Alone at Last

I finally got a weekend to myself last weekend. The boys were off doing boy things and I got 24 uninterupted hours to do girlie things. I stayed up late watching TV that I wouldn't subject my kids and husband to and cross stitched. I got my Country Cottage Needleworks March Cottage done and I got some work done on my Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Once Upon a Time Sampler.



I was able to get some stitching done because I finished my Camp Loopy Project #2! And I love it! The pattern really was easy but interesting. It turned out wonderful with the yarn Sweet Georgia Tough Love in the Mist colorway. It's a little tighter than it should be. Probably because I have been gaining weight lately. Something I really am going to work on after vacation next week. Anyway I did not put buttons on it, perhaps I will later. Right now I have been closing it at the top with a small broach that was my great grandmothers. I finished it about a week ago and I've already worn it twice. I am probably going to make another one in a baby size soon. Either as a Christmas or a baby shower gift.

I have also started ANOTHER sockhead hat. This one will probably be a Christmas gift too and I am doing it for Fibernymph's Head to Toe KAL. July is head so this was an obvious choice. The Fam and I are about to leave for vacation soon and this is something I can work on anywhere, even in the car. I do get car sick and headaches if I look down in a moving car. Which means reading, knitting, navigating, even looking back to deal with the kid is out. But I can knit on this with out looking at it! I just hope that I can find WiFi while we are gone so that I can post it in the thread!



I have been lusting after planners this week also. I don't have any new yarn this week. I think this is why I've spent so much time on www.erincondren.com/ and YouTube posts with how people use them. To hold me over until I can afford one I made a trip to Michael's and picked up some colorful markers, stickers, washi tape, etc. I've redecorated my journal to make it more fun and I've started Bullet Journaling. I think this method will meld well with the Erin Condren Planner and I can also used it now in just my lined paper journal. Like I said before I am planning to start working out again when we get back from vacation. I was doing really well and had lost 10 pounds in November. I was almost down to my high school weight, the smallest I'd been since that time also. But I started having galbladder attacks and found out I had gallstones and kidney stones. I had my gallbladder out the week before Thanksgiving and started a new medication for the kidney stones. I lost another 10 pounds during the recovery period, but I am pretty sure that I have gained it all back, maybe more. Since then my life, house, family have become completly chaotic and I have to get everything back together before school starts again. I am hoping that my journal/planner will help and encourage me to do better. I am going to use it to track my workouts, cleaning schedules, bills (also been a problem lately, chaotic life=chaotic spending). I am excited right now, even if it's only in my plain jane journal.

 As for reading, I did finish Between Love & Honor. Ehhhh...it was ok.

I have started 2 new books. I started The Quick first but got the itch for some Outlander so I've switched to The Fiery Cross.

Living at Camping

We spent the weekend camping again. My kids are asking to go constantly and my 4 year old asked my husband if we could live at camping. They have been having a great summer, which is awesome because I only remember being utterly bored during the summer. And couldn't wait for school to start. We spend this weekend at Navarro Mills Lake which is only an hour away from home. It's got a great sandy swimming beach which made us all excited about our trip to South Padre in a couple weeks! Check out my legs in all their bit up glory. The hospital band looking thing is a bug bracelet. I guess it worked a little because I only got 1 bite this weekend!

The boys have one more trip this coming weekend. But the probably aren't going to be camping. They are going to my husband's parents at Lake Whitney for fishing with the cousins. I am sitting this one out and may end up with the house to myself! I got my last Camp Loopy package for Project #3. To the left was an extra that just fell into my cart. It's another Inversable Set by Fibernymph Dyeworks. It will probably end up as some more Stitch Surfers. I love brown and turquoise. They were my wedding colors. 

Now the yarn for Project #3 is Tosh Vintage in the Tart colorway. The prompt for Project #3 is to do an 800 yd project in your favorite color. I love all colors really, as long as they are intense. I'm not so much for pastels. But one of my favorites is a deep red. This yarn is beautiful! I am being a bit ambicious and planning on making a Rocky Coast Cardigan. This has been high in my queue for a really long time but I have never bought yarn specifically for it. I hope I haven't bit off more than I can chew!

Last an update on Project #2, I flew through the skirt of the cardigan since it was mostly stockinette. I added a i-cord binding to the bottom thinking that it wouldn't roll as much. I've almost finished one sleeve. I'll to an i-cord bind off here too. So just the other sleeve to go! I was afraid I would have to finish this on vacation but it looks like I'm going to be able to wear it! It's going to be a nice swimsuit cover up.

I did finish Wolf Hall last week. I'm not sure that I loved it. I usually really like historical fiction, but maybe I've read enough about to Tudors now. I was getting a little bored, knowing already what was going to happen. I'm not sure that I am going to read the second book, Bringing Up the Bodies.



Then I read Loki's Daughter. This was a nice quick romance that also had some historical leanings but was in a completely different time and place, which I really needed.

Continuing on the different settings, now I'm reading Love and Honor. Also historical fiction. It started out slow but I'm about half way through now and I'm enjoying it. I've always been intrigued about Russian history.

Mosquitoes

I hope everybody had a great weekend. I sure did. We spent the holiday weekend at Lake Palestine near Tyler, TX. I barely knitted a stitch. I did a bit of cross stitching and reading though. We all had a really great time swimming and fishing. I was savagely attacked by mosquitoes though. No one else was bothered but I got, no kidding, 30 bites one night, even covered in bug spray. The next couple days were pretty miserable.

Like I said before, I didn't do much knitting this weekend. I'd come to a sticky spot in my Camp Loopy project and I haven't felt like thinking about it, so I've been procrastinating. I finally joined the 2 bodice pieces today and I should have done this days ago. Not counting overnight to block the pieces, it only took me about an hour to join and then pick up the "skirt" of the cardigan.

So instead of knitting, I've been cross stitching. I did a little work on my Once Upon a Time Sampler but mostly I did the Summer Sparkler Party that you can see at the top of my post. Both are by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I've already given it away! It was really hard, but I can always make myself another one!

I've also been working a little on my March Cottage, by Country Cottage Needleworks. I've been collecting the patterns for the other months where I can find them. The July one is really cute! I am a sucker for monthly themed stuff. But I have to finish March first. I love the little sheep and the shamrocks!

Last, I've signed up for some snail mail pen pals and such through the Ravelry group For the Love of Letters. They have monthly mail and post card swaps and you can get paired up with people to be pen pals! These are the first cards that I am sending out for the July Special Delivery swap. I'm excited about this! I feel a lot better writing to other knitters than just picking pen pals up from the other places that I've looked at.

For my reading I am still reading Wolf Hall but I should finish it today. Next may be Loki's Daughter or The Quick?

Cross Stitching in the Dark

 

Hope you guys have a great holiday weekend if your in the states. My boredom from last week lead to an attempt to catch up on my Once Upon a Time Sampler. I am woefully behind, I'm done with March now and a few bits of the later months. I was stitching in bed on Sunday afternoon and it was getting too dark in the bedroom. We had a lot of cloudy and stormy days last week. Instead of moving to a sunny window in the living room my laziness won out and I had to improvise. My hubby's headlamp worked great!

I was able to finish Dylan's Sockhead hat this week also. He was not a willing model! But he likes it. The yarn is nice and soft now that it's been washed. It was a little scratchy while I was working on it. I wasn't sure how this self striping would do in this pattern but it made nice little 2 row stripes. I've been calling it his ghetto smurf hat. He wore it the day I finished it. I don't know how since it was HOT!

My youngest son it a bit of a character. He's 2 and a half and we call him the baby dictator. He lets you know exactly what he wants and is very opinionated. He had a bit of a run in with my yarn stash this week and couldn't get himself out. He was not pleased that I grabbed my phone and took a picture before helping him out. As you can tell by the "you can die now" look he was giving me.

Promptly on July 1st I started my second Camp Loopy project. I have been surprised how fast it's going so far. I'm almost done with the lace bodice. As of today I need about a repeat and a half of the 20 row pattern. I'm not sure how I feel about the yarn yet. It's very pretty, a subtly variegated purple. But there have probably been 6 joins and I'm not half way through the first ball. They seem to be well done but I'm nervous and I don't understand why it would be this way.

Now for my recent acquisitions. I got my last shipment in the most recent Vesper Sock Yarn Club. I am not doing the next round, but will for sure sign up again once I have knitted up some of my current stash of self striping. I have loved to colorways. June's is called Hummingbird and it is almost iridescent. It's lovely! I loved both of the other colorways from this quarter too and I can't wait to knit them. They will definitely be socks!

  And in honor of the holiday weekend, here is a recent purchase again from Gnome Acres. I am really addicted to her yarn! I got an Independence Day Doppelgänger Sock Set which I am going to split up and use as solids to make stitch surfers with my ever growing collection of red, white, and blue self striping. I also got a skein of Captain America on Sparkle Gnome.

Now for my reading! I did finish:

All were ok books, I gave them 3 stars. Today I started:

I am also re-reading Gone With the Wind in conjunction with a 6 month yarn club through Cannon Hand Dyes. We are doing a read along too and reading one part of the book per month. I started part 1 on July 1st and finished it on July 2nd. I am going to try to go along with the schedule but I love this book so much, it's gonna be hard.