Which Gadget Should I Get?

I've been considering getting an e-reader lately.  I'm a self-confessed book-aholic.  Having kids, I'm frequently waiting around in car pool lines or waiting for various lessons to be over and it would be really nice to have this kind of toy.  I'm saving up all my $5 Amazon gift cards that I'm getting from Swagbucks until I have enough to finally get the reading gadget that I want. 

Here's the three things that I'm looking at, all of which can be purchased new or used (for cheaper than what the links below reflect) from Amazon:

Kindle - from Amazon.Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 6" Display, White, 3G Works Globally - Latest Generation  I'm not real thrilled about not being able to recharge the battery or the fact that it doesn't have expandable memory.  The next version is coming out in the fall though and hopefully they will have fixed both of these issues.  You must go through Amazon to buy books.  That is not a plus for me.

Nook - from Barnes & Noble - Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G) has a rechargeable battery and memory card slots.  Also has two games.  Also has a new version coming out soon.  Can read books for free from their stores.  Also, you can share books.  Another plus for me is that you can buy books from other sources as long as they are in the epub format.  Now if they would just let me respond to emails I would be all over it.

Ipod Touch - from Apple - Apple iPod touch 32 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL you can get an app for book reading, but you can also browse the net, play games, check email, etc.  I'm not sure that I really need all that, but if I get more bang for my buck, that's the way I'll go. 

I'm not sure which of the three I should choose.  Of the two readers, I'm leaning towards the Nook.  The battery and memory cards slots alone would make it worthwhile in comparison to the Kindle I think.  I'm looking forward to the next generation of both the Kindle and the Nook to see what other goodies they'll be adding.

I'm afraid it's going to take a lot more research to decide which way I should leap.  Does anyone have any of the above and can you tell me the pros/cons of them?

Knittin' At The Yard Sale

Saturday, my Sis-In-Law and I had a combined yard sale over at her place.  This may have been the most comfortable yard sale that I've ever been involved in.  If they were all like that, I'd have them way more often.

First off, we set up a big tailgating tent.  A tailgating tent is open on all sides, just a roof over your head basically.  Then, I brought in some fabric drop cloths to be our floor.  Grass is too itchy to have your feet in on a hot summer day and there are too many crawly things that would like to take a bite out of me.  The floor helped.  We also set up a great big box fan and a smaller camping fan.  We clipped the camping fan to the tent.  We also had one really long table to put some of our wares on.  Oh, and we also had two camp chairs to sit and relax in.

With all that and the overcast morning, we were cool, comfy and sunburn free!

I made about $85 dollars in the sale.  Which was pretty good considering I only sold five things.  But, even more importantly, I made progress!  On this:

I'm right at the halfway point on this stole.

Knitting Disasters That Happen To Us All

Let's talk today about what really gets under our skin as knitters.  The knitting disasters whether small or large.  Really, size doesn't matter, each of the common mistakes all equally get to me.  Is there a reason for this discussion?  Why yes, there is and I'll show you it in a moment.

1.  Dropped stitches.   There's a fun one for you.  When you first start knitting, every dropped stitch causes a tear or two.  As you progress, you get the hang of fixing them and you feel like a pro.  Until that is, you start a complicated lace project that has multiple yarn overs, lots of ktogs and maybe a few twists.  The same can be applied to complicated cables as well.  Once the stitch has been dropped in these situations, well, it reduces the pro to a sniveling, boohooing baby.  I actually frogged a pretty lace piece due to this very thing happening.  Did it happen this weekend?  Nope.

2.  Gauge issues.  How many times have you assumed that your gauge was correct just because your swatch said it was?  You knit and wash the swatch.  It's perfect!  The gauge is spot on, now I can start my new sweater!  Yippee!  So you knit and you knit and you knit some more with an occasional purl thrown in for good measure until it's complete.  You try it on.  Ummm.  You take it off, wash it and try to block it to the correct size.  Does it work?  Nope.  Looks like a potato sack.  All because you didn't check your gauge (both row and stitch) as you knit along.  Were you so relaxed that your stitch gauge was way too small due to larger stitches?  Were you so stressed out by your kids that your hands tightened up into knots and you got at least three extra stitches in your stitch gauge?  And, no.  This didn't happen this weekend either.  Doesn't matter, it still ticks me off.

3.  Pattern problems.  You found the perfect pattern.  A sweater that will look so amazing on you that the folks in Hollywood will be begging you to stand on the red carpet for no reason whatsoever other than to just look gorgeous next to George Clooney.  Yeah, that sweater.  You know the one?  So again,  you knit and you knit and you knit some more with an occasional purl thrown in for good measure until it's almost complete.  Wait, is that a mistake?   Is there a section missing?  How the heck are you supposed to finish this thing if the directions are wrong and incomplete?  So you toss it onto the wip pile and then it eventually makes it's way on to the frog pile.  Your dreams of standing there with your hand on Clooney's arm are frogged as well.  Sad.  Isn't it?  This also didn't happen this weekend.

4.  Wrong Yarn Yardage.  We've all been through this one at some point or another.  You wade through the local yarn shop, petting each adorable skein of so incredibly soft yarn and you buy a whole bag full to make the (again) perfect sweater.  You go home, after having them wind all those skeins into balls for you, and begin knitting.  You knit the front, the back, the collar, the first sleeve and then, the sec-   oops.  Yep, ran out of yarn and guess what?  The lys has no more yarn in that dye lot.  That totally sucks.  But wow, doesn't that new sweater vest look nice!  No, I had plenty of yarn this week.

There are plenty more things that get under my skin,  losing stitch markers or needles, "rowing out" due to stupidly mixing up your needle sizes where one needle is a 7 and the other a 7.5, your dog eating your project, your cat eating your project, your toddler... etc.  There are so many issues that will slap you upside the head when you least expect it in the hobby of knitting.  But, for time's sake, let's skip ahead to number 10.  You know, just for fun.

10.  The mobius.  How often do you pick up a pattern and it says, and I quote, "Be sure to make sure that none of your stitches are twisted" as you cast on?  So how much of an idiot does that make me, the one who is WRITING the d@mned pattern?  Would you believe that I checked to make sure the stitches were not turned the wrong way at least four or five times?  Oh, and I also re-cast on the 200 or so stitches for this very same reason.  Would you believe that it didn't freakin' matter cause I missed one anyway?

Four inches into this sweater.  Four.  I carefully moved the stitches to a scrap piece of string to place it on the dress makers dummy to double check the fit and whammo!  It's a Mobius sweater!  Twisting around and in on itself and making me feel physically sick to my stomach.

Wanna see it?

Did you miss it?  Look closer, I've outlined the twist for you:

There ya go.  Can I go punch somebody now or at least throw up on them?  This really, really burnt my muffins.  I'm Not.  Happy.  A.  Bit.

So go ahead and admit that some of these have happened to you too.

I'm waiting.

Don't leave me out here in the cold alone.

Please?

Mom's Way Cooler Than Dad

Totally uncool, unhip father (In very sarcastic tone) to 9 year old Harry Potter fanatic who had been ordered to bed last night while Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was on tv:

"Awwww, now you're going to miss the best part, the Cribbage scene!"

9 year old Harry Potter fanatic and I just raised our eyebrows, looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  At least his Mom knows the difference between Quidditch and Cribbage.  His Dad is so not invited to go with us to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal when we eventually go.

Oh yes,  Mom's way cooler than Dad. 

Razor Burns and Other News

Wow!  This is my 704th post.  Who knew I would be able to stick around so long?  And to show you what entertaining things I have on my blog (I really have a whole lot of nothing today), check this out.


I'm in pain today.  This is why you should change your razor more often than you think:

Ouch.  Isn't razor burn on a pasty white leg sexy?


In knitting news:

Yes, I'm still knitting.  I started a project that I've wanted to work on for a while.  I'm writing the pattern as I go.  If it works, I'll try and get it published.  We'll see.  Please ignore the yellow, it's just the provisional cast on and will disappear later.

In family news:

Today's the DH's birthday! So I'm going to go scramble and wrap his gifts before he gets home from work!  Nothing like waiting to the last minute...

Warning: Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

I felt like crawling under a rock this weekend.    The Eldest and his Dad went camping, so The Youngest and I took off to the lake to visit family. 

For background, The Youngest is a skinny little four year old boy.  His grandfather likes to kid around with him, talking about how "heavy" and "fat" he is.  I think my Dad forgets that children are very literal creatures and they, at that young of an age, also do not understand what the word facetious means or the definition of tact. 

Back to the weekend.  We met up with some of my first cousins and their children.  One of those kids and her Mom are a bit heavy set.  The girl has just turned fifteen and still has some of the baby fat on her that will disappear in a couple of years.  She is going to be gorgeous too.  Her Mom has diabetes and several other health problems.  Neither one are what I would call obese by any means. 

Can ya guess what happened?  The Youngest, trying to be funny, looked at the girl and said, "You don't have to be so fat."  He had absolutely no clue what he was saying.  I, on the other hand, did.  So did the girl and her Mom.  I could have crawled under a very tiny rock at that point and been content to live there for the rest of my natural born days.  I could also have knocked my Dad into next week.

A warning for those who have babies or at some point expect to have a baby:

A child may be cute as a button, but beware, the child's mouth is a loaded gun that can and will go off at the most inconvenient of times.  You, the parent, just think you're in control.  There is no controlling a young child's mouth.  You never, ever, know what will come out of it. 

Anyone else have something like this happen to them?

So, How Did It Turn Out Already?

Having been out of town for a few days and letting the resin cure, now that I am back I can let you see how the large counter top renovation turned out:

This is such a shocking change for me, even having done the other counter tops in the kitchen over the past year.  Yes, it's taken me a year to get all of them done.  Sue me.  Anything is better than the godawful blue counters that I've been staring at for over seven years.

However, it's not all a bed of roses.  We decided to put in a new kitchen sink, replacing the nasty old white one that would never get fully clean.  When we did, we found that the new sink wouldn't quite fit in the old one's place.   The resin had been curing for four days at the time.  It gets hard cured after about seven days.  We cut the hole wider and then found that a very small section had released from the counter top.  It looks like this:

See the white spot?  It's about half an inch thick and four inches long.  This is the first time that something like this has happened.  We think that when we cut the counter, the heat from the saw caused it.  It's now sealed from beneath the sink, so no water can seep into it.  Since the whole counter needs another coating of the resin, I'm going to go over this spot again with craft paints to disguise the imperfection, then do the coating of the resin.  It won't be this week, but it will happen soon.


Just thought I'd share this with you guys.  No project ever turns out perfectly for me and those doing diy/crafty type projects like are probably already familiar with some of the stuff that can go wrong.  But, I'm not going to let this get in the way of my new pretty kitchen counters!  Oh, no.  I'll just fix it (or at least disguise it) and move along.  Perfection is for the weak of heart.  I'm more into building character.  :)

Day 2 of the Kitchen Counter Renovation

When renovating your kitchen counters that are hideously colored blue (with craft paint and resin of course), you should do the following:

Step One:  Invite lots of help for your diy endeavors.  Oh, and lots of sponges and craft paint:

Step Two:  Make Sure there are lots of menfolk in the invitees to remove the sink.  Dude with the dark blue shirt and white beard is my Dad.  Shhh!  Don't tell, but he just had his 66th birthday two days ago!

Step Three:  After shooing away all the menfolk,  I rolled on the same paint that I used on my cabinets and wall trim:

Step Four:  This is how it looked when we first started sponging on the craft paints.  Pretty yucky huh?

Step Five:  But look what happens when you add a bit more:

Step Six:  After several (like a hundred more) trips to the table back and forth to where the craft paint is, step back and admire how pretty it looks so far!

Next step, Resin!

Counter #3 DIY

And so we begin again.  This is the third and last installment of the counter top renovation.  Yay!  It feels like I've been dragging this project out forever, but it's almost done.  Here's how it currently looks:

This is the largest area that I will have renovated.  Normally my microwave is in the far right hand corner and also missing is the crap that seems to accumulate on all flat surfaces in my home.  Also not shown: how my other counters are now covered up with the stuff that came off of this counter.

Today I started removing caulk from around the sink in preparation to pulling said sink out.  This part totally sucks and I'm not enjoying it.  Some of the caulk is almost 30 years old and really doesn't want to give up the ghost.  I've resorted to this arsenal to help in its removal:

If that doesn't work I might try some C4 or TNT.  Anybody got some to spare? 

IF, and that's a BIG IF by the way, I can get the caulk removed sometime today, I'm going to go ahead and put a base coat of paint on the surface.  I'll stay about 2 or 3 inches from the sink though since we will be removing the sink tomorrow morning. 

The full plan for tomorrow involves sink removal, paint, lots more craft paint, and pouring of resin.  Then I get to devise a way to keep two very nosy cats away from the kitchen so that I don't find little cat prints destroying all my hard work later.  I will then be deserting the house for a few days while the resin cures.   Yes, there will be someone checking on my two deserted kitties so don't send PETA after me, ok?  That's a lot to get done in one little day.  Wish me luck.  Off to do more scraping!

Freezer Treats

I keep most of my images up in my Flickr account.  I recently had someone complain (don't know who they were) that I don't title my images.  Well, if they don't like it, that's just too bad.  While many and varied, my hobbies do not include photography.  There are so many folks over at flickr that show off their fantastic picture taking skills.  I am not one of them nor do I have those picture taking skills.  I use flickr for the blog and that's it.  Oh, and as a backup of my digital pics.  I just don't understand someone going after me to complain because I don't title my image.  Don't they have anything better to do? 

Like making Freezer Treats?

Freezer Treats have become a staple at our house.  The kids beg for them and I try my best to hide them from everyone else so that I can snack on them late at night.  :)  They are low caloried, sweet and chewy.  They satisfy the snack monster in me without packing a wallop to the hips.  Yay!

My Mom got this idea from some folks over at Weight Watchers many years ago and I thought that I'd pass it along to you.  I promise, after a couple of these, your family will start fighting over them too.

Freezer Treats:

Chocolate Graham Crackers
Fat Free Cool Whip

Break the cracker into halves, apply 1 to 2 Tbsp cool whip to the cracker, put the other half on top.  That's it!



It's so simple.  The trick though, to these becoming really good, is to make them, then pop them into your freezer and walk away for several hours or even a full day.  The crackers absorb the moisture from the cool whip and become really soft and chewy, tasting a lot like an ice cream sandwich.  Two of these babies will run about 150 calories total! 

Enjoy!

Proof for the Cynics

I've spoken about Swagbucks before, but for all you cynics out there, here's my proof that it's free, it works, it's legit.

Look what came in the mail yesterday:

Yep, a brand new Wii console with Wii Sports included!  I paid not one penny for it.  I'm so excited, this will be the big Christmas present at our house this year.  There's no way I'm letting Santa take credit for this one, oh no.  It'll be wrapped up and under the tree just waiting.  The hubby is excited about it too and wanting to give it to them now, but I'm not letting him ruin the Christmas surprise.  I've been planning this one for way too long.

So, how does the whole "Swagbucks thing" work?

Here's what works for me:  The prize I shoot for on the site is the $5 Amazon gift cards (you can buy just about anything on Amazon.)  They are worth 450 swagbucks each (If you are in Canada, make sure you get the Amazon.ca gift certificates.)  Twice a month they will give out the gift card codes that you ordered and you enter the card into your Amazon account.  Easy!  You can order 5 of these cards a month.  I'm getting $25 in Amazon gift cards a month.

1.  Search and win - use their search engine.  You can't just keep entering stuff in to win though, you have to search "naturally", basically using it like you would any search engine.   Just make sure you don't over search. You will be awarded Swagbucks randomly and it can range from 5 swagbucks at a time to sixty some odd swagbucks.

2.  Daily Freebies - If you install their toolbar, you get one point a day for this.  Then go to the Daily polls section on their site and take the simple poll (takes maybe 2 seconds), that gets you one more.  Next, the Special offers page - Click on the little box in the upper right hand corner that says view our no special obligation offers.  Scroll down and click skip.  Do this several times and you get another point.  Last is the trusted surveys section.  Just click on the page and you automatically get another one.  Doing these adds up!  You get 120 points total for the month just doing this.

3,  Swagcodes - The Swag Guy (TSG) hides or gives out random codes.  If you download the swidget and check it regularly, it will tell you when and where the codes can be found.  Alternately, and this is what I do, is to go to the Swagbucks Facebook page (accessed from the main swagbucks page) and if you see lots of Thanks TSG!'s on there, you know there is a code out.  Yes, there are some idiots that crop up from time to time on the facebook page, just disregard those and don't click on any links that you see come up on the page.  Be sure and to read the blog there a couple of times a day as well.  TSG posts a lot of clues there on where to find the Swagcodes.

4.  Trusted Surveys - You can take surveys to earn extra bucks as well.  Make sure that you go to your profile section on the trusted survey page and fill out each of the surveys there.  You'll make a gracious amount of bucks that way.  You better hurry though, they've already stated that they will be lowering the amount of bucks awarded for those real soon.

5.  Tasks - On the Special offers section, scroll down until you see Wall (or tab) one and click it.  Next click on the tasks tab.  You can do some of these tasks to earn extra bucks as well.

6.  Spread the word - If you get people to sign up under you, and you can do that here by the way,  you can earn up to 1,000 bucks per person.  As they win from doing searches, so do you!  (Thanks to my readers who have already done this!)

I do all of these in my free time and try not to get obsessed by how much fun this can be earning free money.  It's free because Swagbucks get paid from their advertisers.  They just pass along the goodies to you.

Are other people doing this?   Yes, check out the number of fans that the facebook page alone has.


I forgot to mention that I am in no way associated with Swagbucks.  I don't work for them, I just play on their site to earn my petty cash.  :)

Blog Back Ups

I've been looking for a while for a decent way to back up my blog, which is housed at Blogger.  I've finally found two that I'm completely happy with.  One of them backs up your blog online and the other creates a pdf of it. 

BlogBackupr - An online service that grabs your feeds and pulls your blog data for you.  Everything is handled online automatically and lets you restore it via RSS, Text or Html.

BlogBooker - I'm really impressed with this one.  This one backs up your blog to a pdf for you.  I tried several of these programs that supposedly do this, but they only backed up a few pages.  I've got over four years worth to be backed up!  I needed something that could really do the job and BlogBooker is it.  I'd like to eventually print out my blog into a book form and this cool little service is just the ticket to being able to do that.  It used my exported blog xml file from Blogger so it was able to grab all of my blog, not just the last few days.

Hopefully my research will help someone else looking to do the same thing.  BTW, both of these services also support Wordpress blogs.  Good Luck!

Working Through Knitter's Guilt

Do you ever get to the point where the projects that you have sitting around suddenly do nothing for you?  Sorta like a relationship that's gone sour, the project no longer sings to you, no more loving coos are exchanged and you stare at the project and think "What the hell did I ever see in you anyway?" 

I think that's the state I"m in now.  The Noro stole is still okay, not exciting to the point where I have to work on it every minute of the day though.  I've lost total interest in the Mantilla blanket and may frog it soon.  The pink wool socks that I've had lying around? That's soon to be gone as well.  Several other wips are generating the same sentiments in me too.

So what's a knitter to do?  Go on and keep the relationship going even though it's a drain on the psyche?  Or frog them and find something else?  Why do we let ourselves get in these predicaments anyway? 

And another question, why the heck am I feeling guilty about letting them go?  Don't I have a right to be happy?  I've always been a strong proponent of the adage "If it's not fun, then quit doing it and find something else you love to do."  Yet when applied to knitting, which, when the day is done, is just playing with two sticks and a bit of string after all, I get sweaty hands and butterflies in the stomach at the thought of just "giving up".   It's not like the knitting police are going to show up at my doorstep and cart me off to jail because I set a project free to live a better life out in the wild. 

Maybe, I need to tell the knitter's guilt to take a hike and free myself from the feeling of imminent doom.  Am I going to paint myself a failure just because of giving up on a project?   I think not.  I've already proven myself as a successful knitter.  These projects in themselves may be not be what I envisioned at first, but that's okay.   There's plenty of other projects where those came from and I'll be more than successful at those.  Right? 

I"m still keeping the Noro stole though, darnit, even if it does feel like I'm just plodding along.   So, Knitter's Guilt - banished.  Knitter's Stubbornness - quite happy, thanks.

Procrastinator Extraordinaire

I have decided that both of my offspring are freaks of nature.  I bought a wonderful seedless watermelon today for us all to eat.   One refused to try it, swearing the whole time, "I don't like that" and the other took a bite and then made faces like he was going to throw up.  Who doesn't like watermelon?  It's the perfect hot weather fruit!  I just don't get it.


I finally made it through all of the sewing that I began working on Friday.    Like these six fabric baskets:

The green ones are for my bff's birthday and the other three are for my Mom's bday which is tomorrow.  She got them this weekend since I won't be seeing her on her actual birthday.  I fell in love with all of these fabrics, but especially the fabric that looks like 50's paper dolls.  It's so cute!

I also made a swath through some shirts and shorts that my cousin had given me.  She purchased them at a Russell brand's sample sale.  The each had a small slit cut into them.  They are made in another country and each one that is brought over the border to be samples has to have the cut in them.  I'm not sure why, but that's okay.  I sewed up the slits and now have some great shirts and shorts to sleep in.  Yay!

Last, but not least in the sewing pile were some pillow covers that I had promised to make my Sister In Law.   Unfortunately, I promised to sew these for her about 2 or 3 YEARS ago.  Can we say "Procrastinator Extraordinaire?  Hmm? 

The one on the right was made from a quilted panel that I had made her about five years ago when I was hot and heavy into quilting.  The batik that you see is real batik fabric that she made in high school and has kept for the past twenty odd years.  I added the dark blue edging to the batik one since it wasn't quite large enough for the pillow.  I still feel guilty for waiting so long to do what amounted to about a one hour project. 

Here's a closer view of my quilting:

So, I'm so thankful to have all those sewing projects out of the way!  It freed up so much space where all those projects had piled up.  Let's hear it for decluttering (at least a small section of the house anyway)!

Father's Day Gifts

I have to get real crafty in June.  There are three Father's Day gifts to do, two family birthdays and one best friend birthday, so June can get kind of pricey.  Therefore, the boys and I started working on their Father's Day Gifts yesterday. 

This is such an easy (if the kids feel like cooperating - which mine didn't quite do) project.  All three of the Dads in question spend tons of time wearing what we around here refer to as lounge(y) pants.  None of them spend tons of time wearing t-shirts.  So purchased three pairs of plain gray pants ($8 a piece from Wallyworld) and some fabric paints.

We laid them flat on a giant drop cloth.  Then I had the boys dip their feet in fabric paint and place them on the pants.  I used some stencils and fabric markers to spell out "My kids walk all over me" for their Dad and "My grandkids walk all over me" for the granddads. 

What's funny is that when you live with the kids, their growth always takes you by surprise.  When I envisioned this project, for some reason my mind expected their feet to be much smaller.  Hah!  The Eldest's foot size is the same as mine!  I really knew this, but I didn't "Know This" in a crafty sense.  The Youngest took me by surprise in this as well. 

I ended up with huge gaping holes to fill in between their foot prints.  So off to JoAnn to look at little foot stamps to fill in the blanks.  I don't stamp that often and had some major sticker shock when I saw the prices.  Nope, I wasn't going to pay that.  I decided to look in the stencils section.  No deal, they didn't have a stencil for that.

What I ended up doing (it was my Mom's idea) was to ball up my fist.  Then I dipped the side of my fist (pinky side) into the fabric print and place that on the cloth.  I then dipped my index finger and made finger print toes over the little foot imprint that I made with the side of my fist.  It worked perfectly!

Here's how they turned out:

Cute huh?  I didn't do the back of the pants, I started way too late to even think about those.   And honestly?  I came close to sending my kids to Siberia over this project.  I don't think I want to tackle another side.  Their listening skills are sub-par and there was one pair of little jean shorts ruined in the making of these.  I should have had them strip all nekkid for this project.  As it was, it was probably quite amusing for the neighbors to see us walking all around our house to get to the outside hose.  We had rainbow feet, hands and legs before it was all over.

Have a Great Father's Day Weekend!

I Saved A Sweater

I'm tackling about twenty projects today and getting very little done.  My multi-tasking-fu is just not keeping up with everything that needs to get done.  I'm sewing more fabric baskets for birthday gifts, pillow covers for my sister-in-law, cleaning the house for company that's coming over this weekend and working with the kids on their Father's Day gifts to Dad and Grandfathers.  Whew!

One project that I did manage to complete today was an alteration to a sleeveless sweater.  This is one of my favorite summer tops.  It's made of silk, nylon and viscose.  It's also very thin and so incredibly soft.

Why does it need altering?  Well, let me show you:

A hole!

If you look in the first pic, that hole is in the right hand side of the sweater piece that hangs down and drapes from the shoulder.  I was so upset and disgusted when I found the hole that I threw the whole sweater under my bed in disgust and left it there.  I figured that sooner or later I could make it into something new or throw it in the trash. 


So, about eight months and lots of cat hair later, I got it out again.  I intended to get the seam ripper out and just remove the whole drape-y piece and just have a simple tank top.  But when I looked at the hole again, I had an epiphany.  There was enough fabric that I could fold it over carefully and hand stitch it down to cover the hole.  Guess what?  It worked:

 Look Mom!  No hole! Yay me, I save it from the landfill!  I'm feeling so green and recycley!  (You like my new made up word?)  Now to get all that cat hair off of this sweater.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Theater

While the Eldest is in Cub Scout Day Camp this week, the Youngest and I decided to head out to the Regal Cinemas Free Movies this morning.  While driving, we began playing the "I love you more than" game.  It's simple and keeps a four year old very entertained while stuck in the car seat.  It began years ago with the Eldest and the tradition has carried onto his younger sibling. 

Here's how you play:

1.  You begin every sentence with "I love you more than..." and then fill in the blank.  You can start out all sweet and sappy if you want with something like "I love you more than strawberries."  That's always a good one. Then you wait and let the child say one of his own sentences. 
2.  You continue number one for a while, swapping back and forth, and then change your fill in the blank answer into something a little weird such as "I love you more than chocolate covered corn on the cob."  (We typically stick with food items, you'll see why in a sec.) By this time the kid's getting the giggles.
3.  Continue number two for a while and then the fun starts.  Now you get to get all four year old yourself and come up with some really disgusting stuff.  Here's a few examples of what was said today:

"I love you more than worm pie." 
"I love you more than dirty sock soup."
"I love you more than snail souffle." 

You get the idea.  I really thought I was winning this one today and coming up with some great gross stuff until the Youngest ended the whole thing with:

"I love you more than poop waffles."   At that point it became time to change both the game and the subject. He won that round, but you just wait until next time!



Oh, and the stole?  It's still growing:

Aren't the colors pretty?

I'm Dyeing Again

At Christmas my parents gave me a set of four leather parsons chairs.  I went out shortly thereafter and purchased some chair covers for them from Bed Bath and Beyond.  They only had a couple of colors and most of those (to me) were hideous, except for the white ones that came home with me.  I bought them on sale for $1.99 a piece, which was an excellent bargain.

Such a good bargain, in fact, that I decided that I could dye them and if the color turned out to be horrid, I wouldn't feel guilty about tossing them.  With that thought, I promptly put them away and forgot about them until this past weekend.

When the Eldest had his birthday party in September, we used some RIT dye to make some camouflage shirts.  I had one container of Tan dye leftover and that's the color that I threw in the wash with my chair covers.  The covers are cotton, so I knew they wouldn't take the dye as readily as some other fibers would.  I ran the water in the washing machine then added the dye and covers and let them sit for a few hours.  Then finished the wash cycle and then re-washed with detergent after that. 

So how did they turn out?  Lovely!  I got the most beautiful champagne color and it was exactly what I wanted.

It's difficult to see any color in the above pic at all, so I added a white piece of paper:

Look closely at the bottom right of the pic and you'll see how pretty the gold/champagne color really is.  I'm very pleased with these!  Now to get a good table cloth that will compliment them...


By the way, My neighbors must think I'm an absolute nut.  I drag the weirdest things to take pictures of out onto my back porch all the time.  One chair, with cover, one piece of paper with a knitting pattern on it.  yep, weird.

The Noro Stole

So far I'm loving the One Skein - A Stole! project.  The Noro sock yarn is giving this a real bohemian feel that I"m craving right now.  I'm needing the bright colors after the black of the last failed project.

I'm also enjoying this because it's my first dropped stitch project that I've done.  It's really neat to watch the stole grow as those stitches get pushed off of the needle.  I had to really concentrate at first on doing the extra wraps on the needle to accomplish this, but it really is turning out to be fun.  If I ever get more than 10 minutes at a time to work on it, it's going to go amazingly fast.

Shawl Mishaps

In all the teeth and bunk bed excitement I forgot to tell you what happened with the Prayer Shawl that I was making.  I had finished the length of it and was oh so glad because I had lost all excitement over it.  I laid it out to examine it really close and wished that I had done that a lot sooner.  I found two unforgivable errors.  There's supposed to be a straight lattice look to it and in two places it looked like a spider had gotten in to the lattice and set up house.  There was no way I could gift it looking like that.  I also decided that there was no way I was going to be making it again.  I'm going to hope the prayers made it my Aunt's way, since the shawl won't be.  I frogged it.

Then I had started digging in the Ravelry database and found another shawl that I wanted to try.  It's the One Skein, A Stole shawl (Ravelry link) that uses one skein of Noro sock yarn.  After all the black from the previous project, the Noro project is very welcome.  I don't particularly like the way the yarn feels, but the colors are awesome.  Here's the yarn that I'm using:

As far as my teeth go, its' going amazingly well.  Little to no pain, I'm only taking Ibuprofen for any that pops up.  I've been painting walls today and feeling fine.  I even ate fried chicken last night!  Yippee!  I'm kinda shocked that everything has gone so well to tell you the truth. 

So now I'm going to go back to painting.  The walls would like to be painted sometime before the century is over.

My Teeth Have Left The Building

Just a quick post today to tell you I had two wisdom teeth pulled today.  I went into the office for a routine cleaning and possibly a filling and left with both my wallet and my mouth emptier.   Thank goodness my parents have my kids today! 

For the past two days I have started the day out intending to get lots of things done.  My house looks like a tornado has come through it thanks to lots of displaced stuff from the laundry room renovation.  It's affected almost every room.  The upstairs is topsy turvy from the boys' room being changed around and everything else has just suffered from neglect.

But have a I done a freakin' thing today?  Not unless you count changing gauze pads every half hour or so.  Yuck.   So, there ya go.  I'm basically useless today.  again.

The new addition to the household

Today was such a good day for me!  I've been looking for a bunk bed set for the boys that has a twin bed on top and a full on the bottom.  I've been haunting Craigslist several times a day, just waiting and watching.  The best price that I've seen has been around $100 and so that's what I was prepared to pay. 

Well, I found an ad for a yard sale that mentioned a bunk bed.  I figured, what the heck, I'll send an email and see if she will sell it early.  After all, all she could say was no, right?  She didn't.  When I opened my email and found out the price I was practically tripping all over myself to get there and put cash in her hand even though I didn't have a truck to move it at the time.  You know what she was asking for it?  $25 bucks!  Woohoo!  What a steal.

My folks drove two hours to bring a trailer to load everything up for me (and put it together too.)  My parents are the best!!!

The bed is styled like this one but the color is all red:




Now, to make things even better, let me tell you what happened yesterday.  We (my Mom and I) went thrift store shopping with the kids.  The Youngest saw a comforter set and began absolutely begging for it.  I've never in my life heard a child beg for linens.  It was the funniest sight.  It looked brand new and had super heroes on it.  The Youngest is obsessed with super heroes, but especially these: Batman & Robin and it had all the bad guys too.  The bad guys were particularly important since he prefers those to Batman & Robin.  He's very strange that way.  So I bought them, knowing that in the not too far future we would be getting a bunk bed. 

And now today, I have one.  For $25 bucks.   How cool is that?

Friday DIY Continued

My Laundry Room diy project carried on through the weekend and it looks like it will take me the rest of the week to complete it.  I live my life on a start/stop, start/stop basis thanks to my kids.  So no project is ever completed in a short time span.  Ever. 

There was a rush to get at least one corner of the room finished and that's where my washer and dryer go.  Laundry mountain is about to have an avalanche, so it's critical we get those hooked back up. 

Remember the awful blue and hideous wallpaper?  Here's where it stands now:

You can barely see the wall paper under the primer on the right and on the left is one coat of the paint color that's going up.  It's the same color as in my kitchen since the two rooms are right next to each other.  The wall paper is covering up nicely.  I was worried that it would show through the paint, but it's not.  Yay!

Here's another shot of a different wall.  The paint is a little darker here due to it being dry and the lighting:

The wall to the right is the same one as in the first picture.  The top pic was taken after this one. 

The paint color is sort of a very warm butternut squash kind of color.  It looks better in person than in the pics.  It's a little intense if you are used to white walls, but never let it be said that we are afraid of a little color around here!  It'll come together better when I get the rest of the trim color in and some pics up on the wall. 

You have no idea how much I loathed the wall paper.  Honestly, I was so sick of looking at what was in this room before that I would have slapped up an electric purple and called it a good day. 


I did do some knitting this weekend and there's bad news/good news, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Friday DIY

I really need to stop watching home improvement style shows.  It makes me itchy for paint brushes and paint rollers.  I found that I needed to scratch that itch this afternoon and ended up with primer on walls, trim and my hands.

The room that is much in need of restoration is my laundry room and it attaches directly to my kitchen.  It's been clashing with the updated kitchen (well, almost updated - I still need to do one more countertop) and it's been driving me nuts to look at it.  With the freezer dying crisis of last week and our subsequent purchase of one a little smaller, I found myself able to see much more of the wall and the pressure to paint began to build up.  It came to a head while I was at the folks' house this past weekend and was watching diy channels.  I was doomed from that point on. 

This, of course, will naturally send the spouse's blood pressure skyrocketing as it always does whenever I get near paint or power tools.  He'll get over it.  I'm following the rule of thumb that says "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission."  I never told him I was going to start painting.  He'll find out when he gets home tonight.  :)

Here's the before pic (check out the hideous wallpaper):

After Priming part of the walls:

And another shot above the door that goes into the kitchen:

You can see the color of my kitchen walls in the last pic.  It really doesn't go well with dark blue and hideous wallpaper does it?  The primer may be spotty right now, but I already love it better than what was in there.

This is the point where I stopped for the day.  I'm going to have to rearrange the laundry room to get to the rest of the walls and that will require some help to move the appliances.  Everything will need at least two coats of primer and then two coats of the paint.  I'm priming the trim as I go along now to save some time later.  There's a lot of prep work to be done to the walls before the paint can be applied.  The primer has really highlighted a lot of stuff that I missed before. 

The idiots that lived here before us left some real problems for me to deal with.  One of those being the wallpaper.  They didn't prime the walls before applying it.   So, in order to save an incredible amount of trouble, I'm painting over it and hoping for the best.  They also bolted some stuff into the walls and then tore them off when they left, leaving the anchors in the walls.  So I get to patch those holes as well.  Sometimes I really wish I had those people in rock throwing distance, I really do.

Have a great weekend!

Thunderstorms and Outages

Thunderstorms and power outages are not very conducive to blogging are they?  Yesterday a series of storms swept through our area.  Lightening, thunder and rain appeared off and on all day.  In the late afternoon/evening though we got a doozy that took out our power for quite a while.   Just as I was about to sit down at the pc and start writing, everything went down.  But I'm here today and writing quickly before the afternoon storms are scheduled to blow through again.

In my baking excitement on Tuesday, I forgot to mention the prayer shawl progress.  I did not get it finished over the holiday, but it wasn't for lack of trying.  I knit on that sucker until my elbow started hurting and had to quit.  My wrists had already been aching from it, but the elbow pain was the deal breaker.  I have about four more inches to knit and the fringe to add.  It should go fairly quick once I start on it again.  I have a new deadline and that's Monday.  My Mom will be coming to town then and can pick it up for me so I don't have to deal with mailing it.

I tried to get some new pictures of it, but I'm having a heck of a time photographing this shawl in a way that shows it off.  I'll keep playing around with it until I get something acceptable to put up here and on Ravelry.  This was the best of the last lot of pics and it's not much to write home about:

I need some photography for knitters classes.  Do they even have those?

Baking Day!

Today was baking day at the House O' Shea!

Here's the totals of everything made: 20 tortillas, 24 Chocolate-Chocolate Chip muffins, Pizza Dough for two pizzas,  6 "Cheesy-illas" (that's 4 year old speak for quesadillas), 1lb. Venison sausage cooked up, and one large Vidalia onion.   The onion and sausage were cooked up at the same time; some to go on pizza and some to go in the freezer for a later date. 

PHEW!

This was the first time that I had made tortillas.  I always thought that this would be difficult, but it was so easy.  Here's the recipe that I used:

Flour Tortillas:

3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 shortening
Pinch of Salt
1 cup warm water

Combine all ingredients, kneading until dough forms.  Divided it all into 20 golf ball size balls.  Gave a light coating to all of them and then let them rest for about 20 minutes covered.  Then, roll out dough on a floured surface.  I was really surprised how thin these could roll out.  The dough was really easy to work with.  Stack all with wax paper between each until ready to cook.  Preheat a large griddle or frying pan.  Cook each until it begins to puff up like this:

Then flip and press firmly on the tortilla to remove the bubbles. Cook another minute and remove from pan. Here's the finished results:

I stacked these (again) as they finished cooking with the same waxed paper between each. 

Oh, and I should mention some pancakes that got made a few days ago.  You haven't lived until you've eaten tye-dyed pancakes!

The kids loved them.

Tye Dyed Pancakes:

2 cups self rising flour
2 eggs
2 to 2.5 cups buttermilk (you don't want the batter too thick so add more if necessary)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
Various Wilton food coloring pastes

Combine first 5 ingredients in bowl.  Then, if you are going to have several different colored pancakes, separate the batter into a few other bowls.  *Take a toothpick and dip it into the first color.  It takes only a drop!  Swirl the color into the batter and then discard the toothpick.*  Repeat that step for as many colors as you choose to have.  My boys chose three colors each, your mileage may vary.  Make sure that you don't blend the batter so much that you no longer have swirls.  You are better off swirling less than more.  Next, carefully ladle the batter into a very hot griddle sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  I use an electric griddle that I dearly love that was set to 400 degrees.  Cooking the pancakes until you see big holes form, then flip with spatula and cook until done.    These turned out so pretty it was almost a shame to cut them up!

Not Quite Halfway

When last we spoke about my Aunt's Prayer Shawl, I was knitting it up with some Patons SWS.  However I got about this far:

and decided that I wasn't going to have near enough yarn to continue on.  So, I ditched it and headed to Michael's.  There was a time when I went to Joann's or Michael's and every other skein was a ribbon yarn.  Remember that?  It wasn't that long ago.  That's what I was looking for to replace the SWS.  I finally find a project that would be perfect for it and there's not one skein to be found!  None.  It was time for plan B.

I searched a bit more and found something very pretty.  Acrylic, but really pretty even so.  It was a ball of Vanna's Glamour in black.  There are gorgeous black shiny threads running throughout the yarn.  This shawl is going to be very elegant with that yarn.  I'm actually surprised at this yarn.  It's pretty, doesn't feel squeaky on the needles and it's easy to work with. 

Here's a closeup of the project so that you can see the sparkle:

I'm not quite halfway finished with the shawl, but I'm almost there.  Say, about 45% complete.  It's turning out lovely, I think.  I just hope my Aunt thinks so.  My arm and wrist are already starting to ache, but I've several more hours of knitting to do tonight and tomorrow before it gets close to being done.  Just think how much further along I would be if I hadn't wasted my time with the first version of this shawl.  Time!  I need more time!

Here's how it looks full length:

Murphy Loves Me

Today's post was supposed to be about progress on my Aunt's Prayer Shawl.  However, Murphy has reared his ugly head and interrupted all my well laid plans.

I went to my giant chest freezer to put some loaves of bread into it and water came gushing out.  Yikes!  It's quickly defrosting and it's 5:45 pm.  Any repairman that does make it here tonight is going to charge megabucks.  But that's nothing compared to the hundreds of dollars that is now defrosting.  I may be cooking deer meat and other vittles all night just to try and salvage what I can.

Had I told you that we had finally paid off our credit cards?  We may be adding a new freezer back onto those cards.  noooooooooo!

Anyway, I gotta go and so some fast salvage work.  I'll update you on this and the shawl tomorrow.

Knitting a Prayer Shawl

My Aunt Sherry (an Aunt by marriage) lost her Eldest sister today.   Her sister was 80 and had a long list of ailments that combined with Pneumonia, was just too much for her.  It was expected and long in the coming, but hard nevertheless.

So, in honor of her sister's memory, I decided to make my Aunt a prayer shawl.  Since I have to have this finished my this coming Saturday (yes, I'm nuts to think it can be finished by then) I decided  to use some honkin' big needles and this pattern:  Purl Shawl by Allison Blevins from Tangle.  It's a free pattern and it's super easy.  Although, if you hate doing purls, you probably won't enjoy it.  There are no knit stitches in this pattern!

It's supposed to be knit with ribbon yarn.  I don't happen to have any ribbon yarn in the stash, so I've decided to make do with two skeins of leftover Patons SWS in Natural Earth.  I'm hoping that the two skeins will be enough, we'll see.  After I get a few more inches on the needles I'll be able to tell a little better.  If the Patons doesn't turn out to be a good match, I'll get some sock yarn out and start over.   With the huge needles, it will go quickly either way.  I hope.

For those that don't know, a Prayer Shawl is for comfort in loss, dealing with sickness or for those in just general need and is begun with prayers for the recipient and the prayers continue with each and every stitch that is knit.  It's not necessarily a certain type of shawl. Any pattern can be used with any needles and the knitter's choice of yarn.  It let's the recipient know that the shawl was knit with love and with them specifically in mind.  As they wrap themselves in the Prayer Shawl, they also are wrapping themselves in the prayers said for them.  Everyone needs a Prayer Shawl at some point in their life, don't they?  

I'll have a progress report for you tomorrow.  I'm going to go knit my little fingers off!