ONE WORD!

RAVELRY..............

I'm in.........I'm addicted.......my name is (what else?)....Mimiwonton........nuff said

Knitting Wall

Lots of knitting going on around here.....but all are Christmas gifts so I can't post any pics! But I only have 5 left to do....yippee!!!! Then there is the sequined/beaded felt stocking I have to do for the latest grand child, Carter....then on to things that are calling my name!!

Also on the knitting front, I am only 460 out on Ravelry!! At the rate they are inviting I should get mine this week....probably in the next couple of days! I am so excited about it. I am always making a "que" list, a stash list, a needle inventory list, etc. but they are all over the place and usually get mis-placed and I forget what the "plan" was! This way everythig can be all in one place.....and I'm really excited about a ability to pick a yarn and see what others have done with it.

We had Guild last Sunday too....so even though I'm not posting pics of WIP's and FO's....still a lot of knitterly stuff going on! I can post pics of the Guild meeting though :-).

I'm really pleased about how the Guild is going. Thanks to our being on the NewsOK calendar and the Belle Isle Library making and distributing flyers for us we are getting quite a few new people every month! One of our new guests this month just happens to be an Assistant Editor for Metro Family Magazine!!! Mari is going to get us on the magazine calendar AND is going to do an article on us for the magazine!!! How cool is that! Go Guild!!!

The other thing on knitting.......the "Knitting Wall" is up!!!! I ordered and received 4 more of the sorting bins for my shelves!!!! I got them all up and "stuffed" last night! I ended up filling them totally up and my sweet DH asked me if I wanted to order another one....but I decided not to. Pretty much everything found a place in the shelves except for dishrag cotton, partial skeins left over from projects and charity yarn. Those are still in bags stuffed in the corner. After sorting everything and putting it in the shelves, I figured some of it will go to the swap meet at Guild next month and a good portion of it is screaming at me to be used....so I'll be motivated to get busy.....if for no other reason than to make room for new "inhabitants"! I love this storage system so much I just catch myself standing in front of it and staring! All my needles, all my books/patterns and most all of my stash in ONE place!!!!

Of course, the bottom left shelf is Savy's "stash".....lol! That little girl just loves her arts and crafts supplies and needed an organized space for her stuff too!

Well, I do have to get off here and get busy! Got to take Dad to the Dr., out to lunch and to get a haircut....then home to finish spiffing up the house for company. My step-daughter and her family are coming in today. They are staying in a hotel instead of with us but want things to be ready and a meal planned in case they come by here. They are having a joint birthday party for our precious little grand-daughters on Saturday. Kinley is turning 3 next month and Kayden just turned 1. We haven't seen them since we went to Chicago right after Kayden was born so we are excited to see them!

Small Home Project

It will be two years in November that we moved back into this house......I can't believe it. Time goes by so fast. I have talked about the huge decision to down-size and move back into our rental house before.....and how horrendous it was when the last renters moved out. We worked...literally....sun up to sun down for almost two months getting it liveable again. Like most home projects several things we had planned to do before moving in just didn't get done....and here we are almost two years later and some of them STILL haven't been done yet...lol.

We finally got around to taking care of one of those projects!!! Since we moved in we have had a "naked" pantry in the kitchen. The kitchen has very few cabinets and no place to store food....well, not if you have as many cooking gadgets as I do :-) anyway!! We bought some unfinished pantries and installed them before we moved back and they have been sitting there unfinished ever since. The existing cabinets are really dark and the kitchen is really tiny so I didn't want to do a dark stain and make it feel even more cramped so here is what I did:

I love the way they turned out....in fact, I'm seriously considering doing the rest of the cabinets the same way!!! Here is a close-up of the paint.

They are a soft green then antiqued. The spattering part was fun except it took the specks forever to dry before we could varnish it!

As far as knitting related stuff....I did order more of the cubbies to finish organizing my stash!! I'm so excited and can't wait until they get here!! I have been knitting....a lot....trying to get the Christmas list done! Since everything is going to be a gift, I can't post pictures of much, but I have finished 6 of the 17 I have to do. Here are what the rest of them look like right now.

I am so ready to be done with all of them. I have sooo many things in mind that I want to work on! First I'm going to finish the MS3....then I have 3 sweater projects lined up and I'm having sock withdrawals big time...lol! Also want to do another lace project out of that yummy chocolate Blue Heron I snagged. Sigh......I need: more hands, more time, more yarn (not really, but we always "need" more yarn, don't we!) I'm also waiting on Ravelry....am still some 6,000 out and wishing I had signed up sooner!

Been enjoying the kiddos lately and helping Amanda out some. We did get a diagnosis.....Fibromyalgia. She started on a new Rx and it seems to be helping.....or was until an idiot massuse (one of the things the Dr. said helps some is Swedish Massage and wrote her an Rx for it)......did a deep muscle massage on her instead of the recommended Swedish Massage! It just about did her in and she is still suffering from it. I'm praying that the effects of it will wear off soon....it just made me so furious because she was doing SO much better and it just set her back again! She is so amazing through all this though...she is hanging in there and toughing it out as much as she can. I am so proud of her and I know in my heart that this combo of meds and prayers for the restoration of her health is going to make her better.

Here are a few shots of the kids I took while helping out.

Stash Storage Solution!

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

I'm so excited! I have been trying to figure out a solution for my yarn storage forever! I have built in bookcases in my hobby/office space. The DAY I retired from Real Estate, I dismantled the "office" and started working on turning into a hobby room. I decided the bookcases were the best place for my stash since we are much shorter on actual floor space here and there is just no where to put bins, stackable plastic drawers, etc.

The shelves were ok.....just ok. Here is what they look like.

There are two main problems with this storage method.... One, skeins and balls tend to just fall out.....constantly! I'm always finding the odd skein or ball on the floor in front of the shelves.....I have even had the equivalent of an "avalanche" of yarn...lol!

The second problem is finding anything! I can't see what is on the bottom and in the back so if I'm looking for something in particular pretty much the whole shelf has to come down and be put back......plus, I just plain forget I have something when it's buried back there!

First thought was to have DH build cubbies into the shelves.......but it just never happened. We talked about it a lot.....but that's as far as that idea got.

I finally got online and just started looking for a solution. Took the measurements of the shelves and went from there.......and I found it.......and I LOVE IT!!!!

I only ordered one to make sure it was going to work.....and now I'm definately going to be ordering 3 more!!!! Possibly 4, depending on how everything fits. Take a look at the same shelf....with all the same yarn that was in the shelf before!!

AMAZING!!!!! It all fit and I can actually SEE what I have!!!!