It's DONE!!!

K 2, p to last 2 sts, k 2....

Hi!! I'm in Chattanooga again visiting my daughter and son-in-law! :)

I've gotten a lot of knitting done while I've been here - well, actually, I got a lot of knitting done sitting in Marshal Mize Collision's waiting room for 3.5 hours. (It's a long story about cars, car wrecks, a check engine light that keeps coming on and that awful clicking noise coming from the belly of the car. Well, I'll spare you the details right now.)

Oh, before I forget ---- I GOTTA tell ya--- my shawl should be done today (assuming that I can figure out these finishing directions)!!!

FINISHING
Leave sts on needle. * Insert crochet hook through the next 3 sts and slip off needle, yo and draw through all sts on hook, chain 7; rep from * to last 3 sts, insert crochet hook through last 3 sts and slip off needle, yo and draw through all sts on hook. Fasten off. Weave in ends.

If I figure out the above directions and finish the shawl, I'll be sure to model it for you. :) Remember, it's my first shawl (actually it's my first anything other than the bookmark and washcloth I made) so I KNOW there are holes where there should not be holes and no holes where there should be holes... I'm just excited to finish it. I can't wait to cuddle up under it. :)

Speaking about finishing my shawl, my friend, Rose, would be so impressed with me. I've known Rose for about 27 years and I bet she can count on one hand the projects that I've finished in that time! (Rose always finishes her projects!!) Anyone else out there like me?? I mean I have projects dating back oh, I'd say about 27 years!! The earliest I remember is the cloth books that Rose and I were making for our babies.

Well, gotta get back to my shawl.
xoxoxo
PattyAnne

Here's what's on my needles :)

A few days ago I took the plunge! I found an "easy" triangle shawl pattern online, went to Hobby Lobby to purchase some yarn and then I cast on!! I knitted and knitted and knitted. I was such a happy little knitter until........

I frogged.

I cast on again.....and knitted and knitted and knitted and....

I frogged again.

This happened FOUR times. You probably remember when this happened to you - when you first learned to knit, right?? If it didn't happen to you, please humor me and pretend. :o)

What's the reason for all my frogging? I don't know how to rip out mistakes! Whenever I noticed a big gaping hole in my knitting or when I ended up with a cylinder-shaped shawl (I must have been holding my circular needles incorrectly), I HAD to rip it, rip it, rip it.

Well, last night I knitted my shawl into a cylinder AGAIN. Sheesh. I so felt a frogging coming on, BUT, I was able to take the row of stitches off one needle and put them back onto the other needle and then start again. OMG.. I was sooo happy. No more dang frogging for me!!!


Here is my WIP (work in progress?). I'm sure there is probably a correct acronym for this but I'm not sure what it is so until I become more knit lingo savvy I will have to call it my WIP.

Happy Froggin' free knitting!
xoxoxo
PattyAnne

Not an apron but still COOL

I found a cool pattern online for making a knitting needle roll-up. I WAS going to use my stash of Michael Miller fabric to make the craft aprons I spoke about earlier BUT, I found I had a real NEED for a needle holder. :) Now I must tell you that I don't have many knitting needles (since I am a newbie knitter) but, the ones I do have were driving me nuts (actually I was afraid that I was going to lose one!). Let's see... to give you a better idea of my knitting supplies ....I have 2 pairs of straight needles (do you call them pairs??) and two circular needles. Hey, I can hear you chuckling!! You mean you have more? What's your count??

Happy Easter!

When I was a little girl, my family and I would gather around our kitchen table to dye Easter eggs. My grandparents, who had immigrated to the US from Czechoslovakia, had brought this folk art technique with them. The art is known as pysanky. While many people used a special stylus to get beautifully crafted eggs, my grandparents and parents used a makeshift version - we put a straight pin into a pencil eraser and dipped the head of the pin into the wax. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing we just didn't have the money to buy the 'real' tools. Oh, one year my dad also made us styluses from copper that he fashioned into a funnel shaped cup which was then attached to a stick.

I was never very good at doing these eggs - I think I was too impatient. My mom, however, was the queen of pysanky in our house. :)



If you'd like to read more and see some really great how-to photos this website is GREAT!
Here is a picture of an egg I did using the real tools a few years ago. I am quite happy with it even though it's a bit 'rough'.

Busy Day......

KNITTING!! (I found this too CUTE image on KnittyChick's Website and had to share it!)

Have a grand day!

xoxox
PattyAnne

W.I.L.T.S. Apron Fabric Has Arrived!

I am sooo excited.

The fabric for my aprons has arrived.Isn't it GORGEOUS!? Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to DO with these aprons AFTER I make them but I love the fabric and am excited about getting started!

Oh, WILTS is a quote from my bloggy buddy's site. It is an acronym for What I'd Like To Start. :)

Check this out. All the fabrics are for the aprons EXCEPT the one on the very left side. That lovely, satiny PINK fabric is for a yummy soothing lavender eye pillow. Ooooohhhhhh I bet that is going to feel divine.





Happy Crafting,
xoxoxox
PattyAnne
PS. I purchased almost all of my fabric (and the pattern) from a really helpful gal named Melanie. You can check out her shop here.

Atlanta Tornadoes

Last weekend I was in Atlanta for some Precept Bible Study training. Little did any of us know when we left on Thursday that we would be huddled together in a 'safe' area of a church waiting out the storms. At one point we were told 3 tornadoes were headed toward us. After that threat passed, we went back to our classrooms only to be told to come, once again, to the 'safe' area of the church because a line of 5 tornadoes were headed directly toward us again. They were on I20 and headed straight toward us. Well, thank God that we were not hit by the tornadoes.

All in all the weekend was wonderful. The church that hosted the training was fabulous. Talk about people who have servant hearts. These folks certainly did!!

At the training, Debbie and I took classes on Biblical Prayer (Friday) and Advanced Leadership Training (Saturday). The thing that stuck both of us the most in the Biblical Prayer training class was the awareness of how we sometimes always end up with 'laundry lists' of prayer requests when what we really need to ask for in our prayers is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. One of the verses that we looked at in class was Colossians 1:9-12.

I am praying this for my children......

Until next time,
xoxoxoxo
PattyAnne
PS. Thanks colourdujour for asking about me. :)

I'm off to Atlanta

I'll be back on Saturday. Until then, happy crafting!!
xoxoxo
PattyAnne

Party Party Partay!

Hi and Welcome to my crafin' PARTY! I'm so honored that you stopped by!
Please come on in and take a look around! I've been dabbling in all sorts of crafts! Oh, if you could please give me some bloggy knitting advice I'd be forever grateful! :)

I've been blogging for a few months now and am loving it. I was not going to join the party because I thought I didn't have all that much to contribute but decided, hey, what the heck - this could be FUN!! So, here I am.

I'm a former middle school teacher who now works out of my home (yes, in my jammies) doing internet 'stuff'. I LOVE it. I have two doggie babies (still living at home!) and two grown children (one of whom is married). I have no grandchildren BUT I do have grand-dogs, a grand-cat and a grand-bird. Should be making scrapbooks featuring them? ;)



You are gonna LOVE this!! I've been working with DK to get this new blog, Pages from Paddlebrook, started. I'll tell you what, DK has got to be one of the most creative ladies I know. Check out her Pages from Paddlebrook and stay tuned to it because I guarantee you'll have a blast!!!


Here are my favorite prizes!
1. #128 - Yoga for Christians
2. #94 - Book Light
3. #72 - Web Cam

Well, until next time,
xoxoxoxo
PattyAnne

Thanks Lain!!

OHHHHHHH.... I'm so excited. Lain, over at ScrapHappy, sent me a link to some FABULOUS knitting videos!!

Here's what the videos look like. Unfortunately I couldn't grab the file but IF you click on the movie image you'll be taken to the purl page. (I was doing the English Method Purl Stitch incorrectly. Can't wait to try it the RIGHT way! :) )



OMG, I just discovered something that will be really helpful. Go here and scroll halfway down the page until you get to, "Fixing Mistakes". There are videos showing how to fix the following:

Correcting a stitch without unraveling rows

Fixing a run/dropped-stitch

How to re-insert your needle

Recognizing an accidentally twisted stitch

Inserting a needle into destination row, before unraveling

Using a "lifeline"

I'm in knitting heaven!
xoxoxo
PattyAnne

Knitting and Banana Bread

Well, I did it.....sorta!! I knitted my second "thing"! :)
I had a bit of trouble doing this but - it is done! Yippee!! Yaaahhooooo!

Ok, now for my questions...... If you notice near the bottom of this 'thing' (actually I'm calling it a washrag), you will see some rows of purl. (Right??) Well, I was supposed to do that off and on throughout the washrag but for some reason it didn't work out. I'm thinking that I forgot how to purl after those initial purl rows. Any ideas from the knitters out there? What did I do????? LOL.

In between knitting (yes, I should have been doing other things but.....) I decided to bake a loaf of banana bread. One of the personal trainers who works at Total Fitness ( a gym near me where I teach a Christian Yoga class) gave me this recipe:

Banana Bread
4 very ripe bananas
2 cups flour
1/2 cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar

Mix wet ingredients and sugar in a bowl.
Mix dry ingredients in another bowl and then mix all ingredients together.
Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 mins.

I altered the recipe a bit by adding a couple of handfuls of walnuts. (They are really healthy for you.) I also had to bake the bread about 10 minutes longer than stated above.
The bread turned out pretty darn good. It does have quite a cinnamon taste to it so if you don't like cinnamon all that well, you can decrease the amount you use.

Thanks for stopping by!
Got a good recipe for banana bread or another HEALTHY bread or food?
Please send them in and I'll add them to my blog!
xoxoxo
PattyAnne

I started my knitting lessons...

from the kids' book I spoke about yesterday.

Here I've cast on 6 stitches. So far, so good!



This next photo shows my finished bookmark. Boy it sure is crooked. I noticed halfway through the making of this that I had gained an extra stitch. How in the world did I do that??? And how in the world do I get RID of it?? :)



OK, so here's my question....should I make another bookmark or just dive right into making a dishrag??

You know, I sure wish there was someone here who could help me learn how to take out a row of stitches if when I mess up. I've tried but I've had to just rip out the whole darn thing because I don't know how to stick my knitting needle back into the yarn.

Until Next Time -- Happy Knitting!
xoxoxox
PattyAnne

PS. HELP needed from any knitters out there. Do you hold your yarn the way this lady does in this video? The book that I have says to hold the yarn in your right hand not your left.

Knitting Needles Here I Come!

My friend, Rose, taught me how to crochet a few years ago. I loved the project that I started but, as I continued crocheting, I messed up BIG TIME and since I didn't know how to fix it - I gave up. Don't know what I mean? Check this out! Isn't the beginning of this afghan loverly? Of course it is.. lol... it's PINK (or Rose-colored)!

Anyway, I was happily crocheting along making my strips for this thing. (The afghan is made from multiple strips sewn together.) The pattern is from (oh, darn, I forget but I'll look it up if you want it!). Anyway, I got rather excited about the project (I always seem to want to jump the gun!) and I began to sew a few of the strips together - you know... just to get a teeny tiny peek at what my finished product would look like. (I even draped the two strips ( an 8 inch wide afghan) over my bod to check out the cozy factor!)

Well, my troubles began when I sewed the strips together!

Since I was a new crocheter, my stitches were probably really uneven. And, Iwas NEVER exactly sure if I was counting the stitches correctly. Well, I must not have been OR I wouldn't have had this problem. Check out this photo. Ummm..... those ends are supposed to be even and guess what - the other end was WORSE!


OK, so now I'm going to try to KNIT. I've wised up though. I'm not going to go all out and try to make an afghan this time. I'm going to settle for some dish cloths!! This afternoon I went to our new Hobby Lobby and here's what I bought:


Oh, in addition to the supplies, I also bought the kids' book on how to knit seen in the photo and I found this site (The Knitting Site) online a few minutes ago. I'm gonna watch some videos for more help. :) Hey, if you know of a good video or can offer any advice PLEASE send it on!

xoxoxo
PattyAnne

Can You Say "Down Dog"?

Interesting news.......even though I am a bit overweight and OLD (yes, I'm over...ah hem.... I'm over.... 50) I have been asked to teach a yoga class at my local gym (.5 miles from my house). I am certified through YogaFit to teach yoga but haven't taught a class in several years.

I love teaching gentle yoga stretches (and sometimes NOT so gentle!) as instrumental, Christian music plays in the background. I prefer this music over other types because for me, personally, it is a matter of controlling what I put into my mind. :)

Well, anyway, I spent a few hours on Sunday making these wonderful eye pillows for the people in my class. We will use these when we do our final relaxation.

The eye pillows I make are filled with organic flax seeds and organic lavender buds. (Lavender is known for its therapeutic effects - having the ability to calm and relax the senses and it smells like heaven!)

An eye pillow can be used as is (room temperature) or you can place the pillow into the microwave for 15-20 seconds to heat the oils in the seeds and you have a heated therapy pillow. Feels wonderful!!

If you prefer, you can place the pillow into a plastic bag and then place it in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours for a cool and refreshing treat.

Well, I'm off to the gym. I usually like to do 1/2 hour walk on the treadmill while watching the intro to Regis and Kelly!
Bye for now.
xoxoxo
PattyAnne