It’s a beautiful Sunday here, and we enjoyed the outside for a few hours earlier. Now we’re just killing some time before having dinner and settling in to our Sunday movie night (and knitting for me!)

Before I run off to the Wii, I need to finish up from yesterday. As promised, I took pictures of prizes, and two winners have been picked. The only thing I don’t have is pictures of the WIP I’ve got going on. Tomorrow… but 1st, the prizes.

1st up, 2 skeins of Interlacements Tiny Toes in color 202 (so descriptive!)

It’s enough for a pair of socks, and it is very squishy!

Next up, 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces Worsted in the colorway Irving Park. (It’s red, but not quite THAT red in person.)

I decided that I would let the 3000th commenter pick between the two prizes then the person who won the “how many days did I post more than once a day” drawing would get the other item.

I went back thru the comments and found that Cathi of CatKnitsandThings was my 3000th commenter. Cathi, if you send me an email with your mailing address and your pick of the prizes, I’ll send it out this week! Congrats, and thank you for commenting!!

Next, 5 people correctly guessed that in March 2005, there were five days I posted more than once a day. I numbered those 5 comments in the order received, and then asked yelled downstairs and asked Rich to pick a number between 1 and 5. He yelled up 3, which means that LittleWit also needs to shoot me an email with her mailing address so I can send her the other prize. Congrats to you too LittleWit, and thank you for playing!

Yesterday I came home to a box by the front door. It was way bigger than what I had ordered though so I was confused. I opened it up and found the Namaste bags I had ordered from the Loopy Ewe

But I also found this

I’ve been thinking I was a Groupie for the past few months but as it turns out, because 2 orders were combined into one shipment, I wasn’t actually a Groupie until now! This was my generous and lovely official Groupie welcome from Sheri. She really is wonderful to do business with. She sent the Loopy Ewe Tote, a great sock pattern, Pink Camo sock yarn, a small calender, and of course, the infamous Loopy Kisses

That’s about it for today. I’m off to get my Wii Fit time in, and get ready for either movies, or more Buffy episodes (we haven’t decided yet).

I have a bunch of catching up to do – I have to post pictures of the two prizes I will be giving away, I have to pick winners for those prizes, and I have 2 little FOs to share (kind of a cheat to say two, I just knit two of the same thing for a swap). I also took the concept of those two items and played a little bit to come up with something for me. Sounds much more exciting than it really is, honest.

The prizes and winners are tomorrow – I promise. I will post the pics and announce the winners in one post. I hate being so behind in it, but the past 10 days have really gotten away from me. I thought I would only take a few days off from blogging, but then the few times I sat down to post, it just wasn’t happening. Last night when we sat down to watch a little TV before bed, I finally picked up the needles again, and I knew I was ready to get back on track here too.

There is a dishcloth swap group on Ravelry that I joined not too long ago, hoping to keep my dishcloth knitting up and also to see what other knitters and crocheters are up to. It was a simple soap and cloth exchange with a short easy timeline, so I jumped in. I posted about the package I received on March 6th, and now that my partner has received hers (Lynne has no blog, or I would link) I can post a pic of what I sent to her – well most of what I sent to her anyway…

What you don’t see is a small sample of some fun teas, and a few bite size chocolate bars. I added those just before mailing and they didn’t make the photo shoot

The cloths, while it’s hard to see, are just a basic waffle stitch. I reversed colors for 2 repeats for a little interest. I ended up very happy with the overall feel of Lynne’s cloths, so I started playing around with different widths and think I came up with something I like for a towel sized version. I’m about 1//3 of the way thru and once I finish my errands for today, I will be picking it up and getting closer to finishing it. I have a bunch of things I want to knit, I just still feel too distracted to focus on anything bigger than a cloth or a towel. It will come…

So, there’s Part One of the catch up. Prizes and winners (aka Part Two) tomorrow for sure…

Thank you all for the kind comments and emails. I know we made the right choice for her, and no matter how much it hurt us to let her go, it was the dignified ending such a special companion deserved. It helped to know we were in your thoughts and prayers, so again, thank you.

It’s so quiet around my house now. I realized the other day this is the 1st time in my life (literally) that I have not shared my home with at least one furry creature. That said, neither of us is ready to even consider another dog right now. (No cats yet either – we lost OJ, our orange tabby, 4 years ago and it still stings. He was with me 18 wonderful years and while I enjoy other people’s cats, I don’t think I want another of my own.) Maybe down the road, but for now, we’re going to give ourselves some time to grieve and see how it plays out. I’m not saying never, I’m saying not now.

I’ll be back tomorrow with regular posting, I just wanted to say a very heartfelt thank you.

I know I promised pictures of 2 prizes today but that’s going to have to wait a few days. I just don’t have it in me right now.

I’m very sad to report we had to put our girl Trinity to sleep this afternoon. She was a little over 8 years old, and a wonderful part of our family. While it ripped our hearts out to do it, it was the right choice for her. We always promised that when her quality of life was impacted, we would do the compassionate thing. Unfortunately, the right thing is not always the easiest…

I’ll be back in a day or so with the pics of the giveaways. Until then, go snuggle someone you love – 2 legged or 4, hairy or bald – doesn’t matter – just let them know they matter.

Pardon the awful pun. It’s been a tough day, but it was capped off well. I’m not going to say anythign more about the day, but if you just want to know about the contest stuff and skip the sewing, just scroll down some

Tonight was the 2nd sewing class of the 6 week course. We covered seaming (hence the corny title). I took some notes and everything we did made sense. I’m hoping for some time between now and next class to practice what we did and to review my notes – tonight wasn’t so much about technique – we did sew and all, but we got lots of pointers and tips and I find that re-reading (and ok sometimes rewriting too) my notes makes things stick better.

Turns out though that practice sewing and tips don’t make for great photo ops…

Here’s two anyway:

This is the 1st seam we did – thrilling, isn’t it?

Look! A ruffle! We learned about basting, and the different things (including ruffles) it can be used for. I know many of you who have been sewing for years and those of you who have no interest are rolling your eyes or nodding off to sleep, so I’ll get to the good stuff…

Today is the 4th anniversary of the day I started this blog. I am also X number of comments away from 3000. So, in honor of both, I’m doing 2 giveaways. Whoever posts that 3000th comment will get a thank you gift, AND everyone who can tell me (leave a comment on this post) how many days in that 1st month I posted multiple times in one day (What the heck was I thinking back then?) will get tossed into the hat (knitted of course) for a drawing. To be clear, you just need to tell me the total # of days I posted more than once in a day, not how many total posts.

Prizes? Yes, there will be prizes, but more on that tomorrow (I’m not working tomorrow so I plan to post in the afternoon which will let me take daylight pictures)

Obviously the 3000th comment thing only goes until I hit 3000, but the anniversary part will stay open until, eh, a week sounds good – St Patrick’s day it is!

4 things – and no, no lizard (with a nod to “Blink“)

Anyone else get their butt severely kicked by the time change this go-round? I sure did, and from what I’ve seen around the Plurkiverse, I’m not the only one. I’m hoping tonight is better, it’s almost like losing all the ground I’ve gained in the last week or so.

Tomorrow is the second of 6 sewing classes. I’m looking forward to getting into more that the introductions and guidelines we went thru last week. We’re supposed to be addressing seams, and as part of our homework, we were supposed to buy 1/2 a yard of a cotton fabric that we could tell the difference between front and back.

I got this because the little daisies made me smile

I think the back qualifies

When I was waiting to have my fabric cut, the girl in front of me was buying 3 yards of another fabric. The clerk started unwrapping the bolt, and there was a little over a yard orphaned. The pattern is outside my usual color scheme and style, but there was something about it I really liked.

Guess who’s starting a fabric stash to keep the yarn stash company?

Third thing is a thank you. Today at work I had a very sad thing happen to my keyboard. Now this may sound crazy, but I really like my work keyboard. The key touch is “just right” and it doesn’t have the delete key in a weird place and the enter key is the right size (yes, I have issues. So what?) Anyway, my friend J, who also happens to be our IT guy (he was my friend 1st – we worked together in a place otherwise known as Hell, and became friends. Luckily, we work together again) came to my rescue. He fixed my keyboard and made my afternoon much better. Thank you J It’s the little things in life…

And finally, thing four – Tomorrow is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I’m also approaching a milestone in comments, so I think I’ll tie the two things together and do a giveaway of sorts. I’m not sure yet what the prizes will be, or what the actual qualifier is, but by this time tomorrow (ok maybe a little later, I have to get home from sewing class and post it) we’ll ALL know what it will be. Just thought that if you read thru this far you deserved a little head’s up.

Carolina’s beating the Rangers, so there’s hockey to watch and knitting to do (ahhhh the road to the playoffs – I love this time of year, regardless of how badly and pathetically my team did AGAIN) – catch ya tomorrow!

I so dislike the time change, but especially the spring ahead. Don;t get me wrong, I love the extra daylight and all, but my body thinks it’s 9:30 and it’s technically 10:30. Add in a measure of my current sleeping issues, and you;ve got trouble.

Anyway, it was another gorgeous day here. We spent some time outside, took a nice long walk, did some errands, and thoroughly abused each other in Wii Tennis. I also did the Fit again tonight, and feel like I’m getting back into the routine. We capped it off with our usual Sunday evening events, catching up on Netflix movies together, while I knit away. We watched Madagascar (the 1st), Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist, Max Payne, and 2 episodes of Buffy.

I am in a dishcloth and soap swap and while I don’t want to give anything away, I will say I completed most of what I want to send out.

While I won’t say anything yet about what you see, the pouch was an awesome purchase from Splityarn a while back (I got the matching smaller version too). Go check out her stuff, you will NOT be sorry!

Ah well, off to bed with me, another busy week ahead.