Taking a break for the Hands

I hadn’t blogged for a while. This was for a few reasons, time is a big one, but not the biggest. From knitting, my hands started hurting, I guess I was on the verge of a repetitive stress injury, but now I'm feeling a lot better. I was probably being over cautious, but still, I decided to pursue some other hobbies for a few months, hoping that my hands would feel better. I do have some worries about being able to knit and work with my hands when I get older because there is some history of arthritis in my family.

I started drawing and painting again. I read some books and started Geocacheing with my husband. He just started a blog to tell about our adventures with Geocacheing. It also explains what Geocacheing is in case you were interested.

A month or so ago I decided to start knitting again, not knitting as much as I had at one point, but starting off slow. I started on a scarf from one of the One Skein Wonders books, either 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders: A world of possibilities inspired by just one skein
or Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences
, I can't remember which one. I used a couple of skeins that I bought sometime back from the yarn shop on Metairie Road. It was a variegated light blue color, very pretty, very soft merino wool. I can’t believe I didn’t take pictures before I gave it away. The pattern is called Winter Windows; it’s a nice basket weave pattern with some lacy portions. The lucky recipient of this scarf was my grandmother’s sister, Juliette, it was her 80th birthday present.

I’m glad I took a break from knitting; it gave me an opportunity to miss the actual click of the needles and the feel of the yarn between my fingers. I’m hoping that I will have more time to blog and more material to blog about soon. Right now I am working on a Zebra stuffed animal, I’m thinking about calling her Zooey. I will tell you more about Zooey next time on KnittingKel!

Article about Lane Lefort - The Photographer

This post doesn't have anything to do with knitting, but be patient, I have some new knitting posts in the works.

In the July/August edition of the Acadiana Profile magazine, there is a feature article about the photographer, Lane Lefort. You can see the article The Natural Beauty of South Louisiana as seen through the Lens of Lane Lefort here: http://www.acadianaprofile.com/gallery_story_28_6.htm

His website is at LaneLefortPhotography.com. Feel free to look through his online gallery and maybe even buy a little piece of Louisiana as seen through the lens of Lane Lefort.

A Snowy Day in New Orleans

Northerners might think Southerners are funny, but we really do get excited when it snows here. Of course we don't usually have the messy chores associated with snow, because it just melts away in a few hours.

It was funny this morning when I arrived at work, I was greeted by a group of people watching the snow on the porch in the front of my building and another bigger group standing in the lobby looking outside, trying not to get too cold. When I went inside, a small group actually inspected my coat to see if it was snow or ice. Then one of them told me I should get inside and dry off because I would catch pneumonia. A guy from somewhere up north who is working on my office laughed when I asked him if Southerners were funny. Then he told me how his wife had to shovel seven inches of snow recently.

Its really nice to see grown ups acting like little kids, to see older people with huge smiles on their faces.

The worst part of this morning was that I didn't know it was going to snow, so I didn't bring my knitted gloves or any scarfs. It was the perfect weather for knitted things. Oh well, maybe we'll get a lot more cold weather this year and I'll get to wear lots of warm knitted items. The last time it snowed here was Christmas Day of 2004.

Happy birthday to me!

The other night, Patrick took me out to celebrate. Lets just say my birthday is sometime in September. We went to the French Quarter. Our first stop was the French Market. The French Market's Farmer's Market is currently under renovation, which is sort of disappointing. The flea market is open, I'm not really into flea markets, but Patrick likes them, so I tag along. I saw some vendors with handmade things like crochet and carved wooden things and I also saw things like designer knock off sunglasses, jewelry and Mardi Gras masks. Its sort of surprising how many different things can be found in that one place.

We then made our way toward St. Louis Cathedral. We passed Central Grocery, which has my favorite Muffelatas. They were closed, so we kept walking. We passed Café Du Monde, my favorite place for Beignets. As we made our way toward the Cathedral, I remembered why I like New Orleans. It's the history and the wrought iron work and the architecture and the people. I'm shy, so people aren't usually ever my favorite part of anything, but I do like many of the people of New Orleans. There are some people who seriously make me nervous, like the people who want to bet you they can tell you where you got your shoes. Do people in other parts of the country do that? Or is that a New Orleans thing? If anyone ever asks you that, say "On my feet". I guess the first person who thought of the whole "I bet you I can tell you where you got your feet" was sort of clever, but hearing it for so many years, it sort of gets old.

We kept walking and reached The Quarter Stitch. When we walked in, there was the cutest little white dog walking around the shop. He immediately ran up to me and started sniffing. It was clear that he wanted to play and wanted to check out everyone who came into his shop. I think he was either a Maltese or a miniture poodle. Patrick played with him while I looked through all of their yarn. Their selection of yarn is beautiful, and I found lots of yarns that I wanted. I settled on two skeins of Koigu, to make a hat for Patrick's Christmas present.

The shop also carries many needlepoint canvases. All of the canvases are sold as kits, which I'm sure is nice for anyone who does needlepoint. There were some gorgeous canvases, one that I especially like was of a Yorkie, with all of his hair flowing around. I've never been into needlepoint or cross stitch, mostly because I didn't like stabbing myself with the needle's point when I was younger.

Hurricane Katrina didn't cause much direct damage to the French Quarter. There was damage, but the Quarter was mostly spared. The most noticeable damage that Hurricane Katrina left was the lack of interest in visiting New Orleans during Hurricane Season, which is completely understandable. I know I wouldn't want to have to evacuate from my vacation.

After the yarn shop, we walked to K Paul's Restaurant, but it didn't open for dinner until 5:30, we were a bit late and decided we'd rather go there with my parents because they like K Paul's so much. We walked a little farther and decided to go to Dickie Brennan's Palace Cafe. They also open for dinner at 5:30, so we waited at the bar for a bit and I ordered a drink. I think it was called the Pearl Sunset, I could be wrong about that though. The drink was very good, very fruity and sweet. We tried something we hadn't had before, the crabmeat cheesecake, which has a sort of custard consistency, and is very yummy. For dinner, Patrick had a stuffed pork chop and I had pecan crusted Gulf Fish. My dish was sort of like candy, the pecans have a sugary coating and the fish is crispy. For desert, I had the white chocolate bread pudding and Patrick had the Creme Brulee. We shared our desserts and I prefered his sweet crunchy creme brulee to my Bread Pudding. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Bread Pudding, there was just something about the creamy creme brulee that I just loved. Everything was excellet and I had a really great evening.

Happy Birthday Laney (The Dog)

Today is my dog Laney’s fifth Birthday. He is a Sheltie.

I first met Laney in May of 2004, I had just graduated from college, and I wanted to get a dog. I really wanted to get a Yorkshire terrier, because I had one named Kopper (1988 to 1998) and I really loved that dog. Instead of just getting a Yorkie, I did some research to find out exactly which dog breed I wanted to get. I probably should have looked at mixed breeds, but I really wanted some sort of a baseline of how the dog would be. With mixed breeds, it’s sort of a hit or miss. Will the dog be big, or small? Will he have lots of fur, or have short hair? I looked at all of the dog breeds at the American Kennel Club Website and made a list of the breeds that interested me. Then I looked at all of the breed's traits and narrowed down the list until I finally arrived at the conclusion that I wanted a Sheltie.
When i met Laney, he was eleven months old, which really wasn’t a bad thing. He had already been trained to go outside to potty and he didn’t cry all night like some puppies tend to do. He was already crate trained too.
His name is actually Lane. I just call him Laney so people don’t confuse him with my dad. And no, he was not named after my dad. Here’s how he got his name. When Donna, the breeder, told her mom’s former neighbor that Bree (Laney’s mom) was expecting a litter, the neighbor who’s name is Elaine, asked her to name a puppy after her and she agreed. When Laney’s litter was born, there weren’t any girls, just boys. So, in honor of Ms. Elaine, he was named Lane. When I brought him home, he already knew his name, so he remained Lane.

His favorite things to do are siting on sofas with the ones he loves, barking at just about anything from people walking by on the street to the neighbor's dog.

A funny addition to that story is that about a year later, Donna told Ms. Elaine that Bree was expecting another litter and Ms. Elaine asked, since the last litter didn't have any girls, could you name one of the girls from this litter after me? So, Donna named one of the girl puppies Lanie after Ms. Elaine and we went to visit Donna's new litter and my mom fell in love with Lanie. So, when Lanie was four months old, she became part of our family, and her name was changed to Cupcake, because having two dogs and one human with the same/very similar names gets confusing. I wonder what George Foreman's family does.

A Knitter's Nightmare

This morning, I woke up to this:

It looks like my dogs decided they wanted to knit and really just made a big mess. I'm wondering if it was a group effort, or just one of them was responsible. I'm guessing it was both of them. I've untangled most of the yarn, but it took a while and I was pretty upset with them for doing what they did. You will be happy to know that we made up and I've decided not to leave my knitting bag In the front of the house where then can take things out of it.

I'm having a lot of fun with the blog and I hope ya'll are enjoying it. Lately I've been sick, with a sore throat which hasn't made anything fun. I'm hoping I will feel better soon and the blog posts will get better. I'd really like to thank everyone who is reading the blog, I really can't believe how many hits I've had in a short amount of time.

Thanks!

Kelly

Stained Glass Windows

Ever since I was a little girl, I've always been fasinated by stained glass windows. The way that they are always beautiful, but when light is shining through them, they are spectacular. I went to a Church that I don't usually go to on Sunday for a baby's Baptism. Here are some pictures of the Stained Glass Windows. Enjoy!

Dozer Doodle

Today is Dozer Doodle's second Birthday. He is a Brindle Boxer, with a lot of energy. His favorite thing to do is visit his cousin Max, who is also a Boxer. Whenever he gets very excited, he waggs his little tail and he curls up in a ball kind of like a doodle or pill bug, that's where the Doodle in his name came from.

Here are some pictures of him when he was just a little four month old puppy. The top two pictures are of him being cute. The next pictures are of Dozer and his adopted brother Laney, who is a Sheltie.

Below is a picture of him on his favorite chair, my ottoman. Happy Birthday Dozer! Patrick, Laney and I love you!

It's a stream, its a river, no, it's a flooded street!

And "How I spent my weekend"

Sunday

Here are some pictures from around our area yesterday. To say we had a little rain is an understatement. Father's Day was nice other than the rain that stranded us in the Harahan area for a few hours. We had breakfast at a diner in Laplace with Patrick's family. On my way back to my car, we found that the streets were flooded. We couldn't get to my car, so we drove around for a while and found that most of the streets were flooded. Then when the water had finally receded a little, we went to Patrick's parents' house and I taught Patrick's mom and sister how to knit. After that, we visited my parents and treated them to dinner at Ground Patti. I'd like to wish a Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there. Especially to Ryan and Hugh who were celebrating their first Father's Days.

Saturday





We went to a 30th birthday party for a family friend at Copeland's restaurant Saturday night. We had one section of the restaurant to ourselves and were treated to a buffet with their signature biscuits, red beans and rice, blackened chicken Alfredo and a shrimp pasta. Everything was delicious and we had a good time catching up with everyone.



Friday


After work on Friday, Patrick and I went joined my parents at a local seafood restaurant by the name of New Orleans Food and Spirits. There are two locations, the one we went to, which is in Harvey, and the other is on the Lakefront. Harvey is a suburban area in the West bank of the Mississippi River. I had a seafood platter with fried Shrimp and fish which was excellent. Their fried food is always good, not soggy and not too greasy like some other places. I enjoy their potato salad also, it isn't overpowered by mustard like some other potato salad. The wait staff is fast and friendly. My mom had Eggplant Lafayette, which has fried eggplants on a bed of angel hair pasta with a delightful cream sauce. Patrick had a chicken dish with pasta and a cream sauce that had a more cheesy flavor than my mom's dish. And my dad had the Catfish Louisiana which is a fried catfish filet topped with crawfish etouffee served over steamed rice. If you ever eat here, I would suggest ordering the hushpuppies. They are sweet and very tasty.

I hope all of you had a great weekend and noone got too wet.

Congrats to Patrick and Molly and Random Thoughts

I would like to congratulate Patrick and Molly on getting into the Charity School of Nursing. I'm very proud of both of you. Keep up the good work! I can't wait until ya'll are Nurses.

Some questions about Casting On have come up. The reason we cast on is to get stitches on the needles. Most patterns will tell you a number of stitches to cast on. The cast on edge is typically the width of the project.

Another question was “How do you get the stitches off of the needles?” Initially, I said, you leave them on, but I think I was thinking about the question the wrong way. You leave the stitches on the needles until you start the next row. When you start on the knit row, which a tutorial should be coming in a few days, that’s the point where the stitches on the cast on row get dropped off of the needles and the new stitches that you are knitting take their place.

I would like to thank the person who asked this, and please, if you have a question about something not making sense or just a general wondering about something, feel free to contact me. If I don't know the answer, I'll try to find it.

I would also like to thank all of you who are reading this. I hope you are getting something out of this, and I have a some other things planned for the blog. Look for more tutorials, more pictures of finished projects, maybe even restaurant, book and other reviews.

Sorry there aren't any pictures today.

Thanks,
Kelly

The Wii and the Booties

My favorite feline in footwear, Puss in Boots, was gracious enough to model the baby bootie I made this weekend.

Now lets get to something for those of you who read my blog because you love me, not because you have any interest in knitting. Have you heard of the Nintendo Wii video gaming system? There is a new game for it. It's called the Wii Fit and it's a lot of fun. The game is divided into four different exercise groups. There's Aerobics, Strength exercises, Balance Games, and Yoga. Each of these groups has different exercises. In the aerobics section, there are things like hula hoop, step aerobics, and running. The balance games are also a lot of fun. There are skiing games, a tight rope walk and a soccer game where you are the goalie.

Motorcycles

Today Patrick and I drove about an hour away to Houma to buy Patrick a Motorcycle. It's a beautiful bright red Suzuki. I like to look at it, but I'm not sure if I will be riding on it anytime soon. He's just the kind of person who is comfortable with bikes and the whole concept of motorcycles. I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who gets scared riding her bicycle, and believe me, my bicycle goes a heck of a lot slower than any motorcycle. Did I mention we are opposites on a lot of things? Well we are. For our honeymoon, we went to Orlando Florida because I love Disney World. On the first day we were there we went to Islands of Adventure, and I didn't think I was going to be able to walk away from the twin dragons ride. I screamed the entire time and since I'm not all that into riding on rollercoasters, I forgot about the don't look down part and looking down made me so frightened that I closed my eyes for the remaining part of the ride. I was a little shaken the rest of the day to say the least. A lot of the things that I have no desire to do because I'm scared really don't seem to bother him. Another ride in Islands of Adventure that I didn't know was scary until we were going down a water fall is Jurassic Park. It didn't make it any less scary, just a heck of a suprise. He's the kind of person who could talk just about anyone into anything, which is actually a good thing. If I was with a guy who didn't challenge me and make me do the things that I dread, I would miss out on a lot of experiences that at least make for good stories.

During the car ride back home from Houma today, I started on some baby booties. My cousin's baby has really little legs and his socks keep falling off, so I was thinking that making booties might be a good way to keep his feet warm. I actually found some that I like, they look like little shoes, complete with little shoe laces made of ribbon. The little leaflet I picked up today has another really cute pattern for these little girly booties. Those might be on the needles next after the boy Booties. I'm making them with some cotton that I also bought at Hobby Lobby. I know a lot of knitters look down upon places like Hobby Lobby and Michael's, but I really do like going to those stores. There are just so many possibilities in a store that big dedicated to arts and crafts. There are so many places to find inspiration. Even if I wonder to the scrapbook sections or the jewelry isles, I get ideas for things I might want to design later. I even found the cutest knitting charm. I think I'm going to put it on a book mark.

I'll keep ya'll posted about Patrick's adventures on the Motorcycle and my progress with the booties.

Hello and Welcome

Hi! I'm Kelly. What do you get when you combine an Accountant and an Artist? Me! I'm a Civil Engineer by day and knitter whenever I can find the time. My mom's an Accountant and my dad's a photographer. My dad's website is http://www.lanelefortphotography.com/. His site has his photography, which is mostly of New Orleans, Swamps, and Wildlife.

This blog will be mostly about knitting, but sometimes I'll go off on a tangent and talk about photography, my dogs, New Orleans, my family or some arts and/or crafts related things. My favorite person is Patrick, my husband. I have two dogs, Lane is a Sheltie, and Dozer is a Boxer. We all live in a Suburban area not too far from New Orleans. The best things about New Orleans are the Architecture, the people and the food. Things have definitely been different since Hurricane Katrina. But the city seems to be healing for the most part.

I learned to knit years ago from my Maternal Grandma. I remember every time I'd go there, she'd be knitting, so one day I finally asked her if she would teach me. I learned the basics and fell in love with knitting. The first thing she explained to me is that there are only two stitches in Knitting, the Knit and Purl. I thought of how amazing it is that two stitches can be so versatile. They can make up delicate lace or strong cables or just a simple garter stitch. I think that's why I like knitting so much. Knitting is taking something very simple and making it complex. That's all I have for today.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you liked the post.