Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Happy Birthday


Say Hello to the birthday girl.




This is our little girl Fancy. She is turning 3 today and is very happy with her big rawhide bone she got today. That should keep her busy for a couple of days. We adopted her about 1 1/2 years ago from our local animal shelter, just a couple of months before my husband deployed. She is the daughter I never had, the barking doorbell I never wanted and the built-in security system that never works. Well, she has her moments, when people get scared of her. She is a chow-chow/golden retriever mix and it depends on how people look at her they see a overgrown Chow and back up or a very fluffy retriever. The worst thing she does to people is clotheslining them with her leash and drooling them to death. :) Otherwise she thinks that everybody is only there to pet her all day long. She also sheds like crazy right now and I always seem to have tumble fur around the house. I was thinking about shaving her for the summer, but didn't do it anyway, even with temperatures of almost 100 here today. Next winter she'll need her fur when she gets to see snow for the first time. I wonder what she'll think about that.


I can also tell you that I'm almost done with the Veste Everest. I only have about 5 more rounds to knit in the second armhole, then I'm done, except for all the ends to weave in.


I'll tease you with another pic here. Let's see what you think about that.

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Monday, July 21, 2008

Mandatory Knitting Break

Today it seems I'll have a knit free day. Not by choice, I must say. I am getting my latest test knit in pieces and got done with the last section yesterday and won't get the next installment of the pattern until tomorrow. I was hoping to piece together the Veste Everest today and finish off the neckline and armholes, but instead I'm doing laundry and fixing blinds.

With only 7 days until the movers are coming to pack us up, there a lots of things to be cleaned out, organised, disposed off and fixed. Today was the day to fix the blinds. I didn't want to wait until the last day, even though I know how "talented" my kids are in breaking them. In nearly every room in the house there was at least one and as many as about 10 blades broken and with 5 big blinds and hearing that the housing office will charge up to 60 dollars a pop to exchange them, it was well worth the effort exchanging the damaged blades and gutting one blind and only putting up one new one, a generous gift from another nice neighbor of mine, that just moved out. I'll hand down my still usable blinds to my other good neighbor for her to fix any of her broken ones. We all gotta stick together here.

Next on the list I'll have to go and reregister out vehicles, which are due next month. First I was going to do this at our next duty station, but doing it here means not having to hassle with it there finding all the necessary papers, which are already on file here. Plus between all the boxes and papers and things that have to be unpacked and put away, I don't want to have to dig for it. I'll just be one of those people, which are not too uncommon in the military, that drive around with out of state license plates for a while. Talk about Georgia on my mind?

Ok. that's enough of a break for now. I'm off to find some more things to organise.

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Recent accomplishments and more yarn

OK, here are some nicer shots of the tumbling blocks baby blanket I finished the other day. I was all excited about this project at first, lost interest in it for a while, found any excuse to knit/ crochet anything else instead, but finally have it done. I hope the kid has not enrolled in school yet. :) I had a teddy bear model for me on this one.

It's made with three different shades of Bernat Softee Baby, you know, the big balls of acrylic yarn you can find at Walmart. I used a size G (4mm) hook for it. The three rows of border made a nice finish to it and seem to pull it all together.

Next is a quicky test knit for Knit Picks in between. I started on it so quickly and had it done in only a couple of days, so I didn't even get to take a yarn shot. Here is a little peek. It will be in the November catalog.
This is what my favorite UPS guy brought me yesterday. Isn't it yummy? 9 different colors of Knit Picks Palette.

This is going to be another "smallish" project for them and will be in the September Catalog. I've been asking for little things to knit, because I didn't want to commit to anything major, since we will be moving soon (how many times have I mentioned that now?) and I didn't want to have to stop unpacking boxes to meet the deadline for a knitting project.
It's shocking, but I actually swatched for this one. Well, I have to do this for my test knits all the time and since I know myself as a loose knitter, I have to go down one needle size on this one two. The designer recommends a size 4 to get 8 stitches per inch. I, as you might be able to see, only get between 6 and 7. Now I switched to a 3mm needle instead (don't have a 3.25 in my stash) and we'll see how this works out.

On other news the Veste Everest was soaking this morning and is rolled up in a towel as we speak/type. Once I'm done with this post I'll torture the poor thing and stretch it to size to block it. Then I only have to add the edging for the neck and sleeves and it'll be done. I absolutely love the yarn I've used. It's RY Cashsoft DK and it's a dream to knit. If it ever goes on sale again (I got this one at Webs), I'll have to stock up on it. I'll post pics of Everst when I'm done with it.

Now back to swatching and blocking.

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Tuesday, July 08, 2008

I'm making progress

Do you see this? You know what that means? I finally had enough of this pattern and decided to finish it. I'm working on the outside border right now. I'm going around with all three colors once, that should do it.
This is a FO from this weekend. I had to give this double knitting a try and found it pretty interesting. At first it was a little confusing until I got the hang of it and I figured out the right way for me to hold the yarn. Then it went pretty smooth and I had this hot pad finished in a day. It can be found on Knitting Help. I knitted this one with 4 mm needles and cotton yarn that Keri sent me, when she was weeding through her stash not too long ago. Thanks. This was a perfect combination of pattern and stash yarn.

Here is the backside of it. Or is it the front? I can't decide which one I like better. Unfortunately I don't think I have enough yarn to make another one just like that one. They are nice and thick and work good as a hot pad or a pot holder.

The reason for this sudden burst of FOs is another FO. I finally got the last test knit off the needles and had to wait for it to dry after a nice soak. To me it turned out perfect, the pattern was easy to follow and I didn't have to check back with Kim at Knit Picks at all. Nice. Just keep your eyes open in the October catalog for something brown. Yeah, like you'll remember that. So you have to excuse me, but I'm off to the UPS store to send out their package and then finish the border on the blanket. See ya.

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

Disney World Pics





We had a fun time at Walt Disney World in Florida, but I think I did more walking in those two days than in a whole week at work. I'm so tired of walking. We got to sit down once in a while too.









We went through all four parks Disney World has to offer in two days. We stayed in the military hotel in the Disney resort and had free bus transportation to all the different parks and Downtown Disney, where all the shops were. This is a view from the hotel.
And the hotel itself.


On the way there we stopped by in Daytona (my husband tried to stop by every bikeshop on the way) and in the parking lot I caught this picture and thought it was pretty cool.



Or course I had my knitting with me and right now I'm about 5 more cable twists away from finishing my test knit. I also did a little crochet in the meantime, just to use up some of my stash leftovers.


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