Happy New Year!!

I know, better late than never!! What a whirlwind!! I hope each one of you had a blessed holiday season with family, friends, and celebrating the birth of Christ!! I decided since I have been so bad at posting, I would give you some eye candy!! I realized that I haven't put all my recent projects on this blog. I have had more computer issues this fall, which makes it difficult to post pictures, but I will try to catch you up. As for upcoming events, I am excited to be starting two new things in the coming weeks, I am taking a Beth Moore study on Esther!! Should be an excellent study, as it always is with Beth!! Then in February, I will begin teaching Ephesians in Precepts, which if you don't know is a Kay Arthur study. The Precept study is a lot more work than the Beth Moore study, not only because I am teaching, but it is just very detailed and goes back to the original Greek and Hebrew!! I love it, eventhough it requires many early mornings of study time. I learn so much!! I will keep you all updated, and if you've never done either study, I would challenge you to try one or the other or hey....BOTH!!! :)
We had a delightful Christmas season, with family, and friends. Alex and Anna returned from their honeymoon in Maui, and are doing great in their new apartment. She has it decorated so cute!!
Alex is officially off deployment!!! And received a special commendation while in Iraq. We, of course, are very proud of him and are grateful to the USMC for recognizing some of his unique abilities!! This is one of the Christmas presents this year, its a felted tote for my Mom. She wanted something to carry her Bible in, and it fits perfectly!! I used the Falling Leaves Pattern from Classic Elite, and the yarn was Cascade 220!! Love both. The pattern is real easy, and by pulling the new color yarn underneath the stitch, it creates that real straight line!! Very cool!! I also did a scarf for mom.
I used an Alpaca in ivory. The yarn is on my Ravelry notebook, sorry, I can't remember what is was now, but it was very soft and nice to work with. I haven't done a lot of lace work, but this was a fairly quick knit!! I also made a quick crocheted hat for my neice. She looks so cute in hats!! Made a different one for my nephew too, but not sure that picture is loaded. If it is, I'll post it. I am going to leave you with several pictures from the past month. As always thanks for visiting. I do visit your blogs, but have been real behind in lots of things due to all these computer issues. Happy 2010! Hope to hear from you!!
Suzanne

This is a cowl that I finally finished, started it over a year ago!! I love the color and the pattern is linked on my Ravelry page.

Wedding

Well, the big day finally arrived on November 28.2009. Everything went very well, and everyone looked beautiful. We were blessed with a 50 degree and sunny day, which in Michigan in late November, rarely happens. The kids are off to Hawaii for their honeymoon. I think I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!!

Slacker!!

Actually, I'm not. We have been very busy with Alex's being home, and the upcoming wedding. And then even though I have no picture, I wasn't knitting at all when he came home. A few days before his arrival, I was wrestling with my 13 year old (who is acutally taller than Alex) and I ended up with a badly sprained ring finger, on my right hand. I had it in a brace for 3 weeks. I really did try to knit with it on, and I realized that I do use that finger more than I thought. So, no knitting. Argh!! That was tough! Did get a lot of reading done though!! :) Having Alex home is such a joy, he is so happy and giddy. Just glad to be home I guess!! :) After my finger healed, I had a few dishrags to finish for Anna. Her first shower, (given by my SIL Maribeth and Melia) was Sat. October 17th.
I was a beautiful sunny day ( one of the very few we've had). I knitted her 12 dishcloths. One for every month. For example, Jan - snowflake, Feb - pink hearts, March - green shamrock, etc. I think you get the idea. I wrapped them, actually rolled them into toilet paper tubes, and then wrapped them like candy, and put numbers on them, so she would open them in order, and put them into a cute little box.
It turned out quite cute, and she loved them.

I wish I would have taken pictures of each one, but I ran out of time. I do have them all written down though. We have been busily doing all sorts of little final details for the wedding in 5 weeks. Picking up extra hours at work hasn't helped with the knitting. Then, Christmas is right around the corner. We'll see! I did finish Lydia's shrug.
She won't actually wear it down the aisle, but I tried it on her before I put the sleeves in, and it fit her great. The pattern was from Knitting Pure and Simple, and is a size 4. All I need to do is block it and get a pink button for the top. I made the sleeves 3/4 as it called for only little cap sleeves.
That won't work for Michigan in November!! I sure hope our weather changes. Seriously, no sun, and lots and lots of rain. If we get as much snow as we have rain this fall, we will be buried this winter. I hope all of you have been good. I appreciate so much the sweet comments from my faithful readers. I see some of you are as behind as I am. As always, thanks for visiting, and come back soon. Hopefully with all that is going on around hear, I will try to do better at updating everything!!!
Suzanne

He's HOME!!!!

I cannot even begin to put into words what this past week and weekend have been like. We knew last week that Alex would probably be leaving the sandbox, but of course, didn't know exactly when. Late last week at 2:00 in the morning, we got a call from him that he was in America!! Then on Thursday morning, he called with the time he would be home. We headed to the base late Friday night, Our Marines rolled in around 2:00a.m.!! Those last few moments were the hardest. We were in a gym, and they closed all the doors, had us facing one door and the sargeant said that he was leaving through these doors,
and that the next people to walk through would be our Marines. I am sure in a normal state of mind, that those next few moments were just that, but it seemed like an eternity!!
Once the door opened, the crowd just went wild. Of course, they all look a like, and you are frantically searching for your boy!! Anna found him!!!! She ran so fast, all I saw was a blonde blurr,
and she almost knocked him over!!!! To say we were happy is such an understatement!!

We are so thankful to our great God for his constant protection and His faithfulness!! Here are a few more pictures of the happy reunion!!
The next day, we through an Open House for him. We had a lot of faithful friends and relatives attend. It was a good day. We were only going on less than 4 hours of sleep, so by late afternoon we were all dragging. Poor Alex still doesn't know what time zone he's in. Sunday was church, and they had Alex say a few words, and then prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for his safe return.
Our church is filled with faithful prayer warriors!! You too, have been faithful, I know many of you have prayed for Alex, and asked about him on more than one occassion, and for that I am very grateful to each of you!! Thanks for visiting! God is Good!!!
Suzanne

Oh so Much!!!

Where do I start? First, just got back from a weeks vacation!! Had fun tubbing (well at least the kids did)
, and boating, etc.

All the fun water things. I floated and read!! :) Also did some knitting...got my first toe up socks done
, also got my first sock done for a test knit that I am doing on Ravelry. The pattern is called Soybean Socks. Very fun and this pattern I do believe is up now, and you really should get it!! Christabel did a wonderful job, and this is a delightful pattern, and goes really quickly. It was fun to be a test knitter!!

My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary on August 11th. We got away for a couple days. We went to Door County, Wisconsin.
Very quaint small towns. Just a very relaxing couple of days. I really should be doing laundry, but alas, it isn't going anywhere.
We are trying not to rush summer,(especially since it just got here...weather wise), but Alex will be home so soon!!! Hopefully I will share that in pictures!! For now, just trying to enjoy these last lazy days of summer!! Thanks for visiting!!
Suzanne

How Many ways can you knit a Sock???

Well, I have done it 3 ways, and I know there are more!! I finished these green socks not long after the 4th holiday, just haven't had time to post them.
They were my first sock using Magic Loop!! They were done cuff down, which is how I have always done socks. Now....ta.da!!! My first toe-up sock using Magic Loop!! I also used a new cast on with this, it is Judy Becker's Magic Cast on as demonstrated on You Tube by Cat Bordhi. She is a riot, if you've never watched her...her story while doing the demo is a bit annoying, but it really is funny and you do remember.
This shot is where I am, almost done with the gusset, (easier going toe up by the way)!!!
These socks actually might be a tad to big, but since they are my first toe up, I am just going with the process, I will either try to shrink them, or find someone who has a bigger foot than I do, which perhaps will be my daughter...hmmm...maybe a Christmas present in the making!!! I am truely amazed however, how quickly these go compared to dpn's...amazing!!! :)
Oh I am going to be a test knitter!!! Never done that before!! Found a pair of socks on ravelry, and they were beautiful. Christabel can be found on ravelry, or at her site, cseneque.wordpress.com. She is from Perth, Australia, and she is going to let me test knit these beautiful socks!! She has done them in a pretty varigated color, I may try them with a solid, we'll see. I'll keep you informed as to my progress!! :) I'm so excited!!! Other than that, our summer.......wait.....oh ya...Michigan isn't having summer this year, we are the land that summer forgot!! No lie, this is the coldest July on record...it was 52 here the other evening, and has been rainy...shall I go on!!
Talked to Alex the other day, and he got official word of when he'll be home, I can't really post that, but do know that it's sooner than my ticker!! We are so excited!! So is he!!!
Guess that's it, as usual, thanks for visiting!!
Suzanne

Socks and Magic Loop

Okay, I have posted a few socks that I have made here, each one so far done with dpn, which I do like......However, I just decided to teach myself how to do socks with Magic Loop! Oh WoW!!! I can't believe how much faster it goes.
Now mind you, I only did one at a time......but after I do this a couple times, I think I will try to teach myself two at a time.
I really want to teach myself toe up first. Its the cast on I seem to have trouble with, but the internet is so helpful for this!! All you need to do is google something and You Tube probably has it. Some are better teachers than others, but if you watch a couple different ones, you pick up different things, or the camera angle was closer, etc. Here is a picture of my first sock, the second one is just started on the needles. I pretty much did this one over the holiday weekend, but I didn't sit and knit constantly. Would never have gotten the dpn done this fast. I am just amazed. Maybe someday I can keep up with friends, like Leah from the knitting giraffe. She does amazing socks, and has them done so quickly!! :) I got so excited, that my LYS was having their sidewalk days....still are come to think about it.......hmmm....that I went and bought two more skeins,
at half price to do some more socks. Do I have sock yarn in my stash you ask? Why yes,
but doesn't a knitter always need to get more.........me thinks so!!! :)I hope you all had a relaxing 4th....we had a wonderful time at my SIL house. Nice and relaxing. Please continue to pray for Alex...he will be coming home soon, but as the time draws near, he is almost more homesick........it was hard for him to have us all together and him not be there over the 4th. I know many of you are praying, and I sincerely know that that is what will get him through this, and from a mothers heart, I thank you most sincerely!!
Suzanne