Molly Bee's Attic

What a great weekend! I started it off by meeting Mrs. SABLE at Victor Allen's on Saturday morning for knitting and coffee. She is as wonderful as her blog suggests and her newest sweater project is even more gorgeous in person if that's possible. Laurie from Pickin' and Throwin' and Linda from Mousey Blog were there as well and delightful. It always amazes me when you meet strangers and you all have so much in common (she typed, humming 'It's a Small World' ). Delightful conversation, good coffee and I got the major part of the foot done on my purple sock. Mr. Bee and I went to see the film 'Smokin' Aces' in the afternoon. Jeremy Piven was in it so Mr. Bee was contractually obligated to take me. It's in our wedding vows. Gratuitous gore aside (seriously, you'll want to cover your head with your jacket for aproximately 5 minutes when you see the guy with the chainsaw come in) it was pretty good. Jeremy was amazing (of course) and there w...

Here is a photo of my newly finished socks. And one of the cuff detail although it's a little blurry. This is my new current fav pattern. It's a little taller than an anklet, a little more fitted than my normal basic sock pattern and the little lace panel makes it interesting. I love the yarn too-Cherry Tree Hill. Only about 1/2 the price of the Celestial Sock Yarn that I love and only a little lesser in quality. It's a pretty good compromise. Plus when you wash them they get sooooo soft! Now I'm starting a purple pair out of some WildeFoot that I found at Lakeside Fibers. Sock hoarding. I know. It's an illness. Mr. Bee and I are gleefully planning our 'Aroostook County Maine Sat-adee Night Bean Suppah', Deah. Here is the invitation that went out to our friends: The date for the official 'Aroostook County Maine Sat-a-dee Night Bean Suppah' will be February 24th. To make it as authentic as possible we will be eatin' at 5PM (shahp, Deah) so plan o...

Wee doggies hate getting up in the morning... Especially when they are all snuggly warm in the covers... But the thing they really hate is static cling head! Poor Wee Doggie! Didn't get any quilting done last night but got some more of Grammie's sweater sleeve done. I'll have to ask Mum to remeasure Grammie from the underarm down to get the sleeve length before I go much further. The original measurement was from the shoulder but the sweater is a raglan sleeve so I'd better be a little more sure. Tonight is grocery night. Other than that our plan is to avoid the State Of The Union speech at all costs. We have our own opinions as to the state of the union....

I am a party pooper. I went to Knit Night at 5:30 on Friday and then called Mr. Bee at 8:30 and begged him to come get me. I couldn’t run with the big dogs so I had to get off the porch. Finished a pair of socks and did three rounds on a new pair then lost the will to remain conscious. It was VERY warm in there and I didn’t have coffee-both of which contributed to a drowsiness that was just this side of embarrassing. So Mr. Bee and Wee Doggie came down, picked me up, took me home and tucked me in. No staying up with the big kids for Molly Bee! Got up wicked early on Saturday to go to Waukesha for a Geocaching Event. Went with friends of ours and their 2 ½ year old son, Geoboy. He was ADORABLE. It was cold and he had so many layers on that he walked like a penguin. He has his own little pint-sized walking stick. It was all just toooooooo cute! We only managed 4 caches. When you have short legs and are dressed in 40 pounds of clothes and boots you don’t make good time. I’m talking about ...

I made the yummiest Apple Crisp (click for recipe) on Sunday. I got the recipe from a free Kraft recipe magazine that comes on the mail and is also online. The topping was made with Nilla Wafers and oatmeal. It was soooo good warm from the oven and wasn’t bad warmed over in the micro-just not as crunchy as fresh. There are a lot of keepers among the recipes in this month’s issue. I especially like making meatloaf in muffin cups so you can freeze them for a quick meal some other day rather than eat meatloafy leftovers all week! BossMan is in San Diego this week and has called me twice complaining about the accommodations at his $200/night hotel. I listened for a while and then finally I asked him what the weather was like there…65°-70° and sunny as it turns out. (It’s ALWAYS 65°-70° in San Diego!) I told him that we got snow yesterday and that today was 5° with a wind chill of -5° to -10°. Made his room look a whole lot better instantly. I aim to please! Call me anytime! Grammy’...

Finally some snow! There is a Winter Storm Warning and we are supposed to get 4"-6" tonight-the first significant snowfall in two months. It was a lush, green Christmas around here this year! Tonight's extravaganza is supposed to come laced with ice and sleet, which I am not too crazy about, but hey, beggers can't be choosers. Christmas? Were we speaking about Christmas? Oh yes we were, Oh Mighty Queen of the Segue! Here is a photo of Wee Doggie. He spent Christmas afternoon safely tucked between my freshly minted socks so he wouldn't get trampled in the commotion or get accidently tossed in the discarded wrapping bin. I love Socketta yarn! Almost as much as I love Wee Doggie!

Haven’t had much time to write since I have a new kid! I added to my little family of scientists on Monday. The new kid's name is Rudy and there is much work to do to beat him into submission like I have the rest of my charges. He’s not as strong-willed as some of the others so ‘Mom’ should be able to whip him into shape tuit suite! I have been knitting my Grammie’s cardigan, but it still looks like a misshapen lump on the circular needle so I didn’t bother with a picture. It’s going really fast so far. Almost done the back now. Haven’t been down in the quilt room this week so far. Spent all last evening cleaning out the walk-in closet for the Easter Seals truck that is supposed to come on Thursday. It was like a bad fashion museum in there…huge florals, shoulder pads, lots of rayon…most of it too embarrassing to even give to charity. Now it’s cleaner and we can even see the floor since I cleaned out the old shoe graveyard. I am still my Daddy’s girl-never met a shoe I could sta...

My Mum signed the waver to be included on my blog. This is a picture of her in the sweater I made her for Christmas! Doesn't she have a beautiful face and cheery smile? By the way, she painted the landscape you can see on the wall behind her. Looks and talent. She has it all, my Mum! Off to the Quilt store in Cambridge this morning to pick up fabric for my super secret project. Quilt work sometimes gets all mathy on me and I ALWAYS underestimate how much I will need and am always to stubborn to ask for help at the shop. Thankfully the quilt shop lady knows about my disability and puts a little more aside for me for when I come crawling back shamefaced! Call her an enabler if you will. I just call her my hero. She understands that it's all just number salad to me!

Here is the sweater I knit for my Mum for Christmas! It is the 'Pure and Simple' Top Down Cardigan sweater. It is knit in Cascade Quatro. She kindly sent me several photos since I forgot to take any myself. There were a couple of really nice ones where she was actually wearing the sweater, but she wouldn't give permission to be on my blog. Maybe if I put a grey fuzzy blob or black bar over her face to protect the innocent...I'll have to check.

In the year 2007 I resolve to: Stop making silly resolutions. Get your resolution here.

I ran out of fabric for my super secret project (as usual) and decided to take a stab at a wee foundation pieced mini block. After only an hour and a half of tracing templates, cutting strips, sewing and ironing, flipping and folding I got this little lovely. Isn’t it the cutest thing ever? And absolutely useless! Why? Because even though the instructions repeatedly begged me not to, I still insisted on cutting off the quarter inch seam allowances all around the outside so I can't sew it to anything else. So what have we learned? We have learned that cute, mini-blocks are indeed possible and that we should establish a quilting cut-off (pun intended) time of sometime before 10 p.m. when all available brain cells are still awake and firing! That's right...I perform these experiments so you don't have to....Guess it's back to the old sewing machine!