For Poetry Monday:

"Buttercup Days"
A. A. Milne

Where is Anne?
Head above the buttercups,
Walking by the stream,
Down among the buttercups.
Where is Anne?
Walking with her man,
Lost in a dream,
Lost among the buttercups.

What has she got in that little brown head?
Wonderful thoughts which can never be said.
What has she got in that firm little fist of hers?
Somebody's thumb, and it feels like Christopher's.

Where is Anne?
Close to her man.
Brown head, Gold head,
In and out of the buttercups.

For my Woman on the Edge of Time project (for Knit the Classics) I decided to make a womb. I went WAAAAYYY back into my stash to find this pink acrylic yarn. Seriously. It was in the very bottom on the very bottom box in my closet. I had forgotten I had it.
I think a womb is a great gift for Connie, the main character in the book. Hers was removed during an unapproved by her hysterectomy. It's also a great reminder to the people of the future in the book. This is where they all really owe their creation, even if they don't do it that way anymore.
I thought a bottle of Veuve Clicquot would be a nice treat for the womb- as long as there are no babies in there!

On the olympic side of things - I'm meeting up with Team North Carolina this afternoon!!! I look forward to seeing the projects!

The Hogwarts Hat is complete! Gold Medal, here I come!

It's great to have it finished. I was so worried about it for so long. I'm glad the Knitting Olympics made me finally tackle the project. It came out not exactly as I pictured, but it looks good. I think I felted it just a little too long. It fits and all, but I wanted it to look a little wonky. Hogwarts is a bit wonky, and I wanted the hat to reflect that. If I roll the brim down it looks pretty cool as a cloche hat.

Now that it's done, I feel that it wasn't as bad and hard as I was making it out to be. It was a challenge, and I went a little nuts with all of my math to figure the pattern, but now I would say that it is a fairly easy project. Something that Knitty would describe as "tangy."

If anyone is interested I could post the pattern I made up. Just let me know.

I'm ready for the next movie and book releases with my Ravenclaw scarf and my Hogwarts House Unity Hat!!! All I need now is my own Weasley. (Although, if I did my own initial, "A", it might be a little too much like "The Scarlet Letter.")

Down with Voldemort!!!

By the way, I feel that Snape is innocent. He's playing a part in a plan.

Book Seven!!! Where are you!!! I'm waiting!!!

Here's the almost finished Hogwarts hat. Since the last post I ripped and redid the stripes two more times. I'm happy with how they finally turned out. Now - for the felting. I'm a bit nervous about the felting. It better shrink enough, but not too much.

Okay, so I know it's not Monday. I was on the road yesterday and was not able to post this. Here's my contribution to Poetry Monday, one day late. This month's theme is Love/Affection. (By the way, anybody know how to not have the big spaces in between the lines?)

"I Had No Time to Hate"

I had no time to hate, because

The grave would hinder me,

And life was not so ample I

Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since

Some industry must be,

The little toil of love, I thought,

Was large enough for me.

Emily Dickinson

Here is my Hogwarts Hat so far. I keep telling myself: It will be felted. It will be felted. It will be felted.

It seems so huge and unshaped. It starts to get me down. I am using new yarns with each house color grouping so I'll have quite a few ends to weave in at the end. Since I'm felting, though, I won't have to weave in all that obsessively like I usually do.

There are about 16 to 19 rows left of the stripe. I haven't decided yet whether I will make it 21 or 24 rows tall.

I hope it felts out the way I imagine it!

My camera is back and I am feeling better. I have been meaning to show a pic of all the postcard I received from the swap. PLEASE click on the picture to look closer at them. They are all great!

They are from (going down columns from left to right):

My Little Mochi (organizer of the swap)

La Fee Coriandre

My Vintage Days

Wee Cottage Studio

Beautiful Things

Wataame

Tender Arts

Wishthimble

Pookieville (I had sent her one, and she sent me one of hers in return! How nice!)

Frivolousness

Lil Fish

Whew! Go by and check out their other works. It is a creative bunch!

Sorry there have been no good posts. The Boy was sick, then I was sick. He got better and now I am getting better. I have much to show and tell. I hope to do it soon.

Hubby took the camera to his work on Friday and did not bring it back so I have no pictures to show. Since I was goignto felt my swatch for the Hogwarts hat, I decided I could knit up a quick little something else to felt. Kim had mentioned using the Lopi yarn (that I used for Vinter Lue) for a felted project. I still have some left, so I knit up a square and felted that also. It is now a great little hot mat, trivet, pot holder - whatever word you use to describe it. I may knit up a few more to felt when I felt the hat. They don't take long.
I haven't done any knitting yet on the Hogwarts hat. I am up to my ears in nu,ber crunching. I tend to overdo my pre-figuring when I make up my own sewing patterns. It seems that I am this way with the knitting also. I hope to cast on tonight, but i think that I will end up needing to rip and redo. I want the top of the hat to be a flat circle, so most of my figuring energy is going to that right now. I've got my stripes worked out. Since I will be felting the hat I won't need to worry about ends too much. I plan to knit it in the round and just start a new yarn each time around.

"Woman on the Edge of Time" came in last week and I have been reading that like crazy. I am about halfway through and am really enjoying it.

Anyone in NC that is interested should join up with Team NC.

I finally broke down and joined up with the Knitting Olympics. I've had a Hogwarts inspired hat in my mind for a few months now. I bought the yarn for it back at the beginning of December, but I keep chickening out when it comes down to making it. I want it to be felted, which means that I have to swatch, measure gauge, felt, measure gauge again, then figure up all the measurements for making it. I have a picture in my head of what I want. It is just a matter of getting it to come out like that.
I was inspired by Ruth's Hogwarts School Gloves that she made last year. I loved the idea of all houses being represented. House Unity and all. I mean, that is going to be what it takes to rid us of Voldemort. So anyway, I first thought of a grey vest with each of the house colors in one long stipe around it. But then I thought - I don't really wear vests much, and most importantly, I would have to place each house in a certain place on the sweater, possibly giving one more weight than others, and if the whole deal is house unity I didn't want that. I moved on to the idea of a hat and settled with one big fat stripe going all the way around, divided into quadrants, and each house having it's own quadrant. Then I could wear the hat any way I wanted, with the house I was most in tune with at the time taking a more frontal position.
(Okay, I know it sounds like I have thought this over way too long and am taking it a bit too seriously. I have and I am.)
Oh, and I'm knitting for Team Wales.(I've been having trouble getting the button to load up here on blogger)
I can answer positively for many of their qualifications AND I have a Welsh pronunciation guide.

I have just joined up with Knit the Classics. I was so excited to find this group. I have been searching in vain for a group in my area that wanted to read classics, but to no avail. My book for this month is on order and should get here by the end of the week. I'll have a little bit of catching up to do, but it shouldn't take me too long.
And they knit.
You can't get much better than that.

After the stashalong, I want to buy some sock yarn.

Here's the Vinter Lue. I finished it last night. It does fit me, but I thought my boy made a better picture in it than I do! It will need some blocking - the earflaps seem so much larger than they should be.

I decided what to do between now and the start of the knitting olympics. A year or so ago I bought two skeins of yarn with Vinter Lue in mind and have never made it. I think it will be a relatively short project. I hope to have it completed before the olympics begin, but we'll see.
I bought the yarn online and it is VERY itchy, so I think that I will line the hat with something. Ah-Ha!! Another chance to dip into my fabric stash and reduce its size as well!
I think I should do this stashalong thing more often. Then I would have so much room for MORE YARN and FABRIC!!!

Yesterday I decided to try Evelyn A. Clark's "Itty Bitty Bears" pattern from the summer 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. It took 1 1/2 - 2 hours to make, but was not very easy. There were many ends left to deal with and when you are working with something so small - I put the Hot Wheels car in the picture for perspective - taking care of ends is hard to do. It only used a few yards of yarn so it isn't the greatest for using up stash. Unless you plan on making many of them. But I just don't think that it is worth the time.

Anyhoo, I still haven't figured out what I will begin next. Too much stash, too many projects, too little decision making ability.