Family Across the Country -- and Just ONE of My Amazing Brothers!

I've posted about family before, how I have six siblings in various parts of the country.  One on the east coast, one on the west, one in the south and the rest in the Midwest.  I have a brother who lives in the great state of Washington. 

He's married and although I have not met his wife because of the distance, we're getting to know a little bit about each other through Facebook.  Hopefully we'll meet in person some day.


not him... but he was this cute!

This brother was not the youngest but was always the baby of the family.  He was an adorable baby and small child.  As a teen he was a crack-up comedian and seemed to move at a frenetic pace most of the time.  He was a sweet boy, and could always be counted on for a cuddle in the early mornings before I went to high school and he went off to elementary school.



Now he's a grown man, with a gray beard and glasses, and he looks so much like my late father that sometimes I have to smile. 

I knew his exes, two of them.  I make no judgments of any of them, and who knows why people break up, or even get together for that matter?  This one is different from the others in a lot of ways, and I have to say that I think they're so right together.  She seems to appreciate the right things in him and he in her -- I was teasing her about some goofy thing on FB and I said I think they're a perfect match.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had that?   Although maybe what I mean is a perfect FIT or a perfect PAIR.  Sometimes opposites attract, and that works too.  My DH and I are probably 180 degrees apart in personality and likes and dislikes.  I'm a people person, and he's the Grinch's much crabbier brother, who thought that story was GREAT right up to the end where he gave the presents back!  LOL!  Just kidding... maybe.

Whichever kind of match or pair you are, or even if you're one sock on your own, I hope you enjoy life and get the most from everything you do.

Rock on!

Think...

Auction Follow Up -- Doll Sweaters

Who knew  those doll clothes were going to be so popular??

A couple of weeks ago I posted about some doll clothes I made, suitable for the 18" dolls, American Girls or similar, for the church's youth auction.  I made several outfits, probably about a dozen or more items.  If you were buying the items from a store or craft sale, I estimated you'd have to spend about $8-10 an outfit.

The auction on was held on a Saturday night, and that following Sunday, a lady came up to me after church and said "Well, I managed to get two of your outfits."  I was kind of confused, not really connecting the conversation and the auction and not remembering what exactly I had donated.  The confusion must have appeared on my face, because she said "The doll stuff... I was outbid by that darned Roger on the outfit with the sweater!"

Turns out that they had split the outfits into three groups, and there was one with a skirt, pants, tee shirt and sweater that generated a fierce amount of bidding! 

It looked similar to this one, but the yarn was in blues and reds with some gray and white.  It's a pretty easy pattern, it's made with self-striping shock yarn.  The only thing I'm not totally crazy about is that when you go back and forth instead of in a circle you get non-matching fronts -- you can see where the dark stripe ends up on the edge of one sleeve and in the middle of the other.

So far, the dolls are not complaining! (Nor, I gather,  are the grandmoms and grandpops!)

Self-striping, for you non-knitters, is yarn that forms a stripe because of the way it is dyed. 

They come in lots of colorways, and will make either thick or thin stripes depending upon your garment size and the length of yarn in each color.  Here are some socks knit with self striped yarn:

No, not knit by me... borrowed from Pinterest.  But aren't they gorgeous?  Sometimes if you don't start the second sock at exactly the same place as the first, you end up with two different patterns.

I'm working on using up my 'end of skein' balls of yarn and making more sweaters, some like this and some long sleeved, a few with a cable in front and fasted in the back.   I have a denim sweater being blocked on my ironing board which is shown below, along with pieces of an oatmeal colored sweater that still needs some sleeves.

One sweater takes about 2-3 hours to knit and sew together.  This is so much more fun than trying to knit an adult-sized sweater!

More later... sew on!