Madrid

I have been in Madrid (Spain) for about a week and a half. Unfortunately I have not had wireless access for my little laptop until now.

This is my 4th trip to one of my favorite cities.

This picture is of the inside of Lanas Sixto, a cute little yarn shop not far from Plaza Mayor. The owners are friendly and helpful and look at all that yarn!

This picture is of the famous Plaza Mayor. The

little stuffed sheep in the foreground is from The

Loopy Ewe, my favorite on-line yarn enabler. I

had hoped to enter the "Loopy on vacation" contest but it ended yesterday and as I've already said I only got wireless today so Loopy will be part of my blog post of Madrid.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Ireland where I will meet my husband in the Dublin airport. It's good to get away to remember how much I miss everyone, especially my DH of 32+ years.

We're supposed to have wireless in all the places we are staying so hopefully I can add more postings and pictures. I have more of Loopy in Madrid too.

Hasta luego.

This is long overdue. I finished this stole in late March and finally sent it to my mother-in-law last week for her birthday. It is the Arctic Diamonds patterns by Donna Druchunas. Although it's a little shorter than I would have liked my MIL is a small women and spends much of her day in a wheelchair. She is a former knitter herself and I hope she enjoys it.

Last week my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter visited from St. Louis. Here are my two gorgeous grandchildren spending some time together. Granddaughter was thrilled with her baby cousin and baby cousin was fascinated with Granddaughter.




Daughter, SIL, granddaughter, son, grandson and I went to Virginia Beach for the day. It was great weather. This is daughter with her nephew. Afterwards she and I stopped in Williamsburg at Knitting Sisters (a very nice shop) and did some serious yarn shopping.

Rivendell Socks

I finally finished the Rivendell Socks! It only took three months. I have tremendous envy for those who can whip up a pair of socks in a week. If I could knit faster I could possibly make a dent in my stash.
These socks are from the book The Eclectic Sole by Janel Laidman, a nice little book with several unique designs. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan and the name of these socks caught my eye. There are a few others in the book I'd like to try but right now I'm knitting on a pair from Cookie A's book Sock Innovations.
Now it's off to knitting group. Tonight I'll be working on a sweater for my 11 month old grandson.

Too many projects

I actually don't have too many projects on the needles right not, at least not for me. I'm making a Girasole blanket (a design by Brooklyn Tweed's Jared Flood) for a KAL that I've joined at the Loopy Ewe (one of my favorite places to buy yarn). I had planned to make it in Dream in Color Classy but the day I was going to order the yarn our washing machine overflowed and gave up the ghost after 21 years of faithful service. The purchase of a new washer caused me to be a little more frugal in my yarn choices so I bought Cascade 220 in bright yellow. Girasole is Italian for sunflower. Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers (which is probably one of the reasons I decided to do this KAL) and the yellow seemed an appropriate although not particularly creative choice. The blanket is a fun and fairly easy knit and as many fellow KALers have said, it's addicting. I took this picture two days ago and I've moved on several more rows.
Meanwhile my Rivendell socks are nearly done; I'm on the toe of the second sock now. I'll take a picture of it and post that next time.
Knitting time is difficult to find these days. Our grandson takes up a lot of time, but he is a joy and very photogenic.
He loves bathtime. He's napping now so I think I'll try to do some housework or knitting. It's difficult to decide.

School's over!

It's been a ridiculously long time since I wrote. School, I teach (or try to teach) Spanish, takes a lot of time and energy. Then in the beginning of April my grandson was admitted to the hospital. After nearly a month he was discharged and is now living with us. He is 10 months old and as cute as he could possibly be and that is unbiased opinion. The same week he was discharged my car was rear ended while I was stopping at a stop light. It took over three weeks to repair it but I was given a loaner by the insurance company.
But things are not entirely insane. It's a beautiful day and I'm back on the blog I tried to start last year. Now I just need to take pictures of the few things I've knitted on in the past few months. Meanwhile here's a picture of my grandson and my granddaughter (who does not live with me).

Election Day

The long campaign is finally over. We can all breathe a sigh of relief'; no more TV or radio ads, no more signs littering our roads and highways, and no more annoying phone calls (at least from the political parties). Best of all, no more negative, less than truthful accusations flying across the airwaves.
It's a drizzly day. The lines were not horribly long at the polling place. It feels good to do one's civic duty.
It's a good day to knit. I have several WIPs to choose from.
I won a $25 gift certificate from Hampton Bay Yarns for my orange Monkey socks entry in the September Sockdown in the Sockknitters Anonymous group on Ravelry. It's very exciting. I never win anything. Maybe it's a good week to try the lottery.
Here are the socks. The yarn is Katia Caricia, a 100% merino sock weight yarn I bought in Madrid in June. It's soft and the socks are very comfortable.

Mimi

It's been a week since we had to say good-bye to Mimi. Mimi was a character, a unique cat. She developed a blood clot on her spine and could no longer walk. Mimi was the boss, or she thought she was. At less than 8 lbs. she stood up to our 88 lb. German Shepherd and won the battle of wits. Everyone knew when she was hungry, when she wanted to go outside or when she just wanted attention. I miss her.