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Action Jackson Part 2

Grace enjoyed art camp so much that we decided she needed more opportunities to sling paint on canvas. This time, we (okay, Mom) decided she would do a piece of artwork for the small bathroom off the kitchen.

We went to Joanns and got a 18x24 canvas and some paint in our new color scheme (chocolate, green, orange, magenta) and got to work.

First we base coated the canvas the chocolate brown color. We worked together on this part, and Grace made sure I was doing it right.

Then, once it was dry and the yard was shaded enough to prevent all artists from sweating too much, she went to work.
Mom's job was to fill up the paint plates quickly and get out of the way!!

I must say, Grace is an excellent paint slinger!
The final product turned out perfectly!! We let it dry overnight and it is now proudly hung in the bathroom with new chocolate brown towels. We need a bright new mat and a couple of new accessories, and our mini-makeover will be complete!

A bonus is that our lawn is now very colorful!

Good Thing the Circus Was in Town Last Week

Finished socks!!

Got new shoes!!

Aren't they awesome?! Perfect for showing off the hand knit socks. Helps the 'ole "quirky" image thing. No, I will not wear them with capris. Only with jeans in the dead of winter when wool socks make sense. I may be quirky, but I'm not crazy.

My Photo Meme

I have been seeing this meme around, and decided to jump in. Here is mine--

The rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into mosaic maker - I used the big huge labs one.

The questions:
1. What is your first name? Cindy
2. What is your favorite food? Rocky Road Ice Cream
3. What high school did you go to? Hoover High School
4. What is your favorite color? Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Phil Collins
6. Favorite drink? Iced Tea
7. Dream vacation? Tuscany
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate Chip Cookies
9. What you wanted to be when you grow up? Cake Decorator
10. What do you love most in life? Family
11. One Word to describe you? Quirky
12. Your flickr name? yarnpaperscissors

What to do with leftover sock yarn and lots of figs

Mom bought me this jar at IKEA a while back. She had seen it filled with yarn somewhere (Hmm... don't remember where) and said it was cute. I filled it with round skeins of green and purple yarn and it just looked squished. I set it aside, and for some reason it occurred to me the other day to make little balls of yarn and put in there. So I tried it with my leftover sock yarn, and I must say it is cute.

And on another domestic note, Nolamom, Emily, and I made fig jam. We have a fig tree in the back yard that is, after 10 years, giant and bursting with black mission figs.

We started by peeling the figs, and putting them on to boil with powdered pectin and some lemon juice.

Once that boiled, we added sugar and let it come back to a rolling boil. Then, after a minute, it was jam!

Here are our finished jars of jam. Tasty!

Doughnuts!

In honor of national doughnut day, I felt it was my duty to pass along this link. You simply must check this out. And, while you're there, do some exploring. I just love this site.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/06/felt_doughnuts_tutorial.html

Two four-letter words!

Lace!

Can you see some yarnovers in there? Such an easy pattern, amost as relaxing as straight stockinette.









Work!

A photo of me, with a bunch of cute kindergarteners at the first annual BOOKtastic day at our school. The best school ever, I might add. (Hi Kim!) Two more weeks of school, not that I'm counting or anything.
I was also tagged to do a meme, and if you want to read about me, click here.

A mystery, some monkeys, and seeing red

It's hot. Ugly hot. Right now the car said 114 degrees, which means it's probably 110. Really.

The good news is I finally cast on for the mystery stole. I'm a week late, since the second clue came out today. But it is looking pretty already! I'm hoping the mystery "theme" isn't anything too strange, but so far the charts look nice. Here is the progress of day 1 -

I am keeping my little beads in my new cute monkey tin I got at Borders. I LOVE the pencil tins from Paperchase. This one has monkeys, which are popular around here at the moment. My stripey one holds my dpns. I would buy others, I can't resist them.

Yesterday I was waiting to pick up Emily from summer school and decided that instead of sitting in the parking lot and turning into a broiled knitter, I would seek shelter and air conditioning at Ancient Pathways. I consulted Meg, the owner, about my bead choices (which led me to Bead Artistry, which led me to choose three new colors of beads, which led me to choose pearl-like beads, but that is another story) and found out that she is trying to raise $$ to fund her trip to London in October to a yarn show. She was selling some of her handspun, and I figured I could sacrifice and get some just to show my support ;-). Isn't is nice? I think it is destined to become something felted.

Now folks take note -- it is red! I have officially found something red to knit for Project Spectrum! Isn't it nice that if you are patient, things have a way of falling into place?

Off the Needles!

The Shetland Triangle is done. I still need to block it and watch it grow (hopefully). It is pretty, even though it is petite and a little lumpy.

Specs: Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style, Dark Plum Zephyr Merino Laceweight purchased at Stitches West 2007. Size 6 Knitpicks Options needles. 13 pattern repeats instead of 8, otherwise knitted as per pattern. Love the pattern, like the Monkey socks, it made complete sense when I knitted it. Gotta love a logical pattern that you can see when you are right and when you are not. Had one little tink episode but other than that, it was a great knit, although it seemed to take forever to bind off the over 360 stitches at the end.

I am now a lace knitter. I had toyed with it before, but I have now knit a lace shawl with laceweight yarn. Stand back folks!

Now I get to start swatching and catching up on the Mystery Stole. And finishing up the sock.

On another note, I won a little blog contest over on the cutest blog Paper and String. She sent me (from England!) a very sweet little piece of paper art that is destined to be handed over to Nolamom the scrapbook goddess to end up in Grace's album. Thank you Paper and String! Go check out her blog, gotta love the cupcake felt goodies. She just posted her ideas for Christmas. Very cute!

Seven Random Facts About Cindy

I was tagged to do this meme and I've never done one before so here goes -

1. I'm left handed, my sister is left handed, but no one else, not my mom or dad or my kids is left-handed. I'm very proud of my left handedness, but am sort of sad I did not pass it on to my kids.
2. I hate apples. The entire universe loves apples, and I can't stand them. It's the texture. Ick.
3. I skipped first grade. Instead of branding me a genius for life, it has resulted in me not learning my left from my right very well. It took me learning to drive for that to click. (Watching Blue's Clues with Grace helped too)
4. I love the Brady Bunch. Gilligan's Island and I Dream of Jeannie aren't bad either. I can't stand Leave It to Beaver.
5. I could watch the movie Elf and the newer Parent Trap over and over again. I realize they are cheesy. When Lindsay Lohan realizes she's a twin I tear up every time.
6. I think dimples on guys are very cute. (Mario Lopez! Jeff Probst!) I didn't really notice them until Alex was born with the deepest dimples ever.
7. My favorite food in the world is Rocky Road ice cream from Rite Aid/Thrifty. If they discontinue it I will be very, very sad.

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.

Look What We Found

The two sisters set out for Santa Clara. Carey was my driver, as we were spending the day doing "sister" stuff on the way to Stitches. On the agenda was a trip to the Stanford Mall and an adventure to check out the store that bears the name of our blog.

We had the name first. Honest. We had no clue a store would open a few months later three hours from home that would be very like the store we would have. A good supply of yarn, a good supply of paper, and a heck a lot of creativity.

It was nice. They had a nice open space for scrapbooking, a cozy space for knitting, and a sewing room and lockers for use. Interesting concept.

I did not buy any yarn. I bought a little thing for Tracy, and a cable needle.

I would add more yarn to their stock (of course), but they had a lot of kits (including a Noni bobble bag kit for $85) and interesting things. They did not have a lot of paper.

They do have a cool name.

Along the roadside today we saw an abundance of creatures. Sheep, cows, goats, chickens, alpacas, horses, long horn cattle, deer, two dead skunks, and vulture-like birds circling over something. It was very entertaining. Also along the roadside were dozens of daffodils. I love spring. Especially when it happens in February.

Just something silly

Here's a site that should make all you knitties out there giggle a bit.

http://anacleta.homestead.com/knittinghumor.html