KrisKrafts

Top ten on Tuesday.

2010-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

This weeks top ten is 10 Ways To Entertain a Child. My kids are getting a good bit older Dax is now 15 and Tyde 17, but most of these activities they have enjoyed for awhile now.

1. Beach, this is in the number one spot for a reason. We live about a block from the beach so we spend a lot of time there.

2. Camping.

3. Visiting the library. My daughter enjoys library visits more than my son but there was a time when he enjoyed story book time as much as I did.

4. Art/Crafts. Break out the crayons, paper, pencils or whatever.

5. Baking. Just as fun to make as to eat.

6. Games. I always liked Uno or mancala but my son’s favorite is monopoly. He also likes battleship. They both love the ps3 games.

7. Lego’s yes this is one of the toys they haven’t outgrown. I can still pull out the lego bin and have major entertainment.

8. Hiking or trail bike riding. We don’t have the hills around here like some people do but we do have some biking trails that you can either walk or bike on.

9. Fishing.

10. Theme park, Disney, Universal, Bush Gardens, Wet and wild there all within an hour from us.

Did I mention the beach because yeah, we spend a lot of time there.

If interested in participating in the ten on Tuesday you can sign up here.

Friday Photo

2010-06-18T16:08:00.000-07:00

A spider that Tyde brought home and put in one of our wine glasses.

Blogging mojo

2010-06-16T18:35:00.001-07:00

My blogging mojo has left me so I’m struggling to get it back. To try and move things along I have for you today a “what I’m knitting post.”

It’s from a pattern and yarn that I got from a vendor calledKiparoo Farm that was at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I have adjusted the pattern. The way it was written didn’t work for me. I have to confess this makes me nervous because I lack the confidence or maybe I should say skills as a knitter to veer away from patterns. In the past it has turned into a disaster. I’ll let you know as time goes on if this can be related to one of the most catastrophic occurrences ever to occur in the history of my knitting. Ok that catastrophic stuff was a bit over the top but Dax thought it fit in well with the post so I’m leaving it in.

To also boost my blogging mojo I have signed up for the Ten on Tuesday that I’ve seen mentioned on some other blogs I read. If you are interested in participating you can sign up at Carole knits to get the topics sent to you thru e-mail.

Hello

2010-06-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Is anybody here? Is that an echo I hear? Sorry I’ve not been much of a blogger lately but things are starting to slow down around here. I haven’t been knitting or crafting as much over the last 9 months but I’m hoping to change that soon.

For now I’ll post about a recipe we tried out. It’s a graham cracker recipe from smitten kitchen. We ended up using our new sheep cookie cutter we got at the Maryland sheep and wool festival. I told Dax we could make sheep smores with our sheep graham crackers.

We went a little too heavy with the cinnamon and sugar but you can just brush it off if it’s not to your taste.

I hope everybody is doing well and enjoying summer.
Take care!

Silver Bell

2010-01-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I'm still here, just been very busy. I did finish my silver belle. Actually I finished it back in May. I noticed it was over a year ago that I last posted about it so here it is all finished.
Pattern: Silver Belle from Vogue Knitting's 25 Anniversary Issue. The pattern is free online.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I loved using this yarn!

I had to order more yarn to finish it. I can't remember exactly how much more yarn I needed but I do remember it took more than what the pattern recommended.I also had to go down a couple of sizes on the needles. I knitted the bottom part of the sweater first and it was huge. I mean really huge.

I found some buttons at the local fabric store that has a celtic look to them. I like how the buttons turned out looking with the cabling in the sweater.
The only downside of this sweater for me is that it is a heavy sweater and drapes pulling downward because of it. I hope that makes since. Overall I really like the sweater and wear it whenever the days are cool enough for it, like today.

I hope everybody is having a great day.

Gale's Art

2009-07-23T17:30:00.001-07:00

I hope everybody is having a great week. I'm at the end of my summer break. It's back to school/work for me on Monday. I still don't know what I'll be doing but until I hear otherwise I'm assuming I'll be in the library.
I spun up 4 oz of Gale's Art merino roving in the proud peacock colorway.

There is 385 yards of 2 ply here.

I have another 4oz that I haven't spun yet.

I think I will try and spin the next 4 oz thinner to get some socks out of them. Maybe.

Friday Photo on Sunday

2009-07-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

Here’s my Friday photo on Sunday. Ok, I’m a few days off.

I’ve been playing around with a different blog. I decided I wanted to post more photos but didn’t want to overwhelm this blog with my random ramblings. I called my other blog The Ugly Herthen. I got the name from a drawing I did one day when I was sitting around and drawing with Dax. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or not. I'm still playing around with it.

Anyway, I ran into another type of blogging called, tumblr. I’m wondering do any of you guys know much about tumblr? I heard somebody say it’s a glorified twitter. It looks like a great way to show photos but it doesn’t look very organized to me. In other words I don’t see where you can tag your photos.

If your like me and haven't ever seen tumblr and your curious here are some blogs/tumblr sites that have caught my attention.
That Girl
Live for the stoke Tyde would like this one.
Black and WhiteIt looks like you can submit your own pictures to this one.
Joie De Vivre
Restart My Heart This was the first one I ran into.

Simplicity 2902

2009-07-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

I noticed I get a lot of search engine inquiries for sewing patterns I blog about. I can see why, I always like to see what sewing or knitting patterns look like on people before I spend my time on using the pattern. In reality the drawn pictures on the pattern or the pictures of the models don't really give you a good idea of what it looks like on a real person. I think ravelry has really cut back on the inquiries for knitting. But I still get a lot for sewing so here is my review on Simplicity pattern 2902.I made size 9/10 and ended up not pulling the darts in as much as the pattern recommended. I also took the straps in about an inch and they are still a bit to big. And then I moved the pockets more forward then the pattern recommended. I will wear this probably a good bit around the house or at the beach but not out and about. It's a bit on the short side. I guess if I wore some shorts or leggings under it then I would feel more comfortable wearing it other places.

I do love the pockets and thought they turned out nice.
Overall a cute little dress. Not very hard to sew together. I guess the most difficult part would be the pockets with the little pleat and binding but even that wasn't bad.

Anybody want to guess where my babies are at? Rudy took them to visit his parents for a couple of weeks. I'll give you some hints. Most the names in the area seem to have more vowels then consonants in them. With their light colored hair and blue eyes they are considered a minority, Haoles. There are no snakes there and more than one-third of the world's commercial supply of pineapples comes from there.

Friday Photo Rain

2009-07-03T06:21:00.001-07:00

We’ve been getting a lot of rain showers lately. I’m not complaining though. It’s much better than the weather we were getting a few weeks ago of unbelievable heat and no rain.
I took these pictures last Friday when I was walking on the beach.

I hope everybody has a great weekend and for those who are celebrating Happy 4th of July!

Summer knitting

2009-07-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

I wanted to knit something for the summer so I narrowed it down to three different projects. There was the petal halter from Interweave Knits Spring 2009 issue.
Then there was the Ogee lace skirt from Interweave Knits Summer 2007 magazine
And the last choice I had was Pink Frosting from Interweave Spring 2006 issue.

Yeah I have a lot of Interweave magazines lying around. I also have enough yarn in my stash to do any one of these projects.

I finally decided to go with the pink frosting.I’m knitting this in the round using Rowan 4 ply cotton that I got awhile back from a sale at Webs.
My knit stitches look so sloppy to me and the cables even worst. I have frogged this twice. Once because I had a twist in the cast on and the second time because I just didn’t like the stitches. Finally I went to Ravelry to look at others who have done this top and noticed their stitches were much prettier but also very similar to mine. I’ve decided to just keep knitting and love my sloppy stitches. This must be the nature of knitting with cotton?

Summer Days Photo Friday

2009-06-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

Dax and I go to the beach almost everyday.
We try to get Tyde to go with us but he can't seem to get out of bed before 11 a.m.
If there were surfable waves maybe he would get up.
But for now we have those glassy small summer waves that are good for the river rat float.

I hope everybody else is enjoying their summer days.

2009-06-23T06:19:00.000-07:00

I got this merino top roving a couple years ago while at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival from Ohio Valley Natural fibers.I don’t know how much I spun but I can tell you I still have a lot left over. My original idea was to spin enough of this to make a sweater but I’ve gotten bored spinning it so I Navajo plied it to get it off my bobbins to make way for something else. I really should invest in some more bobbins.

Here are the singles.
Here’s what I got after Navajo plying.

I thought I had about an even amount of singles on each bobbin, maybe a little bit more on one but I ended up getting 143 yards from one and 238 yards from the other. I haven’t checked the wpi but just from looking at it I can tell I spun one of the bobbins thinner than the other.
Well at least I have another 2 plus pounds of this stuff to play with to try and become more consistent. It is a pretty color and much softer then I originally thought it would be.

We got this post card in the mail a few days ago. I thought I would share it with you.If you can't see what it says, click on it to make it bigger.

I don’t know who Van is and I’m sorry he lost his cat but loved reading his lost cat card. His description of what his kitty responds to and the fact that if you find his cat he wants you to feed it then call made me smile. I use to refer to the shaking cat food box as the intenational kitty call :). It must be more unique then I thought. Hopefully he has found his cat.

Friday Photo and fill ins

2009-06-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Dax had one of her friends over so we started the fire pit and roasted hot dogs.
As you can see Rohan will be your best friend if you have a hot dog close by.
I was thinking of calling this post desire.

And for the Friday Fill Ins
1. I grew up thinking _clowns were creppy and saturday morning cartoons were worth getting up early for.

2. The Friday Fill Ins_ was the last website I was at before coming here.

3. Why don't you _grab a glass of tea and relax some?

4. Knitting__ helps me relax.

5. Thanks for the _comments you all have been leaving. I really sprreciate hearing from you.

6. Having to cast on what feels like a gazillion times is__ very off-putting.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to just relaxing__, tomorrow my plans include planting some flower seeds__ and Sunday, I want to sit at my wheel and spin some Gale's art merino___!
I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Kwik Sew 3497

2009-06-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

I made the top awhile back. It's been getting a lot of use. I made view A, with the gather in the front, and used a cheap lycra fabric I got from Hancock fabrics.

I usually wear a tank underneath the top. It would probably work fine with out it but I feel more comfortable with the tank.

I made the size small and had to take it in around the arms. It bagged out a good bit. Maybe if I used a fabric that was less stretchy, an interlock, it wouldn't have done this. Other then that there were no other modifications that I did to the pattern.

On a different note, have you seen the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog? It's wonderful. It's an online tribute to Maurice Sendak, who wrote Where the Wild Things Are. Different artists/illustrators are posting their art work that was inspired from the book. I loved looking at all the art work, very nice.

The book has been made into a movie, which you can see the trailer for here.

Photo Friday and fill ins

2009-06-05T11:55:00.001-07:00

Wow two posts in one week. It must be summertime:).

Here is a dandelion I took a picture of when I was in Maryland.I very seldom see dandelions where I live at. Maybe they don't like salt in the air. I do love them when they are in this stage. Don't you just want to pick it and gently blow all the little white things all over the place?

There is a blog called Friday Fill Ins and since I'm in such a participating mood I decided to put my fill ins in the blanks. Go ahead give it a try and see what you come up with.

1. Home sweet home.

2. My favorite thing for dinner lately has been anything that somebody else makes.

3. All Rohan did last night was bark! bark! bark! Tyde had some friends stay over and they had him all playful and barking.

4. A nice long walk will cure all woes.

5. I'd love to hear some good news.

6. When all is said and done, then what.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to not cooking, tomorrow my plans include drafting a pattern for some shorts and Sunday, I want to finally get some spinning done!

I know this is suppose to be a craft blog. I'll get to it, someday :).

Last day

2009-06-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

The last day of school for T and D was last Thursday. I took this picture when I went to pick them up. The amount of buses they have always amazes me. Dax said she once counted them and got up to 26. A big difference from the elementary school they went to that had a whopping 3 buses.

However today was my last day. I wanted to participate in Dawn's, from Today and Everyday , self portrait month. She has a goal of taking a picture of herself daily for the month of June and has asked anybody who wants to do the same. I will not be taking pictures daily but did want to participate. So, I decided to let my self portrait be me in my little library. I’ve been using this week of no students or teachers to do inventory and to get the library ready for the next school year.
It’s a bit bittersweet for me. It's been a busy year and I’m so looking forward to the summer break but also my job is being consolidated. I guess that’s what you would call it. There are several schools in our area that are dealing with low numbers of students and the county is having a hard time with budgeting. Because of this it was decided that any school with an enrollment of less than 400 students will be sharing media assistants, (that’s me), technology specialists and Vice Principles. We have around 380 students. I don't know the pre-k students very well. They usually come in the library before I get there but for the rest of the school I know every one of them from kindergarten up to sixth grade.
I don't know what it will be like next year. But I do know it will not be the same.

I will really miss this job. I have absolutely loved it.

Sheep and Wool Festival Day 1

2009-05-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

Well my one main thought when I went was no more fleece. I quickly broke that thought within the first hour of being at the festival. Dax and Sierra wanted to get some socks that rock yarn from the Fold and while they were waiting in line a lady walked up with a bag of alpaca. She was showing it off and letting me feel it etc…. Finally I asked her where she got it and I told Dax and Sierra I’d be back in a few minutes. My first purchase was 2 lbs of alpaca from Ameripaca. Ok it’s not a whole fleece so that doesn’t qualify as fleece right?

Here's Sierra and Dax listening to some music while we take a break.

Dax got a camera as a Christmas/birthday present. She spent a lot of her time taking pictures of animals while we were there. Also she just finished those fingerless gloves when we were on the airplane. The pattern is a free pattern called fingerless gloves musica. Here is the Ravelry link.

This was one of my big purchases Tilli Tomas rock star yarn. It was on sale but still very expensive, at least for me. I have a specific project in mind for it and it was discounted at the festival so I tried not to feel to guilty for buying it.

More purchases for specific projects the Kiparoo Farm Celtic Lace is for a pattern I got last year called the linen wrap blouse and the other linen, I can't remember where I got it, is for a market bag.

Oh, and I bought more alpaca. I was so drawn to the brown fleece this year. I saw so many pretty browns and when I saw this 1 lb cria (baby alpaca) fleece I bought it. Can't you see how upset I was for breaking my promise to myself not to buy more fleece :).

Patapsco Park

2009-05-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

I decided to do the post on the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in sections. This year I was heading up to the Festival with maybe a few specific items I wanted to look for but it wasn’t like I was going to be upset if I didn’t find them. I simply wanted to go to be around a lot of other people who enjoy fiber crafts as much as I do. I did tell myself I was not going to buy more fleece because I’m up to my ears in fleece as it is.

We stayed at Patapsco State park. Dax and I left on Thursday. We flew up and met my sister and her daughter who drove up with all the camping gear. I had to work on Thursday and Dax had school so we caught a late flight. The sun was setting as we flew towards the north. This was my view for most the flight.This was Dax’s view.

Because we came in a day earlier then what we usually do it gave us all day Friday to hang out around the camp site. I’ve been running again and was determined to try and keep on my schedule even though we were out of town so I got up on Friday morning to run. It’s hilly there. I mean really hilly. It felt like mountains to my Florida legs but I managed.

When I left Florida there was a prediction of some rain. We decided that we should hang a tarp over the tent to help waterproof it. Here is Cyndi and Sierra tying the tarp up. Nothing like team work to get the job done.

This is what we ended up with and started referring to it as the cave.
The tarp gave us enough space over the picnic table to sit while it was raining and boy did it rain.

Even though it was lightly drizzling on Friday we ignored it and went hiking down some of the trails. It is very pretty there. I had seen some deer on my morning run but did not have a camera at that time. Here are some pictures we took when we were walking around the park.

They also have some playground areas. This one is the closes one to the campsites. As you can see you are never too old to play at a playground. That was kind of a role reversal. Cyndi and I were playing on the swings while the girls were taking pictures. There was another playground further away from the campsite that had more equipment, monkey bars etc.

Here is proof that Dax got Sierra to do the Caramelldansen with her.

We ended the day by making a fire which needed some umbrella assistance to get it going because of the rain but the girls did manage to get it going.We had to have the fire to make some smores, of course.

Next post Saturday at the festival…..

Simplicity 4282 another apron.

2009-04-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

I made this apron for my sister. For some reason I kept thinking of that movie Enchanted when I was making it. You know the movie that has the main “princess” like character singing and cleaning with the help of rats and ahm roaches.

I have to say I wasn’t very happy with it. It was the binding on it. It gave me fits. It kept bunching up on me.
Finally I got in a “whatever” mood and just finished it and gave it to her. I figure since it’s already kind of a sloppy job she should feel comfortable about getting spaghetti sauce stains on it or craft paint or whatever she might use it for.

To keep in the theme of things here’s a picture of Dax and I at Epcot’s flower festival. We were in France smelling the perfume flowers and saw Aurora just standing there by herself. Usually there is a long line for Disney characters so we both looked at each other and said let’s go get a picture with the princess. That's my bayerishce socks I have on there.

Btw, it you love gardening and plants then you should really try to get to Epcot for the flower festival. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Peanut Butter Balls

2009-02-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

I know peanut butter has been put on the list of bad foods lately but I have to say it hasn’t stopped me from eating it. I love peanut butter. I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at least 3 times a week. It’s my food that I eat when I’m hungry and in a hurry.

Now if you add chocolate to the equation then all the better. So with that being said this is what I made for my sweeties on Valentine’s day.

They are peanut butter balls (pbb). I got the recipe from here and they turned out great. The trick to getting the chocolate to stick to the pbb is to make sure the pbb are frozen. Also make sure the chocolate is good and melted.
If not it will just clump to the pbb. I can see adapting the recipe in the future to make it seem a little healthier, maybe adding rolled oats and raisins or something.

Dax was telling me about a group of friends of hers, (all girls) that has decided that they were going to celebrate Valentine’s Day by getting all dressed up and going out to eat at McDonalds. Then they were going to wait till midnight and go to Walmart to buy all the VDay candy that goes on sale, LOL.

I hope that you all have a great Valentine’s Day, no matter how you celebrate it.

Challange

2009-01-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

Wow the weeks are going by just as fast as ever. I hope everybody else is able to keep up better then I have been able to.

I had to put my silver belle to one side for now to work on these.Last year the 7th graders at Dax’s school made a blanket for charity. The idea was that all the 7th graders made a knitted block and then volunteers crochet the blocks to make them 8x8 squares and then pieced them together. I’m not really much of a crocheter but I can do it, so I volunteered to help out. The blocks were hilarious; most of them were not square at all. Anyway they asked if I would be interested in helping out again this year and of course I was excited to be asked. Aren’t these (uhm, I guess you can call them blocks) interesting. I call this one the deranged tomato.
This one I call the dripping mask. One of them has a little flap thingie. I'm not sure what to do with that.

I’d never call myself an expert knitter but I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a beginner either, but I can tell you these little blocks are very challenging to me :). It is so tempting to redo them but they really need to be the kids blocks so I'll try and work with what they gave me. Hopefully I’ll have them done in a month or so.

On to other news I went ahead and purchased plane tickets to go to the Maryland sheep and wool festival. I was thinking that with the issues with the economy and prices of gas going up etc.. I would not be able to make it this year but I saw Southwest had a great deal on tickets last week. So, I couldn’t resist. My flight plans are made and wahoo, I will be going again this year! (Happy Dance)

For those who are wondering, Rudy participated in the Disney marathon last weekend. He finished 119th overall with a time of 3:06:19, actually it was a 3:04:19 but they put their foot across the chip mat two minutes before the start of the race so it registered them as running already. I'm sure there will be some complaints about that. They did a little blurb about him in the florida today paper. I had to laugh when I read it mentioning him mixing up his nutrition and training. As I was reading the article I looked across the room at him to see that he was eating chips and dipping them into some kind of cheese sauce. Yep, that’s Rudy give him something to dip with a beer or a bowl of ice cream and he’s a happy guy, not exactly what I'd call marathon nutrition ;).

A day of fishing

2009-01-05T17:03:00.000-08:00

Well today was back to work for Rudy and I. The kids start back to school tomorrow.., but Sunday was a day of fishing.

I caught a monster of a trigger fish and made Rudy take a picture of it. They don’t normally get this big.

Rudy of course had to catch at least one yucky shark. Sharks rob your bait; they will also chump on any fish you catch while you are reeling it in. Some friends told us shark is good to eat. So we gave it a try once when we caught a hammerhead. Turned out we didn’t agree with them. The meat is squeaky imo. Oh, I can’t forget to mention that once you catch one they are hard to get off the line. Their skin is tough so it is hard to gaff them and then trying to get the hook out of their mouth is quiet the work out.

When we got back into the port to load the boat up we saw the Disney Wonder cruise ship heading out. It’s one of my favorites in the port, a very pretty ship.

All in all it turned out to be a good day of fishing. We caught several trigger fish, some snapper and some sheephead. Although to Rudy’s disappointment we did not catch any grouper or cobia.

Well that was the end of our holiday break, not to bad of a ending.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T15:22:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of the Dear John letter; well the Dear blog letter is beginning to rival the Dear John letter. It goes something like this…

Dear blog, I am so sorry that I abandoned you over the last few months but I just don’t have enough time for you…

Yes I’m another one of those bloggers who has let their blog slowly disintegrate. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get all the things done that I would like to do, but I have missed my blog. So I’m back :).

As for knitting I’m still working on my silver belle. Here are some progress pictures for you.

If you haven’t noticed one of my resolutions for 2009 is to not be so neglectful to my blog.

I hope everybody has a great 2009.

Summer review

2008-09-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Whenever I haven’t blogged for awhile it gets overwhelming on where to start at so I decided to do a summer knitting wrap up since fall is here. I did a lot of spinning this summer so I’m very pleased with that but my knitting…, well it didn’t live up to my expectations.

I thought I had finished the sideways vest but after blocking it I noticed that one side was longer than the other. I kept thinking how could this be? It was all even before blocking. With further investigation I found the problem. This vest is knitted by casting on stitches for the front side and binding off for the other front side. I hope that makes since. Anyway my binding off stitches are much tighter then my casting on stitches. Arrr, I’m not sure what to do with it. My sister suggested to try doing the bind off with a bigger needle. I had already tied the ends in so taking the bind off stitches out was a bear but I did get them out. I think I need to do a swatch and play with the bind off which I haven’t felt like playing with so it has been abandoned. It is still sitting there waiting for the final bind off. Does anybody have any experience with how to keep the bind off stitches loose? If I use a bigger needle should I go up one or two needle sizes?

Then there is the Ugly sweater. I got the bottom part of it done and tried it on and it turned out a bit snug on me. This is the back view. I didn’t want to give you guys the Buddha belly shot ;).It’s my fault I was thinking the cotton yarn would bag out and not snap back so I knitted it to be slightly smaller. My first reaction was to see if Dax would take it but she wasn’t that interested in it so it has been abandoned to for the time being. It's a good chance this one will be heading to the frog pound. Well unless I can lose say 20lbs or so :), yeah probably the frog pound.

So after these disappointments, which are leaving ufo’s all over the house, I decided to not deal with any of them and cast on a new project. I’m working on a free pattern from Vogue’s Knitting magazine called silver belle.

There you have it, it’s been a summer of UFO’s. Let's hope the fall will be a little more productive.

Have a great week.

Eye Candy Friday

2008-08-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

We saw this little guy on the beach yesterday.

Our latest weather must have taken its toll on him because he didn’t scurry off when he saw us. I was beginning to think he was dead but if we got to close he would show us his pinchers to let us know to back off.
I was thinking of provoking him more to get a good picture of his pincher but I figured he probably had a bad enough day so I let him be.

Saturated

2008-08-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

This is my Fay report.

Fay came for a visit on Tuesday and she has brought a lot of rain with her. I don’t ever recall seeing so much rain. It has been constantly raining, sometimes harder than others but never stopping. The news is saying that Cocoa Beach has received over 22 inches of rain and to expect another 4-6 inches. Fortunately we live in a low flood zone so we are not having any issues with flooding. Other than that there is not much to say about Fay. There are some small gusts of wind but nothing major, no power outages for us, just sobbing wet rain.
I heard a guy on the radio this morning say that even the best of houses will leak under these conditions. So we did a house inspection to look everything over and I can report that the house is water tight. There are no leaking problems, yeah. I guess all that tyvek, the sticky bonding stuff around the windows and that unbelievable heavy waterproof paint we used on the blocks when building the house has paid off. Whew.

I hope everybody else is staying nice and dry.

Apron Swap

2008-08-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

I received my apron from the Sew Obsessed Ravelry apron swap on Friday. My swap partner was Marie from knittedgems blog or knittedgems Ravelry. She did a wonderful job on the apron she made for me.

Unfortunately I only got two pictures of the apron. I had to use the timer thing on the camera because the kids were still asleep and Rudy went for a bike ride.
Rohan became intrigued with the beeping noise of the camera. This one is when he noticed the beeping.After that the only pictures I could get using the timer was a close up of him.

The note with the apron says she made it from an old jean dress and the other fabric came from a small local Ma & Pa store. I love that she made it from recycled fabric and that it is denim. The denim will be very durable which is much needed for an apron being used by me ;). The buttons she put on it alternate between white buttons and red heart buttons that coordinate with the red fabric very well. It makes it very charming and I can’t help but keep thinking of that saying, “home is where the heart is” when I look at it.
Marie also sent a leather hair barrette that she picked up at a Ren Faire. Thank you so much Marie!

Random stuff

2008-08-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

Well this post will probably be all over the place and there are no pictures. I’ll call it my random post. I was doing good there for awhile and actually posted at least once a week or more. But lately my mind has been in other places then the blog and I haven’t been inspired to post. My intentions have been good though, I have even been lugging my big old camera around thinking I will take some pictures of maybe this or that but haven’t clicked it once in the last week or two. I think I have been having a bit of the end of the summer blues.

I go back to work on Thursday, tomorrow. I’m going to miss the summer. I love having time to spend with the kids and to knit, spin, cook, go to the beach or whatever. The down side of all this is that I don’t get paid when I don’t work. Life is such a catch22. You either have the money to do things and not the time or you have the time and not the money. Anyway I think I’m done mourning for the summer of 08. I’m actually starting to get excited about seeing the kids at school and beginning a new year with them.

I’ve been working on a swap package. I joined an apron swap from Ravelry’s Sew Obsessed forum. The apron has been finished for awhile but it’s just sitting there. I’ve been trying to think of something to put with it as a gift but nothing is coming to me. I decided to not tell the person I have her and I’ve been spying on her. She has a Ravelry account and a Flickr account but I’m not getting a lot from it. I will probably wait till the deadline till I send it just in case I can find out more about her. I wish there was a questionnaire to go with this swap. I would have liked to know if she likes tea, coffee, beer, candles, candy, or favorite yarn, anything. Maybe I’m just not a very good spy.

Speaking of spying Dax started a Raverly account. Of course I put her in as a friend and I can see everything she does while on Ravelry, it really makes me feel like a spy to see what she is doing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Did you know McDonald’s fillet o’fish comes with half the cheese that it use to. Yep, I usually get the fillet o'fish with tomato added when I eat there. I have to open up the sandwich to scoop off the excessive amount of tartar sauce they put on it. While doing this I noticed I only had a half a slice of cheese on my sandwich. When I mentioned this to Rudy he looked at his and told me he had the other half. Maybe if they really want to save money they should consider putting less than a pound of tartar sauce on the sandwiches ;).

I finished the sideways vest but I need to block it.

The kids have a dentist appointment today which might be a good time to get Tyde to do some school shopping. The guy really hates being inside a store. I think all he needs is some shoes. He took his shoes off on the last day of school and I haven’t seen them since. He probably needs some socks to.

I didn’t join the Dish Rag Tag this year. I also didn’t join the Ravelylympics. I guess I’m not much of a joiner lately. However Dax did join the Ravelylympics. She will be knitting with team teen.

I got to meet with some other knitters in Titusville. It was a blast! I laughed and touched yarn and laughed and even met some other spinners. I also drank some wonderful tea and ate a blueberry scone. Well I didn’t eat the scone till I got home. I was too busy taking everything in to eat it while I was there. The group meets at Sunrise Bread Company on Thursday mornings. They are a great group of people. I knew one of them thru her blog, but the others I had never met. Regardless they made me feel welcomed, which is saying a lot because I’m usually a bit shy in large groups and keep to myself.

Dax has been reading the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. I find this so funny. I haven’t read the books but I’ve read enough reviews to know it’s a vampire, teen, love story. Dax is the one that will do eyeball rolls when there are kissy scenes in movies.

Thanks to Dax I’ve heard all the Fablehaven books by Brandon Mull. She read all three of them to me this summer while I was spinning. I really enjoyed them and will try and get them in the school library. I have to confess it was interesting to have your child read a book to you instead of the other way around.

Well this is getting to long so I’ll stop here. Have a great day!

Nothing but spinning

2008-07-19T05:43:00.001-07:00

I started seeing the posts in blog land for the Tour de Fleece but decided not to commit. That doesn’t mean I’m not involved. I’m a very active spectator. And like most spectators that are admiringly watching all the participants I couldn’t resist doing some spinning too. Here’s what I got.

This is the sheep 2 shoe kit from The Fold that I picked up from MSWF.

It is super wash merino, and is called Rainbow. The roving in the kit is incredibly soft and I absolutely loved spinning it. This had to be the most buttery stuff I have spun so far.
However, I think the results I got should be called Rainbow Gone Wild. I didn’t exactly follow the directions of how to divide the roving and spin it. Ok, I didn’t follow the directions at all. I divided the roving different then what it said and I 2 plied it instead of 3. I two plied it because the yarn came out thicker then what I was wanting. Then there are the colors. Wow, the colors are all over the place. I knitted up a swatch and I could see no pattern at all with the colors.
I’m not sure how I feel about it. I do know that I will not use this to make socks. Well, not at this time. I’m putting it into the stash for now.

I also finished spinning this super wash merino I got from Little Barn at the festival.
It’s funny because both rovings said they were superwash merino but there was a big difference in how they spun. I guess it depends on the sheep, processing, how it’s stored etc. Not to say this wasn’t fun to spin. It was just a different quality then the other roving.
This one is just plain vanilla so to say. It will work great for socks but I might dye it at some time.

I hope everybody is having a great weekend.

Walk with Rohan

2008-07-18T05:24:00.000-07:00

Did you know crocs float? Yes that’s my shoe he is retrieving. No matter, it always comes back to me.

It doesn’t matter what intensity she throws it at.

Whether he has to get his face wet,

Or go way out of his way to find it.

He always brings it back.

We have gotten a lot of rain the past couple of days so we took Rohan out for a walk to the place where nobody likes to go when it rains.

Vest

2008-07-13T05:57:00.001-07:00

This is a knit a long project I’m doing with my sister who lives in a different state. I have somehow managed to get further along on it then what she is. Actually I know how I’ve managed this, I only have about three projects on the needles at this time instead of the 5 or 6 she has. I also haven’t been getting to go to all the fun vacation places that she has been going to. You know how all that fun vacationing stuff squashes the time you get to spend knitting. Anyway, I was going to wait till I finished it before I posted about it. I am so close to finishing it, but I ran out of yarn. Don’t you just hate when that happens? Not to worry though, more is on its way.

I’ll give more specifics on it when it is done. I had added stitches for the length (which is probably why I ran out of yarn). I told my sister I would post pictures so she could see how the extra stitches look. That way she can decide if she might want to add more stitches. I had added enough stitches to give it an extra inch in the front and an inch in the back. I really think it would be long enough without adding more stitches. I just don't like things to be to short in that area. Cropped tops are not my thing. I don't have much experience in blocking but I'm guessing that blocking it might add length to it to but I'm not sure. I am hoping that blocking it will take some of that curl out of the front edge.

This picture isn't that great at showing the length. It is still on the needles which makes it pull up on the right side of this picture but I liked the picture. It shows the texture nicely :).

Dax is modeling this. She is a little shorter than me but so is my sister ;).

Have a great day!

Eye Candy Friday

2008-07-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have yet to participate in the eye candy Friday. So, here is my first attempt at it.

These are moon jellies (moon jellyfish) .
They are all over the beach right now. By the time they wash up on the beach they are harmless.
Actually they are harmless even before they wash up on the beach, they usually only bother people with sensitive skin. Tyde is one of them, he says they feel like little ants bitting. It must not be too bad because it doesn’t get him out of the water, not like the man o’wars. Now those things hurt. I’ve also heard that turtles like to eat them. Whenever I see the moonjellies I think, "oh look turtle jello."

I took these pictures yesterday right before the sun went down. That’s why they look so shadowy and dark.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Fourth of July weekend

2008-07-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

Since it’s almost been a week since, here is what we did over the 4th of July weekend.

First, thank you for the comments on the Ugly Sweater. I’m so glad that it isn’t ugly looking to you guys. After knitting on it for awhile I ended up frogging it. The Bernat cotton yarn was not living up to my expectations. I debated for a long time on what to do. I have two options in my stash, there is South West Trading Company 100% Bamboo, or a yarn I totally forgot I had, Tahki cotton classic. I finally decided on the Tahki Cotton Classic. If it doesn’t work out I’ll try the bamboo.

Fireworks, even though the city canceled the big fireworks show on the beach, very disappointing, we still got to see some nice fireworks in the neighborhood. I think because of the cancellation more people bought their own this year. I was surprised to see so many. Rohan is ok with fireworks. He gets a bit excited running around the yard and barking at first but then he settles down and sits by my feet. All except the fountains Rudy and the kids bought. I had to put him inside. He was practically pulling me across the yard trying to get to them.

Ikea, we heard the advertisements for the big Ikea sale. We still need some storage furniture so the advertising worked on us. It got us to make the drive to Orlando to check it out. Of course all the items on our list were not on sale. We did get some dressers and night stands. Rudy walks around the store saying things like “I can make that.” So, I took this picture because I want Rudy to make what’s in the back ground for Tyde’s room. That’s Rudy with the list. I have also put a request in for a desk to go in the craft room. Right now I use the dinning room table to sew on. It’s a pain to take the sewing machine out and put it back up. Actually, I just take it out and leave it there. We usually eat outside on the patio.

Here is what the dining room table looks like right now.A mess isn’t it? As you can tell I did clear the sewing machine off. Only because I wanted to put the drum carder on it ;). My pathetic looking little plant is surrounded by wool.

The Ugly Sweater

2008-07-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

It’s not actually ugly, it just got nicknamed that over time. Back in March of 07 my sister and I wanted to knit the same sweater pattern and we choose this,Surplice Lace Top.

My sister kept showing it to friends and family members and didn’t get the excited response that she felt it deserved. The responses were something like, "it’s ok," or "are you sure you want to knit that." So she dubbed it the ugly sweater. I of course liked it, so we started looking for yarn to knit it. The yarn suggested for it was not in our budget so we started looking for something that was a little less pricey. We ended up not finding anything. I put the pattern back on the shelf for another day.

I saw on Mcknitter's blog that a somewhat local craft store was going out of business. It’s a little bit of a drive for me to get there, but not bad. So I made a note to make sure to go by the going out of business sale later that week. When we got there everything was at least 40% off. It was crowded. Dax went to the painting section and I went straight to the knitting section and it had already been hit hard. I did see some bernat organic cotton and thought maybe this would work for the ugly sweater. The yarn suggested for the original pattern was also 100% cotton. I had to make a decision, the yarn was quickly disapperaing so I bought it. I know this yarn is usually used for rags. This could be one of my worst ideas in knitting, maybe my surplice lace top is destined to really be the ugly sweater. Throwing all caution to the wind, I casted on.If this doesn’t work out I’m going to have a lot of rag yarn in my stash.

As for the craft store sale I also found some jacquard dyes and Dax got some paint/paint brushes. So it was worth the drive, not to mention we ate lunch at Panera Bread.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Shirred Shirt

2008-06-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Awhile back when we went to Disney Dax saw a shirt that she thought was cute. I of course took a picture of the shirt and told her I would try and make something like it. Here is a picture of the shirt she liked.
I wasn’t sure how the top of the shirt was gathered and then I saw a tutorial at kuky ideas. It’s called shirring. I keep thinking of Lord of the Rings every time I say that word. Anyway you use elastic thread in the bobbin of the sewing machine and use normal thread in the top. From the tutorial it sounds like it is suppose to draw the fabric up automatically but I couldn’t get it to do this. I had to pull the elastic thread, like for gathering. Also my sewing machine was not too pleased with having elastic thread in the bobbin. Occasionally the thread would get stuck in the bobbin case and brake the top thread. I would have to clear the bobbin area of the thread and start again. It didn’t do this to me a lot but enough for it to be annoying. I’m not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if my sewing machine just didn’t like this technique. I have a babylock esante ese.

I used McCall’s pattern 5050. The modifications I did were the shirring, I also didn’t gather up the sleeves and I put the bottom elastic casing in a little lower then on the pattern. I did originally put the casing where the pattern suggested but it gave the top too much of a maternity look. So I dropped the casing below the seam line where the purple fabric meets the blue. Actually it’s right on top of the seam. This helped gather the purple fabric making it drape better. I also cut about 3 inches off the length.

.
If I did this pattern, with this method again I would try and use a lighter weight fabric. I also wouldn’t pull in the elastic around the neck line as much as I did. All in all, I think she likes it.

We went to Targets yesterday to get the spiderwick movie on DVD. I noticed when I was there they had the top that we saw on the person at Disney. It was on sale for around $7.00, hmmm.

Brown BFL

2008-06-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for all the nice comments on the bayerische socks. I really do appreciate them.

I finally finished spinning and plying the brown BFL that I got from Misty Mountain Farm.

I really enjoyed spinning this. It just took me a long time because there was a 1lb of it.

I Navajo plied it and managed to get 642 yards. At first I was a bit disappointed in the yardage. I thought I would have gotten much more out of this roving, but then I started knitting with it. First I used size 6 needles, then 7, 8, 9, 10 ½, it wasn’t till I got up to the sie 10 ½ needle that I actually started liking how the stitches looked. I went ahead and knitted a little more with a size 11 needle. It looked so much better with the larger needles and it felt so much softer.

So after calculating the stitch per inch this yarn could go for a bulky yarn. I got about 3 ½ stitches per inch with it, yeah. Now I’ll probably go to ravelry and spend a good bit of time looking for patterns that might work with this yarn.

Bayerische

2008-06-05T04:21:00.000-07:00

Yeah, they are done and I really like them!
I present to you my bayerisches.

Specs
Pattern: Bayerische, This pattern isn't as bad as it looks. Once you get past a few rows it becomes much easier to follow. The pattern requires you to k1tb before each chart but it is not on the chart, so I had to write it on my chart to remind me to k1tb. I loved this pattern so much that I can see doing them again as a gift.

Yarn: Regia Silk. I did love knitting with this yarn but I also noticed that it has fuzzed up a little bit so I am concerned that over time it might turn into a fuzz ball. We’ll see.

Needle Size: US Size 1 (2.25mm). The pattern called for size 0 needles but I decided to use a size up. I’ve done size 0 needles on socks before and have found them to be to snug. If I had to choose I would rather my socks to be lose then tight. But I didn't need to worry, the size 1 needles worked out well for me.

Today was the last day of work for me. Summer vacation has officially started!

Ten on Tuesday

2008-05-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this “Ten on Tuesday” on somebody’s blog and thougt I would give it a try. I’ll probably get bored of it after awhile but for now it was kind of fun to make my ten list. And since it feels funny to do a post wihtout a picture, I included a few pictures taken from the butterfly exhibit at Epcot's flower festival. You can click on pictures to biggify.

This week is 10 Favorite Time Wasters.

1. Blog Reading- I spend a lot of time reading blogs. I do love reading blogs but I really lose concept of time when I’m clicking around through them. Sadly only a very small percentage of them do I actually leave comments on but yes I spend a lot of time lurking in blog land.

2. Blog Posting- I also spend a good bit of time making posts for my own blog. It’s funny because I don’t post most of them. My issue is that I know that a lot of my family who are spread out all over the place read my blog for family updates but then I feel uncomfortable sometimes posting too much information especially about Tyde and Dax so they never make it on the blog.

3. Ravelry- What can I say, if you decide to just log in to ravelry to check that one thing, don’t be surprised if an hour later you find out you’ve been side tracked and still haven’t checked that one thing you were originally going to check on.

4. Online Yarn shops- I will visit online yarn shops and play around with the numbers of, if I used this yarn for this project how much would it cost me, then I will go to another yarn and do the same thing. After spending a lot of my time trying to figure out which yarn would be the best deal I end up getting nothing because I realize that I already have a good bit of yarn and I shouldn’t be buying more. Please tell me I'm not the only person who does this.

5. TV -I’m really not much of a TV watcher. I don’t have regular shows that I watch each week but I do get sucked into shows all the time.

6. Baths

7. Book Stores- I love going to a book store but don’t usually do it if I have other things I need to get done. There is no way I can just run in and out of a book store.

8. Library- It’s funny because I work in a library, you would think I wouldn’t want to spend free time in a library but I do. It’s very similar to the book store affect.

9. Going through the yarn stash- I like to look at my yarn stash but it’s best done when I have time to really enjoy it. I usually do it whenever I'm close to finishing a project.

10. Magazines- Another part of my book issue. I love looking through magazines. Even if they aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know, I will still spend the time to read it again.

Nifty Thing

2008-05-24T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry I had to repost this one. I was playing with the font size and it got way out of hand :).

Have you guys seen one of these nifty things before?

I first saw this little heaven sent item in January when my sister showed me hers. When she first showed it to me I thought, “oh, yet another gadget for knitting.” I have several gadgets already and I really need to cut back on spending money on gadgets so I just gave it a “hmmm.” Well that came back to haunt me.

You see, I almost always have some kind of knitting project with me. You never know when you’re going to be stuck somewhere with nothing to do. And every knitter knows that yucky feeling of having to wait for something or somebody and not have something to knit while you wait, so to avoid that I usually always have some kind of work in progress with me. My choice is a sock and it is usually in my bag with a gazillion other things. And yes occasionally I will lose some stitches because the yarn has slipped off the needles. This can be annoying at times but I’m ok with it. Normally I just slip the stitches back on and off I go again. But then there are projects like the Bayerische socks. Believe me you do not want to lose a stitch, not even a little one on those socks. After losing stitches way to many times I decided that I really need one of those little nifty gadgets. It would save my sanity.

Soooo, when we were at the sheep and wool festival, I reminded my sister several times that if she sees one of those nifty little things that she showed me back in January buy it asap and I would pay her back. We never did see one but she must have got the hint that I really, really wanted one of those nifty little things because I received a wonderful package this week that had not one but two in it. I am so so happy with this little gadget.
Yeah, no more dropped stitches!

The packaging says “DP Wip Tubes”. I guess that is what it’s called. It’s made of a thick cardboard tube that has a slit in it that you slide your project into. It has another tube that is slightly bigger to slip over the original tube. Everything is held in place and I love it.

The grey sock in these pictures is the second sock of bayerische. I’m about to start the heel, finally. The purple one is Dax’s. She is using a pattern called the mystic sea and I’m not sure what the yarn is called except I do know it is superwash.

Stash Enhancement

2008-05-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is most of the fiber that Dax and I brought home from the MS&W Festival.

Merino Top from Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. I got 3 lbs of this. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I made this purchase. Actually I know what I was thinking, I wanted to make sure I had enough roving to make a sweater. Have any of you heard of a 3 lb sweater before? I'm not sure why I didn't think about what a sweater actually might weigh before I bought all this. Turns out I was told later that it takes about 1 lb of roving to make a sweater. I have enough here for 3 sweaters. Yikes.

Merino from Spinners Hill. I absolutely loved this booth. They had so many nice colors of roving. I had such a hard time deciding on which roving to chose. I bought 1 lb of the blue roving first. I managed to make it back to the booth later on Sunday and most of the rovings were gone, which was just as well, I didn't need to spend more money on rovings. And then I saw the autumn colored roving and bought it to.

Gale's Art Merino 8oz

Pencil Roving: Sorry, Don't Remember This Vendor's Name

Angora/Alpaca/Wool blend 2oz from Wild Meadow Angora

Socks That Rock, and Sheep to Shoe Kit from The Fold.We avoided The Fold on Saturday because they had such a huge line but on Sunday we visited them. They had been picked over but Dax found a skein of STR that she really liked and I went ahead and got the Sheep to Shoe kit.

Cormo Fleece 5.5 lbs This stuff is so nice and clean. Oh my, it has to be the cleanest fleece I have ever gotten, very very nice. I keep taking this fleece out just so I can admire it. Rohan really likes it to.

This is the only yarn I got. The yarn to the left is sock yarn from Misty Mountain Farm. They also had some lovely baby alpaca roving that I almost got but decided that I have more than enough to keep me busy for ahmmm, a while. The yarn on the right is from Brooks Farm. It was on sale. Not to mention it is oh so soft and just lovely yarn.

Tess Silk Yarn and Tess Ribbon Yarn from TessThese are Dax's purchases from the Festival. She had saved money that she got from Christmas and her birthday to spend at the festival and this is what she got. The ribbon yarn is for a cabled tank top and the silk is for a shawl.

Mini Relic Purse from the Renaissance Booth. My reciept says the vendor for this is White Wolf and Phoenix. The green one is Dax's the blue one is mine.

Pencil Roving: Don't Remember the name of this one either.Dax wanted this and it was very reasonable priced. She has been spinning it on my drop spindle. She has been enjoying playing with it, there is no drafting involved.

Maryland

2008-05-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

These last couple of weeks have been hectic for me. I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel though and things should start slowing down after this weekend (I hope).

I was getting pretty excited about our trip to Maryland and then caught something with a nasty cough. For about a week I tried everything to get rid of that cough and finally decided it was time to go to the Dr. He gave me some antibiotics and cough medicine. All I can say is antibiotics rule. I felt so much better after taking them.

As for the Festival it went by way to fast. This was my fourth time to go to this festival and I have to say it is still overwhelming. There is just so much to see and do there. This year there were five in our group. Dax and I met up with my sister and her daughter and a friend of my sister also joined us. We camped out at Patapsco State Park. I did take a lot of pictures but wished I had taken more.

Some highlights from the trip:

-The dogwood trees were in bloom at the State Park, very pretty.

-I enjoyed meeting the couple who camped beside us. The lady was nice enough to show us some of her spindles that she collected from the festival and we got a bonus of entertainment when we heard harp music being played from their campsite. We looked over and saw the gentleman with her playing a harp.

-I really liked the Guest booth this year. It was a booth representing Medieval and Renaissance Textiles.
Bobbin lace that was being displayed at the Medieval and Renaissance Textiles booth.

Same booth, tablet weaving display. My sister calls this card weaving.

-I loved seeing all the hand knit items people who were visiting the festival were wearing.

-I also enjoyed seeing all the animals.
Checking out the alpaca or maybe I should say alpaca checking out Dax.

She must have met the alpaca's approval. She let Dax pet her.

-I have a lot, I mean A LOT of pictures of sheep from this trip. Dax took my camera to the barn with sheep in it and came back with pictures of nothing but sheep.
This must have been one of her favorites because there was several pictures of this one in the camera. She told me his/her hair reminded her of Tyde.

I however thought this one had more of the Tyde look.

The girls taking a break.

We kept to the tradition of peanut butter and jelly sandwich picnic style lunches while we were there but decided to treat ourselves to some “fair” food before we left on Sunday.

-A big thank you to my sister's friend Beth for showing us how to do Kumihimo.

-I can now say I have more roving/fleece in my stash then yarn. I think I better get off the computer and start spinning.

I hope everybody has a great week.

Not much to show

2008-04-20T04:42:00.000-07:00

It’s been an incredibly busy week. I didn’t have much time to do the fun things that I love to do, so I have no finished objects or progress pictures and would really like to try and catch up on some blog reading today.

Yesterday we watched Rudy leave for his Boston Marathon trip, giving him our traditional Run Rudy Run cheer. We heard that Lance Armstrong is running in Boston this year. That would be cool if Rudy sees him there, which I really doubt will happen, but you never know.

Since I have no crafting pictures I will leave you with pictures of Rohan the bubble killer. I was playing around with the quality/resolution of the pictures to see if they start to get distorted at a lower quality but they seem fine. You can click on them to make bigger.

The chase is on:

Zooming in: I think he looks kind of mean in this picture :}.

Pop:

Have a great week.

On the Bobbin and Inventory

2008-04-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

We’re down to the last few days of Spring Break for T and D. It was a different Spring Break for me because it was the first one that I had to work since they have been born. To add to that feeling weird, Rudy took the week off, so I was the only one leaving home for work.

I must say it was a very relaxing week for me though. Since there were no students or teachers on the school grounds, it was a work at your own pace kind of week. I decided to do inventory on the books. The librarian that I work with told me it hasn’t been done in years. I almost finished the inventory but there were some computer guys that came in from the county that wanted to take the system down to do some upgrades. This meant that I couldn’t access the software for the inventory. I’m hoping to go back by the school over the weekend to finish the last few books.

Doing the inventory was a bit bittersweet. It was great to find books that were labeled lost or missing but the overall number of books that has walked out the door without being checked out is a bit overwhelming. Right now the number is over 500 books. Maybe I should look at it a different way. If it’s been 3 years since the last inventory that would be around 167 books a year, which doesn’t sound as bad. I also noticed the craft books need some serious updating. I saw only one book on knitting and only one on crochet. One was printed in the 50’s and the other in the 60’s, ouch. What kind of knitting media assistant am I to let that happen? To make up for it I’ve been thinking about pitching an idea to the principal about starting an after school knitting club next year. I will also start looking around for some children friendly knitting books to put in the library. I know the klutz books are good. Dax has one and has used it a lot. If anybody has some more suggestions then let me know.

Well on to some fiber stuff. Pictured in this post is some BFL roving that I got with my wheel. There is a pound of this stuff and it is spinning up nicely.

I had decided to take stock on my yarn and fiber supplies. I want to get an idea of what to look for when I go to Maryland. I was amazed to notice that I think I have more roving then yarn. So I need to get spinning before I even consider adding more roving.

As for my list, most of the roving I have is un-dyed so I’m going to add dyed roving to my list of things to look for, along with some dyes so I have some color to play with the roving I already have. I would also really like to see if I can find some of that pencil roving and of course I will look at the fleece. Well I can see that my list is starting to get long. This is just the list of things to look for in the spinning department, oh yeah add bobbins to the list. I need more of those to.

I hope everybody has a great week.

Bayerische

2008-04-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Since I am probably the slowest knitter in the world it is no surprise that Bayerische is not only still on the needles but is not even half way done. On the up side I am oh so close to being half way.

I only had two skeins of yarn for this project. I was debating about doing one more repeat but decided that I would try and get a pair of socks out of what I had. The pattern warns that these socks eat up yarn. This is how far I got with one ball.
Hmm, obviously that little amount of string was not going to finish this sock.

I started looking on the internet and made an order from The Loopy Ewe.

Wow, did it get here fast. I was very impressed. Then when I opened it, I started to feel like it was my birthday. The yarn was wrapped up, a little hand written note was in the package and some small strips of sample yarn, very nice.

Maybe I can have the Bayerishes done by the end of April, maybe.

In other news I’m going to Maryland for the sheep and wool festival! Wahooo! Can you tell I’m excited? Plane tickets have been purchased, camp site has been reserved and finally I asked for time off work. Now I'm going to go find my calendar so I can mark off how many more days till the festival.

I hope everybody is having a great day.

New Look 6678

2008-03-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all the comments on the Easter egg dyeing. The dye did stick and WOW are they bright colors. I was so impressed that when I saw Easter egg dye on sale after Easter I couldn’t get to it fast enough.

I finished sewing the shirt I had sitting around. I had posted about this project when I first started and found it posted on March 23, 2007. This surprised me. A year, this project has been sitting around for over a year. I really need to try and stay focused a little more.

New Look pattern 6678.
I had issues with the collar. The collar was a bit big and would drape outward. I had to make it smaller and adjust the neckline to make it lay flat. Because I shortened the collar it caused a lot of gathering around the neck arm area, which makes the sleeves look puffier then what I think they are suppose to be.
The bottom part of the sleeve is also bigger looking then the cover of the pattern but over all I really like it. I have worn it a couple of times already and I got a lot of nice comments on it. The main reason I think I get a lot of compliments isn’t the style of the shirt but the color. It seems to bring out the color in my eyes.

To add a pet photo to the blog, here is Rohan asking if anybody wants to play ball with him.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Easter Eggs

2008-03-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

We dyed some Easter Eggs yesterday. Tyde went surfing so it was up to Dax and me to get the job done.

We only dyed 12 eggs and noticed we had little cups just sitting there with dye in them. So, I grabbed some wool that was sitting by the drum carder. We couldn’t resist putting it in the little cups with Easter egg dye in them.

I didn’t pre-soak the wool so I left them sitting in the dye overnight. I will steam them today. I hope that will be enough to make the dye stick. Dax is hoping to add this colorful wool to her collection she keeps for needle felting.

Here’s what we had with a sample of one of Dax’s needle felting creations. I call her the White Lady because Dax used white for her skin. Dax often refers to her as Lady Big Nose II.

Rohan is hoping the White Lady will be in his Easter basket. Unfortunately he was disappointed.

I've been dyeing

2008-03-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

We have had a nice weekend. Yesterday was a busy day. First there was a Community Spring Celebration that I voluntereed for. When I first woke up I thought the weather was going to be awful for it. It was very cloudy, windy with the threat of rain, and it was cold. But then the sun came out. The wind stayed but the sun made all the difference.

Then the first of the soccer games for the Spring season started. Dax's team still got beat but not as badly as before. We were so pleased to see the improvement. The team they played was the same team that beat them in the Fall 16-0. This time the score was 5-1. See the one, they actually scored a goal! The first part of the game was closer then it sounds it was tied at half 1-1.

Here's a picture from the game. Not the best picture but I liked it because you can see that the cruise ships are in port. That's the Disney ship behind them. This is their home field.

On to the dyeing, I picked up some un-dyed yarn at the Maryland sheep and wool festival in May. The yarn is 50% angora 50% wool from Tess' Designer Yarns. It was on sale because it was un-dyed. I can’t remember but I think it was on sale for half the price at the time. My plan was to dye it myself and use it to make the Sideways Knit Short Sleeve Top pattern (scroll to about halfway down the page).

Before

I was going to use Jacquard dye but the color I had was more turquoise then what I wanted. I ended up using royal blue rit dye .

After

I hope everybody has a great week.

Time Out

2008-03-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

I had decided to work on Chuck’s Cabled socks first because I thought they would knit up faster than the Bayerische. They have given me nothing but trouble, Arrrr.

I got this far on them and decided to run some yarn through them to see how they would fit. I could get them on my foot but it was really tight. So I frogged them and tried again with bigger needles. That didn’t work for me either. I didn’t like how the yarn looked with the bigger needles so I frogged them again. I then decided to add a stitch of the black color between the main cables. This added four stitches to the sock. But it also left a span of 4 stitches to carry the gray yarn on the back. I usually do not carry the yarn on the back any further then 3 stitches at the most. These stitches are purl stitches and there might be a way to hook/twist the back yarn with purl stitches but I don’t know this method. This started to frustrate me so I have put them to one side and started working on theBayerische socks. I have not given up on the Chuck’s Cabled socks but I think a break from them would be good for me right now. We will just call it a time out.

Dax has a performance this weekend. It’s some kind of Orchestra competition. I’ve never been to one so I’m not sure what to expect. I do know she has been practicing more than usual for it.

If you didn't notice she seems to have adopted my Ruffle jacket. We had some cooler weather this week and she decided the ruffle jacket was perfect to keep the chill away. She told me she got a lot of compliments at school on it.

Nice Weekend

2008-02-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

We’ve had some wonderful weather this weekend. Soo, I dragged Rudy and Dax out to Rockledge Gardens Nursery yesterday. I really love going there and just walking around all the plants. But this time we also made some purchases. We got a blueberry bush and some flowers. They’re still in their pots right now. I keep moving them around the yard to try and decide where the best place is to put them. With all the trees we have put in the yard it’s beginning to become hard to find a good old sunny spot.

Rohan seems to really like Dax’s roses she picked out. I kept trying to make him aware that there are thorns on the bush but he kept sticking his nose in them any way.

He looks curious doesn’t he? I don’t know if you can see it in the picture but his whiskers are all perked up. He spent most of the weekend chasing lizards and squirrels. Maybe he thinks there’s lizards in the roses.

Other than playing with plants I spent a good bit of time sitting outside knitting. I want to thank you for the comments on which socks I should knit. I finally decided which sock to do.

I decided to knit Chuck’s Cabled socks,

And Bayerische.

How’s that for being decisive? Now let’s see if I can finish at least one of them before the deadline.

Have a great week.

Forever socks

2008-02-10T07:24:00.000-08:00

Finally I finished these socks.
I made them for my mom. I have started to refer to these socks as the forever socks, because it felt like it took me forever to finish them.
Yarn: Tofutsies
Needles: Size 2
Pattern: Pomatomus.

For my next project I am thinking about knitting Eunny Jang’s Bayerische socks for the Febuaray sockdown on Ravelry’s Sock Knitter’s Anonymous group. It’s either that one of her Chuck’s Cabled socks. I like them both. I’m on the fence for either one. What do you think, which do you like better?

We also had a celebration this past week. Guess who turned 15?
Yep we celebrated Tyde’s 15 birthday. Time sure does fly. He now stands taller than me but not quite as tall as Rudy.

And, here is proof that you can still get a 15 yo to smile on Dumbo.
Ok, I think his aunt’s antics is what got the smile but we have photo proof that it can happen.

Jan

2008-01-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

Wow, January sure did go by fast for me. I was hoping to have not 1, not 2, but 3 projects done this month.

Here’s project 1.
Umm, not done, but close, veerrrry close.

Here’s project 2.
Umm, I had some collar issues so not done either, but oh so close.

Here’s project 3.
Yeah done, but the designated wearer does not like it and has a slight request. She wants me to lower the bodice. To do this I will have to take it all apart re-cut a new bodice and then put it back together again. Umm this one might not be done till 09.

On the up side I’m almost done with project 1 and 2. So I should have a good start for February.

Also if you didn’t notice I’ve been playing with photoshop. That software can do some really interesting things to pictures. Dax is lucky I didn't make her shirt totally neon :).

Have a great week!

fetching

2008-01-22T05:39:00.000-08:00

Remember the purple stuff. It’s the purple roving that went back and forth between my sister and me. The last time I saw it I had finally spun it and sent it to my sister. Well, some of it has made its way back to me. For Christmas my sister gave me these.

It’s the purple stuff all knitted up as fetching, pattern is on knitty.com.

Thank you Cyndi for making these for me, I love them!

We're Back

2008-01-18T06:02:00.001-08:00

I bet you didn’t know we left. Actually we have been back since Monday but I’ve been so busy trying to catch up that I haven’t had time to post. I took Tyde and Dax with me to meet up with my sister’s family for the Disney marathon weekend. The plan was for my sister and I to do the marathon, but we didn’t.

My sister has been my running buddy for every marathon I have done. I’ve lost track but I think we have done 6 full and 2 halves together, one of those half’s she did the full and I did the half. About two months ago my sister found out that she has some major knee problems. The Dr’s are telling her she is going to need a knee replacement but because she is considered too young for this she needs to make what she has last longer, which means no more long runs. Due to my lack of training and my lack of motivation to do a marathon without her I decided to pass my numbers to Rudy. Of course he had to run without the chip time. To run as a 40 something female would have put him on the podium. For those family members who try and keep up with his times he finished in 3hr10min.

Even though we didn’t do the marathon we went anyway. Sam and the kids did the 5k at Animal Kingdom. Then we spent the rest of the weekend visiting the theme parks. I made zebra hats for the 5k and my sister made some awesome tie dye shirts. The center has the shape of a Mickey Mouse head on them. She found directions on the internet for the tie dye shirts. Here’s a link for directions. I would like to try doing this in the future but maybe use some kind of other shape for the main focus, maybe a dragon, unicorn or fairy or something.

I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Cold

2008-01-03T04:11:00.000-08:00

In the middle of the night, actually it was early in the morning around 4:00 a.m., I smelled something that didn’t smell right. It woke me up out of my deep sleep. My eyes popped open and I immediately said “something is burning.” Rudy must have been still asleep because he did not respond. So, I got up and started walking around looking for the source. I was trying to be quiet but Rohan was following me around. I don’t think a dog knows how to be quiet. Just the thump of his happy tail on every wall, floor chair is enough to wake up the whole household but I was on a mission, I wanted to know what was burning. I checked the oven it was off. I checked the computer. We once had a fan expire and something melted in the computer and it smelled bad but it wasn’t the computer. I walked in every room trying to pin point the smell and couldn’t. Finally I gave up and went back to bed. Of course Rudy was awake by then. I’m going to blame it on the dog for waking him up. Since he now comprehended what I was saying I once again said, “something smells like it is burning.” He then replied, “ it’s the heater”. “They all smell a little funny when they first kick in”.

Oh, duh.

We have officially used the heater in the house.

Cheers

2008-01-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
I hope everybody has a happy, healthy year to come!

Rohan hopes you have a year full of big, juicy bones.

If you haven’t already seen it then go check out Duirwaigh “A knock at the Door.” A nice slide show to help start the year. If you have already seen it then go see it again. If your like me you will enjoy watching it over again.

Gifts

2007-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some gifts I wanted to share with you. One is beautiful and the other just surprised the heck out of me. I love them both.

This one is from my mother-in-law. It’s a sheep quilt that she made. It is so soft.

Some close ups of the sheep.

Aren't they cute? The flowers are little buttons.

Here is the gift that surprised me.

It is from Rudy. One of the reasons this surprised me is because Rudy has shown no interest at all in my spinning or knitting. I didn’t even think he knew what a drum carder was. I quickly thought my sister must have helped him out on this gift but when I asked her she said no. He must be paying more attention than I thought :).

One of Tyde’s friends was over and saw the drum carder sitting on the table. He ran up to it and said, “Oh, cool, this looks dangerous.” I think I better put it away some where when he is over.

Stockings

2007-12-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

I figured I better post about Christmas before the year is over. We had a great Christmas and your not going to believe what I got as a gift but I’ll save that for another post.

This one is about the stockings. I will remember this Christmas as the Christmas of the stockings. It started when I wanted to give a little something to all my co-workers at school. I wasn’t sure exactly how many there are but I thought 40 was a good number. I was thinking of making some kind of felted ornament, maybe a sheep but then I saw these while looking for ideas. It came complete with a (PDF) pattern. I thought great, I don’t have to think about it that much, all I have to do is follow the pattern.

It took longer than I expected. I ended up making mine a little bigger so I could stuff candy in them. This took a little time to tweak. I also started off hand sewing them but quickly realized that I wanted to be done before the New Year so started machine sewing them. The hand sewn ones did look better but I was beginning to get in a time crunch. I finished them the morning before the last day of school, whew.

After getting those done I was about to go into relax mode, but then noticed the kids stockings got ruined from being neglected in storage over the years. So on Christmas Eve I got it into my head that we all needed new stockings. Into the fabric stash I went and managed to come up with these.

I had used a pattern that my sister in law’s mother gave me several years ago. I couldn’t find the pattern but kind of remembered how it went.
After making Rudy’s I started running out of fabric remnants that had a Christmas theme so Dax’s has more of a fairy theme. The sayings on it says things like dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, never stop dreaming and love like you have never been hurt. I’m not sure where the quotes originated; one source I’ve heard is Mark Twain.

Tyde’s was the last one I made. I was really getting burned out by the time I got to his. I didn’t think I would have enough green fabric so started cutting the red fabric in much bigger strips. This was also less time consuming because I didn’t have to sew as much. He likes surfing so the fabric I used with his has sayings on it like, checking out the waves, shoot the curl etc.

When it came time to making myself one I decided it could wait till next year.
I hope everybody had or is still having a wonderful holiday break.

Random catch up

2007-12-14T19:03:00.000-08:00

It’s getting a little busy right now so I’m just going to do a random catch up on what’s been going on around here.

We have received the box from the Hawaiian side of the family. Thank you very much! Amazingly the first three boxes of candy are already gone. Well maybe not so amazing when you think about there is a 12 yo, a 14 yo, their friends, Rudy and ah, me all feeding off it. I hid what was left so we could have some for another day.

My sister’s family came into town last weekend and what did we do. We went to Ikea. Boy was it crowded. I can honestly say I do not like Orlando traffic.
We did get some much needed shelves for Dax and a much needed loft bed for Tyde. Rudy had to cut the bed posts down a little bit because it was to high for our ceilings.

I currently have a major sore throat. I’m hoping it’s from the red tide and will disappear when the red tide leaves (whenever that will be). But I have a feeling I’m coming down with something. I shouldn’t complain, I work around 400 children and have not caught anything, until now.

I’m working on a project (gift) that I’m not loving. I love the yarn and I love the pattern but I don’t think they go well together. Regardless I’ve decided to finish it.

I’m so terribly behind on reading blogs, what’s new.

I have to work over the holiday break. It’s bittersweet. On the one side I’d rather be home with everybody else but on the other side I will be able to get so much done. The school is starting a new system using lexile numbers and reading counts tests. All 10,000 plus books have to be re-labeled. It is so hard for me to re-label the books and try to keep up with the kids so this will be my chance to get it done while school is out.

On a bad note, somebody stole Dax’s bike over Thanksgiving break. I was hoping to use Christmas to replace it but I couldn’t stand the drive to school to pick them up. Sitting in traffic is not where I want to spend my time, not to mention how much gas my truck sucks up. So we have already got her another one. I guess that would be a good note for Dax. She got a new bike. Although she says she doesn’t like it as much as the other one.

Dax and I participated in the 5k reindeer run. She finished about 3 minutes ahead of me. We also went to see the movie Enchanted, it was cute.

I just read about Terry Pratchett the author having Alzheimer’s. I haven’t read many of his books but the ones I’ve read I’ve really loved.

Dax’s class at school is doing a knitting project. I think it’s the coolest thing. Every 7th grader is supposed to knit a 7”x9” square and then they are piecing it together to make blankets for the homeless.

We went to the winter concert to listen to Dax play in the school orchestra.
This is probably the best picture I got of her. I had to play with it a good bit so she didn't look like just a shadow.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Go Rudy Go

2007-11-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

Rudy participated in the space coast marathon today and managed to bring home a plaque.

He finished second in his age group.

Our long weekend is coming to a close and boy did I enjoy it. We all had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. I can tell you I really needed that break.

Ruffle jacket

2007-11-23T09:06:00.001-08:00

The ruffled jacket is finished, yeah. I did frog it and redo the cables. I can honestly say that next time I will just leave it. It didn’t make that big of a difference.

So here are the specs.
Pattern: Ruffled Jacket from Vogue Knitting magazine Fall 2007
Needle size: US size 10 (6mm) 24” Addi turbo cables

Yarn: Elsebeth lavold chunky AL 50% Alpaca, 50% wool

Modifications: Other then fixing the correction on the pattern not much. I did have to do another section for the ruffled bell pattern that borders the sweater. I had to cast on another 231 stitches to have enough to go around. Here's a picture showing how short I was of the border reaching all the way around.

I also knitted the front and back in the round. There was a lot of seaming in this sweater. In addition to the usual seaming at the sleeves and shoulder, you have to also seam the cable border on and then the ruffled bell border. A button on the front might be nice to have to. All in all I am very pleased with the sweater and I think I will get a lot of use out of it.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

costume

2007-11-11T05:46:00.001-08:00

Dax wanted to be Elizabeth Swan as a pirate this year for Halloween. Here is a picture of the costume used for the movie.

This is what we ended up with.

We used a combination of simplicity pattern 0527 and Simplicity pattern 0627. There were a lot of modifications done. The 0527 pattern was a children’s pattern and it was a little too small. The 0627 was an adult pattern and it was too big.

For the shirt I used the adult pattern. Since the arm length was already long I did not add the cuff per the pattern directions and just gathered up what was already there. The v in the neck was also to low so I cut it a considerable amount less.

The adult pattern was also used for the pants, but I did not use the elastic waist band. I had to cut the size down a good bit because they were to baggy then I used darts to pull in the waist and used a button down fly. I should have taken the leg part of the pants in more because they are still a good bit baggy in that area.

The vest was from the children’s pattern. The length was fine but I had to add a little bit to the width. I also changed the tab on the back to lace up instead of button. I used buttons that you cover with fabric. I have never used these kinds of buttons and was very impressed with them. I got mine at Hancock fabrics but saw that wal-mart sells them to. Here is a picture of the buttons I’m talking about. Dax also wore the vest to school for homecoming week. They are the Minutemen and it tied into the theme very well.

The adult pattern was used for the coat. I had to take in the sleeves a good bit and did not add the cuff part of the sleeves. I also did not add any buttons to the coat. I didn’t have buttons in the stash for this project and it wasn’t in the budget to buy more buttons. I thought the braiding did a good job at hiding the fact that there are no buttons.

The boots are from the children’s pattern. The boots was one of the few things that we didn’t alter very much. The only change we did was that we tacked the boots down to some old flip flops so they wouldn’t shift around on the feet. We used the directions from here to make the hat. We took a buckle off an old belt for the belt that holds the sword and just cut some scrap upholstery fabric to fit the buckle. The sword is a rubber sword we picked up from wal-mart.

Most of the fabric came from my stash. We had to buy the braid for the coat, the sword, the fabric for the boots and buttons for the vest.

Tyde was a dementor and did not want to pose for me. His costume was pretty easy. It was basically a black hooded sheet that was ripped up.

Rohan didn't want to be left out of the picture taken so here he is showing he can be a pirate to.

Take what you can give nothing back.

Arrrrrrrr
I'm going to try and catch up on reading blogs now. I hope everybody has a great week.

Well Duh.

2007-10-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Why, why, why didn’t I stop when I knew that it wasn’t right? I guess it was just too much of a thrill to put my stick in the loop, add a loop, pull it through and just watch it grow. If you haven’t guessed yet I found a correction to the cable pattern that runs up the middle of the ruffled jacket on ravelry. This correction comes from Veronique on Ravelry or in the blog world Tres Chic Veronique .

Look at how far I have gotten with the funky cables.

I should have listened to myself when I thought it looked “not right”. Sophia left a comment on what might fix it. But, I thought I’ve gone this far I’ll just keep going. I don’t know why I didn’t sit it aside and just wait for somebody with more knowledge on cables to “correct” the pattern. I’m going to take the corrections that Veronique has given for the pattern and make a swatch. If it looks right, which I know it will, I’m going to rip back what I have and start over again. I’m just a little miffed at my own stubbornness, stupidity or maybe I should call it state of denial.

Hopefully I’ll get that same thrilling feeling the second time around. I probably will not but my state of denial might get me through it.

On the upside, which is also a duh moment because I should have figured this out a long time ago, I managed to set the halo scan to send comments directly to my e-mail, no more cutting and pasting for me.

New Look 6705

2007-10-12T11:32:00.001-07:00

It’s time to start Halloween costumes. So I decided to finish the sewing project I had sitting on the machine. It’s a shirt from New Look pattern 6705. This is what the pattern cover looks like.

This is what I got.

I had a hard time with front yoke. I cut it to my size but the top part at the neck would buckle out. I assumed it was because I had made it too big. So, I took it apart and cut it down a size and it still buckled out. Finally I just folded the part that buckled and pinned it down. I took it apart again to re-cut a new yoke using the pinned down top yoke as a pattern and walla no buckle. For those who are making this shirt it was pattern piece #1 the yoke front that gave me such a hard time. I also did not put the tie straps on it. Actually I did but ended up taking them out to because they didn’t seem to pull the shirt in around the waist. This shirt would be nice for someone who does not want a shirt to cling to the waist area. It’s not one of my favorite shirts but I’ll wear it here and there.

Now I can move on to Halloween costumes. I hope everybody has a good weekend.

Dish Rag Tag

2007-10-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

The running ragged team should get an award for perseverance. Even though we may have came in last place we at least finished. Well as long as the package doesn't get lost again. The box got lost one person before my tag. I was beginning to think it would never make it to me. But then, on Saturday I found this in my mailbox.

Thank you Jannett for all the goodies! The rag is beautiful, the caramel bites were delicious and I'll get good use out of the note cards and pocket pics book.

I immediately started working on my rag to send to the finish line. Jannett had sent some pretty pink yarn and some variegated yarn. I really liked the rich colors in the variegated yarn and decided to use it.

I wanted to keep it simple and stick to just making a square rag. Then I saw a cool looking stitch pattern at Yarn over Manhattan's blog. I just love how you can find great inspiration from other people's knitting on the internet. She called it the 2-Colour Star Stitch Pattern from a book I didn't have so I looked in some books that I did have and found a stitch pattern that looked similar. It's the daisy stitch from Vogue Knitting Stichionary book.

A big thank you to Emily for hosting the Dish Rag Tag. It was exciting waiting for the box and trying to decide what to knit for the rag. The box alone was really cute. Everybody that got the box left little messages and stickers on it.

Plant

2007-09-22T06:07:00.001-07:00

Oh I wish I had some nice progress pictures of knitting, but I don’t.
Instead I have some plant pictures for you. Can you guess what kind of plant this is?

When I saw it at this stage I started thinking it might be one of those bug eating plants.

Ok Here it is in full fruit so to say.

It’s a cotton plant that Dax brought home from school at the end of May. I thought I had killed it. It came home in this little container in about ½ inch of dirt, all nice and green and perky. I transplanted it into a bigger pot and it’s leaves started turning red and falling off. As a last ditch effort I gave it some miracle grow and wow it miraculously grew. (I guess that stuff really does work). It currently has about 10 more blooms on it. I’m also beginning to refer to it as the cotton tree. It looks like it is developing bark at the base of it and stands about 3 1/2 feet tall.

For a recap of last weekend, I did make it to the fiber in. Unfortunately I didn’t get to stay long, but I did get a chance to see one of the demos that was presented. It was hairpin lace. Both the carnival cardi wrap and the seafoam wrap skirt from interweave crochet magazine uses this technique. I really enjoyed the demo and maybe one day I’ll actually use it. I wanted to see the kumihimo (Japanese) braiding demonstration but didn’t have time.

Dax’s soccer game was a hot one. The team this season has yet to win a game. Somebody decided that the team needed to be moved up to a more competitive league. It was actually a good move for them. If they had stayed in the league they were in they would be still winning all their games but not having to really work for it. They are learning so much by playing these tougher teams and I think in time they will be able to start winning some games. Probably not this season but maybe next. Today is my day to bring half time snacks. I want to bring them some of those gu packages that Rudy uses when he does marathons but I don’t think they will like them. I probably should stick with fruit.

I hope everybody has a great week.

2007-09-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

First I want to thank everybody for their nice comments. I really do appreciate it. I have to admit I haven’t been keeping up with e-mails and blogs like I have in the past but I’m hoping to catch back up soon.

I’ve casted on a new knitting project. It’s from the Fall 2007 Vogue Knitting magazine. The pattern is called Ruffled Jacket. The yarn I’m using for it is called elisebeth lavold chunky AL, and I love it. It is oh so soft, 50% alpaca, 50 % wool. I used some birthday money to get it at Webs. It was on closeout and I hope I have enough of it to finish this project.

I'm not so sure about the cable pattern that runs up the middle. Something about it looks funky. The magazine does not have a good close up picture of it. I looked on line to see if there was a correction to the pattern but couldn't find one so decided to just stay with it. The yarn is more brown then what the picture is showing it to be.

I still have the shrug on the needles to but decided it would be better for Dax. It looks much more appropriate on a teenager then ah a mature person of my age.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Dax has her soccer game Saturday. There is a local fiber festival going on, and I told Dax and a friend of hers that I would take them to a theme park on Sunday since they have no school on Monday. Hopefully Tyde will come for the theme park but I’m not sure if spending the day with his younger sister and her friend is high on his agenda list. I'm also hoping to catch up on some internet stuff. I have been a member of Ravelry for awhile now and have yet to post a project. It would be nice to get at least one project posted.

Rudy has been working on this.

I know it doesn’t look like much now but in the near future (hopefully) it will become shelves to put in my craft/bamboo room.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Finished Socks

2007-09-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

A finished object.

Pattern: Latvian socks from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Tofutsies 50% Superwash Wool, 25% soysilk, 22.5% Cotton, 2.5% Chitin
Needles: US 1 or 2.25mm

I finally finished these socks. I enjoyed knitting them. The pattern was easy enough but not one to do when trying to carry on a conversation. I also really enjoyed using the tofutsies yarn. I’m eager to see how it stands up over time.

August

2007-09-01T06:20:00.000-07:00

August started off with good plans. My sister and her family along with my mom were going to come up to watch the space shuttle launch. Mom was going to stay another week after they left with us and then fly back home. But, we got a call from Dad who said Grandma was not doing good. My sister canceled her plans and I drove up to see Grandma. Dax came with me. We got there about three days before she died. All I can say about it now was that it was really hard.

Since Mom had already bought a plane ticket for a trip from Florida to Alabama we decided to try and stick to the plan so she came back with me. The day after I got back, my job started and then a week later school started for both Tyde and Dax. It’s just been a crazy busy and emotional month for me. Oh almost forgot, my 42 birthday hit me while at my Grandma’s funeral. I don’t want to spend another birthday at a funeral, ever.

Here’s a picture from my Dad’s garden.

I think the hands belong to my nephew Solomon. My Dad calls his garden a “little garden”. I wish I had enough room for a little garden like his. The watermelons were not ready to be picked while I was there. After the funeral my Dad decided to do some traveling. I think he is in Maine right now. So, if you are up that way and see a 60 something man that might look a little sad say”Hi” to him :). My sister asked him what he was going to do with the watermelons and he said he would plow them over when he got back. So she took them. She picked 15 watermelons from the garden and said they were the sweetest melons she has had in a long time. Of course she couldn’t eat all 15 watermelons so she gave some to neighbors.

Not much

2007-07-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Not much knitting going on. I picked up these again. The Latvian Socks from Nancy Bush’s Folk sock book.

It is taking me forever to finish these socks. The pattern and everything is easy enough to follow but I keep getting distracted and forget to k2tog or yo when I’m suppose to so I have to back track to fix my error.

To have something to knit that does not need me to pay attention to the pattern I started this shrug. The pattern is called evening shrug from fiber trends.

I’m kind of at a stand still on this one because I didn’t have size 8 circular needles. I had size 8 straight and casted on using them but now I need the circular needles. I have so many stitches on those needles that they are about to burst off of the needle and I have more increasing to do. I’ll have to wait till I get out to the store for more needles before going any further on this one so back to the socks.

I’m hoping to get the shrug done soon because I will need it at my now permanent job. The elementary school that I got a temporary job at as a media/library assistant offered it to me as a permanent job. Yeah! I noticed that whoever has control of the thermostat in the library keeps it freezing in there. The shrug will help take the chill out of my bones.

I almost forgot to mention that I got my invitation for Ravelry. I’ve been on it for a couple of weeks now. I haven’t been able to spend as much time on it as I’d like. Mostly I’ve been looking at everybody else’s projects but I haven’t been much of a contributor, yet. I go by kriskrafts.

For the relatives that like visiting the blog I leave you with a couple of pictures of the toads.

Here is Tyde at the pottery place painting his candle holder sorting hat. The lady in the picture with the big smile was a wealth of knowledge on painting pottery.

Here’s Dax with Sierra and Solly at the bookstore.

They have been staying in Orlando for the past month because Sierra was accepted at the Orlando ballet summer school, otherwise known as ballet bootcamp. It's been great to have them staying so close.

We're ready!

2007-07-20T12:27:00.001-07:00

We’re finally ready for tonight’s activities. I finished the crochet wizard/witch hat. I tried to keep to the pattern but went astray near the end and did not increase as many times as it said to. Here is the final product.

Dax insisted that Rohan would make a good model so here he is showing what the inside looked like.

I wasn't sure how to do more then one color in crochet so I just carried it on the back like doing stranded knitting. I kind of like the inside better then the outside.

Dax was persistent; this is probably the best picture she got from Rohan.

He let us know that hats are not really him when he finally got the hat and ran off with it, LOL.

I also finished the Hogwarts cape. I used simplicity pattern 5840. I added the red color liner to it, which was not in the pattern.

As you can see it is a bit oversized. This one should fit her for a long time, unless she decides to sprout into something like the Jolly Green Giant.

I hope everybody has a great weekend. We will probably spend a good bit of it arguing over whose turn it is to read the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I guess I should have got more then one book but some things a family just has to learn to share :).

All about the house

2007-07-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

Here it is the CO (certificate of occupancy).

I’ve learned a lot while building the house.
Here’s just a few.

1. I learned I don’t like heights. When we got to working on the second floor and there where no walls up yet. It made me queasy. When it came to working on the roof, Rudy was on his own. I can stand on ladders fine but the roof was a different story.

2. Rudy is a perfectionist. I never realized the extent of this till building the house. I could care less if it’s a 16 of and inch off. It looks fine, go with it.

3. I love tools. I now know why a lot of men admire a nail gun, a miter saw, a table saw, a palm nailer. I’ll never forget the Valentine’s Day when my friend was telling me about the jewelry she got from her husband. I told her I got a palm nailer. She gave me a funny look. Little did she know I love that thing. At the time we were still in the framing stage. I was putting the hurricane straps on, trying to hammer them in and then Rudy gave me the palm nailer. It’s an air tool that is able to get into tight places and does the hammering for you. You just line the nozzle up push on it and it bangs the nail right in. Then there is this screw driver gun. It is worth its weight in gold. Ok, the list could go on and on but you get the idea. The right tool makes things so much easier.

4. My Dad is a wealth of knowledge. I already knew this but it was obvious when we were building the house. He’s also a lot of fun to be around. When we were putting up the floor trusses, we finally got to the last one. He looked at us and said, “there it is!” We looked at him like what, there’s what. We are always misplacing things, the tape measure, the nails, the screwdriver etc. There was always a hunt for something. He then said, “There’s that piece we have been looking for all day, the last floor truss.” LOL. When we got to the drywall stage I was so excited. This was the stuff that made the rooms look like rooms. After about a month it was no longer exciting. It was like the project that would never end. Think of when you are making a sweater and you get the body done and you feel so glad to have that done but then you realize you still have the sleeves to do. The drywall gave me the same feeling. I put up the last sheet when Rudy was at work. I had to tell somebody that I was done so I called my dad who was in a different state and told him, I finally found that piece I was looking for the past few months. He didn’t quite understand me and then I told him, I found the last piece of drywall. He got a chuckle out of it, and knew exactly how happy I was to have found that piece.

5. I learned it hurts a lot to have a hammer fall on your head. Always look on top of ladder for objects before moving it.

6. Tyde and Dax can only handle 30 minutes, 40 max of painting at a time.

7. Tyde likes power tools as much as I do, he also likes banging things and construction machines.

8.Rudy should get a trophy for jerry rigging things. If there was a problem he could make or find some way to fix it. One problem that I remember is that during the framing, we could not pick up a wall with just the two of us. He made some kind of concoction to do it for us. I just had to turn the handle and it went up. Only one of the many things he came up with.

9. Make sure the power is off before trying to wire a socket. Nothing like being bit by electricity.

10. Gloves are a girls best friend. Used them to avoid splinters when picking up wood, helped when hauling drywall upstairs, and saved my skin from being ripped off when doing the pavers.

11. The last thing I can think of for now is that through out all this I truly believe knitting saved my sanity.

I hope everybody has a great week and if you get a chance pop open a bottle of champagne to help us celebrate.

Wizard Hat

2007-07-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to go to the book store to preorder the next Harry Potter book. I wasn’t planning on doing the book store party thing for the release, but Dax talked me into it. So, one of my craft projects is a wizard hat. I saw these hats and really liked them. They are crochet. Hmm, this might be a problem. I have very little experience with crochet. I had no idea how to make them. I started looking on the internet and found this pattern. Ok, I think I can do this. Since my confidence was low I picked some ugly. cheap yarn and started hooking. (Is that what it’s called?) And this is what I have so far.

I don’t really love this hat; it’s the color that I don’t like. I also don’t like the top part of it. Regardless I will try and finish it. The main reason is because I don’t have enough time to make another one before the book release. The fabric the hat is sitting on is for a cape. Dax told me she would like a cape to wear to the festivities. I told her she has a cape and she said it doesn’t fit. I was determined that she was wrong. I mean how much growth can a person do in one year. Well, she was right, maybe it’s been two years since the last time she wore the cape. We will be cutting the fabric today. Not only will she get to wear it to the book store party but she can where it to the Harry Potter paint your own pottery party to. Tyde on the other hand has no interest in wearing a cape.

On the house front. We got our last inspection approved. It wasn’t exactly that smooth. They came out and said you need to put a small hill here with some plants on it, so we did. They came and approved our new plants and hill. The neighbor then came out and said he didn’t like the plants. They were to close to the property line. So we left the little hill, moved the plants to the back and put some grass on the hill. Hopefully everybody is happy now. The inspector told me to give her a few days to process the paper work. I will be heading to Vierra tomorrow to pick up the CO (unless they have something else they want us to do). We can then officially move in.

We do still have the wall cabinets to put up in the kitchen and carpet to put down in the bedrooms. The cabinets are sitting in the hall way. See:

Rudy and I will get those up this week. Since we did about everything else on this house we decided to let somebody else do the carpet. We ordered the carpet from home depot and they are suppose to call Thursday to set up an installation time. Once that is done we will be furniture shopping. (Yeah)

Lutea Lace

2007-07-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

All that luck you guys sent my way must have worked. Thank you very much. Not only did the power guys make it here to hook up the power but we got our final inspection. Wahooo!! However, I was slightly disappointed to learn the final inspection is not the final inspection. Huh? The inspector told me we need one more inspection before we get the CO. It’s the landscape/drainage inspection. Oh phooey, so we have scheduled that one for Thursday.

I did do the final touches to the Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell. Unlike the county inspections, final touches means it’s finished.

Specifics:
Pattern: Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell from Interweave Knits Magazine, Summer 2007
Needles: Size 8 circular and Size 8 straight
Yarn: Nashua handknits cilantro, in the color turquoise. I think I used almost five balls.

This project was actually a very quick project. It just takes me a long time because I will jump from one project to another. If I would just focus on one I would finish quicker, but what fun would that be? The pattern used short rows. There are directions in the back of the magazine explaining this technique but if you need more help check out this web page from knitty.com.

Also there are corrections for this pattern that you can find here. You will need the corrections for the shoulder part.

For those of you who like to see what the finished object looks like when worn, here you go.

The first attempt at knitting this I did for the size 40. It seemed to big so I went to size 36. It's kind of snug, not really how I usually wear my clothes but I think I will wear it anyway.

I hope everybody has a great week. We are looking forward to having my sister’s family visit for a cook out tomorrow and then watching fireworks.

Sorry for the multiple posts. I kept trying to add a label to this post after it was posted and blogger didn't want me to :(.

Good Mail Week

2007-06-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

It’s a good thing it’s been a good mail week because the frustration with getting the last inspection on the house is beginning to work on me. To get the last inspection we need the power to be officially hooked up to the house by FPL. The inspector said they will be out anywhere between one to three days, yesterday was the third day. We were planning to call in today for the last inspection but we can not because no power. I’m hoping they show up today. We have until 4:30 to call for the inspection. If everything goes as plan we will have the CO tomorrow. If not it will be put off till another day. For those who do not know what I’m talking about, around three years ago we knocked down our old house to build a new one. In the meantime we stayed in a very small RV on the back of the lot. Three years is a long time for me. I guess I just need to be patient. What’s one day, one week, two weeks compared to three years?

On to knitting, Dax completed her first sock.

Wow, I was so impressed that I let her talk me into ordering a new knitting project for her. I figured she has all this time with nothing to do this summer so I went ahead and got her this:

It came in the mail a couple of days ago. I ordered it from kpixie. It's called lacy little top. I'm now waiting to see if Dax will actually complete the second sock.

I also got another package in the mail. It’s a book from Monika from Smoking Hot Needles blog. I am really looking forward to reading it. Thank you again Monika for sending it my way.

Well I’m off to clean up. I’d like it to look somewhat clean just in case we do get the final inspection.

On the wheel

2007-06-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

Here’s what’s on the wheel, pretty boring heh?

It’s my first time spinning merino wool. I probably should have dyed the wool before spinning it but decided to dye it after. My best description of spinning this is smooth and sticky. I usually sit outside to spin and it is humid here. I found the merino roving likes to stick to me, my chair, the dog, the table. You name it, it will cling to it. However, once I figured out how to contain it, it would just slip out of my fingers onto the wheel so smoothly and it is very soft. I’m hoping to ply it soon and turn it into socks.

Speaking of socks Dax has decided she wants to knit some socks. It’s a good thing I love her so much because I opened up my sock yarn bin and said choose what you want. I saw her hand roam over my opal yarn and I thought to myself, oh those are my favorites. She then decided she liked the lorna laces yarn better, I thought, oh, my lorna laces yarn, sigh. She then thought nah maybe the socks that rocks yarn. Ok, it took me a long time to finally get some socks that rocks yarn but if she wants them she can have them. But then she decided that she liked the cladia handpainted yarn best.

So the cladia yarn is now on the needles and being made into a nice pair of socks. All joking aside I’m very pleased that at least one of my children enjoys knitting almost as much as I do. I did show both Tyde and Dax how to knit but it just didn’t stick with Tyde. He likes playing with my spinning wheel more then knitting needles so I still think he might come around one day.

The other big event is that we are now down to one more inspection on the house, the CO (certificate of occupancy). We are hoping to get this done on Thursday. All I can say is that it’s been a long three years.

I decided to end this post with a picture of Rohan with a bad hair cut. Dax insisted that we needed to shave him. I have to admit he does seem a lot more happy. But, he sure does look funny. She got tired of shaving him and left his head, tail and feet alone. He has a lion look to him.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Yarn, books, rags

2007-06-14T09:07:00.001-07:00

Jennifer asked what yarn I’m using for the Lutea Lace Shoulder Shell. It is called Nashua handknits cilantro, in the color turquoise. It is made of 70% cotton 30% polyester. It has been interesting to knit with. So far I’m pleased with the yarn. However, I'm a little worried about keeping my gauge consistant with it. It has a good bit of stretch to it that I’m not use to knitting with.

In other news I’ve finished a book, actually two and joined a rag race.

The two books I finished are The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo and Pendragon The Merchant of Death by D. J. MacHale. Both are children’s books recommended for ages 9-12. I felt the Pendragon book is more for the older kids and the Edward Tulane book is for all ages. I really enjoyed The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and think that if you have children that like you to read to them then get this book. The story is very heartwarming; the chapters are short and easy to read out loud. As for Pendragon I didn’t read it, I listened to it. I usually like to listen to audiobooks especially when I’m spinning and this is the one I listened to for spinning the purple stuff. It’s a series book and I listened to it because one of the students at the school recommended it. She did tell me that she read them out of order and found the first one to be a bit boring and the main character came out as being whinny. From the information she gave me I’m assuming the next book will be more exciting to read. I will eventually read another book in this series but I’m not in any hurry to do so.

The rag race is a dish rag knitting relay race, hosted by Yarn Miracle. If you are interested then visit her site for more information. It sounds like fun and not a huge commitment.

Plied up

2007-06-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

It’s all plied up and ready for its next trip back to Alabama.
The fiber was bought from a vendor at the MSWF called Brush Creek Wool Works. Its label says 8 oz of purple Cotswold wool. I Navajo plied it and managed to get just over 365 yards. There is 182 yards in the first skein and 183.7 yards in the second skein (tied off with the pink string). I found it easy to spin up and enjoyed spinning it.

Now I have to figure out what I want to spin next. I pulled out some white superwash merino from the pile and thought maybe I could spin it up to be some sock yarn and then dye it. Honestly, I do have a lot of sock yarn in the stash but I don’t have really any that are solid colors so maybe I need some more. There is also that vest I wanted to do but I don’t think I will use the superwash roving for that. Hmm, I’ll have to think about it more.

In the mean time I have casted on a new project. It’s the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell from Interweave Knits magazine.

I did manage to catch a picture of the shuttle going up. I took it from the back yard and got a kick out of Rohan’s reaction. We can hear the shuttle pretty good from the house. It makes a loud rumbling noise. Rohan kept looking in the tree to see what was making the noise.

Purple stuff

2007-06-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

I am so enjoying the beginning of summer, maybe to much. I’ve been having a hard time establishing a routine. Not that you have to have routines but I feel I get so much more done when I have some kind of routine or plan. So, I’m working on getting back on some kind of schedule. I did update the blog to the newer version. I saw that on Bells Knits that she is using haloscan for her comments and decided to give it a try. In the transition I did loose some of the links to the blogs I like to visit so I’ll try and put them all back in soon.

We are waiting to see if the shuttle launches today. It was raining this morning but seems to be clearing up. Now it’s just plain hot and humid outside. You know how it rains a good soaking then the sun comes out and the water that just came down is now steaming around you. I was sitting outside plying some purple stuff. Sweat was just running down my face so I decided to take a break and get some ice cold tea. And well here I am sitting in front of the computer.

As for the purple stuff here is what it looked like before spinning.

I managed to get two bobbins full.

The purple stuff has some history behind it. When I went to the MSWF for the first time I bought some of the purple stuff, so did my sister. I’m not even sure if we had a spindle back then but we bought some anyway. It was the first roving I ever bought. .I managed to get home with out my purple stuff. I think it must have stayed at the festival and never made it back to the car. Anyway, my sister decided to send me her purple stuff in the mail. I kept it for a while and then sent it back. I did get a spindle and started to get somewhat good at spinning with it so she sent the purple stuff back to me. The purple stuff was precious to me so I kept it stored in the closet. She managed to get some wheels in her basement because the guild she belongs to asked her to keep them for them so I sent the purple stuff back to her. At the next sheep and wool festival I got a wheel. So you know what happened she sent the purple stuff back to me. This has been going on for over two years now. So, I decided to spin it up. When I finish plying it, I will send it back to my sister. It might end up with a home some day, LOL.

We're Back

2007-06-05T05:14:00.001-07:00

We’re back.
Back from the Disney camp out trip. First off I have to apologize mostly to my body.

I apologize for bringing the wrong blow up mattress. I brought the one with the hole in it. The result was having to sleep on the ground for the duration of the camping trip. My hips feel like they are bruised.

I apologize for not wearing the right undergarments for riding rides that get you wet. Umm, I managed to get a slight rash in a bad spot. My wet underwear rubbed a rash on my upper inner thigh area. I either need to wear the proper undergarment that will not cause a rash when wet and having to walk around a theme park or wait till the end of the day to ride anything that will cause a good soaking.

I apologize for not getting enough sleep. Dax insisted on doing the extra magic hours after the park closed. There were some nights that we didn’t leave the parks till 1am.

This leads to the next apology, which is to my feet. There was an awful lot of standing and walking.

I apologize to my budget and my somewhat attempt for a healthy diet, for forgetting a good amount of my camping food. Disney does not hold back on over charging for food and it seems that the unhealthy stuff is cheaper then the healthier choices.

Regardless of my complaining we had such a good time.

Notice that Dax is wearing her tank. She finished it that morning and wanted to wear it to the Epcot flower festival.

Tyde took this picture of Dax and I in the fairy garden.

Some silly faces.

Here's some proof that Tyde was actually with us.

I saw this in the villians shop at MGM. I always kind of wondered what Sleeping beauty pricked her finger on to cut it on a spinning wheel. Mine has no sharp points on it. This one makes it look like a very sharp bobbin.

I have to mention that it rained on Friday when we went to Magic Kingdom. It started as a drizzle in the afternoon and just turned in to a constant down pour. Luckily I didn’t wear the rash causing undergarment. I kept thinking it was amazingly not so crowded for the MK on a Friday. It was almost hard to leave at midnight because there were no lines. This is saying a lot because I’m not a night person. But we were all tired and a bit soggy so we headed back. The worst part was the bike ride back to the campsite. I kept having to dodge little frogs on the bike path. They seemed to be really enjoying the good soaking. But, I couldn’t hardly see, not only because it was dark but it was also raining. I’m sure I probably ran over some of them. We got back to the sight exhausted, put on dry clothes and tried to sleep on the hard ground. Wow, did it rain and rain and rain. I needed to pack up the tent the next day and was starting to try to come up with a plan on how to do this in the rain.

Later when I got home and after I took a nap on a nice mattress I asked Rudy if it rained here on Friday. He kind of looked at me funny and said, yeah it rained and there were a few power outages, the kids basket ball goal got blown across the yard etc. I’m looking a bit confused at this time and then he mentions tropical storm Barry. Oh, that’s why it wasn’t so crowded at the theme park that day, LOL. You got to love vacations where you loose touch with what is going on around you. We had no tv, no radio, no newspapers, nothing that told me there was bad weather on the way. I’m hoping that Disney informs campers of bigger storms like hurricanes. Needless to say our tent did just fine.

Goodbye and haircuts

2007-05-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Dax had to say goodbye to something she didn’t even realize meant so much to her. She has left the little school by the sea that she has attended since Kindergarten. I could tell it was an emotional day for her. At the end of the day she told me she was tired. I replied with, you should try and get to bed earlier today. She then said, it’s not that. I just never have felt so sad and happy at the same time and it has made me feel tired. I thought yeah, I know how you feel. Just wait till you become a mom and realize your baby is growing up way to fast . The school put on a nice little ceremony for the kids. Unfortunately, I totally forgot my camera, and now have no pictures of the event. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one of Dax’s friend’s parents will take pity on me and share their photos of the day with me. This may take awhile since all of Miss D’s closes friends have left town. One is on a flight as I write this to India for the summer the other left yesterday to Ireland. Poor thing she is just stuck her with us. I did make plans for the traditional camping trip to Ft. Wilderness at Disney. As per tradition, Rudy of course will not be attending this event with us because he doesn’t really care much for the Disney World thing. He is planning on getting some inspections on the house while we are gone. Anyway, I am looking forward to the trip. I’m hoping to catch the last few days of the flower festival at Epcot and also the star wars weekend at MGM while there.

I wanted to show a progress photo of Miss D’s tank she is knitting but she has ripped it out. She completed the back and started on the front. After knitting about 4 inches on the front she noticed her gauge totally changed. It was much tighter. I kept asking her if she is sure she’s using the same size needles and she said yes. She kept working on it but finally decided she didn’t like it so started the front over on bigger needles. I think she was feeling stress and that is why she was knitting so much tighter. Let’s hope she keeps her stressed knitting style since she went to bigger needles.

I do have some pictures of Tyde and his hair cut. Here he is after the hair cut. I know his hair is still a bit long. Can you see the curls? This picture does not show them off very well. It was windy when I took it and I kept moving his hair out of his face. He usually has it going right across his eyes. He has never had any signs of curls in his hair before. I’m a bit awed by the curls. I wonder how long they will stay around.

Oh here he is before the haircut. Yeah, it was long. This picture is from one of Bob’s while they were visiting.

As for me I have some socks on the needles. The pattern is called Latvian Socks from Nancy Bush’s Folk sock book. I have a feeling these will be on the needles for awhile because I keep getting side tracked by other projects.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Fleece

2007-05-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been doing much knitting lately. Instead I’ve been washing fleece. While at the MSWF, I bought more then one fleece. I was so excited about it. The only step closer I could have gotten to wool would have been owning a sheep, which will never happen since I live in Florida. So, I packed my bags up, went to the airport and headed home. One of the bags had nothing in it but the fleece I bought. I was wondering if it was going to get inspected and what the inspectors would have thought about a bag full of wool that had just came off the sheep. Fortunately, it didn’t happen. Which I have to mention here, that this was the first time I’ve flown out of the Baltimore airport and did not have my checked in bags inspected. The last time they inspected my bag is when I got my spinning wheel. They didn’t pack it back in as gently as I did and they broke it. I was so upset but was able to fix it and recovered quickly once I started to use it. Anyway I got home after midnight, the flights were delayed because of bad weather in Orlando. Even though it was late I had to pull out my fleece to make sure it was still there.

Rohan loves this stuff. I mean he loves it! I couldn’t keep his head out of the bag.

Rohan has a bad history with wool. When he was a puppy he ate the heel out of the first pair of socks I ever made. I was devastated. Not only was it the first sock I ever made but the first project I ever completed. Of course, first I yelled at him then I wouldn’t play with him. I think he knows better now, but I don’t trust him. He now has this routine he does. He will usually put his nose as much in the middle of the fiber as possible and start breathing deeply. If I let him continue he will gently start putting the wool in his mouth. If it’s a ball of yarn he will bring it to me. It is almost as if he is asking me if he can have it. This is where I take it away from him. I usually put any animal fibers up out of his reach when I’m not around to watch him. I don’t want the sock issue to come up again.

Back to the fleece, as soon as I could I decided to start washing this stuff. I have never done this before or seen anybody else do it. So, I did what anybody else would do in this situation, I looked on the internet for information on how to clean it. I found this page. Looks simple enough right? So, I layed the fleece out and took some of the ickiest stuff off first. This was around the bottom. I figured since I didn’t know what I was doing and had a pretty good chance of screwing this up that I would start with the dirtiest stuff first. I think I must have gotten fleece off of the dirtiest sheep out there. It must have lived near a mud puddle. It took me 15 rinsings before the water was clear. At this point I’m starting to think, what have I gotten myself into. I have a lot more fleece to wash then just this first batch. I must have been intoxicated beyond reason by the smell of wool while at the MSWF, to have bought all this fleece. So, I went to the spin-list for help and noticed a post from somebody else that must have done the same thing as me. One of the comments to her was to wash it in smaller batches. Ok, that sounds good. Whew, much better. The water starts to run clear after the third rinse. However, as I sit here writing this I still have at least four more batches of the first fleece to wash and another whole fleece to do. While in the middle of all this washing I decided to go ahead and try and brush some of this out to see what it looks like. After doing this for about an hour I’ve decided I need a drum carder. This hand carding stuff is to slow for me. So, I am now on the search for a drum carder.

Here is some of the fleece so far. To the right is the unwashed fleece, middle washed and to the left the combed out fleece. There is 10 pounds of it from a corriedale/lincoln sheep.

I did mention I have not been knitting very much but Dax has. Here is her current project. She is working on a tank top/ camisole pattern from Tess. The ribbon yarn is also from Tess.

Colorful isn't it? I keep wondering if Dax is going to go through a black stage, you know when she will not wear anything but black. She definetly isn't in that stage, yet. Tess' Designer yarns are lovely. Dax was not the only one in our group that spent money here.

I also wanted to comment real quick to Jennifer, who asked how I back up my pictures. I have a dvd/cd burner and use the software called Nero to burn my pictures to a cd.

I hope everybody is having a good week. We have two more days of school left here. One if you don't count today, Yippeeee.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

2007-05-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

I had such a good time at the Maryland sheep and wool festival. It’s just an awesome almost overwhelming sight to see all the fiber. I have to say the most enjoyable part is to be around other people that have the same appreciation for the art that comes from wool. It has been hard for me to pick what pictures to put on the blog from the festival but here they are.

This guy was in the parade of sheep. In this picture he is waiting to be sheared.

Alpacas!

and Bunnies.

Lunch.

Made some felt flowers. The pink one is Sierra's the green one Cyndi's and the purple one is mine. Dax wanted to watch the auction instead of participating in the class.

Me at the campsite trying to detangle Dax's ribbon yarn.

More sheep

Getting ready to go back to the van.

Some things I wanted to say about the festival.
The kids got a lot of nice comments on there hats. Dax and Sierra made there hats and Solomon was wearing a hat that was felted on a ball.

There was a big line at The Fold, who sells the “socks that rocks” yarn. I think I must be one of the few sock knitters that hasn’t bought any of the STR yarn and it looked like it was going to stay that way because I didn’t want to stand in line. However I did notice later in the day the line was not so long so managed to walk over that way. I was thinking the whole time they must be out of the sock yarn by now. Surprise there was still some left and yep, I got some. I am now officially a member of the STR owners club. My sister is to.

I watched the parade of sheep for the first time. It was great to see the different kinds of sheep.

I spent more money then what I probably should have but justified it by telling myself that 1. no store in my area sells this kind of stuff and 2. It’s nice to support the vendors.

It also seemed a lot less crowded to me then in the past. Nice for me but the vendors probably thought differently.

I wish I had more time to meet the other spinners, weavers, knitters.

Finished

2007-05-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

I did finish the cable and lace sweater in time, yeah! Unfortunately I had to stay up late and neglect some other tasks to get it done. I still feel a bit tired from trying to do everything I wanted to do. Here’s the finished sweater.

Not a great picture, the camera is doing funky things to the knit stitch but you get the idea.
I wore it on Saturday at the MSWF.
Pattern: Cable Eyelet Panel Short Sleeve Pullover
Yarn: Knit picks main line, dusty lavender
Needles: Size 4, the pattern called for size 8. I had to do some adjusting because of this.

It is still crazy busy here right now but I should have time soon to catch up on the blogs I like to read and to post some pictures from the MSWF.

Computer issues

2007-04-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

It’s been awhile since I last posted. We had a computer problem. It blew out, the power supply burnt out. Boy did it smell bad. The smell reminded me of when one of those plastic spoons would get stuck on the heat source in the dishwasher. Fortunately, it only affected the power supply. The whole incident reminded me that I need to back up some of the things on the computer, like pictures.

Since my last post Rudy did the Boston marathon, Tyde got his hair cut and Dax won an award for an ad design.

I asked Rudy how the Boston marathon was. I was expecting him to say cold, wet and miserable. But he said “fine.” I had to ask more questions and found out that while waiting at the start line it was raining and cold but he was prepared with a rain coat. Once the run started he said he didn’t notice it being that bad. He must have been zoning out, LOL.

As for Tyde and Dax I will try and get pictures up of the new hair cut and ad when I can.

I have been very ambitious that we would be able to make a sweater to wear for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. We being my sister and I. We started with a pattern that didn’t work out well because of the yarn we chose and the gauge so we chose another sweater. This sweater had gauge issues to but we decided to make it work. My first cast on was huge. I think we have worked that issue out. Here is where I was at yesterday.

The sweater is called Cable Eyelet Panel Short Sleeve Pullover from Crystal Palace.

I’m using knit picks yarn. I know have 8 days to finish it. There is apart of me that says I’m silly to think I will finish it but there is another part of me that says, if you don’t do anything else then I will get it finished. So I’m planning on putting aside most house work, playing at the computer and exercise to see if I will get it done. Remember I would never win an award for speed knitting.

Blue stuff

2007-04-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here’s the blue stuff all spun up. I’m actually going to refer to this as the blue stuff from hell. This stuff was hard for me to spin. It had a lot of grass/hay; at least I think that was what it was, in it. I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough of it for the vest and that I wouldn’t be able to spin it to get correct gauge for the vest. I usually spin thin and I do not have a lot of experience in spinning. So, I don’t have much knowledge to know how much yarn I can get from the wool I have and how to get the gauge I need for a project.

It took me twice as long to spin it because of the time that I had to spend picking stuff out of it. I couldn’t remember how much there was of the blue stuff and was hoping that I would have enough to make the Provincial Waistcoat from IK winter 2006 magazine. Um, I was way off, I have 326 yards of the blue stuff. That’s all :(. I will need 750 yards to do the vest. I’m not even half way there. However I did get the right gauge with the blue stuff for the vest, as if that matters now. I learned a few lessons, look at the roving to cheek for stuff in it and also mark how much there is in the bag or get a good scale to measure it. Maybe I can make a hat out of it. Actually it will probably go in the closet. I’m not in a hat mood right now.

But I’ve got another project that I’m itching to start. Did I mention I’m going to the Maryland sheep and wool festival! I am so looking forward to this trip. Dax will be coming with me and I will meet up with my sister and my niece. This will be the third year I’ve been able to go, Dax’s second year. I’m keeping my fingers crossed the weather will be nice. We will be camping out. I’ll have to post about the next project later. Both Tyde and Dax are waiting on me to boil some eggs for dying.

Finished socks

2007-04-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the projects I finally finished over spring break.
Rudy’s socks.

Yarn: Opal
Needles: US size 2

I was slightly disappointed that the yarn did not hold its pattern. There where no knots in the yarn or funky joins that I could see but it just decided to change its pattern on the second sock. It started right after the heel. Rudy didn’t seem to care so I left it that way.

Yard

2007-04-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

First sorry for the lousy pictures but I'm tired (remember that's one of my frequently used words).

I think our spring break visitors did not know what was in for them, yard work and lots of it. We managed to get the grass down and put in a few shrubs and trees. I got a new key lime tree to replace the one that I miss so much, and a new orange tree.

I have no before pictures but here is a during picture. There was a lot of clearing out that had to be done, including moving the RV, the fence, trash and a lot of dirt. Dad had came down to help with this part. It took them about a week to get it to this stage. Rudy and Dad also got most the sprinkler system installed.

When Rudy's parents arrived we had 17 pallets of grass and two days to get it down before it would "start to go bad." This is what the back looked like when we were done.

Here is the front.

I really really like the new yard and one of my favorite spots to hang out now is here.

Here is another family member who is enjoying the back yard.

We still have more work to do. The fence needs to be fixed and adding some other colors would be nice, like flowers etc but for the most part it is done. I really appreciate all the help we got in getting the yard in the state that it is in right now. There is no way Rudy and I could have done this as quickly with just the two of us.

Next post a finished object.

Conclusions and meme

2007-03-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve came to the conclusion I’m not going to get as much done over spring break as I was hoping. But it’s not over yet so we will see.

Rudy’s Mom gave me a wonderful gift. It is a quilt that she made. I absolutely love it.

We also have gotten all the grass down. Rudy is still working on the sprinkler system. While we are waiting for the system to get done we have been watering the lawn with a sprinkler. I took this quick picture of Rohan playing with it. Not an awesome picture but I thought the picture made him look like a water breathing dog.

I did get tagged by Jennifer at Loopy Knitter. She is a very talented knitter and a good photographer, even though she may not think so. If you get a chance visit her website.

Here is my seven things meme. I decided not to tag anybody but if you would like to participate please do.

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. See my children grow up to be healthy and happy.
2. Travel.
3. Learn to play a musical instrument.
4. Learn a foreign language.
5. Become organize.
6. Have a waistline. These last two are beginning to sound like New Year's resolutions.
7. See a cure for cancer.

Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Pronounce freckle correctly.
2. Be in high places without feeling queasy.
3. Sing, ok I can sing but not good.
4. Watch replay in sports when somebody gets hurt. I can not watch somebody’s leg get bent in a direction it’s not supposed to in slow motion.
5. Eat something greasy and sugary within a few hours of each other. I get sick.
6. Spell good, I’m a terrible speller.
7. Stop hoping.

Seven Things That Attract Me to… (Florida)
1. Weather
2. Ocean/beach
3. Being outdoor
4. Variety of people
5. Cost of living is lower then most places
6. It’s home
7. We are close to Disney World, LOL.

Seven Things I Say
1. Ok
2. Be careful
3. I’m tired
4. Cool
5. Did you do your homework yet?
6. You need to get off the computer.
7. Did you practice yet?

Seven Good Books
1. Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett and Hat Full of Sky
2. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien(all of them)
3. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
4. Harry Potter (all of them)by J.K. Rowlings
5. May Bird and the Ever After by Jodi Lynn Anderson
6. Nancy Bush knitting books
7. Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Almost all these books are considered children's books

Seven Good Movies
1. Lord of the Rings
2. Pirates of the Carribean
3. Mary Poppins
4. Gone with the Wind
5. Star Wars
6. Finians Rainbow
7. The Quiet Man

The Blues

2007-03-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve been good at starting projects lately but not finishing them. Let’s see we have:

Rudy’s socks,

The blue stuff,

Shirt I started,

Jumper I started,

I think I am in a blue phase right now because I noticed everything is blue. Spring break starts for us today. Well after school today. I’m hoping to get these projects finished during spring break and am looking so forward to relaxing and not having to rush around to get everybody where they need to be, no soccer, no violin, no school, yeah.

We've had some visitors lately. My Dad was in town this week. Rudy and him have been working on the landscaping. I'll post some pictures next time. Rudy's parents will be in town this week, for spring vacation.

I have fallen way behind on e-mail and blog reading, another thing to try and get caught up on during spring break ;).

House stuff

2007-03-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Rudy has been busy this week. He finished putting up the mantel for the fireplace. I don’t think the picture captures the height. It is a bit tall. But we will not mention to him that we are not giants.

He put in the railing to the steps. This also was a bit tall but he decided to draw the line here and took it down, shortened it and put it back. We still have to do some finishing on it, stain it and put in the plugs for the holes etc.

We also approved the granite for the kitchen counter tops. Not a very exciting picture but it does catch the blue specks that are in it.

Dax’s soccer also started. They won both the first game and the game they just had this weekend. This field is a bit inland. They have had a fire since we were last there, notice the trees in the back ground.

I think that is enough "alsos" for the day. Next post back to crafting, hopefully.

March

2007-03-04T07:23:00.000-08:00

March is finally here. This usually means I have to add an extra 10-15 minutes to my drive time to get to places on time. It’s very noticeable that we have a lot of people here from out of state during this month. The snow birds are still here in full force and then the spring vacationers come in. I know that most are not in a hurry to get to where they are going but there are still some of us that have schedules to keep. The other thing about March is that a good number of the spring breakers that start showing up make me feel rather old. They wear as little clothes as possible and consume unbelievable amounts of beer. There was a time in my life when I could identify with these youthful people but I wouldn’t dare put this old body in a bikini or drink around the clock. I do get a kick out of seeing what they buy at the grocery store. It’s usually something like a buggy full of beer and some ramen noodles.

On to updates, I have new socks on the needles. These are rather boring socks but they do fall into a first for me. These are the first knitted items I have ever tried to make for Rudy (dh). Being the first items he will judge any future items from, I decided to use one of my favorite sock yarns, opal and to keep it simple.

I’ve also started spinning up the blue stuff. I was hoping to have enough of it to make a vest from interweave knits magazine. But the more I get spun up the more I think there will not be enough yarn for this project.

Thank you for all the nice comments on the socks and the good wishes for the new job.

I can’t forget the update on the house. The floor in the hallway is done.

I think Rudy did a good job. The mosaic turned out nice, even though we had to pull it up once after bonding it to the floor because we forgot to take the plastic seal off the back. These things really should come with directions. Not that that would help Rudy, he seldom reads directions but I usually devour them.
He is now working on the tile that goes around the fire place and we made an order for some granite counter tops for the kitchen. Boy did that drain the old pocket book. The company we got the granite from said the slabs are in and we have to go by and examine them to sign off for them. I’ll try and get a good picture of them when we go.

Pirates and PJ's

2007-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

I meant to update the blog at least once a week and I kind of fell behind. I did finish the pirate socks, yah. They actually turned out nice. Dax has already worn them to school. Lucky for her we have about the same size feet or else she wouldn’t have as nice of a selection of socks ;). I knitted these for the We Call them Pirates Knitalong but can't seem to make a post to the knitalong, which is fine. I'll just be content with my new pair of socks.

Pattern: Modified basic sock pattern using Hello Yarn chart
Needles: size 1
Yarn: The black is Knit picks, the white is Regia.

I also finished Dax’s pjs. This one is also getting a lot of use. The pattern was pretty simple to follow. I thought the top was a bit long, but Dax didn’t agree with me so I left it alone.

Pattern: Simplicity 5468

It hasn’t taken long for things to get back into full swing. Dax’s soccer practices have started. She also has a performance this weekend. They did an audition at the school for the “Elementary Music Festival Intermediate String Orchestra,” and she made the cut. It’s just a one time performance that is suppose to get the younger kids more familiar with playing in an Orchestra. She is very excited about it and is starting to ask me if she can audition for the Brevard Youth Orchestra. I’m thinking, isn’t your schedule already kind of packed? She replies with the audition isn’t till May. So we will see.

As for Tyde he went south last weekend and participated in a surf contest. No trophy but he did come home with some extra t-shirts and stickers, oh and sunburned face.

I’ve managed to get a job. It’s only part time/temporary and I don’t start till Monday. I’ll be working as an assistant in the library at an elementary school. Even though it’s only for a few months I’m pretty excited about it.

Well hopefully I will post more frequently.

No crafting

2007-02-11T05:57:00.000-08:00

Not any crafting in this post. I haven’t had as much time this week to craft. We did have some visitors last weekend, a birthday and a long awaited delivery.

The visitors were Sam and Sierra. Sam was here on business and Sierra came to do an audition in Orlando. They were only here for a few days but it was great to see them. On one of the days we walked to the beach to feed the birds. The birds seem to be starving in the winter. They will practically land on you to take bread out of your hand. If you do this in the summer, they will not even notice you.

The birthday was Tyde’s. He is now fourteen. Can you guess what we got him for his birthday?

No not the boat, the basketball goal.

Finally we got the call that more of the kitchen cabinets are done. We are still waiting on the breakfast bar and the wall cabinets. I hope it doesn’t take another nine months for those.

Rohan wouldn’t get out of the picture. The kids said he likes to sit in front of the cabinets because he is camouflaged.

Arrrr

2007-02-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

Arrr, mateys there be socks fit for a pirate in the making. Here’s the progress on the Pirate knitalong project.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I wish I had saw the one from Katydid Knits about alternating the skulls. I think I would have tried that but I had already frogged it. I did change it a little bit. I added more stitches and kept to a size 1 needle.

Another project in the making, a quilt. This is a year long project, maybe more. A quilt store is doing this block of the month thing. I get a new block each month and supposedly by the end of the year I have a quilt. I’ve done this before but have yet completed the quilt. Here is the first block. I was showing it to Rudy and asked him if it looked kind of like a swastika and he said yeah. Then asked me what kind of quilt I was making.

It is suppose to look like this when it is done. I think I will do like my sister and omit the pineapple design in the middle and put some blocks there instead.

Dax is also really getting into crocheting. She made another project from the Klutz book. I don’t really crochet very much. So I’m not very wise to the crochet ways but I noticed that this little bag she made is very sturdy and well, for lack of a better word, tight. If it was anymore tighter it could probably hold water.

And now for the news everybody has been waiting for.

Phil Says Spring is Right Around the Corner!

Yes you heard it right, the groundhog did not see his shadow.

Swatch

2007-01-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

Let's just call this a swatch for my pirate socks. I did get started on the socks but as you can notice I made a mistake.

Have you noticed it yet. Maybe you are quicker then I was. Yep, it’s upside down. I noticed this when I got around the mouth but decided to do more rows so I could see how the skeleton would come out. The white yarn I’m using is slightly smaller then the black. I also switch to one size up needles for the main sock. I was worried about it being to small with the fair isle pattern.

I put it on to ck the stretch and it fit fine but the skeletons got a little distorted to me. I think I will add more stitches and not go up a size on the needles. Maybe this will give me a sock that fits without to much distortion?

Thank you for all the nice comments :). So far, I have no projects in mind for the green yarn. I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Stuff

2007-01-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

I finally finished spinning the green stuff. I think this has been sitting beside the wheel since, gasp June. Ok, so I’m not a fast spinner. There is 568 yards of Navajo plied that is around 13 wpi. It’s wool but I don’t have any other specifics on it. The tag that came with it said spectrum. Now I’m putting it in the stash pile. Just wanted to make note here what it is so I don’t forget.

My next spinning project is the blue stuff. I got this from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I don’t have much of a local source for this kind of habit so I get almost everything at the MSWF. I’m going to double check my receipts to see who I got this from because if you look real close you will notice there is little pieces of grass all through this roving. I’ve been spending a lot of time picking it out. I do love the color though.

I’m currently waiting on the yarn to do the pirate socks. I have to admit it feels really weird to not have some kind of sock project going on.

On the family front we made some Wookie Cookies. Dax was the helper on this adventure. I’m not really sure if we are suppose to post the recipe from the book because of copyright stuff but I did see that on this web page the recipe is published. I don’t think we got the exact same cookies as the recipe calls for. Dax mixes all the stuff up in bowl and asks me if I will stir it up because she is tired of stirring. So I start stirring and stirring and stirring. There is constantly a bit of flour in the bowl I can’t seem to get to mix in. I ask her if she is sure she put the right amount of flour in and she says yes, 2 ½ cups. I’m looking at the recipe and I let her know it says 2 1/4. Her comment to this is what’s a ¼ of a cup. I also noticed she had cinnamon all over the counter. I think it got a larger dose of cinnamon to but that’s fine because the cookies turned out pretty good.

Last but not least here is a snap shot of the shower Rudy was working on. He is done with this one. I noticed it is kind of hard to take a picture of a shower. There is not a lot of room in it.

Leaf Socks

2007-01-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Finished the leaf lace socks.

Pattern: Leaf Lace socks from Fiber Trends
Needles: US 1 or 2.25 mm
Yarn: Spun from roving I got at the sheep and wool festival.

Other projects: Dax wants some new pajamas and picked this fabric out for it.

I also went ahead and joined the We call them Pirates Knitalong. I want to make socks using the chart they have but I looked in my stash and didn’t have the color I wanted, black. I have some un-dyed sock yarn in the stash but didn’t want to use it to dye it just black. Money is tight right now so I ordered some black Essential yarn from Knit picks. I have no complaints with the other yarn I’ve gotten from them so I will give their sock yarn a try. Now I’m just waiting for the mail to come.

We seem to be getting back into a schedule, finally. I would really like to finish spinning the green stuff. There is some blue stuff in my closet that I would like to spin next. I’ve also been trying to de-lurk myself by leaving comments on the blogs I like to read.

On the house building project, Rudy has been working on the master bathroom’s shower. Being back on schedule does not leave much time at the end of the day to work on the landscaping.

constant vigilance

2007-01-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

Trying to get back on schedule but it just isn’t working out, yet. One child came down with the flu this week. This makes me cringe. Almost everything that the kids come home with, I catch. But just maybe I can side step this one. I’ve been running around with a can of Lysol in one hand and spraying everything.

That’s not all that has come home. The other child brought some little unwanted guests with her, head lice. I think we have the little buggers under control but I have to go through this child’s hair every night to make sure. This has drastically dipped into my crafting time. This child’s hair is long, I actually measured it and it is 27” long. My motto right now is constant vigilance. If it’s not spraying Lysol on everything then its laundering bed sheets, pillow cases and boiling combs and brushes to kill the lice.

This is our second battle with head lice; we had a battle with them a couple of years ago. I wonder, is this a warmer climate issue? I don’t ever recall having to deal with this when I was younger and I don’t recall knowing anybody else having to these unwanted guests. Oh well, constant vigilance!

Do you know what this is?

It’s a knot and one of the smaller ones I had to deal with today. I did get some time to myself and decided to try and ply more of the green stuff. I’m almost done with the lace leaf socks but ran out of yarn and had to spin some more. As I was trying to ply it I kept knotting the stuff up. Arrrrr! I did get it done but what a pain. It was boggling my mind as to what I was doing to get it in knots. Maybe I was just to much in a hurry because I didn’t have much time to get it done.

Hey Marcy, you asked for more details on the vest. The pattern is from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle. The pattern is called Clock Vest. The yarn used is galway yarn, which is worsted weight, 100% wool.

And now I leave you with a picture that you may or may not have seen. I thought it was rather cute and seems to fit my day today. I have to be like Leonard and show some optimism ;).

Lucky

2007-01-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

I’m back, well I’ve been back but had to catch up on a lot of stuff before I could sit down and play with the computer. The Disney trip was great and we will refer to it as our lucky trip. I picked Cyndi up from the airport and look what she had on.

Front

Back

It’s a vest that she knitted. I believe she said she got the pattern from Folk Vests. When we got in our room I insisted on her showing me the Aran sweater she has been working on. The camera does not really catch the color very well but you can still see the details.

Very nice Cyndi, did I mention she taught me how to knit.

We did a lot of relaxing. Later we went to the expo and I got new shoes. I really needed a new pair. Not getting a new pair sooner may be one of the reasons why I hurt my foot (plantar fasciitis). Sometimes when you don’t get to the expo early enough they run out of stuff but it was my lucky weekend.

There were several vendors at the expo. One had t-shirts with really cute sayings on them. Things like “run like a girl.” Another one said, “running is my therapy,” or was it “running is cheaper then therapy.” Maybe somebody needs to come up with a shirt that says “knitting is my therapy.” I bet it would sale pretty good.

Since we had to get up early on Saturday, 3am, I placed everything out that I needed for the next day. Got up Saturday, got dressed dragged myself down the stairs and into the lobby to catch the bus going to Epcot. There was a line and as I was standing there Cyndi notices my new shoes and says, “where is your chip?” Uhhh, in the hotel room, duh. Got out of line went back and got the chip, then back in line which was now double the length. But it was my lucky day because Cyndi did notice I didn’t put my chip on. Anybody wondering the chip is what shows that you exist in a big organized run. If I hadn’t put it on then it would have been as if I wasn’t there, mise well stayed at home. That didn’t happen though because it was my lucky day.

It was hot, saw some people get sick because of the heat but not bad. Loved the t-shirt that the lady had on that said, dead last finish is better then did not finish, which trumps did not start, wish gave me the courage to start, been there done every one of these. Got my picture made with Peter Pan, Donald Duck, Woody and Jessie, and the seven dwarfs, and didn’t have to wait in a line. Saw a rainbow as we approached the Magic Kingdom, now if that’s not a lucky sign, I don’t know what is. At the end we had a bus waiting on us when we finished with no line to get on.

At the end of the day we sat on the balcony and watched the fireworks from both Epcot and Magic Kingdom. I didn’t bring a tripod so the picture is blurry but you get the idea. The next day we packed our bags and started to head out after vowing that next year we would be back to do the full marathon.

Off to Disney World

2007-01-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

First here’s something I kind of finished awhile back. I have to go back and redo the zipper. The zipper was to long so I stretched it to put it on, resulting in a pucker look down the front. I need to shorten the zipper to get it to lay better. This is a pattern from Knit Picks called snowflakes and arrows. I looked on knit picks for the pattern but could not find it. Maybe they no longer offer the pattern. It did have mistakes in the pattern and I saw some people who did a KAL on it complain. Anyway it was my first project using steeks. I also used knit picks yarn called palette. I had heard all the good reviews of knit picks yarn, inexpensive, nice quality. The yarn was nice to work with and I would use it again.

Dax got a Klutz book on crochet for Christmas and has already made a bath bag from it. I thought it came out really nice.

Got my Minnie skirt out and ready to go. Tomorrow I leave to pick up my sister from the airport to stay at one of the budget Disney resorts. The main reason for the trip is to torture ourselves by doing the Disney half marathon. I’ve done marathons before but feel nervous about this half marathon. I’m going into it with a foot problem and I’m also the heaviest I’ve ever been. If nothing else we should get in a lot of knitting time. It will be the first trip we’ve been on with out the kids in about two years.