God Works in Mysterious Ways...

...Who ever said that was so right.

I'm the Editor of our church, Saint Joseph's, Youth Newsletter; 'Carpenter's Tools'.

Just the other day I was complaining about it; How I've never seen anyone read it, or even pick it up. How it's more trouble than it's worth, and I should let someone else deal with the deadline headaches. How I hate having to worry about it every month, and no one ever sends me anything for it, so that I'm stuck writing the whole thing. How I'm always forgetting to e-mail people until the last minute, and NO, I WON'T have meetings for it, because I HATE meetings, and no one comes to the meetings, and the ones who do don't have any ideas, or suggestions, or anything useful to say.

That was on Sunday.

On Monday, I remembered to get paper for my newsletter, but I wasn't looking forward to working on it at all.

Then I went to the Youth Ministry Meeting.

Wouldn't you know it; two different people asked me when Carpenter's Tools was going to be out, and said that they always read it, and asked me how it was coming.

I was so surprised, I think I just stared at them, wide-eyed, for a few seconds before my brain caught up enough to answer.

When I got home and checked my e-mail, there, lo and behold, were e-mails with things to put in the newsletter.

I do believe that was a sign for me to shut up, quite complaining, and put more effort into my poor, sad little newsletter.

God works in mysterious ways indeed.

As Eugenides, from Megan Whalen Turner's 'The Queen of Attolia' says,
' "Moira came. She brought me a message from the gods.... Stop whining,' Eugenides said.
"What?" Eddis's expression shifted from wary to puzzled.
"That was the message. For me, alone among mortals, the gods send their messanger to tell me to stop whining. That'll teach me to go hide in a temple." '

Peace. Out.
~Katie

Of Spinning Wheel Doctors, Dragons, and Kittens

Well, I added new name skill to my repituar yesterday.... Spinning Wheel Doctor.

Yesterday afternoon I went to visit a friend who had been given a spinning wheel.
A neighbor had found it in their basement and thought she might have a use for it, although it did not appear to be in working condition.
So after assessing the situation Katie and I were able to find out the problems.
The single tredle peddle had come unattached, as well as the mother-of-all, and both the actual wheel and bobbins had swollen over to as to be very tight on their dowls preventing it from turning.

Luckily after some playing with some super-glue we were able to get the mother-of-all and peddle back on, but those were the easy problems. We ending up having to take the wheel off completely, and lubricating it in oil until we were able to get it to spin fairly easily, and even though the wheel has come with 3 bobbins, we were only able to get one to work properly without drilling new holes in the bobbins.

Thank goodness for some-assembily-required spinning wheels! ( Me and my Dad assembled my Ashford: Travler spinning wheel a few years ago. )

I also finished my shrug yesterday. I thought I had finished it before then though.
I had just sewed up the side seams and was ready to try it on when I realised that the back was going to curl and pucker somthing awful. So I had to unsew part of the seams, knit on some extra ribbing along the back, and crochet around the edges to prevent unnessecary curling there.

On a happier note however, I have started knitting a dragon scarf.
A little while ago while surfing on Knitty.com I saw an advertisment for a knitting dragon scarf, but, upon clickin' on the link, I realised that the website that was selling it only sold the pattern in a kit form.
Not wanted to buy the whole kit I surfed the web to see if I could find a free on-line variation, but, alas, there was none to be found.

So I decided that I would just have to make it up my self. This is what I have come up with so far, but I still need to finished the tail, attach the nostrils and eyes, and the spikes along the back. Promises to be interesting.

I was browsing my pictures from my digital camera when I found this picture of Rummy. I totally forgot I had taken this! He is just the cuttest kitten!



Speaking of cute kittens, guess where I found my cat Cassey the other day? Sitting on the wood pile in the living room, pretty as you please. Only a cat can make a stack of wood a throne.

This is my second time writing this post, seeing as the first time I wrote it my on-line clicked off and lost the post... Darn you dial-up internet!

~Amanda

Blanket Squares, Broccoli Soup, and Rum

I have found the perfect project.

It is small enough to carry around, simple enough to knit while watching TV, colorful enough to make me happy, interesting enough to keep my attention, fun enough that I will not get tired of it, and, best of all, it will use up all those funky little half-balls of fashion yarn and endlessly boring acrylic yarn that people keep giving me.

In a Stash diminishing experiment, I am knitting a blanket. When it is done, it will probably be big enough for a bed, and certainly big enough for a throw.

It will be made of large mitered squares with a gauge of approx. three strands of worsted weight yarn knit together on size 11 circular needles. Every square will be different, the color and texture changing at my whim.

As an added bonus, because of the way I am changing colors, I won't have any ends to weave in, and I don't have to trim the yarn tails, unless I feel like it. Go me!

I've only finished the red square, so far, and am half done knitting a blue square.

After I'm done with the blue, I will move on to another color; pink, green, purple, or yellow. I haven't decided which one, yet.


On another note, I have a new favorite soup; Cheese and Broccoli. Mom found a new recipe for it, and we had on Saturday, with fresh, brick-oven baked brown bread. Yuuuuuuuummmy.....

I also have a couple of new pictcures of Rummy The Teen-Aged Kitten. Like this one:




I'm almost done cleaning my room, and if I don't get it done today, I probably never will. So we shall bid thee farewell, until next time,
~Katie & Rummy

Sun shine, daisies, butter mellow...

I love posting pictures.

Unfortunately, I believe I must leave now to clean my room... The plus side is that I get to listen to Beka Cooper: Terrier, by Tamora Pierce. Good book.


See ya on the other side,
~Katie

"Who needs hansome idiots, when we can have kitties!' -Aniki, from Beka Cooper: Terrier, by Tamora Pierce

Black Socks and Rum-Tum

Black socks and Rummy really have nothing to do with each other, but I wanted to post another picture of my kitten, Rum. So I did. Obviously.

Anywho. Amanda decided that it was time I wrote something for this, so here I am. Drum roll, please.

I was surfin' the net just now, and, for some reason, a little song that Amanda and I wrote last summer popped into my head. It's a spin off of that camp-fire classic, 'Black Socks,' and is sung to that tune. It goes like this:

'Black fleece, it never gets cleaner,
the more that you wash it, the more dirt comes out.
Sometimes, I think it might turn white,
but something inside me, keeps saying,
'it won't, it won't, it won't!''

The moral of this song: Always be wary of free fleece. Especially black fleece.


Lots o' Luhv,
~Katie

On The Joys and Sorrows of Hand-Knitted Socks

aaaa, kand-knitted socks.... the most comfortable things you feet will ever wear, but boy oh boy, you will pay for it before hand with the time and energy you put into them.

I, sadly enough, am suffering for secound-sock symdrom. ( for any of those who don't know, it when you knit the first sock, but then want to move on to bigger and better socks insteed of finishing the pair you are on, ) For exsample: I started knitting Kate a pair of socks in Opal: Tiger sock yarn. I started the pair in October... and still have not finished the cuff of the secound sock yet.... whooops. Kate though has one up on me. She started knitting her mother a pair of socks in August, and is now working on the 2 inch cuff of her second sock.... sad, i know... and all those experianced sock knitter know exeactly what i'm talking about.

One of the greatest things about sock knitting though, is the self-striping yarn availale to knit it in. There are dozens of different bands w/ tons of different yarn colors, all slightly different for every slightly different knitter. For anyone who has not yet experianced the joys of knitting socks in self-striping yarn, i'd hightly advise it.

And ohyes, we must not forget what comes after self-striping yarn. Some knitters think that the self-striping variaties are mearly cheacking yourself out of your talented way. Fair_isles knitting is the way for them. ( knitting with 2+ strand of yarn at once. ) Kate made the pair of socks above for a little fair in my home town. She used 3 colors to make this pair of flame socks.

If anyone has any interest in learning to knit socks, we would be glad to help out with lessons and the more!
( www.KAknits.com )

~Amanda

Rummy-Baby

And as no knitting website is complete without a cat or a baby, here is the kitty!!
Meet Rummy, Kate's kitten.

Actually, Rum is a bit older now, but still just as cute! And we still call him 'Da Baby-Baby!'

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentines Day!!

What I'm knitting: I'm very happy... I'm finally knitting something for myself! I'm knitting a on-line shrug pattern that Kate actually found last year at this time. ( would you believe I have been waiting to knit this thing for that long?! ) It's really simple, knit in Black worsted, with pink trim and bell sleeves, but I really like it. I'll try to post a pic of it when I'm finished.

What I'm reading: aaaa, the ever present couple... reading and knitting... Oh yes. Right now I'm re-reading Tamora Pierce's, Beka Cooper: Terrier. Very good book, and I recommend it to anyone just looking for a good heroine adventure novel.

This one goes out to anyone who has visited our website ( http://www.kaknits.com/ ) recently... we are sorry about the button problem ( it seems that the ' buy now ' button is refusing to work. ) and the lack of recent updates. Our website designer has been very busy letely, and we are currently not smart enough to fix it ourselves. But if there is anything you see that you would like, or if there is anything you would like to order... feel free to give us an e-mail and we will see what we can do. ~wink~
-Amanda