It's DONE

The (in)famous fish blanket is DONE. It turned out to be more of a crib sized blanket but that's OK. There are 120 fish in 12 different colors. All of the yarn is Baby Ull by Dale of Norway. Originally this started out as something to use up yarn that I had bought for a class. Well I only had seven colors so I decided to buy 3 more balls for an even number. While I was in Rochester on a business trip, I discovered the yarn shop near my office had two colors of yellow I hadn't seen yet so I bought them and was now up to 12 colors.

Someone asked me tonight if I would ever consider making another one and I said I might but not with such a fine yarn. I made two fish out of dishcloth cotton so I know that regardless of the type of yarn it takes about 45 minutes to make a fish. At 120 fish for the blanket that is 90 hours of knitting. I have no idea how many hours I spent on the finishing. I do know it was almost 7 hours just to sew the six completed strips together but I don't know how much time I spent on the fish themselves. So I figure if I spent that much time with a "bigger" yarn (like a worsted weight) I should have a much bigger blanket for the same amount of work.

I have considered adding more fish to the blanket after the fair is done if I find more colors of yarn that I like. But it's still a nice size to just have on your lap during the winter so it might just stay this size forever - who knows!



I know the picture isn't the greatest but I really wanted something to post with this. I still need to do the blocking before next week when I have to drop this off at the fair. I will try to get a better picture at that point.

Drive By Blogging

Hi all. Today is just a quickie post - no pictures or anything exciting. It's almost fair time and I need to get cracking on getting things finished. I submitted my list of entries on Friday and I have entered the following:

Crochet (yep can you believe it!) handbag - it's a small pouch type bag, got the pattern off the ball of yarn. Just need to add the beaded fringe.

Knitting - Other than above. Two entries here. One is a knitted necklace made with wire (you knit small wire squares and alternate with beads) and the second is a hat made from my domino knitting sampler. I've started knitting the hat band and need to make the necklace.

Cross stitch - Miniature less than 2 x 3 inches. I have a small picture of a beaver that I made a while back that I am entering (he's 100% finished!)

Cross stitch - picture less than 6 x 8 inches. This one is a bib that has been laying around for a LONG time. All I need to do is outline a carrot, tomato and broccoli and it's done. After the fair it will be a baby gift for my friend that is expecting.

Afghans - hand knit. This is the tessellating fish. The strips are done I just need to seam them together and block.

Hand made Felt - Knitted Felt This is the Market Squares bag. It's been done and ready to go since February!

Scrapbook - one page. Ummm this one isn't even started yet. I think I will scrap my trip last year to Stitches East.

Photography (these are all mounted and ready to go!!)
Nature (color) a picture of a thistle
Human Interest animal (no pet) a close up of a lorikeet from the zoo
Architectural Design (color) - The Beta Bells
Architectural Design (B&W) - The Sun Dial
Cuyahoga County Fair (color) - Some very cute alpacas from last year's fair

I'm also entering two items in the antiques category: an old camera and my dad's baby picture. I still need to get a frame for the picture since the category is framed pictures.

So that's why we are doing drive by blogging today. Everything must be delivered to the fair no later than Saturday August 5. The fair starts on Monday August 7 and I'm on vacation that week so I'm planning on going day one to see how I did!

Now for something different

Well, since this claims to be a knitting blog, I thought I would show you some more knitting. This isn't the most current thing though. I made this poncho for my niece's birthday in December. I got the pattern from the 2006 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar and Kayla mentioned that she liked it when she saw the picture. I let her pick out the color and I used Shine (60% pima cotton, 40% modal) from Knit Picks.
The pattern was pretty simple, stockinette stitch with a dropped stitch cast off.



I'm hoping to have pictures of the tessellating fish blanket by next weekend!

It's Here!!!

Yippee, today was definitely a red letter day here - my new dishwasher arrived. I've wanted a countertop dishwasher for YEARS (maybe as many as fifteen) but the last time I remember seeing one was in an inflight magazine ages ago and the little bugger was REALLY expensive.

Well keeping in mind that google is your friend, I decided to google "compact dishwasher" just for the heck of it. To my surprise I found two different brands both reasonably priced.

Since I still had a gift card from my sister and brother-in-law for Walmart from this past Christmas (yes I know it's July, I wanted to use it on something special) they ended up buying me half a dishwasher for Christmas.

I've already done a couple of loads of dishes (have I mentioned that I hate doing dishes???)
Yes I took a picture of the first load of clean dishes to come out of the dishwasher.... Hey I take pictures of my food so I can blog it, so I really don't think anyone should be surprised!

I do promise that we will eventually get back to the knitting part of the blog one of these days!

Oh I Forgot -

Apparently Hell froze over in the last 15 years and no one told me. How do I know this? Miami University (formerly home of the no car on campus rule) built a PARKING GARAGE!!! It's a lovely structure and it blends into the campus nicely but it's a parking garage!!! Which, by the way, is the fate of the current home of my Googin once it's deconstructed - an underground parking garage.


But there are still some things that don't ever seem to change (thank God I might seriously cry if they did) - Turkey Gobblers and Brunos Pizza.


A turkey gobbler is a sandwich I used to get at least once a week while I lived in Oxford. Tuesday night was sub night at SDS and this is the one that I always got. In fact I don't think I've ever had another sub from them - EVER. When I go back I make sure that I make at least one trip there for a TGYC (YC=yellow cheddar).


Brunos has some of the best pizza ever. It's not fancy by any means but it has an awesome flavor. Plus how can you beat pizza for 50 cents a slice (I think it's now 75 cents but who cares?!?!). They had a fire after I graduated but are now back in their familiar uptown location. Now if only the water tower was still there to sit under while you ate Brunos.

My Second Home

Well in my last post we strolled by all of the places I lived in while at Miami (OK so blogger didn't want you to see Havighurst but I digress). Now we shall visit the place I might as well have lived in since I spent so much time there - Goggin Ice Arena.



I was the sports editor for our college paper my senior year and the hockey reporter for three years. Plus I published the newsletter for our local hockey boosters so I spent A LOT of time at the rink.

Goggin is going to be torn down later this year since they have built a much bigger and supposedly better Goggin elsewhere on campus. I wasn't able to get inside the new Goggin while I was in Oxford since it is still under construction, but the outside looks pretty nice.





Since my old Goggin will be torn down soon visiting it again was a bit like saying goodbye to an old friend. In fact I asked the fellow overseeing the broomball game if I could go and visit the steps leading out of the locker room. He looked at me like I had an extra head but said it was OK.
What he didn't get was those were MY steps, I spent ages sitting on them (fourth one from the bottom) waiting for players and coaches after the games so I could do my interviews for the paper. I have my name on the list to buy a brick once Goggin is "deconstructed" only because I don't think they'll sell me a piece of my steps.