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Last week DH and I went on two short trips to check out different areas of Wisconsin. Our first destination was Wisconsin Dells ! Wisconsin Dells is an area with some lovely natural features – specifically the Wisconsin river has carved its way down through the local sandstone bedrock to create beautiful cliffs and dells. In recent years, a lot of water parks and so on have been built in the area, though we didn’t visit any of those. Our first day there we visited a historical site devoted to H.H. Bennett , who was a photography pioneer and helped make the Dells famous. After that, we took a river cruise! That evening we ate at Hot Rocks, a tiki bar that brings your food to you on burning hot rocks for you to cook for yourself. It was more fun than it sounds like it would be. Our hotel room overlooked the Wisconsin river, so we had a beautiful view. Day 2, we took a duck boat tour of a different part of the river, then visited a deer park where I got to feed and pet differ...

I’m back! This past week was my 29th wedding anniversary with my DH, and we celebrated by taking a few short trips around WI. More about that later though. In the course of our travels, we stopped at a yarn shop in Delavan WI, Needles ‘n Pins . This shop is kind of in the middle of nowhere. The town of Delavan is actually some distance away, but in spite of the remoteness, it is a pretty good yarn shop! I knew right away I would like this shop, because as soon as we parked the welcoming committee came right out to meet us This friendly little guy hung around for scrootches and petting for a bit, but then it was in to the shop. The shop is this smallish building, but they pack a LOT of yarn in! They had a lot of different brands – lots of Noro and Malabrigo, Berroco, Wonderland, Koigu, and much more. They had a good variety of knitting and crochet books and magazines, and some racks of patterns as well as a fully stocked tool and notion wall. All in all, a really impressive shop! ...

I swear, one of these weeks I will get my act together in time to post one of these on Wednesday. Anyway. Progress on all three active projects! Not a lot got done on the Open Weave shawl this week, but still – moving along! The last two little witches I plan on making this year (for a total of 4 witches and 4 cats). These last two need a little finishing, but they are mostly done. I really enjoyed this pattern, and might well make more of them in the future! Hopefully the whole coven will be done by next week. Big progress on the Homage to the Granny Square afghan this week! I need to do three more of this square and four big corner squares, and I am DONE! With the blocks at least. Then I need to figure out placement and put the whole thing together. But I am not thinking about that now. It feels like I am close to the finish line, and I am hanging on to that feeling right now. With sweater weather coming on, do you find yourself wanting to work on different projects? Or does y...

Jamie Lomax of Pacific Knit Co . has consolidated all her doodle knitting concepts and basic patterns into a book, and I am here for it! I pre-ordered it from the author, and got the bonus items you see here – a tote bag and a little limited edition set of knitting related doodles – a yarn chicken, sleeve island, and things like that. Above is a doodle cowl I made last year! If you are not already familiar with doodle knitting, it is a modular system for knitting colorwork. There are basic patterns – socks, mittens, cowls, etc. – and then the doodles. The doodles are smallish design elements that you can mix and match to create your own personalized colorwork knitted items. The designer has been putting out doodles and basic patterns for a couple of years now, and I, like a lot of other knitters, have accumulated quite a few of her pattern sets. However, I am still thrilled with this book. It includes all the basic patterns, and quite a few doodles. About half of the doodles in th...

I’ve got 3 projects in active rotation now, and getting close to wrapping up on a few of them. Getting close on another little witch! This one is for my SIL, who loves lime green. I just need to do her hat and her cat. I’m pretty sure I have a mini-skein of the right color, so I just need to fish that out of stash. I think after this one I will make a pink witch with a fluffy white cat for my cousin Amie. Then that will likely be it. Maybe I’ll do some little knitted pumpkins – who knows! The Homage to the Granny Square continues on! I’ve got 6 more of this block to do, then 4 big corner blocks, then it’s time to assemble! I’m enjoying it, but also looking forward to being done. The Open Weave shawl continues as well. I’m getting close to out of two of the yarns, so I will be calling it good when I get to that point. It’s a good size now, so I could really stop at any point. But I’d like to use up as much of the yarn as possible – no point it adding more to the scrap bin! So tha...

We finally finished another little home improvement project – our staircase. When we first moved in, it looked like this: 1970s shag carpet, which was also all over the downstairs floor. We got rid of it downstairs almost immediately, but for some reason we didn’t get it off the stairs until now. Very fortunately, the wood treads and risers are in great shape and cleaned up pretty nicely. We stained the treads and added carpet strips, then put self-stick wallpaper strips on the risers. We are thinking about options for the risers, including possibly some fancy tilework, or just painting them white. But we didn’t want just bare wood while we figured that out. So here they are now: Not perfect yet, but much better! Are you working on your house? What is the project you are most looking forward to getting done, or that you are gladdest to have gotten finished?

This week’s Little Witch is for my Mom. Her favorite color is green, and her cat Punky is a lovely variegated orange somewhat like this one I even tried a little decorative stitching on her hat! There might be more of that, but maybe not. I’m still deciding. The pattern is Little Witch Charm Set by Susan B. Anderson, and was knit for the Yarn Ghouls SAL!