A Fun Freecycle Find (very heavy with pictures)

A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on my local Freecycle site that a lady was offering a large box of sewing patterns so, being the crafty nut that I am I jump on the change to see what was in the box. Well I have to say that there were many that I will never make, some that are just pure funny to look at and some that are classic treasures that I am proud to have. So.... this posting is very heavy with the pictures to please if you have dial up I'm sorry but this will take forever. So on with the showing of my treasure.


I can now make a vest or several differnt ties for my hubby but the only problem with that is he'll never wear it. People actually made ties???!! Oh yeah, this was made in 1970!



This pattern is for little girls pajamas or nightgown from 1964. I just think there cute as ever.




This one just make me laugh and think of Richard Simmons..... That's all I'm going to say. Take a look.




Little boys jumpers from 1965




Can you say "Hammer time!" 'nuf said!




I'm assuming since I was born in 1973 That I would have worn something along this line as a one year old. Pattern from 1972 and I want a ruffle butt because they are so cute. Ok, maybe not now but when I was little they would have been.




I remember my older sisters wearing tops like these. I do believe my oldest sister wore the ruffled collared one for here senior pictures! Pattern is from 1978




Suit Jackets from 1971 Just makes me laugh just because.




A Miss pajama pattern (oops they called them nightgowns back then) from 1972. Take a look at the blue on.... That style of top is back. I've seen many tops in the store and some knit pattern on Ravelry as well.




Girls pajamas. Pattern copyrighted in 1948!




OMG this next one just makes me bust a gut laughing. Take a look it's from 1975. Who does the one in the solid brown suit remind you of??




Ok, this one will be used lots.





Little girls pattern from 1972. I could see my girls in these with some modifications.





Not sure on the date of this pattern but late 50's into the 60's?? Very functional apron in that time.



No Date on this one but it was only $0.60. They call this a Beach dress.





I really like this skirt and may just make one. Pattern is from 1962.





Here's a classic jacket and skirt style. I can do without the plaid though. From 1976





Bloomers anyone!?? From 1971







Anyone deal with this interesting garment?? Pattern from 1971, I probably wore something like this as well as a baby.






I did this picture as big as I could because I just wanted to show you the style from 1975. Check out those shoes!! Do they remind you of some????





Here is a Cape and Skirt pattern from 1967



And FINALLY a pattern from 1986 God help me if I ever wore anything like this.




Ok, so that's just a small sampling and I know your probably thinking that small is not the word for it but here is a picture of the box and all of the patterns.







I think I have tortured you all for today. Till next time...............

Ruffles & Ridges shawl and Design 11 sweater

Since I has Friday night off of work I decided that it was time to get a few projects finished so that I can move on to some of the others that I still am working on and possible cast on a new project. So I worked like mad to get the Ruffles & Ridges shawl finished first because it was the easiest to do. I use Wollmeise 80/20 in spice market and only used 1 skein plus maybe 10-20 yards of the second skein I had. I went down to a size 7 US needle instead of the 9 that the pattern called for because I just didn't want this huge shawl and I love the way it turned out. It's just right to keep my arms warm and it is small enough to wear as a scarf in the winter as well. So here is some pictures of my oldest daughter Autumn modeling it for me. Oh, and I'm going to appologize now for the crappy pictures because I had to use my camera on my phone for my digital just doesn't want to upload after I installed snow leopard on my computer. I'll just have to figure it out some time when the kids aren't home.








Now I also finished Autumn's Design 11 sweater out of the Noro Flowers book. The yarn I used was handspun on my Ashford Traveler, The fiber was from Spunky Eclectic Coripaca in colorway Thunderstorm. I actually spun this about 9 months ago and just could not find a project that suited the yarn for it until I saw this book and thought it would be perfect for this yarn. I didn't have enough yarn to make myself a sweater so that's why my very lucky and spoiled 9 year old daughter was the lucky one to get my first handspun yarn for a sweater.

Here are some pictures.

Wow! It's been a really long time since I had blogged last. It was mostly due to a crazy summer with the kids home and lots of gardening and canning. But, since they are back at school I have actually had more time to knit and I finally got all the pieces to my Noro Flowers Design 11 finished last night and blocked them out this morning so I won't have such a hard time seaming them together. Here they are.......







I still have the front edge to do but I wanted to give the peices a little more form before doing that. Originally this was supposed to be for my daughter but well...... It's going to fit me instead. So, I guess I'll have to let her pick out another pattern that is more her sizing and then off I will go on that one.

The yarn was spun by me and I purchased the roving from Spunky Eclectic. It was some of the last Coripaca that she had available. Colorway is Thunderstorm.

Hopefully I will piece it together tomorrow and have the edging done by Thursday. Well that's my goal anyway but things always seem to change and not go my way such as all the pain that I have been having in my neck, shoulders, hands and wrists. I am blaming it on the 2 car accidents that I was in when I was 10 and 14. I was told last year that I have some significant narrowing and beginning arthritis in my neck and back which does not help the fact that I have several large knots in my trapezius muscles as well and they have been giving me some major fits lately so that's causing most of my pain. Well at least now I can officially say my children are a pain in my neck!!!

Ok so since I canned all this food I had to find a place to put it all..... I thought where in the heck will it fit that is a fairly cool room in the winter (we heat with wood and the house can get darn right hot sometimes) so I found a space in my office/junk room that would work perfectly. I purchased a 48" wide shelving unit and then had to clean out the room. Well at least I can find the floor now but I still have tons of paperwork to go through. The self is also about 6 1/2' or taller. So here is a picture of all the goodies.....



Ok I'll start on the very bottom self... That's all the Bread and butter pickles. Next shelf up is all spicy dill pickles which are my family's favorite. Next shelf up on the left side is all the salsa and the pickles on the right are Kosher dills. The Next shelf up has the following from right to left......... Gooseberry jam, pickles beans in the following flavors.. dill, sweet and tangy, spicy and mustard,pickled beets are next and then the sweet pickle relish.

That was a lot of work and I am pleased to see that I still have the very top shelf to put some stuff on for storage but you can't see that in the picture. Well that's enough for today and hopefully I will be more of a regular blogger now.

A little bit of yard work and some gardening!

It's that time of the year when I go through the yard with my hubby and tell him all the stuff I want done. This year it's cutting down two dead pine trees. Here is a picture of the second one that we just pushed over because it didn't want to go in the right direction not to mention that being the stubborn tree that it was tried to eat the chain saw as well.




But that is not all that I have been working on. I decided that this year I was going to can, pickle and store whatever vegetables that I can because food is just way to damn expensive and I am a cheep ass that would rather work for a lot of food than go buy a little bit of food.

So, here are some pictures of two gardens all on our .6 acre property.



The picture above is one of the two gardens so far. Here I have planted 34 tomatoe plants. 8 Big boys and 4 cherry tomato plants for us to eat. 24 Roma and la roma tomato for canning and making salsa, 8 rows of green and yellow wax beans, 2 rows of beets, a 3sq ft section of dill, and 4 rows of lettuce. This section is about 1100 sq ft.




The picture above is another section of garden that is about 500sq ft and has 4 rows of onions, 4 rows of various peppers from habinero's to sweet bells, 4 broccoli plants and some lettuce.



The above pic is of the section of our property that is going to have my cuccumbers that hopefully by the end of today will be tilled and planted. We'll have to see if the weather continues to cooperate with us.

I also have long neck yellow squash, zucchini and sweet potatoes that will have to go somewhere as well but that will have to wait just a little bit because the tree has to get all cut up and then inbetween the tree stumps will be where these go. But I still have my mom's garden to plant and I may take some of these out to here place to plant. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do.

Well, that's what I have been doing since Monday morning and I have to say that my hands are killing me and I just want a magic wand to magically make it all happen and to kill all the potential weeds that may think they have to grow in my garden.


No off to do some laundry.

Socks, socks and more about socks

Well, It's been a long time since my last post but I just had to take time out today and post because there are lots of things that are going on in the sock knitting world for me that I need to share so here we go.

First, There is sock madness 3. I finished round two and here is my finished pair of socks



The round 3 pattern just came out yesteday and well it's a cable patten so I have to say there is no way that I will finish that in time to go on to round 4. (There are many reasons for this that I will get to in a bit.... Keep reading)

second, I have failed, yes, failed at the 52 pair plunge challenge on Ravelry. I got very distracted with with the June 08 flooding and all the clean up, then there was the canning of all the salsa and apples that fall, then the Christas knitting started and well then the first of the year I decided to spin like a crazy maniac. So all of the sudden it's the middle-end of April and I have only done 11 pair. Even if I only knit baby socks I will not make it.

Third and the most exciting............



Wendy Johnson's new sock book calles Socks from the Toe up arrived in my mailbox this last Thursday and I love every single pattern in the book and want to knit them all. So what do I do? I go to Ravelry and see if there is a group started for the book.... I'm looking and looking and looookkkkinng and I don't see one. So, thus I the crazy knitter that I am started the group Socks from the toe up KAL



I have been busy a heck sending out letters for donations and or sponsors for the KAL. It starts on June 1st and will go for 23 months (because there are 23 patterns in the book). So far there are 8 full sponsors and several other indy companies donating prizes. Thank you to all of you for the donaiton.

So go check it out because I have to get back to organizing all the prizes

Rainbow and mail call







This picture is the result of lots of rain, wind and gloom on Monday and this was the end result on Tuesday when it finally decided to be nice. It was the most pretty thing I have seen so far this Spring. Yes, it is Spring and this weekend we are going to get another snow storm. I guess that Queen Spring forgot to tell King Winter that he was FIRED. Well this is what we get for living in Iowa.


Ok That's the Rainbow so now to the Mail Call.


I placed an order with Carol at the Sheep Shed Studio in WY because she got this huge 600 pound bale of fiber from the Brown Sheep Company and then sells the fiber to all us crazed spinners in the world. I have heard many great things about this Big Bale sale before and I just had to see what all the hype was about so I place an order for 10 pounds of Big Bale Sale roving and 1 pound of nylon because I had heard that there was some superwash in there and then I could get out my Louet junior carder and make up some sock batts to spin for sock yarn. So it finally arived yesterday by my very pregnant mail lady and I went out to get it from her and she said,"what the heck do you have in these boxes, this is the 3rd one this month?" I explained that I spin and knit and she just didn't get it. Oh well, Soooooo you'r probably wanting to see what the heck was in the package. Ok, I suppose I'll so you but first I had to organize it by putting all the like colored rovings together.






Pictures.......... Are you ready?????














Are you Sure your ready???????


















OK, OK, I'll stop messing with you all here they are....














Sorry for the picture being upside down but well that's what I get for trying to take pictures with Trinity at my heels. This is the 1 pound of nylon and the little blue bag is the thank you roving and it is a beautiful blue superwash.


This is just a small pile of scraps that just don't fit into the other piles of roving so they will go into the scrap bag for later.



this is blue and red superwash pin drafted roving that is a tangled mess and will be carded into batts and I'll add some nylon to it and spin some sock yarn. It will take alot of work but it is very doable.




The rest of the pictures are excellent super soft wool roving that I have yet to test to see if it is superwash wool or not. there were two piles the one in the chair and the very last picture that had at least 2 pounds or more of roving. I think I will have to spin this and make myself a couple of sweaters for next winter. The others are smaller piles but most are 4 oz or more of fiber and it is all wonderfully soft. I look forward to getting to getting a chance to spin it up but first I have to finish my swap fiber that's on the wheel now and then I am going to spin some lace singles for a Knit a long that I'm going to do on the Spunky Eclectic Ravelry group and there is also Sock madness that will get me all distracted when round two starts.

SOCK MADNESS 3 round 1 socks and MAIL CALL

Sock Madness 3 started on March 19th with round 1. I received my pattern at an unknown time in the morning but it waited till I got around to it at 8:30a.m. I was able to get both the cuff and legs done before I had to go to work on Friday and then did not touch them again until Sunday on the car ride to my SIL house for a birthday party. I finally managed to get them finished today. I personally would not have picked this particular pattern for myself but It is a well written pattern and had a very unique heel that I have never done before. I'm sure that I will attempt this tye of heel again someday on a sock that will be long enough to fit my foot so your probably wanting to see a picture of these socks Huh, well here they are cramed on my huge feet.




I decided to go with green in honor of St. Patricks day. I know wait for round 2 to begin which is sometime after the 2nd of April since everyone has a two week time frame to finish round 1.

OK, Time for MAIL CALL


I received lots in the mail on Friday right before I left for work and boy was it hard to leave it all behind. so let's see what I got.

first I received the Spring 2009 Spin Off Magazine and there is some really great articals in this one that I have yet to read.

Second is the Not Your Mothers slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. I had heard about this cookbook on a Ravelry group and I just had to see what everyone was raving about. I have to admit...... I have not been able to make it through the breakfast section because I tend to read cookbooks like others read novels and all the recipes are looking and sounding like they will be very tasty.

third is my knit picks order. I got 2 pairs of size 1,2 and 3 needles in the 16" cable length for knitting socks. It never fails that I always want to start another pair of socks because I'm getting bored with the current one and don't have another set of needles. With these I know can make many differnt socks all the time. Can you tell I love to knit socks!!

(sorry for the sideway's pic)




OK, I saved the best for last. I also received my swap package from the Sheep Shed Studio's Ravelry groups swap. I am loving this package and can't wait to get some spools empty so that I can start spinning this up. So here is what I got

1. black/white roving dyed by Wendy
2. Angora goat fiber (super duper soft)
3. a bath bomb
4. 1 silver and gold thread
5. a tiny crochett hook that I personally use when knitting and adding beads
6. 3 oz glass beads
7. bag assorted spangles
8. peacock hot fix glitZ
9. Dove chocolate
10. a little baggie with tea
11. and last but not least a item that my children went crazy over......... a autographed poster by the Designers of the Phineas and Ferb cartoon that my kids love
to watch.

So here are the pictures of the package.
















Thank you so much Wendy I loved every bit of it.