"Z" is for......

                                     


Zis is ze last post in ze ABC meme!  I wanted to send it out with a bang of some really creative topic, but, alas, I can't think of anything that creative or Zany to post about.  26 Mondays of posts and here we are at the end...  it's kind of bittersweet.  I'm glad to not feel the pressure of posting, but will miss reading the posts of others to see what words they are writing about.

Thank you Charlotte for giving us this idea.  It's been lots of fun and I know a lot of us enjoyed posting!

So, for all the zebras, zoos, zealots, Zen Buddhists, zeniths, zeros, zircons, zippers, Zionists, zodiacs, zones and zingers...  I bid farewell to the ABC meme.

Squee Sunday post # 16

Happy Sunday everyone!  I have a few Squees to share today.  First and most important, the stomach virus is gone!!!  YAY!!!  That was awful and it lasted more than two days in me so I am very glad to say goodbye to it!  I missed doing my FO Friday post because I finally went back to work and had so much to catch up on, I just couldn't take the time to blog.  So, I'll save my FO for next week.

The other thing that I am so excited and amazed about is that witchyknits4ewe received a check from the adsense ads I have on my page!!!  So, thank you to all of you who click on them (and if you don't, please feel free to click away!)!!  It wasn't a "going to pay the bills" check, but it was a nice surprise and will go towards the money we need for the book!

My next Squee is that I have 50 followers!!!  How exciting and thank you to all of you who are reading my blog and sharing in all I do.  I get so excited to see the numbers grow and I am just as excited for #50 as I was for the first person who followed me.  So, a big YAY YOU to all of you out there!

My last Squee is also an OMG! Squee - we got SNOW in October!!!  The last time we had snow in October was in 1979!  Here is a pic of my deck with little Bandit footprints to show you there really was accumulation.





Enjoy your Sunday, I need to go teach Sunday School now so I am logging off.  For more Squees, hop on over to Calophi's blog!

WIPW number 22

Sadly, I am home this Wednesday with a stomach virus that seems to be going around at work.  I missed my Tuesday night knitting group too because of it. :-(

I do have a WIP to show though.  I'm doing (yet another) scarf for the craft show.  It's a simple K2tog, yo pattern.  Here it is:






I think I bought the yarn from a shop going out of business, but I'm really not sure where I got it from.  That's it for now - for more WIP's, visit Tami!

Y is for.... yarn overs!

Wow - only one more post after this and we've completed the ABC meme!!  Hard to believe...  anyway, I decided to talk about yarn overs for my letter "Y" post.  I love lace knitting, and the basis of making all those little holes is usually through a yarn over.  Here is a sample of a very basic K2tog, YO pattern:





You can also do more intricate patterns with yarn overs too such as these mitts and scarf pattern:




Here are some more samples of the lace patterns you can do with yarn overs:










I hope you enjoyed my "Y" post!  See you next week for the final letter!

Squee Sunday post # 15

My Squee for today (aside from the fact that I'm off from Sunday School today and hope to spend the whole day in my jammies!!!!) is to share my visit with brother and his family.  As I had said, I haven't seen them in about three years.  I hadn't met my newest two nieces either!  They came in to the east coast to visit a friend and stay for Sukkot.  It was only about two hours away so we drove down last Sunday and spent the day with them.   This visit was long overdue and it amazing to see them, even if only for a few hours.  The older kids seemed to pick right up as though they had just seen each other last week (although with video chatting they kinda had!).  Matt had some intense card playing going on with Chaya and Yossi!





Jarett even joined in the action too!





I made the girls headbands.  Here are a couple of pics of my new nieces, Necha (with my mom) and Menucha, wearing them. 








And being held by Jarett!




I was able to get some candids of the rest of them too!  Here are Michoel, Chaya, and Jarett & Yossi :







Notice Chaya's headband too - it's on the table next to her:




We tried to get a family portrait of all the kids but it was really hard to get the younger ones to stay still.  So, we did the best we could.  Here are a few of the kids, the kids along with my brother and Eta and the kids with my parents:

Notice someone missing?  Michoel just wasn't in the "take my picture" mood anymore!



Henoch (my brother) tried to hold him but he only wanted Mommy!


He did a little better with my dad but still wouldn't look at the camera.



The oldest cousins, Matt & Chaya (five year age difference) - they look the most alike and could pass for brother and sister!!



We had a really nice visit and it was so super sweet of Eta's friend to open her house to us.  We even found a kosher Chinese restaurant that made me a gluten free lunch!!!  For my squees, visit Calophi on her blog.  Enjoy the rest of your weekends!!!

FO Friday!

Yay!  Another Friday and another Finished Object.  This will be a short but sweet post.   Today I have for you... another hat made my Bro Hats pattern.




For more FO's head on over to Tami's site!

WIPW number 21

Last week, Trudy and I got together to see what we actually had ready for the craft shows.  As it turned out, somehow, I had only made one hat...  how this got by me, I don't know, but I am now knitting away to make some more hats.  So, the easiest and quickest was to use my Bro Hats pattern.   Here is a preview of one of them using Plymouth Encore.  You can see the finished result on Friday.



That's it for now, I'll have a few FO's to show on Friday though.  For more WIP's, hop on over to Tami's blog!

X is for.... ????

My first thought was "oh my gosh - what real words begin with the letter 'x'????"  Then I though of all the silly things I could do such as x-amine, or x-tremely or x-cellent.... hahaha....  so, I decided to see what some other bloggers who are participating in this meme did, and I saw that some skipped X altogether and went directly to "Y."  See pinkundine's blog for a VERY cute letter Y post!!   I guess I'll just be behind a week in finishing this meme since I didn't really think about a Y post and I have a ton of school work to get going on...  So, it has been x-citing to tell you all this even though there was no x-act information for you to have.  I'll just x-it on out!!!  Visit Charlotte for more ABC's!

Squee Sunday post # 14

I have a great Squee this week!!!  I am finally going to see my brother and his family!!!  I haven't met my newest two nieces yet!!!  It's been about three years since I've seen his family.  They moved across the country and I miss them dearly.  It's hard for me to go see them because of the cold.  I have Raynoids and in extreme cold (such as the area they live - they think 50 degrees F is summer!) my body just hurts too much to be there.  I went once over Thanksgiving thinking that wouldn't be too bad, but it was really hard for me.  Anyway, I"M GOING TO SEE THEM!!!!!  They are in for Sukkot (Jewish holiday where you build a Sukkah -non permanent structure- representing when the Jews were traveling through the desert and it's considered a mitzvah-good deed- to eat your meals in the Sukkah.  That's the VERY watered down version of it - a lot more detail but I figured I'd give you the basics.) visiting my s-i-l's friend from college who lives in Baltimore.  About a two hour drive away from here!   We are leaving in about two hours but I couldn't sleep so I figured I'd blog now.  I will post pics (as long as I remember to take them) next week.  So, that is my big squee.

My other squee that was just cute was Mary (co-owner of this blog who never posts...  yeah - her name is on the side bar with mine - she does really exist) made Trudy and me slippers.  Here we are - cute pic of our feet, huh?!




I won't tell you who is who - you'll just have to guess...  anyway, those are my squees for today!  Hop on over to Calophi to hear more exciting squees!

FO Friday!

It's been a bit since I've posted a FO.  I had a few projects that I was working on but some did not work out.  For example, the crochet hat I was so proud of, really did not turn out.  Seriously, my knitting group got a huge laugh and even dubbed it the "Devo hat,"  think "just whip it, whip it good!"  Here is a pathetic pic of it, just for laughs and to entertain you:





That is a hand knit sweater that I made a few years ago that I was wearing....  anyway, please stop laughing so you can continue to read...

I did make two more self fringing scarves - same yarn (it is very pretty but not fun to work with) but two different sizes.  Here they are:







Here is a pic from the front (I think it's the shorter one):





For my final FO, and because I have no shame anymore, I set up a class project page with DonorsChoose.org.  It's a site to post a "project" that you want for your classroom and all of the wonderfully generous people out in the world can decide if they think it's something important enough to make a donation to.  The donations can be as big or little as the donor wants and benefits education.  For my class, I am trying to get enough money/donations to buy a laptop for my class so we can do power points, video streaming and more.  The computers we have are seriously old (I believe the are a 10.1 operating system and modern technology is up to 10.7) and don't have the ability to do any of the video/power points that would seriously enhance learning today.  For more information on my class you can go to DonorsChoose.org and under state, put Pennsylvania, under city put Philadelphia and then for the school go to Louis H. Farrell. (yes, that was a shameless plug)

For more FO's, make sure you check out Tami's blog!

WIPW number 21

Another addition of WIP Wednesday!  I have up for you today, some fingerless mitts.  You can find the pattern here.  I made them on purple for myself with purls but am doing a green version today.  Here they are:





I am using Plymouth's Wildflower DK yarn.  I have it in a few colors and it really works up very nicely.  For some more WIP's, visit Tami!

"W" is for... walking!

Walking.  It's such a simple thing but we never do a whole lot of it.  We're always rushing off here and there.  Get in the car and go.  Yesterday, my husband and I took a break from all the craziness and decided to go for a walk.  It was good for our muscles, good for our hearts and good for our heads.  Sometimes, in a world of computers and fiber arts, we end up sitting way too much.  We forget that our bodies need to move.  I know at least I do.  Walking, a simple movement that is good for you.  Now if I can only remember to do more of it...

For more ABC's, visit Charlotte!

WIPW number 20

Another Wednesday and another project for the craft show!!  I am using (surprise, surprise) Plymouth boucle yarn.  It's not the best to work with - I'm a little disappointed at how easily it frays...  but, I'm doing another self-fringing shawl.  Here it is so far:






At least the colors in this photo are pretty accurate!!!  Here's another one with the yarn so you can see what I used:






For more WIP's, please visit Tami!  Enjoy your Wednesday!!

"V" is for ... Vocabulary!!!

Lately, my husband and I are addicted to Word Feud.  It's a free app on our cell phones where we basically play each other in scrabble.  A lot of people are doing the Words with Friends but since we have smart phones and not droids, we can't do that one...  It is fun to see who can make the points, and we are very competitive with it too!   What we have no idea of, is what exactly some of the words that we've discovered on there are.  Mind you, we've found them by accident by putting in combinations and then low and behold, they work!  So, what ever is a "qi" and what does "leavier" mean???  Who cares, as long as I can land on a triple word score!!!!

For more ABC's, visit Charlotte!

Squee Sunday post # 13

Happy New Year and let me say that I am so glad to report we all survived holiday dinner!!!!  For those of you who don't know, this past Wednesday night began Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  I have to Squee about my Hebrew class on Sundays - they are the cutest kids ever!  They are truly a pleasure.  First of all, there are only 9 of them so that right there makes a huge difference compared to my 30 in regular school.  They are so motivated to learn and try to skip ahead in the book to learn new vowels so they can move up.  They really crack me up!!! 
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On another note, I've set up my classroom on DonorschooseOrg website.  You can help out by donating directly to the project page for my classroom.  Go to Pennsylvania, then to Philadelphia and finally to Louis H Farrell Elementary School.  Hopefully, I will be able to get enough donations to get the laptop I picked out from their list for my classroom.

That's it for my Squees.  Visit Calophi for more!