Friends, partners, and neighbors...

You never know what to expect when you walk into your knitting class and meet a student for the first time. Will they be friendly? Will they have patience? Will we get along? So far, I have been very lucky to have many wonderful students over the past 4 years. In Florida I had a group of regular students that came to class every Friday without fail. They were a such a wonderful and diverse group of women, and I'm proud to call them my friends today. It broke my heart to leave them, when I moved to Tennessee. My classes have been very sporadic since moving here, and I have yet to recreate the camaraderie I had with my Floridian group. Maybe that will never happen again, they say you can never go home, but I still continue to meet some great people in my classes. One of my more recent students is an incredibly interesting woman who always has the best stories to tell. When we first met she told me about how she taught herself to crochet when she was just 8 years old by watching her aunt. Armed with a steel hook and variegated thread, she would make chains long enough to wrap around the house several times. Once she tired of chains she watched her aunt enough to learn how to single crochet, double crochet, and triple crochet. Now this is the part of her story that really tickled me. She didn't know the names of these stitches, so she just made them up on her own. She called the single crochets friends, the double crochets partners, and the triple crochets neighbors. She could make just about anything you can think of just from looking at it, and she said she showered her family and friends with doilies. I swear, the ingenuity of children absolutely amazes me. I always say that children do not know the meaning of the word can't, and they could probably fly if only we didn't tell them that they couldn't.

Rona Lace Shawl

I had 3 sweaters on needles, and my fingers started itching for something a little lighter and more challenging. I have wanted to knit a shawl for quite some time, so I checked the stash. I decided to knit the Rona Lace Shawl from KnitPicks.com. I chose Alpaca Cloud in Iris Heather which is 100% Baby Alpaca. Let me just tell ya, I love me some Baby Alpaca! If you have not knit with it, you are missing out. Go get some! Hurry! Now this shawl is knit in the round, so getting a good detailed picture while it's all bunched up is a little difficult, but here's Rona 44 rows later.

Here is Rona posing with a gorgeous bag that Michelle made for me. It matches and everything! The bag is the perfect size for this project. It's not so big that the shawl and yarn tumbles around inside of it, and it's not so small that I have to squish it inside. Thank you Michelle!! I love it!



Something I should mention is that so far I have found an error on line 43 of the pattern. It reads *yo, k2tog, yo, (KB,p1) 6 times, KB, yo, SKP, yo, K2P. It should read *yo, k2tog, yo, (KB,p1) 6 times, KB, yo, SKP, yo, SK2P. I'll let you know if I find anything else.

Virginia Tech Tragedy

Words fail me. All I can do is pray.

Welcome!!

Welcome to my new blog. Feel free to take off your shoes and stay a while. You'll find a few changes have been made (for the better), but for the most part it remains the same. All the links, free patterns, and tutorials are floatin' around. I am working on the whole entry notification issue. I have a couple of options I am exploring. In the meantime, I'll just post to the old blog whenver I post here. If you click the button below you can update your bloglines subscription to the new blog.

I think moving my blog was more work than any physical move I have ever made. I had to move every single entry. One. At. A. Time. This took for-ev-er. I think it was all worth it though. I also knew that I would risk losing readers and bloglines subscribers by making this move, but my quality of blog life is so much better with blogger. You'll notice one great feature (that will make navigating my blog so much easier) is the labels. I love the labels! I went label crazy. It greatly appeals to my OCD :)

Please let me know what you think about my new place, positive or negative. I really hope you end up liking it as much as I do.


Just for fun here is my break up note from the old blog...




Dear John,

I am leaving you. I know we have been together for more than 3 years, and you were my very first blog experience.  I know that when I typed my first words to the internets it was through you.  I am also very aware of the fact that I have met so many wonderful people because of you, and yes you did introduce me to my new boss.  For all these things I am grateful, but I am still leaving. To be honest, I have been wooed by another blog host. One that understands my needs so much more than you seem to.  How many times did I ask for my pictures to show up on bloglines?  Could you do that for me? Nooooooo.  Well, my new blog host shows my full entry with pictures. It also lets me change the fonts and colors with a click of a button. The imageshack toolbar drag and drop feature actually works.  I can label my posts, and the page element feature has made managing my side bar so much easier.   And you know how you insist on that banner up there? My new bloghost doesn't do that. I know you'll probably bring up the fact that it doesn't have entry notifications like you do, but that is something I'm willing to have to live with.  I hope that we can remain friends because I do love you. I'm just not in love with you.

All My Best,
Stacie

PS: You'll find that I have taken all the links and tutorials with me. I think I got everything, but if you happen to find anything could you please send it to my new address...
http://faerycrafty.blogspot.com/

From Us To You

PC Trouble

I haven't been posting lately because I have been having a really hard time with my computer. Almost anything I do locks it up. It won't even let me upload my pictures to Imageshack.com. I have lots to show you because I've been doing lots of knitting. Plus I got some new books I'd like to show you and some other fun non craft related pictures that I'm sure you will enjoy. This problem should be remedied within a week, and I hope to get this blog up and running again. I just hope I don't forget what the heck I was planning on blogging about!! Another thing I'm having trouble with is answering your comments or leaving comments. My computer has decided it hates haloscan. This thing is older than dirt (if you remember our other two broke simultaneously and we are stuck with a dinosaur) and locks up if you do more than one thing or if you blink when clicking on a link, or breath. Cross your fingers for a quick end to this madness, and if you walk past my window and hear screaming. Duck!! You don't know if a certain laptop may be flying out the window.