Emptyknitster

It's our wonderful Sadie Lou Who's birthday today!!! Sitting pretty! Showing off the new chompers.... On the go... Happy first birthday! "It's a long way to Montana, but we sure have fun when we get there!" First day of kindergarten... "I'm missing some teeth!" (thanks Tiger!) Gramma's sweet girl... Have a wonderful day. I can't wait to see the pictures of your birthday!

I've been working on an Irish knit sweater for the "California Girl's" Christmas gift. I love knitting all those cables! One thing that I often do when knitting a sweater is to knit the two fronts or two sleeves at the same time. That way each piece is exactly the same as the other!  Notice the white feather on the ceramic cat....it's from our wild albino turkey! Yep, she made it through the winter! This sweater is from Paton's Aran Knits for the Family . When my nephew Joe was little I made several sweaters for him from this booklet. I also made a few Aran knit buntings that the babies looked lovely in! If anyone knows of a good book of Aran patterns, please leave a comment. I have five more Aran Christmas sweaters to do! I may try designing some Aran Sweaters to keep from getting bored!  The California Girl  The Mandy look a like The Prince 

One Hubby who loves me, who I love and want to grow old with. Two son-in-laws that are generous with their holiday time so that I can have outstanding memories to carry me through the entire year! Three well adjusted and loving daughters who like to spend time with me and vice versa. Four beautiful and active grandchildren who keep me laughing even when it's just thinking about them. Many Irish ancestors who came to America and gave me the Luck o' the Irish !

I made Hubby’s favorite cookie, Banana Oatmeal, last weekend. My mom always thought his favorite cookies were the Almond Crescent Cookies she made for him each Christmas. For years I thought that hubby loved Chocolate Chip Cookies the best. It wasn't until recently, when I gave him a choice between The Tiger's favorite banana bread or these cookies, that I found out Banana Oatmeal are his top choice. These cookies are fairly healthy because they contain oatmeal and bananas. At our house we love to eat cookie dough, always have and probably always will, but these always taste better warm from the oven! Years ago I got the recipe from a coworker at the Savings and Loan in Billings. She was a great lady who had raised several children on her own with a very tight budget. No food was left uneaten, even those brown bananas! Enjoy! Banana Oatmeal Cookies 3/4 cup Crisco 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1 cup bananas 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 1/2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon nutme...

I knit two fast projects today for a friend's baby. The first is a bunny hat and the other is called a "cocoon". If this little baby boy is anything like D#3 when she was a newborn, it will be in constant use. As a brand new baby D#3 would think she was "free falling" unless she swaddled as tight as could be!  (Edit 4-3-10...baby's here and a much better model than the old doll!) The baby won't arrive for another week or two so I thought I'd put it on a doll that was my mother's when she was young. Yarn: Stashed Red Heart Patterns: Bunny Beanie by Noe Knit                Laurel Love Cocoon The baby doll doesn't show off the cocoon well... but she does show off the dress that my mother-in -law made as a baptismal dress for my husband. I don't know if they used it or if it was a dream dress for the girl they never had... Hubby is the third son in the family. Had he been a girl he would have been named Carol...

Recently I have come across two fun, fellow knitting bloggers.  Life on Laffer is a fellow teacher, knitter, blogger, pet lover. Go to her site today, leave a comment and enter to win two beautiful skeins of yarn. (Also, take a look at some older posts. She is holding a fundraiser for a quantity of yarn to help the local animal shelter - a good cause.) Another blog that I found is Yarn on the House   this site gives away free yarn on a weekly basis! Check it out!!

I'd been feeling lost since the finishing of the UFO sweater. Treading water for a week, wanting to start on the half dozen annual Christmas Sweaters that I knit each year but not having the yarn. To keep myself busy, I found a vintage baby hat pattern and did a little needle experimentation, my original thought was that it would be a small gift to a friend. It is a lovely pattern but the fingering yarn called for should have been lace yarn. So the "small" gift turned into a rather large hat and not a gift at all, only a great experiment in Amish knitting. Then, I received a phone call from Julia, friend and owner of the LYS. Julia told me that my order of Encore yarn had arrived. After school I went to our Friday night knitting group, also picking up the yarn. Then off for a lovely dinner and shopping with Daughter Number Three before picking up Daughter Number Two at the airport.  The next morning I pulled out the yarn and showed D#2 the sweater pattern that I wanted ...