Hello from St. John

Hi everyone! Just a quick note from St. John. The island is beautiful, we have been to the beach every day, I think my daughter is a fish! Yesterday was a rainy day but still managed to be in the water most of the day.
The place we are staying at is so nice! There are two out buildings built around the pool and the main house which has three bedrooms in it. We did a little gardening yesterday, you can only pull weeds after it rains otherwise you have to use a pick axe! The house is build on a hill overlooking Chocolate Bay(Kathleen would know where that is). Today we are going to Trunk Bay.
We lucked out, the flight was short here, only 3 hours 18 minutes!
FYI, the cat was found at the neighbors house under the porch, 8 lives now! Hope all is well and hope everyone had a great Christmas. I will post again soon.

Week 11

The week of our Christmas party! It was hosted by Kathleen with an appetizer theme. She had a fire going in her fireplace that has never had a fire in it before, music and great food!

Food

• Kathleen had some homemade cranberry vodka, served up a tasty drink. She also made some sauteed mushrooms over toast, Swedish meatballs and an awesome chocolate torte!
• Margi brought spinach balls, one of my favorites.
• Lisa brought small pastry shells filled with sauteed onions and brie cheese.
• JoAnn brought a beautiful roasted veggie torte with goat cheese on the top, looked to pretty to eat, but no one had a problem digging in!
• I brought some homemade humus, guacamole and olives.
• Plenty of wine, persecco, scotch, vodka to drink. The hit was the cranberry vodka drink Kathleen made which she needs to post what was in it.

Knit Projects

• Lisa finished a hat she made for a gift, still working on her sweater.
• Margi was pumping out Moebius scarves, stated she has made 15 so far.
• Kathleen was also working on Moebius scarves, same as me.
• JoAnn was almost done with her smoke ring.
• We pretty much did not knit anything.

Topics Talked About

• The holidays

Moebius Mania!

Here are a few of the Moebius Scarves I knitted for gifts. My knit group will not be able to see them so I wanted to post the pictures.

Week 11

Food

• Lisa brought some various cheeses and cracker.
• Last week was our food week, and next week is the Christmas party

Knit Projects

• Wow, Margi made about 10 Moebius Scarves, they were all different types of yarn and looked great!
• Kathleen took the pattern and ran with it also, making three and determined to make more.
• Lisa was working on her vented sweater.
• I was also working on my vented sweater, but got inspired to try the scarf also.
• JoAnn was not here for this meeting.
• Margi suggested washing the scarves, hers were all soft, there is a big difference in the feel!

Topics Talked About

• Kathleen announced she took the job she was interviewing with. It will be a great adventure and experience, not to mention better hours, holidays and vacation time.
• I briefed everyone on my Town Treasurer position, going pretty good.
• I had to leave early for a Nursery School Board meeting, hopefully someone call fill in any other topics!

BTW, already made a Moebius Scarf for a Christmas gift, super quick and easy, caught the bug and going to make more! Will post pictures next week after they have been given, just in case they read the blog!

Knitted Tree Topper

This is ambitious for a tree topper or a gift. Not to mention I do not enjoy working on double pointed needles. If you feel the need to try it out, the patter is here.

Post to Members... Please reply!

Do we want to do a Yankee Gift Swap for our Christmas Party? Limit $5-10?

Cookie Tin

Margi......I think I left the tin of cookies at your home from last weeks meeting, I hope you are eating them!

Turtle pattern

This is so cute! I am going to keep this Turtle pattern for a future gift project!

How cute is this hot water bottle cover! Something completely unique, I know Margi was making one but have not seen it yet!

My daughter would love this Fiesta Knit Tea set! I certainly would not have to worry about her breaking my real Fiesta.

Week 10

Food

• It was a BIG week for food! Kathleen brought a dip that Lisa thought it was my humus. It looked like it but was not, it had blue cheese in it which Lisa does not care for. She did not say anything until later in the meeting where she commented about how she wants to like blue cheese tries it but cannot seem to like it. Same for beets with her. Oh well, more dip for us!
• JoAnn brought a cheddar cheese with cranberries, very tasty!
• Lisa brought some shrimp cocktail, with some Tequila Lime cocktail sauce which we all seemed to enjoy!
• I brought some cookies from the Haddam Junior Women's League cookie swap, many I had not tried yet.
• The wine was Ravens Wood Pinot, very good and always a good choice.

Knit Projects

• Forgot my camera so I missed out on taking some pictures of Margi's three finished stockings, they looked outstanding especially the green one with the crystals on it!
• Moebius was the topic again. This time Margi had taken the class at YDU and made two true Moebius scarfs that has the 180 degree turn, very clean looking and will get a picture for next week. In case you wanted to know, here is the Moebius Cast video to make the scarf. Here are also a few Moebius Scarf patterns to try if you are ambitious.
• I finished another Celtic scarf, orange and gave it to my sister-in-law for a birthday gift. I started the vented sweater in green.
• Kathleen was trying a pattern which she seemed to be have some difficulty casting on according to the directions, I told her to bag it but she will be going back to the yarn shop and ask them....."What the #*^k are these directions stating????" I swear our trash mouths come out and Lisa has instigated it. With affection of course!!!! Kathleen did add a very sweet felted flower pin to her bag shown to the right, from Etsy , one of our favorite shopping sites!
• JoAnn was working on a sweater project that was a very neat design, picture is worth a thousand words here because I cannot describe what it looks like! When it is done, you will understand!

Topics Talked About

• Obama's speech and how it effected people we know
• Kathleen went on another job interview with the same place, not sure what will happen but seems to be no pressure on her to get it or not! ow nice is that!
• How can you not talk about Tiger.....who is not out of the Woods yet!
• For the NYY topics, Bryan Bruney was traded to the Nationals for a player to be named later.
• Kathleen brought the Sports Illustrated Derek Jeter issue, my daughter scooped it up and looked at all of the pictures, telling me there were a lot of stories in it about him.
• We decided upon our Christmas party plans, to be held at Kathleen's house with appetizers to be done.

Appealing sweater pattern

Another free pattern you can find here at Knitting Daily.

Quick and Qute!

Here is nice gift idea if you need a quick gift and itching for a small project.

Use any cotton yarn and size 8 or 9 needles.

Cast on 4 sts.

Row 1: Knit.Row 2: K2, YO, K to end of row.Repeat row 2 until you have 50 sts.

Decrease Row: K1, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K to end of row.

Repeat Decrease Row until you have 4 sts left. Cast off.
Practice your picking skills while making a bunch of these for stocking stuffers! You can also make spa cloths: just use a DK-weight linen or hemp yarn, size 6 or 7 needles, and repeat Row 2 until you have 40 stitches instead of 50 stitches.

Pattern provided Knitting Daily.

Week 9

Food

• Wine via Lisa, Veo which was liked by all. She purchased it at Sam's Club liquor store, $6.99 a bottle! Can't beat that!
• Lisa also brought the cream cheese and pepper jelly, one of my favorites!

Knit Projects

• Kathleen finished her felted bag, very cool! Picture shown on right. She also sported her vented sweater, which almost all of us has made, JoAnn and myself have to do one, on my list.
• Margi was as always a knitting machine! She was working on the Moebius scarf that had reverse cables and she finished two moebius scarfes that were both very cool. JoAnn is sporting one of them to the right. Stocking were not done yet so maybe next week.
• Lisa was working on the next phase of her vented sweater.
• I was sewing up the Einstein sweater and was debating on the next sweater, might be a gift and something quick.
• JoAnn finished her shawl, very cool and great color! She was also working on her Musk Ox smoke ring.

Topics talked About

• Derek Jeter was named Sportman of the Year by Sports Illustrated.....no surprise to us!
• Showed off my daughter's birthday present which was a NYY photo blanket, cane be seen at www.lifeislikechampagneblog.com
• Weslyan Potters has their show on right now, Kathleen went and raved about the nice handmade items they had. I would love to take a trip to check it out!
• Briefed everyone on the bast BOE election and the mishaps done during the election by certain party officials.
• We set a date for our holiday dinner party, Kathleen will be hosting it on the 21st of December, dinner at her house!
• Talked more about Moebius patterns, how to, videos and how YDU has another class set up with a waiting list on it. Popular pattern!

Pictures will be added later.