Almost There!

The Cabled Hobo Bag is almost finished. I completed knitting it on Monday night. Now it has to have fabric attached and be sewn together, two things I'm not sure how to do. Luckily, my mother has a good friend that is a very crafty person (She once took a dress apart, made a pattern, put the dress back together and was able to return it to the store. She then made her own dress from the pattern. Now that is crafty!) So I've enlisted her help along with my mother's and the three of us are going to get this bag together. I'm hoping that I will have it for Easter Sunday, so I can show it off.

So my mom's friend felt that I should put the bag together and then put the liner fabric in. So I learned how to do a slip stitch with the crochet hook to attach the strap to the bag. It took some getting use to, but I got the hang of it. I had to rip out the stiches on the last side I was attaching twice because the bag wasn't lining up, but I finally got it right. So tomorrow I'm going to find fabric that will line the bag and hopefully we can get it in. According to my mom's friend, "It's a piece of cake!"

In other news, now that I finished knitting the bag I for a brief time returned to my unfinished poncho, but have again put that aside and am back to my patch afghan. But tomorrow is another day and my mom and I are planning to go to a yarn store, so I have a feeling I'll be working on a new project. I'm trying to find a sock pattern to make, being that I've never made socks I want something fairly easy, but not boring. I got a pattern from my mom's friend from a book that was purchased for 10¢ and published in 1952. It's a very plain sock, but should be good since it's my first time knitting socks. Maybe someday I'll be able to make the Norwegian Stockings that I found on "See Eunny Knit", she's amazing...have you seen the stuff she's made!

New Project

I started the Cabled Hobo Bag Friday night. It took me about a half hour or so to pick the yarn (A.C. Moore did not have the kind I wanted. I was looking for Patons Shetland Chunky Tweed, but they didn't have it) I ended up with Red Heart Soft Yarn - Off White.

This picture is from Saturday morning. About 16 rows later I had to rip out the whole thing. I misread the directions and had screwed up the middle cable. I tried to fix it by ripping out up to the messed up cable and picking up the stitches there. My problem was that I wasn't sure what row to start on and was unable to get going again. In the end I ripped out everything and cast on again. Because of family coming to visit, I only got through the 8 rows and then had to stop. So today I'll try to at least catch up to where I was before, making sure that I double and triple check the directions!

It's Done!

I finished the Irish Hiking Scarf. I don't plan on going hiking anytime soon, so I guess I'll just have to wear it to work. It came out beautifully and I'm very happy with it.

So tomorrow it's off to A.C. Moore to get more yarn, so I can start the Cabled Hobo Bag. I'm thinking a tanish/brownish color. My husband of course thinks I'm crazy and that I should finish my other projects first. He just doesn't understand.

Of course this weekend I should devote to doing homework for my classes, but I know I'll be spending the majority of my time knitting my new project and neglecting the homework and housework that needs to be done. But who would want to get all that stuff done when you can make a new bag instead!

Back Home

Well, we made it back from our fabulous cruise through the Caribbean. We went to Cozumel, Mexico, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Labadee Haiti (Royal Caribbean's private beach). We were on the largest passenger cruise liner The Freedom of the Seas from Royal Caribbean. It's a tremendous ship and had so much for us to do. My husband enjoyed the Flow Rider, where he could surf and boogie board on the ship. Some family members were lost for a while, but after they were found we had a great time. The only problem with going away during February break is all of the kids. I didn't feel like I got away from work except that now I couldn't discipline the kids that were misbehaving. Oh well.

I did get to read all three of my books. I enjoyed all of them. Marley and Me did make me cry like a baby on the plane ride home. I came home to all the controversy surrounding the Newbery Award winning book The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. Our library did order the book as soon as we heard it had won the award. We received it this past Thursday. The librarian was reading it this weekend. I unfortunately did not have a chance to read the book, as I left my library for 3 weeks to do an internship at the high school level. I've been reading a lot of the articles related to the discussion of this book. An interesting article came out today in Newsday from the author of the book.

I still have a bit to go on the Irish Hiking Scarf before I'll be done. I spent about and hour on Friday untangling my yarn. I hate when I have knots in my yarn! The exciting news is that I found a gift card to A.C. Moore that has a good chunk of money left on it...so I can get more YARN!!!! I'm going to look for something that will be appropriate for the cabled hobo bag, and the blanket will again be put on the back-burner.

Snow Day!

Well Valentine's Day in New York was an icy mess. With a two-hour delay in the morning we thought it would get better, it got worse. We had ice, sleet and snow all balled into one. So of course I did not get to Barnes and Noble. Today in a complete surprise my school district called a snow day. Whoo-hoo!!! Or so I thought. I've spent the day getting caught up on homework that I will not be doing on my cruise and hanging out with the dog (she's been sleeping most of the day).

So tonight my husband and I will be going to the store. I have made some choices in my book selection. Of course they had to be beach reads because that's where I'll be spending most of my time. A few women in my school are reading Something Borrowed and Something Blue by Emily Giffin. I'm also thinking of picking up Marley and Me by John Grogan.

So now that I've almost finished my homework, I can spend the rest of the afternoon knitting!!!! Started the last ball of yarn on the Irish Hiking Scarf. As soon as that is done I have to decide if I go back to my blanket (which I should) or if I start a new project. I found this Cabled Hobo Bag that I want to make. So I'll have to decide...but off to the scarf before any decisions have to be made.

First Cables

Who knew cables could be so much fun? My first thought when I saw someone cabling was, "There's a third needle? I just figured out how to use two!" But now that I've tried it I'm really enjoying it. I found this simple pattern on the Internet and decided this should be my first attempt at cables. Of course this project has put another project (a blanket) on hold for a little while. And that was after I put a poncho on hold. I love starting a project, but finishing it takes a while. My next question is how to make it so it could be a reversible scarf. As of now the one side has the cables and the other side is just the back. If anyone has suggestions I'm more than happy to listen.