Palate Cleansing Knitting

I decided that even though I hadn't quite finished the last reallly looooooooong hairpin lace strip, that I would start joining the middle strips together. Tried it. Made a dog's breakfast of it. The pattern isn't super clear, so I consulted with a couple of crochet gurus on Ravelry. I am now prepared for attempt number 2. Later. In order to bolster my confidence, I dug out a wip that has been kicking around since April 2008 and am now up to the point where I need to turn the heel

Tofutsies sock yarn on ebony needles. Very nice. The Tofutsies is a bit splitty, so a soothing vanilla sock is just what the doctor ordered. Now if I can just turn the heel with no problems, I will feel competent again!

ciao

Puff Stitch

I am closing in on the end of my hairpin lace shawl. One of the stitches used to join the strips together is called the puff stitch. I had no idea what this was and messaged a nice lady on Ravelry who had nade it already. Turns out puff stitch is a 'regular' stitch in crochet. Who knew? Not me, clearly. At any rate, if I had kept up with my sample making from the book Happy Hooker, I would eventually have come to....you guessed it, puff stitch!

I decided to give it a whirl in a less sensitive situation and made up a swatch. Ta da!

I am expanding my horizons. Woo hoo!

ciao

Fingernail Friday!

Hairpin Lace Shawl Progress Report

The hairpin lace shawl is progressing nicely. I am working on the last strip now. It is as long as the others all put together, though! This one needs to be 1498 loops long. The others were 468.

Here is a side picture. The done strip is 468 loops. The one on the loom is at 890+ loops there. I am not looking forward to the double counting of loops on these. I want to make sure there is the correct number of loops on each strip before I try to join them. So if you see my lips moving, don't talk to me. I'm counting!

Raven will check out anything that hits the floor. Not everything passes muster, as you can see. Romaine lettuce? Not edible

Silly Little Entertainment

Just for fun, go here. It's funny. Really. Truly. Go there. Go NOW!!!! It's safe for work, btw

Do You Know Where That's Been?

Yesterday a lady came in for a prescription. She hoisted her drooling toddler (I presume the kid was teething) onto the counter. Where the kid promptly turned around so his/her feet were pointing at me and proceeded to pick up everything in reach and stuff it in his/her mouth. The scratch pad, the plastic basket, a pen, random forms....thank goodness there were no drugs nearby! Mom was oblivious.

Fast forward. Time to checkout. Mom comes to checkout with drooly baby, 2 bags of potato chips, nursing pads, Smarties and nailpolish. All of which are wet. Not damp, but wet from her kids drool. I had to touch that stuff to scan them out.

The lady did realize she was in a pharmacy, I hope. Where sick people come. So that kid potentially put everything from swine flu to fecal matter in it's mouth. Can you say EEEEWWWWW!!!!? In addition, a nailpolish bottle is narrow enough to get wedged in the kid's trachea. Thus a choking hazard. And nail polish can't be good for you if it comes open.

Also, it is a well known fact that kids are germ factories. Ask anyone who has a kid in daycare. I had to touch that kids spit. It is unhygenic and the ick factor is through the roof. Add in the fact that one of the prescriptions was for the kid, who was, apparently, sick, and the ick factor is multiplied by a kabillion.
Granted, given that I work in the healthcare business, perhaps I am oversensitive, but EEEEWWWWWWW!!! Where's the soap?

Stressed to the Max

Recently, my darling kitty Pagan was diagnosed with CRF-chronic renal failure. Basically, her kidneys are not filtering the way they should and more water is being sent out in her pee than should be. This can lead to dehydration. The vet thought that it was time to put Pagan on subcutaneous fluids. We had it done once at the vets. Then I tried to do it at the vets the next time. This was, ahem, less than successful. Pagan fought like a wildcat the whole time. She even peed. The vet gave me the equipment to do it at home saying that often the cat is much calmer at home away from strange sounds and smells etc.

So I tried it again a few days later at home. Just as big a disaster. She peed again. She fought, she howled. Trying to keep the needle in her and not wiggling around was a battle. . The IV bag didn't seem to have any air in it so it was impossible to tell how much fluid was getting in the cat. All in all, very discouraging. All those websites and people who say that it is easy to give sub-q fluids were obviously dealing with very ill cats or cats who are very laidback normally. There was 2 of us trying to do this to one kitty and it was awful.

So, in distress, I turned to a very common panacea. Chocolate! First, I made a big mess:

Then I tamed the mess into a pleasing shape:

And then...I ate it!

Didn't really solve the larger problem of getting Pagan her fluids, but it sure helped in the short term.

The View Over My Shoulder

Often, when I am surfing the net, putting together blog posts etc, Raven wants to be part of the action too. Lately he has liked to look over my shoulder. The view is thus:

Unless it takes you elevendy twelve attempts to get a good picture. In which case you get the evil eye. Thusly:ciao

Haipin Lace-Halfway?

I am diligently working on the hairpin lace shawl. I have completed 2 strips and am more than halfway through the 3rd one. Which leaves me 2 more after that to do up. One of which is quite long.

ciao

Fingernail Friday

Small Jobs

While working on my hairpin lace project, I'm also turning my hand to other little jobs that have been accumulating. I finished the longer Husband Socks. Gotta get a photo shoot together for 'em. I also fixed a heel on a colleague's sock. Normally I don't do a lot of repair work on handknits for people. If I did, I'd have no time to knit for myself! But I fixed the first sock for her a while back and asked her if the second one was looking a bit thin. The first one had gaping holes. My presumption was that the second sock of the pair was probably getting thin too. And it is easier to darn socks if the basic fabric is still there. Sure enough.... So I fixed it!

Hairpin lace strip #1 is done. Strip #2 is around 63% done.....pictures another day!

Ciao

Today the hubby and Iwent to the grocery store. As we were bringing our food into the house in my tshirt bags, the hubby commented that they were good for carrying stuff, but when you put them down, the stuff tends to fall out since the bags are so slouchy.

I decided to see if I could remedy that a bit. Interfacing might help. but I still want the bags to have stretchiness so they can expand when I put the groceries in . I also have some interfacing kicking around. So I got a couple of scraps of interfacing and ironed them on both sides of the side seam. I just did one bag to see if it makes a difference. No point in doing all the work if it doesn't help the problem any, right?

I also thought that perhaps it would help if we had more bags and didn't have to put so much in them. Recently I did a clean out of my dresser and had set aside a few tshirts and tank-tops to sew up. So I did that tonight too.

There is one more tank-top that I sewed up that didn't make it to the photoshoot. It is smaller and is being used as a lunch bag. The 2 tank-tops I sewed up, I didn't bother to widen the neckline. It looked big enough to me. If it's not, I can always cut it out at a later date.

Hopefully this will hold us over for a bit longer. One day I will knit or crochet up some string bags. One day........

New Cat Toy

(for those of you who are curious the cat toy in question is a Cat Dancer and is very popular around here)

Hairpin Lace Shawl begins

I started my hairpin lace shawl this weekend. The picture shows about 350loops of the first strip. I need 468. It goes rather quickly, if I can get Raven to stop batting at the loom.

ciao for now

Hairpin Lace Project

I am embarking on my first hairpin lace project. Before I make the Lotus tank top, I thought I would try something a little less gauge sensitive. So I am going to make a shawl. This one, from StitchDiva Studios is free. That sounds like the right price for me! Especially for a first attempt. Being a good little crochet keener, I made a gauge swatch. Then the question arose, how, exactly does one measure gauge on this? I read through the Stitch Diva Studios and they, as always, had my back.

This is the wrong way to do it:
This is the right way:

(sorry about the flash photography. It was pouring rain and light was rather nonexistent)

I carefully counted the loops on both sides and found I was getting 9 loops to 1 inch. Which translates to 36 loops per 4 inches. Not the 40 I am supposed to be getting. I could go down a hook size, but this is using a 3.75mm hook and if I go smaller, I suspect I will have trouble with the size of the yarn vs the size of the hook. So instead, I will make fewer loops, that way the strips are the same length called for in the pattern. I did the math and will do 90% of the total loops asked for in the pattern.

Ready, set, LOOP!

Other "Creative" Endeavours

Occasionally I branch out of the usual knitting and sewing creative acts. This is what I did last weekend:

Yup, I gardened. Pulled a ton of grass out of this flowerbed. It was turning to turf! Gave myself sore muscles weeding that all out. Then I planted my standby-marigolds. This bed faces south, gets full sun until about 7pm and is dirt I have added over the years over top of sand. Which means very fast drainage. I need a plant that can survive those conditions and my black thumb. Or perhaps I should say lazy thumb. Every year I tell myself that I will weed regularly etc. That lasts about a month. . Then I pretty much ignore the flowers till the fall when it's time to clean up the flowerbed. I do occasional half-hearted weeding.

That means I need tough plants that can stand the conditions and neglect. Hence, marigolds. which I also like, so it's all good.

What have you planted?

Knitting

Fear not! It is not all crochet all the time around here. I am still knitting. To whit, I am fixing the Mansocks. Hubby wanted them longer. One down, one to go!

Ciao

Start Your Monday off Right

Some light entertainment to get your week kicked off on a good note: