For all you moms out there...

How would you like to see these washing instructions????

Socks for April

It is hot here. Not exactly wool sock weather, more like 98 degrees on a Saturday in April. Crazy. A stomach bug caught Grace, so the poor kid has been feverish and sick when it is hot. When she is sick she likes to be up close to Mom, so I have been living with 98 degrees and a 102 degree heating pad snuggled up to me. Fun.



She is better this Sunday afternoon, thank God, and while I'm sleep deprived and every towel in the house is being laundered, the pink socks are done.



The official view --

and the view on the feet (standing on Alex's new carpet).

I really like these socks. The pattern was fun to knit, and breaking a needle just taught me a lesson that pointier needles really make the k2tog work a lot easier. This is a Nancy Bush pattern, and like a lot of her socks in Vintage Socks, they don't have kitchener stitch on the toe. You just decrease until there are 9 stitches left and poof, pull through and finish. It kind of makes a little swirl on the toe. A peppermint colored swirl.

As I may have mentioned before, this is Sophie's Toes Lipstick sock yarn, on #1 needles. I got the yarn on Etsy.com and I enjoyed knitting with it.


I pulled out my Magic Loop instructions, and think I may need a longer circular needle. May socks may have to be on two circulars, or maybe I'll do something completely different. Don't know yet.

I will probably go back to my cables. I have punished them appropriately, not having touched them since they betrayed me. I'll give them another chance, it's only fair to accept my part of the blame.

The laptop goes away tomorrow. I will try to "visit" someone's computer and sneak in a peek or two at the blog while mine gets all its keys in order.

What is Wrong with This Picture?

Oops!

It snapped. I've almost snapped. Fortunately, they come with a guarantee. Great company, that Brittany Birch.

Too bad everything else doesn't come with the same guarantee.

Speaking of which, my laptop has two keys that popped off. Compaq will fix it because it is under warranty, except I have to ship it to them to fix. That means I will have to be without my computer for a while. Sob.

Pink socks

What a crazy week. Our family is back to normal size, but this time of year gets crazy with the start of cherry season. I become a produce widow, or temporary single parent, while Maurice is busy selling and shipping cherries all over the world. It hasn't officially started yet, but it seems like every night someone has some activity that keeps us hopping.

Last night it was my turn to take Alex to two basketball games. When I got there my pink sock looked like this --

and by the end of the game it was at the last repeat before the toe. Yes, I did watch my kid play basketball, I was practicing my "knitting with out looking" skill. Okay, yes, I did have to look down to do the k2tog and left cross 2's. But I did get a lot done. Hooray!

This morning was blissfully peaceful. Birds chirping outside, and with my two girls keeping Carey company overnight, very quiet. I finished the toe! I like how this sock fits. The pattern is interesting to knit, this is the first time I have done a sock which has the decreases in three spots on the toe. I don't feel it when I walk on them but with one of the decreases on the bottom of the foot, I thought I would. No worries!

I need to hurry on the second sock because I am already looking forward to the next sock I knit. I think I'm going to try the magic loop thing. I haven't done that before, but I like the idea of doing both socks at the same time. I also want to do my Cookie A. sock patterns I got at Stitches. We'll see what I decide to do for my May socks.

I was thinking this morning how much I like my tin I hold my double pointed needles in. It is a pencil tin from Paperchase that I got at Borders. It is the perfect size to hold about half of my dpn collection. I wish I could find other more in other patterns. I saw one on the internet that had pirates but it was only available in England, and not here. sad.

We Interrupt this Knitting....

for a lot of family activity. We had a major family wedding this weekend. Maurice's sister Lori got married to a very nice man Emilio. Starting Thursday we wined and dined with out of town family who came in for the wedding. We were still wining and dining last night, and for the next 4 days our family gains a kid while Lori is on her honeymoon.

Add being a mother of 4 with getting new carpet bright and early Monday morning, and you come up with a lot of stress. Not much time for knitting, and several times during the weekend I felt myself longing for the needles and unable to satisfy the craving.

This morning while the carpet was being installed I slipped in a few rows on the pink sock. I really like this pattern - it is the first Nancy Bush pattern I have done (it is the Anniversary Sock from Favorite Socks). I don't know how many more pattern repeats I should do before I start the heal - the Sophie's Toes yarn I am using doesn't have a overabundance of yardage, so I'm not sure how much yarn I have to spare. Any opinions? I have three so far.

I'm feeling guilty about my lack of blogging lately. No knitting means nothing to show or talk about. While I was cleaning out the back room (formerly the family/craft room, currently Alex's bedroom with some of Mom's junk stashed in there) I found a experimental little quilt I made a few years ago.

This was a painting Emily did when she was in 6th grade (I think) that I scanned and printed on fabric. Then I added some bright border strips and did a wild amount of free motion quilting around the whole thing.

I have always wanted to play more with the printing photos on fabric thing. I think it has a lot of potential to be a lot of fun.

Add it to the list.

And now for the wedding photo shoot --

Betrayed

I was zooming along with the cables, almost to the end of the second pattern repeat when I looked down and noticed I had crossed the cables wrong about 6 rows back. AAACK! I ripped, telling myself it wasn't that bad, only around an hours worth of knitting, and as I have heard it be said, that just means you get to knit more, and isn't knitting what we enjoy doing?

Then I noticed after ripping the 6 rows, I had done it again around another 10 rows back! After cursing to myself (I was at Grace's dance class, and cursing aloud at my knitting would just be the nail in the "Isn't she weird" coffin) I got to rip some more.

I was feeling very smug about my cable skills. I was thinking of tackling something really hard after this. Now I feel very not-smug. I have been put in my place, and I'm feeling a little betrayed by my knitting. I now have to figure out where I am on the chart after ripping, and try to figure out why I went wrong. And then not do it again.

I chickened out this morning at "knit while your hair gets done" time. I worked on my pink sock. I'm thinking I will wait to resume the cables until after the family wedding is done and life resumes normal chaos instead of super stress chaos. I don't need any more stress.

No photos of the disappearing cables. That would just be too sad. You'll have to imagine the pain.

I Love Green!

After putting it off way too long, I got with the program today and finished up a few things. One thing I was dreading, hemming Grace's flowergirl dress (wedding Saturday), and one thing I wasn't exactly dreading, but more like waiting for the appropriate time to drag out the sewing machine.

Today was the day. Out came the machine and the raw purse materials--

I was going to use the small light green polka dot fabric for the lining, but spotted the wild green squares in my fabric stash and decided to go with it for the lining.

Looks pretty good, huh?

I made my usual zipper pocket on one side, but this time I made two large pouches on the other side to hold my cell phone and perhaps a sock-in-progress. I added the magnetic closure and handles and very stiff interfacing between the lining and bag body to give it some substance.

Then I made a "rope" of many lengths of Squiggle and sewed it to the top. I had to then pull out the fuzzy bits and fluff a little, but then I was done.

The base of the purse was two colors of Cascade 220 held together using the Noni Bobble Bag pattern. The handles I purchased at Hancock Fabrics.

I'm so happy to have finished! I was getting really tired of lugging my gigantic brown leather bag around but didn't want to buy another bag when I knew this one was waiting for me.

The cable pillow project has been neglected today in favor of the sewing machine, but I am finished with one pattern repeat. The pattern calls for four, but I may do more if it doesn't end up a square.

Edit: I deleted the photos and then reloaded them. Blogger is so irritating at times! If you can't see the photos, let me know.

Carrots and Cables

I have started a new project because I came across the new Cotton Ease yarn from Lion Brand. I'm usually too much of a yarn snob for Lion Brand (I have used my share of fun fur I do admit, but not lately) but this new re-release of yarn had me intrigued. I like cotton, and adding a little acrylic makes it less string-like and more yarn like. I had read on other blogs that the colors it comes in this go around were nice, and when I saw the green, I loved it.

I took home a skein, and started looking through the books for a project. I settled on Entwined Cables Pillow from Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman. I started in and it looks really nice. It is much wider than the 18 inches the pattern indicates but I want to make 2 floor pillows so that's fine. I had really wanted to do a complicated cable project, and this one is really fun. I love cables, they make me feel like I'm doing something "fancy" as Grace would say.

I had to take a breather to get ready for Easter. I like decorating with the carrot theme, since I made the carrot quilted table runners last year. It is fun finding carrot stuff to add to the lot.

We had a barbecue for Easter this year. We sat outside by the pool and enjoyed the spring weather. I'm excited because we are on vacation from school this next week. I'm hoping to settle that sewing itch I have been plagued with, and finish my felted purse.

Yes I Knit!

In between the paper/canvas thing and the egg decorating, I have been knitting. Yes, I have. I finished Clapotis! What a fun knit. It was almost the perfect project. Easy enough to knit while having a conversation or watching tv, speedy, little goals (dropping the stitch every 12th row), an interesting directional slant, and I didn't get bored.

Here it is in full and up close-

I used Interlacements rayon/linen yarn and size 8 KnitPicks Options needles.

While I was outside trying to capture better light, I noticed my rose blooming. Pretty, huh?

Edit: Yes, I noticed that my foot is in the picture. Great photographer, yes I am.

Eggs Eggs Eggs

Tracy wanted to play with eggs. We got together yesterday and painted, dyed, glued and generally made a mess in the name of making some pretty eggs.

Wouldn't Martha be proud?

I think they turned out nicely!

Visiting the Other Side

I have a secret. Contrary to my reputation, I do like paper too. I even dabble in paint now and then. When I was a kid I had a sticker collection that I kept in an album. It is only recently that I have been trying to specialize, more because I realize my time on earth is limited and I can't do it all. Nor do I have room for all of it. So I had to make a decision, and fabric won. Then fabric had to move aside while I first flirted with yarn, then fabric had to completely step aside while my true passion took over. Yep. I was powerless to resist.

Anyway, the point of this story is that I have made a photo canvas collage thing to hang in the bathroom. That sounds kind of like a strange place to hang something like this but it is the guest bathroom and it gives you something to look at while you're visiting :0). This project started with three 10x10 canvases that I painted with several colors of teal and green, kind of mixing it up. When it was dry I stamped lighter green in spots with this nice foam stamp I found. Then I sponged gold in spots and painted the metal words, and added the photos and buttons. Pretty easy, and I think it looks good. They are supposed to hang side by side -- they won't fit together in the post.

Putting PAPER back into Yarn Paper Scissors

So...I have just returned from a weekend in LA. We were there to go see Josh Groban in concert and what a FANTASTIC concert it was. I cannot say just how wonderful it was. His voice was superb and he's as funny as can be. And, a highlight was him walking down the aisle where we were sitting. I can now say I've touched Josh Groban's shoulder. How cool is that? Check out this horrible picture I took with my phone.


Anyway... boy, I seem to be lacking in focus at the moment. This is supposed to be about paper.

Before the concert, Shelly, her sister LeAnn and I attacked the scrapbook stores. We went to Claremont, San Dimas and Ontario and, wow. What fun stuff in these stores. Mom and I just came back from the scrapbook expo and have recently seen a ton of scrapbooking stuff, but it really seemed that these stores had new stuff, stuff I've never seen before. Truly, I believed I had really seen it all. If I'm anything at all, I'm able to find my way around a scrapbooking store, you know? (Again, with the focus!)

I bought mostly papers and embellishments for mom's cooking scrapbooking project, but what I found that I just loved were new papers that had the most rich and fun colors and were embellished with doodling. That doodling thing is B-I-G big now. I picked up three new books, too. One on simple scrapbooking of theme books about yourself, one on mini books and the fifth in my most favorite quote book series.

I just love the new quote book because the theme fo Quote, Unquote 5 is Spiritual quotes for Inspired Moments! How cool is that? I just know I'm going to love, love, love this book.

We ended our trip with a fun breakfast at Rosco's Chickn' n' Waffles in Pasadena (ask Shelly!) and then we said goodbye to LeAnn and Shelly and I were off, headed home. The only problem with that plan is that the day was young. What were we to do? Go home right away? No way. One more stop, to a scrabook store in Bakersfield. Again, I was surprised at the size of this place and the fact it had fun, unique stuff. More money down, and we had to get out of town.