Check out the wildlife...

Look what I found, poised to snack on some leaves....

Bronty the knitted dino in his natural habitat.

Did he see our hidden camera?

He emerges from the jungle!

Little Man has claimed Bronty as his own, since "Mr. Stegs needs a friend". I love knitting up these dinos, they are so cute and such quick projects. Bronty took about 2 hrs to knit and another 45 min to seam up.

I've also been spinning here and there. This is some BFL I dyed myself using a crockpot. I think I might have felted it somewhat, since there are parts that are really hard to draft.

Still working on my Flower Basket Shawl as well. I would post a pic, but honestly if you've seen one unblocked shawl on the needles, you've seen them all. Same with my Pinwheel Blanket....it just grows and grows but it doesn't look like much.

Monkey Boy enjoys his first teething bisquit

I need another project....

...like I need a hole in the head.

So why am I looking at learning to crochet? Probably because I was stupid enough to pick up Candy Blankies, which has the cutest, most lovely baby blankets I've seen in a long time. I've heard that crochet is faster than knitting. That means it's ok to pick up another fabric hobby and start another project, right?

(You may lie to me. I don't have a problem with that.)

Warning- random stuff ahead:
Did you hear about the Giant Melting Popsicle?

And look at the GORGEOUS stick pins that Cassi made. I so want to make some of these. It looks like fun: shrinky dink plastic and colored pencils....I think even Little Man might have fun helping me.

Still plugging away on my FBS. I'm on repeat #6 of the 7 repeats and it doesn't look big enough. I think I'll do at least one more set of repeats....Hopefully I will have time to post a pic tomorrow.

Guess who's got his first tooth????

I'm just as surprised as he is.

Your Public Service Announcement....

PSA for today: Do NOT drop a can of beans on top of your foot.
Why?
Cuz it HURTS and your foot will look like this:

Let's just say that I'm wearing flip flops for a while.

Ouch.

The start of my Flower Basket Shawl. I'm using some silk/merino that I handpainted. The pattern calls for double stranded alpaca, but I had this stuff laying around so there you go. I cast on for the FBS Saturday and had a heck of a time figuring out the strange crocheted cast on. Then I did all of the first chart and made a huge mistake at the very beginning of the second chart. So I ended up ripping out everything and starting over. This is the second try.

I am really liking the way this looks so far. Becky had some great tips for getting started with the FBS and keeping track of the repeats. I found her advice was wonderful for figuring out the weird crocheted cast on.

Baby Toes

Why are they so cute?

I guess this part is cute too.

We found a volunteer tomato plant in our planter box last month. The last time I planted tomatoes was well over 2 yrs ago, so I have no idea what kind of tomato this was. Then Little Man pointed out the 'tennis ball'- which turned out to be a yellow tomato! I remember planting these at some point, but I can't remember the name. Oh well- we'll let this one ripen and then we'll try it (if the bugs don't get to it first).

Found....

I had totally forgotten about these two Asian soup spoons until Little Man found them in the cutlery drawer.

Aren't they the cutest? It cracks me up tho, wondering who in the world thought that little Asian boys playing ping pong look good on spoons. I mean really, was the guy at the Asian Spoon Company sitting at his desk going "I'm tired of flowers on my spoons. Everyone has flowery soup spoons. What would be different? Wait! I know! Little boys playing ping pong would look so cool!"

I dunno, but Little Man loves these spoons and every time we have pho he asks for his "pwing pon pwayer spoon". I've looked high and low in different Asian markets and never come across another set of spoons like this. If I did, I would buy a bunch....and maybe plates if they had them!

The Artiste

Little Man wanted green paint- this is what resulted when I told him to mix yellow and blue together to make green.

"My art is Serious Work"

Little Man got tired of painting on his paper and decided to do some body painting instead. You should have seen his other arm when he was done!

Yikes-

Another quake.

I just about jumped out of my skin once I realized that it *was* a quake and not Little Man jumping off the couch. It was a 5.3, centered in Yuciapa/Big Bear (high desert). Not as strong as the quake we felt on Sunday (5.2), and this one didn't shake as long for us.

At least everyone here is ok. Earthquakes freak me out alot more now that I have little ones to worry about!

FOs...

My Lace Up Cami from the Spring issue of Vogue Knitting.

It was actually a pretty easy knit, but the pattern was horrendous. I've talked to other knitters and the general agreement seems to be that Vogue patterns SUCK. I found a mistake in the very first row of the Cami pattern, and math was off for the armholes. I also had to single crochet around all the upper edges because the 1x1 ribbing was way floppy. The tank wears well, tho!

A closeup of the pattern over the bust. I actually added 2 repeats to this part because I'm *alot* bustier than the model and the original would have barely covered me up.

Our lovely June Gloom and the reason why my pics are all a little blurry.

An in progress shot of the Pinwheel Blanket. My fingers are for size comparison.

Blurry pic of a quickie scarf I knitted out of novelty yarn. It's just a drop stitch pattern I made up myself.

I survived...

The Cold is finally leaving- tho I'm left with a lovely hoarseness and plenty of snot as a parting gift. At least I am feeling less like something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe these days. Unfortunately, DH is in the midst of The Cold himself, poor guy.

Sis' wedding was beautiful. I should have taken more pictures, but between chasing Little Man around, dealing with The Cold, holding Monkey Boy and helping with the floral arrangements, I was too darned busy to pull out the camera. Since Sis had a pro photographer there, I'm sure we'll get plenty of pics.

Sis and new BIL are moving to Las Vegas next week and I'm not too happy about it. While Sis and I have not always gotten along (there was the time we chased each other around the house wielding hairbrushes like weapons in high school....), the older we get, the closer we are. New BIL has been especially wonderful for Sis and I'm sad that the two of them will be leaving us. I know they will be back often to visit, but it's not the same as having her 20 minutes away. Luckily they bought a house with a good sized guest room so I'm sure we'll be out to see them soon.

Now for knitting content...

I did manage to finish my Sweet Tart Cami before the wedding. I was the LYS, learning to single crochet around the arms and ribbing that morning and weaving in ends right before we left. I am very happy with the Shine yarn. It held the stitch definition nicely, has a wondeful drape and has already survived being washed & dried in the machine without incident. I think more Shine will be finding its way into my stash soon.

Still working on the Pinwheel Blanket. I had to get 4 more skeins of Koigu, but I'm not sure that I'll end up using it all. I want the blanket to be at least 30 inches in circumferance so it's big enough to be really useful. Right now it's only about 20 inches wide so I have a ways to go.

I just cast on for Butterfly using Noro Silk Garden#206. I forgot how rough SG is when you are knitting with it. It softens up a lot once it's been washed but man, is it hard on your hands!

I've been looking at knitting a shawl lately, and of course that means I need to buy some pattern books: A Gathering Of Lace is currently sitting on my nightstand and I've got Folk Shawls on its way to me. I wanted to do the Flower Basket Shawl from the fall 2004 issue of Interweave Knits, but of course that's the *one* issue that I haven't purchased. Look at this lovely version, and Felicia's pretty purple FBS.

I'll try to post pics tomorrow; the weather has been awful here for the past few days. It's cloudy and drizzling in the morning and we haven't seen the sun for nearly a week now. It *is* June, isnt' it?

UGH

I'm sick.

blech

Little Man ran a fever for a day or two over the weekend and is now feeling fine. *I'm* the one who's sniffling, coughing and whose teeth ache from mega sinus pressure.

Hence the lack of blogging.

*sigh*

Well, I have been knitting like a madwoman on my Sweet Tart Cami (redux). I really want to get it done before my sis's wedding on Saturday. I don't know if it's going to happen tho- there's some crocheting work to be done around the neckline and I have no idea how to crochet. I might be down at the LYS begging crochet lessons Saturday morning!

Hopefully I'll start feeling better soon and will be able to post some pics....

Off to take some more echinacea and vitamin C.

Oh. My.

Well just when you think you've seen everything....
(not G rated)

Check this out

And this


Don't say I didn't warn you.

(Tho I *love* the name of that last site-- "Crochet My Crotch"!

The $1200 'Coon

The A/C in my car quit working this last Monday, so I took it in yesterday for service. It should have been under warranty, but they called me this morning to tell me that my warranty wouldn't cover the damage.

Damage? What damage?

Umm....remember that raccoon I ran over not so long ago? The one that was the size of a Cocker Spaniel? And the "strange vibration" I was feeling from the engine afterward?

I guess hitting a 25+lb raccoon at 50 miles an hour will do a lot more damage than you think. The guys at the dealership said that my radiator and A/C condensor have been pushed up into the engine compartment and there's also some stuff knocked out of whack on the undercarriage. The car also needs re-alignment and some body work.

All to the tune of *at least* $1200.

(pick me up off the floor at this point)

So I call my insurance company and talk to them and thank goodness it's all covered under my comprehensive plan. (Can I just say that I heart my insurance co? Really, they're wonderful- the first thing that the woman on the phone asked me was "Are you ok?" and she sounded pretty sincere!) We have a $250 deductible but at least the rest of it will be covered. So I'm without a car for a week....maybe I'll actually get the house clean!

On a much brighter note, guess what I saw when I came out of the office this morning?

Little Man had pulled one of his kiddo chairs up to my wheel and started treadling.
The evidence:

I couldn't believe he actually had his feet moving in sync on the treadles. Not only that, but he used his feet to stop the wheel and then used a hand to get it started again (just like me! LOL)