Thanks for all of the guesses on the next Challenge! A few of you correctly identified my knitting as the Transition Gloves from Shibui Knits. I have wanted to knit those ever since we got the pattern in over a year ago. Of course I had to overcome my dislike of knitting from a chart, and also my inexperience with colorwork. When Claudia’s Wollmeise Sock Club colors arrived, they seemed to shout “Transition Gloves” to me, and it was finally time to take the plunge. Now that I’ve started in on them, I see more of these in my future. I was sitting and knitting on them thinking that a black and white version would be SO cool (Shibui Ink and Ivory), as well as a red and white, and maybe a chocolate and blue, and ….. Well. You can see how much fun I’m having thinking up combinations. And then I happened to wander over to Ravelry to visit everyone else’s combinations, and added a few more that are now “must knit” combos. (Check out Natlie’s Piano Gloves – just what I was imagining in Black and White.) So the new Loopy Challenge, which will run from now until 12/31/08 is this: Knit something to warm your hands (or someone else’s hands. ‘Tis the season for starting your holiday knitting). It can be Fingerless Gloves, or Mittens, or regular Gloves, or even a muff. (Do they have knitting patterns for muffs? Seems like a felted muff might be fun.) In the spirit of “challenging” you a little bit, I encourage you to try something new with this. Maybe you haven’t knit anything for hands before and the whole idea is new. Or maybe (like me) you want to try colorwork, or learn two-handed knitting, or knitting fingers in gloves instead of mittens or fingerless mitts. Maybe you’ve done all of that so the challenge for you would be to design your own or adapt a stitch pattern you really like – like taking any of the sock patterns you have and using that pattern for gloves or mittens, for example! Whatever you choose, it will be fun to see all of the different options that people come up with. If you already have something in mind, post in the comments and tell us what you’re going to do. Otherwise, just hop in at any time. We will do another Knit-A-Long beginning in January. Remember, we’re alternating Challenges with KAL’s now.
A couple of week’s ago I did a post about “It’s a Perfect Day for …” and had you leave comments. So many of you mentioned that it was a perfect day for Chili that I had to make up a pot of it – it just sounded so good. So I thought I’d share the recipe with you. I got this recipe from a teacher that I used to teach with (way back when) and have been making it ever since.
Cold Weather Chili
3 slices fried bacon
1 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
4 – 5 (smaller size) cans Brooks Chili Beans
2 large cans diced tomatoes
3 Tbl. brown sugar
2 Tbl. vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
8 chocolate chips
Fry bacon and set aside to drain. In bacon grease, brown hamburger and onion. Drain. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for about an hour. (Or put it all in the crockpot on low and let it simmer all afternoon.) Cornbread Rolls go well with this chili.
We’re heading off to Indiana this afternoon for Parents Weekend at Taylor. We can’t wait to see College Girl and College Guy! (And I’m pretty sure that Payne’s Coffee and Ivanhoes Ice Cream will be on the schedule as well.) Also, I will be out of commission & out of the office most of next week, as I’m having a bit of surgery and am taking a few days to recover. It would be nice if it was something fun that would make me look 10 years younger, but alas, it’s nothing exciting like that! Keep me in your prayers and I plan to be back with you via the blog and email on Monday, the 29th. Susan and the Elves will keep the orders going out. They’re the best. If you need anything, feel free to call here or email Susan (susan AT theloopyewe DOT com). Have a great weekend!
Sheri perfectdayforknittinginthecaronthewaytoIndiana
Sheri,
Hope the surgery goes well! You’ll definitely be in my prayers!
And I’m excited about the challenge! It’s on my list anyway, since it’s freakin’ cold in my office in the morning, until the sun hits the West window. I need a pair!
Safe trip and enjoy your weekend. My prayers are with you, hope everything goes well with your surgery. Get lots of rest and maybe some knitting done.
Thoughts, prayers and huge from my general direction! 🙂
Enjoy your weekend, my boys never want to go to those weekends, someday, I have two more years left. I just want to see one football game, sheesh. Good luck and don’t worry about the surgery. As I have been told We are never given more than we can handle and you will do terrific. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Have a fun weekend. Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers next week. Take good care. Hope that you can get knitting time while you rest and recover.
This sounds like a fun challenge. Fingerless mitts are something I really need in my cold office. Have fun with the college kids this weekend. Best wishes & thoughts for your surgery and speedy recovery. Kristi
Safe travels and best wishes for the surgery. We’ll be waiting for you to come back!
Have a great weekend and enjoy your time with the kids. Try to relax and go with the flow while recovering form your surgery. My thought will be with you.
I am so glad the challenge is hand coverings. I have to designsome ponk and white ones for my god daughter so I guess I know what I’ll be doing. 😉
Best Wishes!
Have a ton of fun with those college kids! It will be good for you all to see each other again. Best wishes with the surgery and will be sending prayers and all paw-si-tive thoughts from our household. Hoping for a speedy recovery. Will this give you some much-deserved knitting time? Best wishes.
Thank you for the chili recipe! It sounds yummy! I have heard of putting chocolate in it before, so I’ll have to try it! (I put regular sugar in mine; the brown sugar with the chocolate sounds really good!) 🙂
Enjoy parents weekend with your college kids! My thoughts and prayers will be with you for your surgery, and I wish you a speedy recovery!
I think my next project will have to be a pair of cabled fingerless gloves or mitts, since I am having problems with arthritis in both my thumbs now when they get cold, which is often, especially at this time of the year.
Prayers for a speedy recovery!!
Have a wonderful weekend with your children and enjoy every minute of it. I will keep you in my prayers next week. Have a speedy recovery and rest, rest, rest. It is the best medicine. Knit and read a lot and ignore all the dust, laundry and cooking. Best wishes.
I hope you have a lovely weekend with the kids. And that surgery goes well and you have a super speedy recovery. I’ll keep you in my thoughts etc. How did you know my daughter wanted fingerless gloves?
I will keep you in my prayers next week. Until then, have a safe trip visiting your beautiful children and thank you for the challenge…it is perfect timing as I just purchased some angora yarn that will make fabulous mittens. I’ve never knit with angora!
Hope you have a lovely weekend. Best wishes for next week!
Have a safe and wonderful trip to see your kids, and drink a few lattes for me .
Will be thinking of you w/your surgery.
Love ths transitions gloves. Have the pattern, and just waiting to finish the mittens in the fall vogue before I start. Now I have a fun kal to go with it.
Enjoy your weekend…..and hugs and prayers to you during your surgery…hope all goes well……
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Sheri! I’m another vote for the anti-nausea drugs, I don’t do well with anesthesia at all!
This challenge will be fun. I already have fingerless mitts on my Christmas list for my daughter and her friend but I think I may just make some gloves for me too! I can never find gloves to fit me, the fingers are always too long so now I can make some to fit!
Have a great weekend with your kids! 🙂
Keeping you in my thoughts!
As for the challenge … awesome. There are two different one’s that I already can think of doing.
Sheri –
Enjoy the visit with your kids, & hope you get some good knitting time in the car on the way there & back! You’re in my thoughts & prayers for smooth surgery & easy recovery. Definitely say “yes” to the anti-nausea and anti-pain drugs! And don’t try to do too much for yourself; let other people help you & do things for you!
Our thoughts and prayers will be with you next week, and our best wishes for a speedy recovery. All the advice about taking it easy, making sure you’ve got good books and knitting handy, not being shy about asking for help, physical or chemical—please take it! Be good to yourself!
Enjoy this weekend with your terrific kids!
Off to look at patterns for the next challenge…!
Have a successful surgery, speedy recovery and get rested!
Have a great weekend with the kids! I hope the surgery goes well and you feel better soon!
Sheri’s RX (take as often as wanted):
1) I’m adding my vote for the antinausea meds. They work. When they are offered say “Yes!” Ditto if offered anti anxiety drugs. Surgery is enough of a challenge, even when it’s minor, that is what medication is developed to help with.
2) During recovery, be waited on hand and foot!
3) Accept all offers of help and well wishes (I bet you would accept the wishes, don’t forget to let people help too).
4) Get better soon!
The new challenge sounds great, I have a couple of ideas that I need to mull over a bit. It also sounds like a great way to get through this winter. Somehow I think I’m going to sound a lot like my mother circa 1973 this winter. (“Put another sweater on. ” or, words to warm the heart of any budding teenager, “I bought you some long johns.”) Mitts sound both practical AND acceptable to fashion-forward family teenagers, not to mention myself!
Hope your surgery goes well and you have a speedy and problem-free recovery. You will be in my thoughts.
This Challenge is perfectly timed – I have sitting on top of my stash basket 3 lots of yarn that are all destined to become handwear. 2 for mittens and one for fingerless gloves. I’ve never done one of these Challenges before!
This is the perfect kick in the pants to start my anemoi mittens. I’ve had the yarn for awhile but never got going!
Did you see my transition gloves on Ravelry? Wollmeise (from Loopy of course) in a dark blue/purple, combined with Kraemer white with silver. They are awesome! I have named them “Starry night”.
Many well wishes and a speedy recovery!
Thoughts and prayers for the surgery and a quick recovery!
Oooh, chili! Sounds wonderful! I can’t wait for the weather to cool down so I can finally enjoy chili, hot chocolate, and knitting by the fire.
I’ll definitely keep you in my prayers, and I hope that you get plenty of rest and relaxing knitting time while you recover! That’s the only thing I’m looking forward to when I have all 4 wisdom teeth pulled in December.
Good luck with your surgery!! Get well quickly. I love the Loopy Ewe. Can’t wait to make another order soon.
I will be knitting gloves ( with fingers) in a beautiful Koigu KPPPM(chocolate brown,olive green,peach, tan) that I’ve had in my stash for quite a while.
There is a great felted muff pattern in the book “Felted Knits” by Bev Galeskas of Fiber Trends. I was thinking of this for my little niece, with or without fluff, and I think your new Cascade yarns would be perfect! I would add the Ravelry link, but I am just not sure how… P.S. She also has a fabulous felted mitten pattern (shaped! they fit) in that book, another great option for those taking up the warm-the-hand challenge.
P.S. Best of luck with your surgery, and here are hopes for a swift recovery! I hope it is something small and optional, and that you will be knitting again in no time 🙂 And I hope you enjoyed parent’s weekend. Two in one place was great planning! We had Parent’s Weekend, too. There’s nothing like looking them in the face to find out if they’re really doing well. It was good medicine to prepare you for surgery.
Good thoughts for your surgery ! Hopefully you can knit through recovery.
Prayers are with you. Hope you heal quickly!
My best wishes for a successful surgery and speedy recovery. Lots of knitting will probably help… Hope the college visit went well; somehow, our boys never seem to remember to tell us about Parents’ Weekend.
Thanks for the chili recipe. I have never tried one with chocolate chips before! There is nothing better than a hot bowl of chili on a cold winter day.
Keeping you in thoughts and prayers, and wishing you a speedy recovery.
Good luck with the surgery. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and you will be motoring around in no time!
Sheri –
Rest, relax, take time to recover. Enjoy knitting. I am sure the Elves have everything under control.
Be well soon –
Sandy in NJ
Have a nice trip…if you’d like to bring me back some ice cream, my favorite flavor is coffee! Coffee and chocolate together…even better!
Best of luck with your operation. What hospital are you going to (I promise not to come visit while you are “indisposed”).
You are in my prayers and I do hope you are feeling much better very soon!! I hate hospital stays but sometimes it is necessary!! Hugs to you to hurry and feel better!!!
Have a great trip! And I hope your surgery goes smoothly and you make a quick recovery!
This challenge is perfect timing, my middle son wants gloves with only half a finger on the right index finger to use for the skeet/trap shooting league he is in. I’ve never made full gloves so this will be a challenge for me.
Good luck on your surgery – hope all goes well! I am having Wollmeise envy…someday I’ll get lucky and score some too!
I started a pair of tip-down mittens for my car knitting in Austria a week ago. They are almost to where I can decrease for the wrist. I think my husband will get them.
Well I am finally getting a chance to catch up on the Loopy news. Lve all the improvements and addition. So what do Loopy’s sister and brother lok like? I never noticed them before you mentioned they exist.
You are the second friend i have who is going through surgery andso I have both of you to pray for now. I hope everything goes super and that you take everyone’s advice and take it easy. If you are anything like me yu might not like being in recovery for mre than a day or two. It drives me up the wall to have to stay in bed so pull out the knitting a few books and enjoy. Tht is where cats are just great: they know how to keep you cmpany when yuo are feeling down.
Gee Parents weekend already. DD FAshion Diva is settled into Mt. Pleasant MI and loves going to school, she isnt doing so well financially as her Aid is slow coming in, but then so is mine too. She is sooo far away! I miss her termendously. I cant wait until she moves on campus come January when she transfers into the university from community college. I admire how she is taking heavy classes right ff, Biology, Psychology, Socilogy and American Gov. I am now at BHSU and am taking Special Ed classes online, so am really busy and excited too. And still keeping my status sheet at the tribal college alive by taking 2 online classes.
Love your chilli recipe will definately try it out when i have some time, arent slow cookers the bmb?!
Love the challenge. Havent been home enough to get any challenge done so my yarn is still sitting there, too much for one pattern too little for another Oh well. I need to make some new gloves fro Fashion Diva as one of hers got lost. I think purple and green would be interesting, maybe transition gloves, not sure. THen Youngest daughter loves pink and lime green with black, she is into Hottopics, gothic, fairies, rock and the series twilight and Harry Potter. So I have to find her something special for gloves.
loveya all
SO nice to see Loopy again!! I’ve missed this. I’m in Houston–no power for 14 days, 36 minutes!! Did some knitting, did some stitching and waited and waited. Very hard to be motivated without electricity, and especially that air conditioning.
Sorry you had to get some of our weather ugliness, but glad you are dry. Now to regain my lost 2 weeks!
I think I’m going to try to do some arm warmers for my niece for Christmas (with my NummaNumma Toasty in Watercress, from TLE, of course!) The girl is obsessed with black and green combined, so I’m thinking the bright green arm warmers, and a new black studded belt. lol! (perfect Christmas present, no?) And since I’ve just learned to use DPNs, I’m going to do them in the round instead of flat (this being the challenging part for me)