also nice, that I’d done most of the hard work, on Monday night, since on Tuesday, I had to work at 5pm.  My hubby and daughter only had to assemble the sandwiches, and serve the coleslaw for last night’s supper.

Emily and I also know now, that in the absence of lemon juice to keep the avocado fresh, we can keep the second half in the peel, face-down on a plate, covered tightly with plastic wrap, to be able to use it the next night.  We meant to buy a lemon, but we forgot.  We also forgot to buy the green onions for the cole slaw.  Maybe next time!

It was definitely worth all the hard work of juicing 3 limes!  They are harder to juice, than lemons.

We had a sunny day today, which was nice, after all of yesterday’s rain.  It’s also supposed to rain tomorrow night.  That’s better than Duluth, MN, who is under a blizzard warning for tomorrow night!  Ugh.  Temp was in the low 50′s today.

I recently finished a new Monthly Dishcloth KAL.  This one was a spring scene with flowers in a field, called The Meadow.  It was designed by Lindy,  She’s only 16.  Doesn’t she do a great job?