1. Azalea

2. Dogwood

3. Rhododendron – I really like these plants and was reminded I’ve been to the Rhododendron Park in Bremen Germany

4. Peony

5. 12 inch – Azalea

6.

7.

8.

9. maple

10.

11.

12. maple

13.

14. evergreen

15.

16.

17.

18.

19. 3ft. bush

20. 3ft. bush

21. 3ft. bush

The early part of the decade wasn’t my best years, but the last half definitely saw a lot of wonderful changes.
2003 – The year that the sock bug hit me and I really started to knit a lot.
2004 – More socks, and a few poorly shaped sweaters
2005 -The Newington SnB was formed and I met some of the greatest people ever. Also the year that my stash grew out of control.
2006 – The year of us – We got married.
2007 – The year of us+1 – My first daughter was born
2008 – The year of us+2 – My second daughter was born
2009 – The year of me – I joined WeightWatchers and lost 20 pounds. I also had elective surgery that has already had a huge positive effect on my long term health and mental well being.

So what will 2010 bring? Hopefully a lot more knitting now that the girls are older and don’t want need to be held all the time. We’ve moved into a new house so the stash is coming out of storage.

Here are some other recaps from the last decade:

Durham Fair Recap –
2004 – One lonely sock was entered and won a blue 1st place ribbon –
2005 – Three 1st and One 3rd – my sock got a ‘Special’
2006 – Two Specials, Four 1st , One 2nd, Two 3rd, and One honorable mention.
2007 – skipped
2008 – skipped
2009 – Five 1st place ribbons and four 2nd place ribbons

Total Items Knit in my lifetime –
49 Pairs of Socks
15 Sweaters
3 Baby Items
3 Hats
3 Pillows
2 Stuffed Animals
4 Bags/backpacks
10 Scarves
2 Shawls/Wraps
14 Sweater Ornaments
42 Coasters
20 Peggy Squares
5 Completely Frogged Items
15 UFOs (I’m only counting things that got to at least the half-way mark)

I got derailed by 2 bad knitting projects – The first was my sheldon turtle where I just cant get the crochet part right and the second was a pair of socks where I hated the color, and the pooling is all wrong so I had to rip and reknit 4 times. Then, just when I finally got it to pool the right way on the heel I got to an unexcusable knot and the manufacturer has reversed the colorway. So… I threw out the sock, needles and all. Time to re-boot.

I started on another color work item – the Sipalu Bag. I didn’t realize how small this bag actually is… The kit says it can make 3-4 bags!

I was making good progress until a friend at work loaned me the book Twilight. I’m almost finished andit was well worth it. I did see the movie first which from what I’ve heard is the better order.

So – pictures in a few days. I also need to pick out something simple to knit on the bus next week.

Sad to say that I made zero progress on the knitting and cleaning projects I wanted to get finished during my time off.

The deck project did get finshed and we’ve had a few nice days to play out there.

This time I’m going to be knitting, light home repairs, listening to audio books, reading up on photography techniques, and some sewing.

So far I’ve made a lot of progress on some Christmas presents, started Sheldon the turtle for Regan and made progress on my stow away shopping bag.

The highlight for this week was knocking out one of the last 3 major renovations on the house and having the kitchen floor transformed from crappy vinyl to ceramic tile:

Next week the deck for the back yard begins. Hubby and I are excited about that one since it will give the girls a place to play outside without them being able to run to the pool before we can catch them.

I posted a bunch of pictures on Ravelry, but I forgot to do them here as well. It’s tough now to keep things in both places.

So, I’ll start off with widget… this started out to be a sock yarn scrap blanket made from the pattern by Shelly Kang. I realized that I had enough leftovers to repeat colors and make a pattern but now I’m at a loss for what to do with this thing…. any ideas?

My Clapotis is finished, and also a pair of Ladder of Life Socks. I had to make the socks a short row heel since I only had one ball of the cascade 220 superwash.

Then there’s my second Baby Surprise sweater for Paula’s little one (Welcome to the world little J!!). This is more of the Farmhouse Yarns silk blend – knitted on US8s to make it more of a spring sweater.

A pair of socks for hubby’s birthday (Pattons Kroy), and a jump start of some Christmas presents (Knitpicks Telemark)

Currently on the needles is a StowAway Shopping Bag and pair of Blueberry Waffles socks, but there might be a big problem here. I gave the first finished sock to Rachel to play with and now I can’t find it anywhere. Last night I woke up with the thought that she may have tossed it in the trash

Yarn: Farmhouse Yarns Silk Blend – Goldenrod – 5 Hanks

Date: August 2008 – Knit for Ravelympics 2008 in the wipswrestling category.

For the most part I’m happy with the way this turned out. For starters it fits. 2008 has been a better year in sizing for me. I did knit the majority of the body in the round which I reccomend. In hindsight I would have made the sleeves shorter by at least 2 inches and added that yarn to the body length – the sleeves will need to be rolled up on hubby.

One thing I’m annoyed about is that when I soaked the yarn before blocking a lot of the dye came out in the bath and you can see the the skein for the very bottom of the sweater dried to a different shade than the other 4 skeins. It’s good that it’s the bottom of the body and not the middle of the body so we’ll just live with it.