I have been busy.

I haven't been blogging, but I promise you, I have been very busy.
The dreaded kitchen cabinets still have me in their hold! At this rate, I will be lucky to finish them sometime this summer!

I finished up the year with my hand-painted socks. I was on a roll. I was determined to refine my sock-knitting skills. The first pair, I knitted the traditional way on 4 double point needles. This time I wanted to try knitting them on a circular needle.

I was lucky enough to score a free box of yarn. Most of it was leftovers from other projects, but I did find some purple yarn that caught me eye. It was only a lace weight, so I had to double it up to get to a sock weight.

Last time the socks came out too big, so I made them smaller.

My purple socks from mystery yarn

The yarn was not so good, but atleast they look like socks! The circular needle was a little tricky at first, but I got used to it.

Keith saw me knitting all these socks, and said "Where are my socks?"

Well, I was hoping to refine my skills a little more before giving anyone a present, but what the heck.

I set out to knit him some socks. The green wool is a very nice, super-washed merino.

I found out that knitting socks for men takes a lot longer than knitting socks for me.

Thank goodness they turned out ok. Of course I still didn't know if they would fit. They seemed very big to me.

They were a St. Valentine's Day surprise.

He says he likes them! Yay!

We need lots of warm socks this winter! It's cold here!

2014 Finishes

Better late than never!

I didn't have that many finishes in 2014.

There was the hat and scarf set I made for Keith:

The Birdkeeper:

Celtic Heart:

The Knox Family Sampler -The Scarlet Letter. (This one took a really long time to finish).

Autumn Harvest

Down Jinglepot Road:

Socks for me:

Long Overdue Update

The Fall and the holidays came and went in a flash!

I really was getting some things done, but I have also been working on re-doing my kitchen. I have taken on the difficult task of painting my old oak cabinets. Normally I do not believe in painting woodwork like oak, but these were from the 80's, and had seen better days.
I decided to paint them white. What a job! I am still not even half way through!

I finished Autumn Harvest.

Autumn Harvest - Chessie & Me, 32ct linen, Weeks and GAST threads

I love Chessie & Me designs. They always have a little cat in them.

Next, I worked on my 2014 Christmas Ornament. This year's was Down Jinglepot Road from the 2014 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Issue.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to finish it into an ornament, but here is the stitched piece.

Down Jinglepot Road

This photo didn't come out that well, but it depicts an old red truck going down a bumpy dirt road with a Christmas tree in the back. When Keith and I were first married we had an old red truck. We went everywhere in it! When we cut our Christmas trees, it is always in a place like this.

On top of everything else, the rooster on it reminds me of our dear departed Walter!

To finish out the year, I finally finished the socks that I bought in a kit from Maine Woods Fiber. I have had this for a while. The yarn is hand-painted merino wool.

I actually made 3 socks. They came out way too big for me. I re-knitted the larger one. Truth be told, the other one also needs to be re-done, but I just don't feel like doing it. After finishing one sock, you really don't feel like doing the second one, let alone doing a fourth one! You can see that one is bigger than the other.

Socks are hard!