Sunday, July 23, 2006

I found another one...


Yes, it's another UFO. I was actually looking for my 4.5 mm 16 inch addi circ, which I realised I hadn't seen in ages. Anyway, it was found in the sleeve of this UFO. It's Galway Highland Heather in colour 712, and it's a v neck sweater for The Boy with a cabled rib. I don't remember when I started this, but I think that I bought the yarn around Boxing Day at Tangled Skeins and started it right away. Which means it's at least 6 months since I last saw the 4.5 mm 16 inch circular. Hey, does anybody else do that--needle sizes are always metric for me, but lengths are always Imperial! Today has been pretty productive--The Boy went hiking with his grandparents and His Dad went to the race track (not to race--that's a luxury we can't afford now we only have one salary!). So I stayed home and cleaned all those places in your house that you want people to think you clean every week, but you really don't get around to them anywhere near that often. Oh, and I think I'm going to start working on this particular UFO for a while. I'm getting frustrated with the Little Arrowhead shawl, which is what the Tangled Skeins silk/linen was going to be (oh so briefly, and now twice ripped out).

Friday, July 21, 2006

You Are The Wheel of Fortune

You represent the cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
You embrace change, the the ups and downs of life.
Fate is something you accept, even when you could possibly change things.
Big things tend to happen to you more than other people.

Your fortune:

Something huge is about to happen in your life, and you have little control over it.
You must accept your destiny, but luckily it is good fortune that has come your way.
Big things and big changes are about to come your way.
And while things will be intense for a while, they will be followed by a period of rest.



WTF? Yes, it was something huge. No, it wasn't good fortune! And boy am I not embracing it! I'm looking forward to the period of rest though. Bring it on, please!

Life sucks

My DH got laid off yesterday. Well, I don't know if laid off is the right term, maybe dismissed or fired? He and a number of his coworkers were let go, no notice at all, nobody saw it coming, escorted from the building, pay in lieu of notice etc etc etc. Cause the company wasn't meeting its sales predictions. These are people who had been loyal to that place for 8 years, and what do they get? "Thanks a bunch suckers, you've got ten minutes to clear your personal belongings out of here, have a nice life". Life completely sucks, it's like we just can't get ahead. And just when things were starting to go well too, what with his student loan nearly paid off (we won't talk about my student loan though), his new hobby (the race car!), two jobs where we both worked the same hours and had weekends to spend together.

So I guess I'm knitting from the stash for a while.

Heck, my stash sucks too. Life sucks.

Monday, July 17, 2006

My newest socks


Thuja from Knitty. Well, sort of. Different yarn weight and needle size and number of stitches, but I did use the seed stitch rib, which I really like. The blur in the background is The Boy in Motion. Now that he's sleeping through the night every night, he's got a lot of extra energy, and is often a little blurry!

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Never swear in front of a three year old!

So we're all out in the garage helping to unpack the race car. The Boy loves the race car, as you can see from this photo taken at the track:
















Anyway, he's pretending to drive, just like he is in the photo above. His Dad is at the back of the car examining his tyres--I guess it's time for new ones, but I don't want to talk about the cost of new racing tyres (they're street tyres, actually, but special street tyres just for racing. WTF???). Anyway, he's telling me something about them and the F word pops out. As in "Oh, that's another f***ing thing I noticed". Not loudly, not in temper, just conversationally. Well, NEVER swear in front of a three year old. No, never, not even in a whisper. The Boy heard it, yes he did. And calmly informed us that "That tyre is a f***ing ratbag Daddy. That's all f***ing stuff Daddy, f***ing ratbag stuff Daddy". He must have come up with fifteen variations on the words f***ing, ratbag and Daddy. Anyway, I know you're supposed to ignore kids when they swear, that's what the books all say, but it was so f***ing funny to hear this angelic child swearing, and he kept it up for so long with so much imagination, His Dad and I were nearly in tears trying not to laugh!

So, never swear in front of a three year old.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

UFOs

I have uncounted numbers of these right now. I'm usually a one-on-the-needles-and-one-ready-to-go gal. Right now I have something like 5 or 6 on the needles, and another two or three ready to go. I seem to have lost all my direction and perseverance.

First we have these:















Socks for The Boy's Dad. Based on a pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush, they have a p1 k3 p1 k1 rib. Yes, they're boring grey, but The Boy's Dad really isn't much of a one for fancy or coloured socks. Grey he wanted, grey he gets! Sock 1 is a great fit, so he's waiting patiently for sock 2!

Then there's this:














That's the beginning of the Flower Basket shawl. That's lace weight linen from Louet. I like it, and I like the pattern, but it's not something I can knit when I have any distractions. And, to be honest, I'm not often without distractions, what with The Boy and His Dad and The Cats and the TV. And it's NOT knitting I can take to work either, because it's pretty distracting there too!

Then this:















That's a skein of silk and linen from Tangled Skeins, bought with my birthday gift certificate from my lovely sister(she's single, I don't know why, anybody know a single man who likes big dogs? She comes with a rather large akita/malamute cross called Mikey who can eat 2 lbs or raisins at one sitting--ask me, if you're interested, and I'll tell you how raisins come out after a trip through an akita/malamute digestive tract). I don't know what this yarn is going to be yet, but it's desperate to be something. So desperate I spent valuable sock knitting time turning it into a ball (I have a ball winder, but I prefer to wind by hand with the nostepinne, it's something very soothing, and I'm striving to wind the perfect centre pull ball without a ball winder).

Then this:















Oh my. I had some sort of idea that I could design my own Boy sized Aran. See my colour coded running markers? I still think I can design my own Boy sized Aran, but there's so much other knitting calling my name! What's happened to me? I used to start one project and then, get this, work on the same project until I was finished.

And this:














It's 100 % merino from Tangled Skeins that's going to be the Waving Lace socks from Interweave Knits, some 2004 issue, don't remember which. The book underneath it, if you can read upside down, is Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison. Yes, for those of you who know Angus (of Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging Fame), Angus and Georgia are back and haven't changed one bit in book 7.

And these are just the ones I'm admitting to! The others are too embarassing to post pictures of (acrylic!).

Anyway, we spent all weekend moving furniture around and rearranging the house so that the computer is now on the main floor, and we have, get this, separate bedrooms for The Boy and His Parents! Yes, The Boy has packed his toddler bed and moved on to bigger and better rooms of his own. We rescued a room downstairs that was basically a pile of crap, ours and that left behind by the MIL, FIL, and BIL, when they all moved out before we moved in. My advice--if you move into a place that your in-laws have just vacated, make sure they take their junk with them as well as their good stuff, or you'll never be able to fit your own junk in cause you're starting off with a house full of their junk! And now that the computer is on the main floor, I might actually be a good little blogger and blog a little more often.

And now, because he's beautiful, here's The Boy!















Yes, he's learning to drive. That's his Auntie LaLa that he's trying to mow down. Don't worry, she got away. The jeep came from the side of the road on garbage day. We've painted it so that it's original owners won't recognize their trash being driven by my child.

And for obligatory cat content:















Yes, that's Angus, with stuff on him. Including The Boy, if you look closely. This might have been destined for Stuff on My Cat , but I think we can do better! Honestly, he's not normally that grumpy looking! See my to-be-read pile way in the background? That's why I like knitting that I can do while I read!