Mousie

The new addition to our family needed her very own mousie. According to me, anyway.

Pattern: Catnip Mouse Pattern 5

Yarn: Paton's Classic worsted, small amount

Needles: Um, dpn's size, 6ish?

Enough dry, boring stuff, on to the action shots!

ciao!

Very Little Crafting, Sad and Happy

That pretty much describes my weekend. On saturday, Ceiling Cat decided that he wanted my lovely, ornery Pagan. We loved her and miss her.
Ceiling Cat, however, sent this darling to help heal our hearts:

Everyone, say hello to Elvis!

Fingernail Friday

So Busy I Feel Lazy

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I haven't forgotten about the blog! But the last couple of weeks have been so busy I'm not sure if I'm coming or going! Today was my first day off after a couple of weeks of solid work and I spent it running around town doing errands and getting paperwork together. Yeah. Fun times.

ciao

Contest Winning

This is how I feel about contests


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Needs Blocking Too

I am working away on the hairpin lace shawl. Really. I want to have it done by September. I was looking at it and realized something. Knitted lace needs to be blocked to look it's best. So does crocheted lace. Really. Look at this

That represents 3 strips of hairpin lace joined up plus about half of the fourth strip. Then I need to join the border strip. Which is as long as the other 4 put together. I'd better get a move on...

Ciao

Much Betterer

Second atttempt seems to have worked out gauge-wise. Yippee! My sister christened this project "Liguria" for me....

The above represents most of a long weekend knitting at poolside. Now that's a way to spend a long weekend.

Ciao

Cause I Wasn't High Maintenance Enough

I decided that I was tired of my makeup sliding off my face all summer and wanted to get something that would stay put. Ta da!

Eyelash extensions!

It WAS a Swatch. Sort of

I decided I needed to knit the Shapely Tank on the weekend. The yarn had been bought a few years back with the intention to knit this. When I looked at the pattern, however, it looked too complicated to me. I felt intimidated and set it aside. When I picked up the pattern this past weekend, I wondered what had seemed so difficult. Excitedly I cast on. A swatch was not knitted. The plan was to knit a bit and then measure gauge on the actual garment. About 25 rows in, I checked gauge. It's supposed to be 5 sts/inch. I was getting 6! Which means that the tank would have been about 6 inches too small. Dammit. I frogged it.

It looked lovely and I have high hopes for the final product.

ciao

Sock Knitting

I have been working on my Tofutsie sock in between shifts. This is the insanely busy part of summer for me. Since I do fill in work, summer time is a particularly busy season. in addition, I managed to get out of the the house for 6 days out of 7 for an hour long walk. This translates into a very tired knitter. A knitter that is too tired to knit! So knitting has been slow. BUT. I did get some in. See?

I also did something a little different on this sock. I decreased the gusset stitches on the back of the leg. I also added some stitches further up for my calf.

ciao

Fingernail Friday

Bet ya thought I forgot,eh? Nope, had a case of the tireds yesterday and didn't take any pictures during daylight hours. The night-lit ones looked like crap. So I waited till today's daylight to take the pictures.

My Mind Just Boggled

I am cheating on the blog again. Check out this very weird video:

You Named Your Kid WHAT?

Often in my business, we see unusual names. I found a website that lists some that are hilarious.

For example:

Andreana Calida [last name]
Damita Nicole [last name]
Adoncia Noella [last name]
Kamaria May [last name]
Elliot Ness [last name]

In order: An earthquake fault, a cheesy snack chip, a giant snake, a fried octopus appetizer and an untouchable are not things to name your child after.

If you want to read more, go here.

I'm gonna save this website and read it in little bits fon days that need a cheering up!

Sock Knitting

I am knitting along on my Vanilla Sock. The heel has been turned, extra stitches have been decreased away and now it's time for some soothing round and round. Then there will be some calf increases. But not for a bit....

Sadly, this was the only time I spent on the deck this weekend, The weather was too cool to make it fun. The sun made only sporadic appearances, so the photo shoot was it, for deck time this weekend.

Ciao

Fingernail Friday!

AGAIN???

I have been chugging away at joining the hairpin lace. It is tedious. Not quite as bad as seaming up knitting, but still.....

In other news, I went out to admire my basil, as it is finally getting big enough to admire and saw this:

I didn't see the culprit, but I am willing to be it is a repeat of last year's earwig buffet. This summer has been every bit as rainy and damp as last year's and htat is exactly what mucnched up my plants last year. Bastards.

I potted up some new seeds inside today as a failsafe and am going to try to save the outdoor plant using an organic remedy that a lady on Ravelry said worked for her-take a cheap plastic container like the kind you get sour cream in, poke a few holes in the lid and then put in a mix of half soy sauce and half vegetable oil. Apparently the earwigs like that better and climb in andcan't climb out. Now, to find a plastic tub....

ciao

Second Go Around

I sat down again to attempt the hairpin lace shawl join. This time it does not look like ass! YAY!!! It's gonna be a while to join it all up though. But here, a sneak peek:

Isn't it beeeeyoooootifuuuul?

Ciao

Canada Day

Yesterday was Canada Day,eh? So I did a quintessential summer thing on my day off.

Baseball! Tampa Bay at Toronto. Toronto won. Yay! While there, I did another fun summer thing:Beer! A requirement at a baseball game, no?

Then I took the train home, was felled my a migraine and slept for 13 hours. So most of yesterday was fun, anyway.

Ciao

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