Happy Birthday to Me!

My mother gave birth to me 57 years ago today.
Today is a perfect day to celebrate this amazing women.
This is El Escudo De Puerto Rico (The Seal of Puerto Rico)



A proud, strong Puerto Rican women who had dreams of Puerto Rican Independence.
She never went to college but had more insight, intelligence and wisdom than all of the professors I had when I went to college.
She worked hard in a hot hospital kitchen to give me the best life anyone could ask for.
When I was planning a family she put her life aside to care for my girls.
When she past in 1990 I spent many years working on being like Mom and came to the understanding that she lived her life making me ME.
I miss her more than I can say and as I write this I am filling my healing vase with tears.

Somethings Old and Somethings New

These great vintage books belonged to Annette.
Check out the can of Tab the guy is holding!


This is a great free pattern Lacy Stole from Lion Brand.



I'm just starting to get into lace and this pattern was very easy to follow.
It's made out of very soft Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK.


The stole calls for a 5 pattern repeat but I wanted to make a scarf so I only did two repeats. I also added a crochet trim because it just looked unfinshed.



My First Born gave me this great Araucania Ranco Solid blue yarn. Working with it is amazing and I still have a tons more left over. I see a matching scarf coming.

Annette

One of the Chalk Dust Knitters has past.
The knitting sky has lost a star.
Annette was a master knitter who loved to pass on her gift to others with love and peace.
One of the greatest moments I've had in the short time I've been knitting was when Annette told me the sweater I made for my daughter was well done and beautiful.




Pat and Annette at one of the meetings.


Our meetings will never be the same again.
We will remember her often and were blessed to know her.

My First Blogiversary

One year ago today I entered the world of Blog.
I was reading so many great fiber art blogs I was inspired to start one of my own.
My first born helped me but I had no idea what was going to come of this.
I had to come up with a name. Should the name have something to do with Lupus, teaching, knitting, family. I remembered one day looking at my hands and realizing they looked just like my mothers hands. Now I had a name. My Mother was Puerto Rican and the picture is the Puerto Rican seal.
My daughter came up with, The map to the kingdom of knitting and the country side of crochet.

This was my first post.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
I have no idea. How do people start blogs?

I have to have socks on the needles all the time. At first, I was afraid I couldn't make socks, but now I must have socks available all the time.

I got some Lang JaWoll at a store called Yarn Diva. It comes with thread that lets you reinforce the heel. Yarn Diva is a nice little store, but I still love Stix-n-Stitches.

I'm going to go to get myself a new camera tomorrow. I want to learn how to use it and take some pictures of my stuff and I'll be on my way to blog-land.

I have learned so much in the past year and I thank my daughters for teaching me.
When I had the idea to start a group fiber artists who blog Ravelry made that possible and the Lesser Known Skeins was born.
I have met so many great people this year because of the blog and I hope to know and be inspired by more awesome fiber artists in the future.

All Wrapped Up

I have stopped all of my other projects to work on a wrap found in the latest issue of debbie bliss knitting magazine.



My pleated wrap is being made with gray Paton Silk Bamboo.



I'm a very slow knitter so it will take me a long time at 71" long.

When The Frog Turns

I have started many small projects because whenever I started a large one it would be frogged for one reason or another.

The gloves are still safe and almost done.


I started another Noro Silk Garden Scarf.


This is a scarf from Knitty.



I will post details when I finish it.



This was to be a top down cardi from Lion Brand. It met the frog way because I just didn't like it in this yarn.

I enjoy working on many projects at a time but I also like to finish them!

I'm Still Here!

No post since March 15th just isn't like me.
Lupus has done me in and knitting has been slow.
When I get down I find others who are having a more difficult time and that stops me from feeling sorry for myself.
I ran into a friend I have not seen for a long time and she was with her beautiful 6 year old daughter who has Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This sweet angel goes through so much pain she can't walk sometimes. They are going to start her on shots of Methotrexate. I'm on this chemo and I know what it does to me I can't begin to imagine how she will deal with it. We must find cures to these diseases.
My first born and husband are in their first home so I've spent a great deal of time with them.
I hope to post picture of my slow moving unfinished projects this weekend.