Simba

My dearest Simba, April 24, 1996-November 14, 2009:

I can't talk about it right now, my heart is broken. RIP, little boy, and hurt no more.

Colorful Clogs

I missed work on Monday and Tuesday cuz the Littlest One was home sick. He really probably could have gone yesterday, but since today is a holiday I thought I'd keep him home, and he could go back to school on Thursday. So I hope to be able to work tomorrow to make up for some of my lost hours, and I am supposed to work Friday til one, but maybe they'll let me stay a bit later. I've noticed on my Facebook lately that a lot of kids are home sick, and apparently some of the classes in the schools have half or more of the kids missing. The Oldest One said yesterday that one of the grade three classes only had four or five kids in it Monday and Tuesday. Anyhoo...

Since I've been sequestered I've had a lot of time to knit. I made this pair of clogs yesterday. Yes, they were started in the morning, knit off and on through the day, and finished up and felted in the evening. Usually I knock off a pair in two days, this may be the first time I actually knit and felted a pair in just one day. The blue pair is a ladies large, two skeins of Navy Patons Classic Wool and one of Too Teal. Used this pattern, of course. Ravelry details here.

This pair was started on November 8 and finished on the 9th. These are ladies medium and used two skeins of Patons Classic Wool in That's Purple (discontinued colorway) and one of That's Pink. There was a small amount of pink and teal leftovers, and there's some navy and that's purple, should be enough to make some kid-sized felted mittens. Ravelry details here.

So today is Remembrance Day. Of course any morning the kids can sleep in they don't, and mornings they have to get up I usually have to fight with them. I think this afternoon a nap may be in order. (I always say that but never end up doing it.) I have two more pairs of clogs to make sooner rather than later, one pair for the Littlest One, and one pair for the Oldest One. I also have some Christmas gift socks on the needles I want to work on today. I think the clogs may wait to be started tomorrow.

Happy knitting!

One

One year ago today we went and picked up the little puff of fluff that is Maggie Tibbles (among many of the other names she's called). Now she's still quite small, but she's not-so-puff-of-fluff and definitely evil when you aren't watching! But she's my baby, and I wouldn't trade her, I just have to put her in the kennel when no one is home. Even for just five minutes. (Evilness happens in the blink of an eye!)

She definitely knows how to play the cute card. If she's been bad and is in trouble she pours on the cuteness and the charm, that's for sure. Coincidentally, today is also my big brudda's birthday. I won't say how old he is cuz it makes me sound too old. (He's almost ten years older than me.)

I finally finished the dresses from you-know-where! What a relief to get these done! I made grape juice dress first, and that one wasn't so bad. The blue and green one.... that was a different story. I had the front almost done, and I realized that it was longer than the first dress (they are both the same - size 2). I had no idea what went wrong cuz I always write down my rows. In the meantime I found a mistake in one of the seed stitch panels, probably four inches up from the bottom, of course, so I ripped it back to there. (No one would probably have noticed it, but that's all I saw when I looked at it.) Upon reknitting the front it was still not working out like the first dress, so I gave up and just modified the number of stocking stitch rows after the seed stitch panels end and the armhole shaping begins. The back of the dress... I knit that, and when I went to seam the sides together I found that back was about an inch longer than the front. Grrrr!!!!! So a ripping I went, the seed stitch panels seemed to end an inch longer than the ones on the front of the dress for some reason. I couldn't find what I did wrong, so I modified it yet again, and finally got the darned thing finished. All the details are on Ravelry here, along with more pictures.

Seed Stitch Panel Dress

from Bernat Cool for School

Bernat Jr Jacquards in Grape Juice

Bernat Baby Jacquards in I'm a Big Boy

both size 2

started Grape Juice dress on Oct 9, finished the 18th

started I'm a Big Boy dress on Oct 21, finished Nov 7

size 4mm needles

size 3.5mm needles for the armhole bands and neckband

Must go finish supper. I think the Littlest One is getting sick. He complained he has a sore throat and was freezing a little while ago. His voice is froggy, and now he's asleep. He felt hot, too. There's a lot of H1N1 going around here now, so I'm sure it will all come our way. The province got shorted on the vaccines, so only certain people can get the needle. None of us qualify yet.

Happy knitting!

The New Ride

Well, new to me. And yes, I need some hubcaps. My Ram is no more, gone bye-bye. We did a lease return cuz the balance if we wanted to keep it was still big bucks. Also, it was a super gas guzzler (a hemi, after all), and I don't really need a truck. The camper doesn't get hauled anywhere, and the only thing it really got used for was hauling leaves to the compost yard. This is a 2000 Ford Focus wagon that is paid in full, so no monthly vehicle payment (except for Pete, of course), it's only a 4-cylinder, so gas is like nothing compared to the beast, and insurance will be a fair bit cheaper. (Even though it really wasn't too bad for the Ram.) It will be nice to drive something that $20 of gas will last longer than 5 minutes in.

It had all season tires on it, but there was a set of snow tires, so I got B to put them on before I brought it home. The all seasons had nice rims. Pa said he'd get me a set of hubcaps, but if he doesn't soon I'll grab a set. Hubs said I should get some spinners and pimp it out. I'll have to get used to a car again. I've had 4x4 trucks since the summer of 2003. Also this is the first used vehicle I've had since we had gotten our first new vehicle, a 2003 Dakota (the truck before the Ram, my favorite one I've owned so far), so I will miss warranty work, that's for sure. Oh, well. The difference in price, insurance, and gas makes up for it, I guess. In a couple of years we'll get something newer. For now we just want to cut back some of our expenses. I found some paperwork on the car today, and it looks like it only had one owner before me. The interior is in excellent shape, not a mark on it, don't think it was smoked in, and the former owner had extended warranty on it. I think he really looked after it well.

I started a new sock yesterday. These are another pair for Christmas. They are Olympian socks knit with Cherry Tree Hill in spring frost. Ravelry details here.

Happy knitting!

Happy Halloween!!

There were pumpkins...

Zombie Red Sox players...

Who got a little more Zombiefied before leaving the house...

And came back not so Zombiefied with lots of loot...

And Mama sat down and finished the toe of the second sock just in time for the SAM8 KAL. These were started way back on September 30, but I've been working on other stuff trying to get it done, so these got the back burner. (Till the other night when I realized I only had three days to knit the second sock in order to make the KAL.) I used 2.25mm needles and Invicta sock yarn. This is a dark charcoal with a silver fleck in it, very nice yarn. We've got more coming hopefully this week. This colorway sold out pretty fast, so I got some more and several other colors. These socks are hand knit Christmas gift #2, October socks for SAM8 KAL, and pair #13 for the 52PPiii. Ravelry details here.

Loads of stuff going on this past week that kept me from blogging, plus the fact that I didn't really have anything to show. The kids and I were sick last Sunday, the Littlest One got sent home from school sick on Tuesday. The Oldest One called from school Wednesday afternoon with a pain in his side I thought at first was his appendix. Hospital, xrays, blood tests, but all was good. Turns out it was a bowel complaint that luckily rectified itself after returning from the xray department without any aids, if you catch my meaning. (But the poor kid directly across from us had to have that aid, and boy, did he scream!) The next day I get home from town and see the Littlest One's school's number on the phone and a voicemail. I thought, no, not sick again. No, turns out a kid in his class had glass marbles, the big ones, and accidentally hit him in the mouth with one and chipped a tooth. And of course it couldn't be a baby tooth. He only has two permanent teeth so far, the bottom two front teeth, and it was one of those. So off to the dentist we go for xrays. Luckily it wasn't in the nerve or under the gum, so he goes on the 9th to get it fixed. It's going to be a bugger to keep fixed, I bet, and so does the dentist. I have a tiny chip in one of my front teeth I did when I was in grade five. I gave up on it -- bite into an apple or something along that line, and poof -- repair gone.

Happy knitting and Happy Halloween!

It's Just One of Those Days....

...y'know, when it's just like, "Get this day over with!" There is no knitting content here, and it's kind of a rant/whine thing, so you may want to skip it.

It was payday today, so off I go to the bank to deposit my cheque through the machine and take some cash out. Fine, I do that -- to be continued later -- and go to the post office where I find a parcel slip in the box. I go inside to pick it up, I hadn't ordered anything, I highly doubted someone just sent me something out of the blue. So I go in, and the lady brings out BF's gift that I mailed to her for her birthday back on September 4. It made it to her town, but it was unclaimed, so they sent it back. With tax the damned thing cost almost $17 to send, and I had to pay that amount again to get it back. So I spent almost $34 on postage for something she never even got. So now she'll wait til next year when I go out for a visit cuz I ain't mailing it again. (BTW it was this and this and this.)

So T and I go to pick up lunch. I ended up debiting my stuff cuz I picked up supper and a couple of other things, too. I was going to stop and get some gas while we were going by the gas station, so I get out my purse, and lo and behold I find that the bank machine cheated me $15. I had no money on me at all except for some change before I took money out of the machine, and there were $20s and one $5 (which they don't even have in the machines around here -- all you can get is $20s). So after lunch I go back up to the bank, and they readily enough give me a $20 for the $5. I've never had any problems with a bank machine before, and it's weird cuz my mother had the same thing happen to her at a different bank in town a few months ago. She didn't have any problem getting it fixed, either, they say it happens.

So the icing on the cake was when Hubs called me. He was getting ready to do a run to Quebec when lo and behold he broke a spring, then he noticed a big old bolt in one of the tires. So off he goes to see if the tire can be patched, which it couldn't, so $200 later he has a new tire put on the truck. Now I'm waiting to see how much the spring repair bill will be. We've had that done twice before, and I'm sure it will be close to four-digits if not over. Sigh.

On the plus side, I am a totaly geeky tomboy...

Watching it now, waiting for my hamburgers to cook, then I'm gonna knit. Thank goodness for Knit Nite tomorrow night -- I need a pick-me-up.

Happy knitting!

Warm Feet Again!

I have warm feet again. I set all my projects aside for a couple of days while I made myself a new pair of felted slippers. I knit the first one Thursday night while watching my tv shows, and I knit the other one Friday night while watching tv as well. I used two skeins of Patons Classic Wool in one of the new colors, water chestnut. I don't usually do pink, but I wanted a light color cuz of the dog and cat fur. (I vacuum every day, sometimes twice a day, but still, the darned fur is everywhere.) Ravelry details here.

I have to watch it already, though. Hubs arrived home, and I took these off long enough to go outside to help him bring his stuff inside. Maggie was inside, Jewel was outside. When I got back in the house literally two minutes later one slipper had mysteriously disappeared already. Must remember to put them up on my dresser when not in use -- they have my old pair for chew toys, they aren't getting my new ones!! (And for some reason they don't touch anyone else's but mine.)

Jewel decided she wanted to play Bingo with the Littlest One the other night. She must be in the middle of everything at all times!



I'll close today with a video clip. Sorry it's dark, it was raining, and I didn't have any lights on. The tv was kinda loud in the background, but you can still hear Jewel. She wanted a rawhide, and for a good half an hour she ran around the house whining and going on cuz she wanted to hide it somewhere. She kept going to the door cuz she likes to bury them outside, but I won't let them take them outside. She tried hiding it a couple of times in the sofa but I guess decided it wasn't good enough. She eventually settled down and chewed it up.

Happy knitting!