Knits For Sanity

Happy Easter!

  Happy Easter! I've had a pretty great weekend, except for my back.  I am finally starting to get up and around a little. (YEA!!) It's so great but my body is so weak from 7 months of doing nothing.  My back is the worst of all!  I have no muscle on my bones.  So I've had the worst back pain the past week and especially yesterday and today.  Well...this too, shall pass. 

  I spent the weekend with Tom.  I pulled up the sweater patterns I found on the The Knitting Garden for him to look at.  It's good new folks!  He liked a bunch of them.  Although his favorite wasn't also mine, I'm still glad I found something that he liked. I like all of the sweaters in the book enough to agree to knit anyone of them for him.  This is the one he liked best:

  and he also liked, which is my fav.  Success!  I'm so excited!  So now I am going to order the pattern book off of The Knitting Garden so I can get started.

  The Knitting Garden is a great website.  It's actually an online store.  I like it b/c you can actually browse through the pattern books and look at all of the patterns in each one.  So that way I know exactly what I'm buying.  It also gives you more details about most of the patterns in each book such as difficulty level, sizes, yarn requirements, neddle size etc.  It's really wonderful!

  Thanks to Major Knitter (Jennifer), I may have finally found the perfect teddy bear pattern.  I didn't really like the one that I had tried.  Earlier this week I saw one posted on Jennifer's blog that was so adorable but I didn't know who made it.  She informed me that it is the Baby Bobbi Bear by Blue Sky Alpacas.  This one is really cute:

It's so much cuter than everything else I have seen.  I'm goig to try to order the pattern off of purlsoho.com.  I really like this online store.  I found it b/c it was listed on the Blue Sky Alpacas website as a store that carries their products.  The store itself is located in New York, New York.  I wish I could be there in person!  I'm stuck out here in Iowa City, Iowa, a city devoid of a really good yarn shop.  Thank goodness for the internet!

  I didn't get much knitting done this weekend.  The back of my Sirdar Cardigan was casted on last week while I was patiently waiting to see my orthopedic surgeon.  I don't think I have more than 2 inches completed yet.  I'm still working on baby booties.  I spent way too much time trying to adjust the bootie pattern to fit a preemie.  I knitted 2 preemie sized pairs this evening while watching TV.   That's about it though.

  There was a new Desperate Housewives on this evening!  It's ABOUT TIME!!  I mean seriously!  Since when do the networks play so many freakin reruns.  I understand that they have to play them during the summer, but it seems like there are more reruns on than actual shows.  ABC is the worst!  There have been more reruns of Desperate Housewives and Lost than I can count!  That's what's nice about HBO.  The Sopranos is my most favorite TV program.  With HBO you have to wiat and wait for the new season to come out but at least there is a new episode every week.  Then once the season is done its done.  I like that so mcuh better.  Someone please tell ABC " NO more reruns PLEASE!". 

  I have a purring very sleepy Oliver kitty cat on my lap.  He missed me this weekend and now he wants my full undivided attention.  He keeps tyring to type along with me.  I think he wants to go to bed.  He can't go to bed if I don't so I better get moving.   

   

Busy Weekend

  It seems like it has been a really long time since I wrote my last post.  I have actually been busy the past few days.  That's busy in my terms though.  I took my Anatomy exam on Friday afternoon and it went really well.  I hope I get it back soon.  I spent Friday night with Tom, my boyfriend, as always. Then we spent Monday and today together also.

  This week is Spring Break for The University of Iowa.  Tom is getting a break from law school for the week and we get to see a lot more of each other.  Spending the past two days with him was wonderful.  I've really been missing him.  I've gotten used to seeing him only once a week or so. 

We weren't able to do much b/c of my limitations but we spent some time with his family at his mom's house.  His little adorable neice was in town and we had a lot of fun playing with her.  She is the only grandchild in Tom's family of 7 kids.  So, as you can imagine she is the very center of attention.  She doesn't seem to notice though.  She is such a sweet little girl.

  Tom has been so supportive since my surgery in August and the complications that have followed.  He has managed to adapt to the situation along with me everyone else.  Yesterday he lugged my wheelchair into his car and took me to "The Knitting Shoppe."  Now that's devotion!  I'm a very lucky girl.

  I had not been to The Knitting Shoppe in a couple of weeks so I was really itching to go.  We went with the intention of finding a sweater pattern for him, but I ended up buying yarn for a cardigan for me.  He didn't find anything that he really liked.  The Knitting Shoppe didn't have any patterns for young guys.  They have a ton for young women.  Which is nice for my wardrobe, but it was disappointing b/c I really wanted to knit him a sweater.

I really wanted to post a picture of the yarn I bought. Unfortunately the digital camnera's batteries are dead and we do not have any more.  =-(   Hopefully I'll post some later this week.  The yarn I bought is Lamb's Pride worsted in Periwinkle.  I wanted to get black or white but they didn't have enough in.  I didn't want to wait for it to be ordered either.  I think the lavender (periwinkle) will be pretty.  I'll see how it turns out.  I plan on using it on this Sirdar Cardigan:

I used the Lamb's Pride Bulky in my last sweater: Laines Plassard Sweater.  It turned out great.  I've wanted to try the worsted weight Lamb's Pride ever since, and now I have a chance. Lamb's Pride just knits up beautifully.  It's on my list of favorite yarns.

I'm so excited to start this pattern.  I just LOVE it!  If the color doesn't look good I think I will try to find a sort of tweed yarn.  I can always use the Lamb's Pride worsted for something else.  You can never have too much yarn.  As long as there is somewhere to put it!