Animal Planet

First, I wanted to include a few pictures of my DH Mark and our black Lab Hank playing at the beach in Galveston. If you tell someone here in Houston that you went to the ocean over the weekend, they just give you a strange look and ask, "What ocean??".

But for land-locked Okies, Galveston IS the ocean and without a doubt, April and May are PERFECT for going to the beach for a day. The water is the clearest and bluest of the year and the humidity is low as well. We loaded up and I spent the afternoon parked in an OSU Cowboys lawnchair, knitting away on a really cute sock (see last post of turquoise stripe sock), sipping ice cold Diet Pepsi and enjoyed the view and the sound of the waves. Some "neighbors" next to us even found a perfect sand dollar. Now, that's a day at the beach. As you can tell from these pictures, it was pretty windy and Irish girl that I am - I even got a bit sun-burned!

Speaking of Irish, my Mama and I are headed for 10 days in Ireland on the 31st of May. Less than a month away! I have my eye on some beautiful Belleek pottery china and maybe an Aran Island sweater??



I recently got bit by the amigurumi bug and saw this darling Marine Turtle in the Knit.1 magazine. I don't always buy this magazine, but they usually include at least 1 crocheted item and this time there are 4 seriously cute crocheted amigurumi animals in it. I love turtles, especially after going to Hawaii where they have lots of turtle motif stuff there and I loved the turtle "Crush" in the Finding Nemo movie. So I decided to name this one "Crush" too. I used Caron Simply Soft and completed this guy in less than 2 days. I love him, don't know what I am going to do with him, but nevertheless he was a blast to make. Plus not 1 mistake in the pattern!

The next animal in this animal planet post is "Peggy Francis". I made an unofficial resolution to make to charity items this year, so this is my first finished charity item. She is a knitted bear for the "Peggy's Bear" project that is sponsored by my LYS. These bears are gifted to Alsheimer's patients who find them comforting. I named mine "Peggy" after the project name who is one of the store owner's grandmother and "Francis" after my maternal grandmother who was very talented at needlework. I am also including a picture of Peggy Francis with her new bear friends at LYS Yarntopia. Peggy Francis is made with Plymouth Encore Worsted that was in my stash.