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Wednesday, November 30

November Wind-Up

Man oh man am I beginning to REALLY hate the holiday season! Other than the week I had to take off post-fire, I haven't taken *any* time off from work, and I'm on five days. At least it will all calm down come January, 'cept for inventory week. Dunno if I'm gonna survive until then though!

I feel like I've been knitting and crocheting like crazy, but I have next to nothing in FOs. I've gotten some dishcloths done, but most of the month has been spent working on longer stuff. I have a hat for Alex in progress, surprise Christmas socks going {I hope Derek doesn't decide to read my blog!}, and a thread book cover design. I did up a sleeve {took 4 tries! *lol*} for my Skacel yarn ad sweater, but that project won't be full-time until after the holidays. I've spent the last week working on an USSP {Ultra Secret Special Project}, but I think the recipient of that may read my blog occasionally, so I can't post about that until after she gets it. Same thing goes for a RAK for my best friend. Hopefully that will be in the mail early next week, so I can post that after she gets it.

I have some pics of stuff on my camera waiting to be uploaded, but until the kids find the safe place they put my camera cord in, I'm stuck with no images! I will be posting pics of Derek's sock that I frogged today... I didn't like the way the striping was going on it, but loved the new ribbing trick I learned. I have also added to my review blog finally, and will try *really* hard to get that up-to-date ASAP.

Off to finish up using the frogged yarn on Alex's sock...

Monday, November 14

Time to get back to business!

Well I guess I've taken enough of a break from my online activities lately. We're still in the process of renovating, but it's taken a *very* back seat lately after the mad rush to get the main part of it all done. I'm still knitting up a school of fish, as that's still the only project I've dug out of Alex and Lissa's room to work on. I heard a rumour that my favourite LYS is going out of business, so I will have to run down there on Friday to see if she still has the camo sock yarn I NEED for all the socks for the family for Christmas. This weekend is also staff appreciation at work, so I see LOTS of shopping getting done... hope we have the money to cover it! With luck I'll have about 90% of the Christmas shopping done this weekend... just lots of knitting, crocheting and buying for Derek left afterwards!

On an upbeat note, I'm designing again! I finally got my hands on a copy of "The Teeth of the Tiger" by Tom Clancy. I was holding out to get a hard cover version of it, but alas, I can't afford regular book store prices for it, and we don't carry much in the way of hard covers at work. I decided I wanted to make a book cover for it since it's so precious to me, and picked up some DMC Traditions thread in violet. I'm working on the cover quite a bit even though the stitch pattern I'm using is slow going. I promised myself that I wasn't going to crack open the book until the cover is done for it! One way of forcing myself to complete a design! *LOL*

Update on the baby afghan: I've found a new pattern to do thanks to my best friend, Lyz. I haven't chosen colour{s} yet, so I'll post all the details when I do. I had decided not to make another round ripple for Daryl, as I feel that that blanket was not meant to be. {I'm a big believer in fate and such.} I was so close to being finished it, and it was ruined in the fire... that wouldn't have happened if that blanket had been meant to be.

Oh well... its the start of my weekend, and I have computer and house housekeeping to do before I get to do too much in the way of fun stuff like knit fish, crochet PITA stitches in my book cover, and write the reviews on the books I have sitting here on my desk!

Tuesday, November 1

Happy November!

Well I finally feel up to posting and such again. Our house still isn't in complete order, but it's getting there. The big drive of momentum that Derek and I started off with began dwindling down after about 5 days straight of cleaning, tearing apart, repairing, and painting. The living room and dining room look really nice now... better than before IMO, and once the bedroom doors have gotten another coat of paint on them, and the one piece of of trim is replaced beside the couch, it will be basically all done. There still are a lot of things we'd like to do in here, but I think Derek wants to get the stairway painted and the upstairs hallway redone first. It's basically just finishing touches I think. I've also been thinking about how we want to redo our bedroom, as well as the kitchen and Alex/ Lissa's bedroom.

I haven't really been doing too much work on my projects. Most of them are stashed away in Alex/ Lissa's bedroom, as that's where we had cleaned out first to make room for all the things we needed to get out of the way fast. I have been looking at afghan patterns a bit, and I think I've found one to replace the round ripple. I *will* make another one of those -- I liked the pattern -- but it wasn't meant to be the pattern I used for Colton's blanket. I have, however, been "fishing" away like crazy. I've been working on the fish, and got nearly 20 done in the last week. I didn't pick up a hook or needle until Sunday after the fire, so I'd say I did about 2-3 a day. I finished off the first ball of the pink/ purple vari, and have bought a second ball. I'm waiting for the RH shipments at work so that I can get at least 2 more of the vari, and one more of the fuschia. So far no luck in the last week or so. I have been going outside at my breaks at work, or else I would have gotten at least 5 more done probably. We starting going outside to smoke again a few days ago, so that should improve my fish stash, or work on my socks once those are found again.