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BritAnnia

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Posts posted by BritAnnia

  1. It is Lion Brand (108 yards). I bought enough for a scarf, and it cost $32, but the colors are beautiful and rich. My goal is to make Christmas stockings - guess I'll have to make an investment!

     

    Thanks for the suggestions.

    '

     

    Lion Brand is often on sale at places like Jo-Ann, Michaels, ACMoore. Whether I'm buying yarn from there or online, I always try to get a sale price.

    I'm also still a newb at knitting. I find learning and trying different yarn brands and blends is as fun as trying different techniques and patterns.

  2. I'm having a heck of a time finding Lorna's Laces brand online. I don't have a local store other than Michael's or Joann's, so online is my only option. I'm specifically looking for Shepherd worsted or Shepherd bulky in the Flames colorway. Anyone have any ideas?

     

    They have some of the LL shepherd's worsted in Flames colourway listed on JimmyBeansWool.com, it's full price though.

     

     

    http://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/LornasLaces/ShepherdWorsted.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=1149

  3. Not sure of adding my input here as I just bought yarn that sells for $50 a skein. :eek: Now to find the perfect project that is also within my ability level so I don't mess it up!

     

    WEBS is currently having a sale, even backordered sale items will be sold at sale price. http://www.yarn.com

    I also like Knitpicks and Dizzysheep (great for smaller orders because shipping is only $1). http://www.knitpicks.com and http://www.dizzysheep.com

    A few sites I have bookmarked but have not yet ordered from...

    http://www.discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com/

    http://www.discountyarnsale.com/default.cfm

    http://www.elann.com/Commerce.Web/

    http://www.littleknits.com/

     

    (eta: another link)

     

    hth

  4. I just love reading through these stories.

     

    Dh and I had been dating for 17months, however 8 months of that time he was stationed in North Dakota while I was home in the UK. At the time my parents did not have a home phone (and this was before cellphones), so I'd call him collect from a public phone at work and we wrote A LOT of letters!

    I was planning a trip to visit him and was to book my flights that very day, we'd talked about in the weeks beforehand sorting out the details. Early that morning my brother stopped by my house and told me 'dh' had phoned him and wanted me to call first thing. First thing meant lunchtime for me which was 6am in ND.

    I didn't think all that much of the request. It was a little unusual but I was excited to be buying my tickets to visit him and thought it was regarding that.

    So at luncthime I call and in a sleepy voice he first asked me if I'd bought the tickets yet. I hadn't. He jumped right into it... "Don't get them, I was thinking we should get married instead."

    Erm... okay! And that was the entire proposal. A collect call while I was at work and he was half asleep, 4000 miles away... how romantic!

    We celebrate 22 years this June :001_wub:

  5. I did enjoy Faceless Killers and plan to read more of the Wallander series in future. It is a bit OTT with the drama at times (I'm used to classics where the reading is so much slower and action consists of perceived slight from a misspoken word with high drama being a slamming door, lol), but the pacing is good and characters are generally interesting. I also enjoy reading fiction from other countries for the different cultural references and a perception of the world. Australian is becoming one of my favourites as I see hints of British humour and American as well as what I assume is a uniquely Australian view as well. I'll need to read more Swedish work before making up my mind there.

    I hadn't realized Mankell had so many other books out until I checked his listing onfantasticfiction.

  6. I just finished listening to his first Wallander book, Faceless Killers, yesterday. It's not my usual thing, but I'd recently enjoyed the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. A friend then recommended Henning Mankell. I hadn't even realized he authored the WAllander series which I had enjoyed watching on PBS awhile ago.

  7. Your idea of stewing the chicken with green salsa sounds good.

     

    There's a nice recipe called Country Captain's Chicken or sometimes American Captain's Chicken that we all enjoy served over rice.

    It's basically green bell pepper, onions, chicken, tomatoes, small amount of curry powder, and (optional) sultanas. Few other seasoning things depending on the actual recipe.

     

    I made etouffee last night with leftover roast chicken. (I sometimes use turkey if instead. And shrimp is nice with it, if you like shrimp).

  8. Blocking is really easy for smaller items that aren't overly lacey.

    Dampen the smaller mitten or spritz it with water and pin it to something ( I use a cardboard box for small items). You can adjust it as it dries if necessary and use the larger mitten as a guide for how much to stretch.

    I'm not sure if I'd want to try shrinking the larger one in case it came out too small. Blocking is reversable, shrinking/felting isn't.

    HTH

  9. I'd love to learn more about both sides of my own family and my husband's. I know there are a few people looking into the heritage on Dh's maternal side of the family. That USA line stems from two Scottish brothers who moved to NC from the Highlands during the clearances. We're not been able to trace their story back through their Scottish history yet. When we visited Scotland a few years ago we traveled to the area the family clan seat is from and visited an old kirkyard to see all the headstones with the family names and dates from the 1700 & 1800's. Our children laid a flower on each gravesite bearing the family name.

    A cute story from when Dh interviewed his grandfather a few years before he died was telling of his own birth. The family were very poor, living in a rural part of central NC. When his mother went into labour, one of the children ran for a local midwife who came to their home and helped deliver the baby. The midwife received a piglet as payment for her services.

    On Dh's dad's side, a few generations back they moved to this area from somewhere up north and owned a fair amount of farmland. (We still live on what was then their land). Over the years it was split between children again and again and sold/built on as the town expanded. A church a few hundred yards down the road has the family name because the land and some of the building costs were donated by the family.

     

    On my side I know very little about my dad's side of the family. I keep meaning to get more information out of him but it's difficult being so far away. He's estranged from both of his brothers and his parents died before I was born. A lot of the time his response to direct questions is "we just never talked about that". I know my grandfather was in the navy aboard the Ark Royal aircraft carrier(forget which #). I don't even know my grandmother's maiden name let alone her history.

     

    On my mother's side, I know little about her father beyond him being born and raised in London and had a few sisters. Interestingly, my mother was looking through old photos she'd never before seen at my grandmother's home a couple of years ago and found a picture of my grandfather and two of his sisters. He looks to be about 3 or 4 years old. They're standing by a street sign in another area of London from where my mum grew up... and it's the same street my mum's brother has lived on for 30 years.

    My mum's mother was illigitimate. My grandmother's mother, Molly, was Irish, having moved to London to be a nurse during WW1. Story is she met a Canadian soldier and when she became pregnant he was quickly transferred because he already had a wife at home. I have a photograph that we're fairly sure is of him. Molly then met and married another man who was a widower with a couple of small children but she died a year later in childbirth. We don't know if the child survived, would be my Grandmother's half-sibling. Obviously this guy didn't want to raise my grandmother who was then aged 2, so she was adopted by her mother's aunt. (A large group of the Irish family having moved to Settle, North Yorkshire.) The family was close knit but life was not always pleasant. Stories of being locked in a dark cellar for hours because she was little more than illigitimate, yet other stories describe a loving family. Understandable why my Grandmother has had 'off' moments over the years!

  10. Wow, Orhan Pamuk, I am impressed! I tried reading 'The New Life' about years ago when it was first translated to English and it's one of the few books I've not been able to finish. Cleverly, I then forgot both the title and the author's name and spent years trying to remember which book it was that drove me insane. Especially as my only words to describe the story itself were "Guy, bus, book, nothing else happened." :lol:

    I mean to give the book another try in the future... maybe... perhaps... if I'm brave enough. :tongue_smilie:

  11. There is a Barnes & Noble near the mall, a Borders down the road, and a used bookstore called "Edward McKay" near to Borders.

    Just down the road from Borders/Edward McKay's is Reynolda House which is a historic home and American art museum. You can walk the gardens for free but have to purchase a ticket for touring the house.

    Old Salem is a nice place to visit especially if the weather is pleasant as the forecast calls for this weekend. You can walk around for free but have to purchase tickets to enter the buildings.

    HTH

  12. I do sub categorize and budget each amount accordingly but that's what works for me, it wouldn't be necessary for the system to work if you didn't want to do it that way. The hardest part is starting out. We needed a bit of a boost for that first month, and since then it's run very smoothly.

    My dh keeps up with the overall outgoing expenses in whatever money program he uses, but I am the one who knows how much I have for groceries or clothing at any given time. He looooves that it's as simple as saying "I need a new pair of jeans" and the money is budgeted and already saved for that moment. He is able to focus on other outgoings such as mortgage, power bill, etc.

  13. Dh and I split what we're responsible for. I cover groceries (food/household/pets/etc), gifts, clothing, and also budget a small amount of ready money for myself. Dh covers everything else, bills, vehicle expenses, eating out, etc.

    We set this system up years ago by averaging out how much we spent on each of my categories and now he 'pays' me an amount each paycheck which I then assign to each category. It's similar to the Dave Ramsey method I suppose, though we don't use envelopes or cash only. I don't spend over what I have assigned in each category.

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