Bring me back, please. Once was enough.

Whoa. I’m weirding out. I need to touch base here, touch a computer, get comments from people my age (or older), people who never knew me with crooked teeth and without a driver's license.

I just visited the website of the 20 year high school reunion from the people I went to ELEMTARY school with. Whoa. I feel like I’m in a very strange time warp. Just seeing the names of these people has transported me back to Miller Ct and the vacant lot where we used to play softball, to the Denison Gym and slow dances (hoping and hoping that Mike Gough would ask me to dance to Airsupply), to the YMCA for Saturday morning basketball, to 3rd hour math, to the orchestra concerts, and all those birthday sleepovers.

I saw photos of people who were 10 last time I saw them. 10 years old. Now they are all very middle aged and way too many of them are having way too many children.

Whoa, bring me back. It’s not still 1979. The internet has been invented. I live in Italy.

Too bad, Mike, it’s too late now.

pot head

So I’ll fess up, right here to all the Olive Knitting readers…Olive hasn’t been knitting all that much lately. Work, beads, life, summer – they all got in the way of my needles.

As did a lack of inspiration.

And then I stumbled onto these.


CHECK THOSE HATS OUT!!!

I LOVE these hats, I love the pattern, I love knitting them. Everyone I know is going to get one of these hats.

I would like to claim the pattern as my own because it’s brilliant – totally fast to knit (I’m a slow knitter and can complete one whole hat in an afternoon), simple, and with a ton of room for variations. But it’s not mine. I found the pattern on Knitty - Winter 2007 (here). It’s called Flower Power and was created by Ann Squire.














CHECK OUT THOSE LITTLE FLOWERS!

Obviously I didn’t follow Ann’s pattern word for word…I used stash yarn- Rowan 4 ply wool/cotton blend. I had these leftovers in amazing colors from these socks that I designed*.


Remember them? They look strangely like the hats, no? Minus that cool flower, of course. I’m not sure that even I would put a stand up flower on a sock, though - it would be uncomfortable in the shoe.










I also changed the sizes from the original pattern. Ann has only infant/toddle sizes. As if an adult wouldn’t want to sport one of these Daisy-Head-Mazie wonders!

My imagination is now running wild…why stop at flower toppers? How about veggies on top of brightly colored hats? Or randome pig parts? I wonder if I could knit a likeness of that head I found in the pot on my stove. God, the possibilities are endless.

* These socks will be appearing in a book called Stitch Style Socks that will hit the shelves sometime in November or early December. The book is a compilation of, well, SOCKS. I don’t know what the other patterns in the book are like but I promise to give you a little review once I get my complimentary copy. You can preorder it on amazon if your excited for the patterns.

come one, come all!

Friends, you are all invited to a Maberga Designs “meet the artists” evening hosted by Barclay Gallery and Café in Milwaukee on November 7th. David and I are thrilled about this opportunity to show the holiday jewelry I’ve been making with the incredible beads he got from glasswork artisans in Murano (Venice).

I’ve been creating my tail off in preparation. (sorry about that photo...my photographer was working his day job. I'll post some better photos of the work in future posts).

There will be plenty of beautiful stuff so come with your holiday gift list!

We will be there from 6pm to 8 chatting with folks and enjoying appetizers and drinks. If you are in the southern Wisconsin area (or if you feeling like visiting the southern Wisconsin area) please stop by and say hi.

Directions to the Barclay can be found on their website (linked above). If you haven’t seen any Maberga Designs jewelry yet, please check out our website http://www.mabergadesigns.com./ *

I made this the other day. Can you tell that I’m excited about my visit to the USofA?

*our website is currently under construction and should be up and running within a couple of weeks

Sixty Seven

Sixty Seven reasons to celebrate a birthday…

S = Still on the ball
I = In good health
X = eXcellent grandkids
T = Top notch daughters
Y = Young at heart (?)

S = Sexy wife
E = Elkhorn
V = Very tolerant son-in-laws

E = European vacations with family
N= Not complete hearing loss, yet.

Happy birthday, Dad.

NOTE: just for the record, the birthday was really yesterday but, well, it took me a long time to come up with this stellar and very touching tribute to my cool dad.

Friends! Here it is - I found a photo of the head that was in the pot on my stove.

It looked exactly like that in my kitchen too…a little less pink, he’d been boiling for a while when I found him. He was still smiling, though.

A few other objects I’d like to point out, just so you don’t miss the depth and breadth of this archival photo.

1. the hook.

2. the Wisconsin t-shirt.

3. umm..well, I guess there isn’t a number 3. If you find other treasures in this photo that I’ve missed, do share them in the comments.

I'm baaaaccccckkkkk

Oh my gosh. The computer is back in our house, with a spankin' new screen and it's so clean I'm afraid to touch it.

It seems that there was a little dust and dog hair stuck in some important parts inside that cause the screen to melt. Hmm...how could that have happened? Good thing cars aren't as sensitive as computers (or stoves, water heaters, ovens, or fridges).

So I will be right back a-writin' just as soon as I can respond to all the emails I've been missing.

Just a few quick randoms for now...

1. Sorry you all missed the blog that I wrote in my head and have promptly forgotten about the pig head that David prepared for dinner one night last week.

2. Thanks to everyone who has wished the computer well and a speedy recovery. Your get well comments must have worked because we didn't even lose any of our data whih is quite unbelievable since we had to send the thing to ...well, I don't know where. I take back my previous comment about the computer being so sensitive...when the fridge breaks you ALWAYS have to make new ice cubes.

3. I'd like to welcome all the new Olive Knitting readers who are here now because this year is my TWENTY YEAR high school reunion. Through many reconnections and reunion websites, emails and visits, I've been happily contacted by many old pals...I mean pals from a long time ago. Welcome Thundering Herd...and of course our bastard cousins from down the road, the Badgers.

That's all for now. Much more regular posts to be expected.