I am looking for knitting pattern for a sweater. I'm wanting to finish my first sweater up ASAP so I can start on a sweater for my daughter. I already have the yarn -- fingering weight (to be doubled up) and I have pretty much every size of needles. So if anyone knows of a pattern that includes a size 5 that uses fingering weight yarn, please let me know!
I still have to finish that crochet blanket I started nearly a year ago for my dad... Oh well! I have 6 inches of it done so far... haha!
So finally, someone made a nurse jackie scarf. Check it out here. She adapted a pattern for a mesh chain scarf and used crocheted flowers to complete the look. If I ever make it through my umpteen projects, I will make myself one of those scarves! I've yet to start on socks for my mom for mother's day... Uh oh! Good thing I have a few days off starting tomorrow! Ha!
I'll likely update the Beauti News tomorrow during my day off. I'll also try to get June's running races up for Vancouver Island.
In other news, my energy has been just drained from me. I have helped a resident through their dying process before. I helped keep them comfortable and stayed with them when their family couldn't. This particular resident is one that I never had the pleasure of working with prior to their palliative order. I still showed a great deal of empathy towards this resident; holding their hand, being as gentle as humanly possible, and just being there. You can tell when a person's body has stopped working, but long before then, you can almost see their presence leaving themselves before that happens.
I'm trying to type this in a way that preserves some privacy, but one of the residents that I just absolutely adore working with is quite suddenly on their death bed. I was their nurse last night and will be the nurse again tonight. This is what has sucked the energy out of me. It's a bit of a blessing to be able to help them through this process and be the person with the power to bring comfort, but at the same time, this is a person I greatly enjoyed working with and will be so very, very sorely missed.
I have decided to start doing a monthly knitting pattern for us all to do together. For a great cause, too... Kozy Kaps 4 Kids. I wish they had gone with the name "Cozy Caps for Children" or something less similar to a certain elitist group, if you catch my drift... Uh... Anyway...
For the month of April, I will be knitting "Little Cables Hat" from The Knitting Box - a knitting blog website. As much as I'd love to knit many, many hats, I am only able to set aside a small amount of time and have set my own personal goal for one cap per month.
If you are participating, please let me know so that I can link you and acknowledge your amazing selfless donation of time and wool!
Cheers!
Oh my gosh... I can't move. I am never, ever baking these cookies again. I made enough cookies to completely fill a giant freezer bag and it lasted my family and I barely 24 hours. I hate to admit it, but I probably ate 95% of them. They were so good. Never making them again.
I spent today scrubbing my car until it sparkled inside and out. There was a lot of sap on it, so my arms are quite sore from the elbow grease that was required. Darn white cars. I have a few new job applications to hand out despite my having 17 shifts next month. As much as I enjoy my job, working on a dementia unit is incredibly hard and demanding. I need a balance of normalcy in my work life.
That said, I'm trying to get back into knitting as much as possible. I want to finish the sweater I started and then forgot about in December/January. I'd like to be able to have it finished so that I can start a new one for my daughter for her birthday, which is coming up in June.
I haven't really been working too hard at knitting lately. I've been picking up my scarf project every now and then throughout the week. The pattern is slowly becoming easier to use as I get more and more used to it. It also helps that I printed it off and enlarged the font so that it is much bigger and easier to read.
I am still stuck on the hat pattern for the hat I'm making for my nephews (soon-to-be-4 and 3-years-old). I would really appreciate any links to free or paid patterns that include knitted cars, trucks, or mighty machines! My nephews are hard core into cars and big machines that they won't wear anything that doesn't have either of those items. They're cute little buggers!
I keep getting Google hits for "Nurse Jackie Scarf," which I have seen on the show Nurse Jackie and which I absolutely love and want for myself. If I get most of my Christmas knits done, I will work on a pattern for that scarf... If it turns out well, I will post the pattern up for everyone. If it fails miserably, I'll still wear it proudly hidden-like under my jacket.
It's about time I've sat down and really finished a pair of socks. I have started about 3 or 4 socks, only to frog them a few inches in. For some reason, it's just never been very comfortable to knit a pair of socks, but I've found a pattern that I think I can stick with. I'm about 25% finished the first sock and I casted on yesterday, so I should be good to go!
I'd really like to be able to make nice socks, since I know that it is what I want to do for my Dad's Christmas present. I never know what to get him, but I think he'll appreciate the humor and effort of a hand-knit sock from me! We make jokes about my Irish grandma giving socks and soap each year (I don't mind! It's very practical). She's a hard core knitter and so I think the hand knit socks will make for a great gift for a guy that I never know what to get!
I finished the fish hat the other day and am now resuming a scarf I started making earlier this year when we had a freak snow storm in the middle of March... We don't get a lot of snow in this area.
The fish hat came out pretty well. I haven't done the eyes just yet -- I don't have supplies for it yet. I'll estimate that the hat took about 4 half-days of solid knitting to complete. It was super easy and I'd recommend it to anyone that is a beginner right now, looking to try something in the beginner-intermediate category. It knits up quick and the end result is pretty darn cute! 
Now, I am onto the scarf whose pattern can be found here. It's called the Tweed Scarf and it is a little difficult... Mostly, because there are so many changes in the pattern that my mind often gets lost in it. I'm also not sure what the writer means by "(Begin first repeat here)" but I have been making my way through it, regardless.
I had the worst sleep I've had in a long time last night. My nose woke me up quite a bit - sneezing, sniffling, one heck of a sore throat, and the inability to breathe through my nostrils. I'd like to send out a thank you to my baby sister for this cold. I'm honored. Actually, it's my daughter's inexperienced hand washing while she and I were at my mom's house on Monday.
I hope this cold does not last very long... Not only is it incredibly uncomfortable and sore (ow! I can't eat!) I have practicum on Sunday again. I actually ended up missing practicum yesterday because my daughter was so sick and half-way through the day is when I got slammed with the illness. My daughter seems to be doing better than me, thank goodness! Poor girl.
On the brighter side, I was able to work on that fish hat a bunch yesterday. I'm at least 80% done now. I'm just doing the tail, then have to work on the details such as the fins and the eyes. I'm quite pleased with how it's coming along. I can't wait to be done it so that I can move on to making hats for my two nephews... Their hats will be a bit of a challenge, since I'll be creating a pattern just for them. I have to incorporate mighty machines into their hats, otherwise they simply won't wear them (of course!) They truly are their father's sons hehe
I mentioned Christmas before, but holy cats! I somehow lost track of how close it is to Christmas... Well, in my mind anyway. I like to make most of the gifts that I give, so I try to start early (read: summer). So far, I've only started on one present... The fish hat for my younger sister. I had started a hat for my older sister, but frogged it because I was using the wrong yarn/gauge. It was HUGE! I'll start over :)
Do you buy most of your gifts or make them? I used to buy each gift until I found myself without a job one year, asked everyone to not get me anything and I baked them all cookies... I felt terrible for only being able to make cookies. The following year, I re-took up knitting just as a hobby and ever since then, it's been a bit of a tradition to make the women of my family slippers. I've yet to find a decent slipper pattern for a man or a boy -- if you know of any let me know!
I spent most of this long weekend stripping off wallpaper, washing walls, spackling, sanding, and painting our living room. I'd like to note that my daughter spent the night with her grandparents, hence me busting out the Bananatini Vex. I'm happy to say that the walls are done after two full days of hard labor being put into it. I even stayed up until 2:00 AM last night in order to finish it... Since it is actually physical work, my body was energized and awake until 5:00 AM. That would have been okay if my daughter hadn't woken up at 7:30 AM. Ack! No sleep for this mama. No real surprise there, eh? :P
Truth be told, my daughter is amazingly fabulous at sleeping. Man, I love her!
I dumbly realized that I was using a bulky weight yarn for my older sister's hat rather than a chunky weight. Essentially, I'm knitting a hat fit for a giant. I'm frogging that project and starting over once I pick up some better yarn.
In the meantime, I've started working on a new project for my little sister: A Fish Hat. I saw this design way back in December and knew I absolutely had to make it for my little sister. She's 7 and would very much enjoy it. I finally picked up some yarn for it - purples, grays, and pinks. It will be really interesting, but I think this project will start off super slow. I'm still some-what of a newbie to knitting in the round.
I picked up my yarns at Walmart (hurray... ) For under 10 bucks for 4 skeins. They are Bernat brand, which is a favorite of mine.
I didn't have a lot of time to knit during the 10 months of theory, but now that I am entering the last practicum, I will have some more time to spend knitting things. It's only August, but it is never too early to get a start on your Christmas (or what-have-you) gifts.
I have just casted on to make a hat for my sister. If you are on ravelry, you can see these links. If not, create an account and add me -- NurseJoc. This is what I'm making for my lovely sister... Whom is also an SPN: Robin's Egg blue Hat.
