Sometimes an Eye Roll Says It All

I made a post on Ravelry a few days ago about having games and cartoons on my iPad to keep my kiddo busy when we're stuck waiting at various appointments and the like. She responded back saying something like to think she gave use to give her kids animal crackers to play with and I jokingly responded that animal crackers are a think of the past. I noticed I actually got disagrees for that comment. Seeing the disagrees I rolled my eyes and started laughing. Disagrees on Ravlery don't bother me one bit and generally I ignore them. Why would I give a crap over the opinion of someone I don't know there are times when I don't give a crap about opinions from the people I love and cherish. Everyone has an opinion but for goodness sake if you're going to disagree at least post why in the world you disagree. Don't stand behind your anyonmous little click like a chicken butt. Stand  up and state why you disagree. (insert the eye roll)

I for one have never been big on giving my kids food to play with. Frankly it's just not interesting enough to hold their attention for more then a few seconds, not to say that my kids haven't danced their animal crackers around in the air before eating them but they never really played with them. I've found that crayons, Nintendo DS's, and iPads to be much more effective. I've taught my kids that playing with your food is rude and shouldn't be done. I mean seriously I'm not a germaphob. I don't run around with antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers wiping hands left and right but we do take a few normal precausions like wiping down shopping carts. That's not being over cautious that's just using common sense. Do you all know how germ ridden a clinic/hospital waiting room is? Very germy when you think about all the sick people that walk through those areas. Doctors and nurses can't run around disinfecting things after sick people have left. That would just be absolutely crazy. Now picture a small child playing with their animal crackers on the chairs that sick patients have sat in and then picture that same child putting said cracker into their mouth to eat it. I have seen this on multiple occasions and to say the least it's nasty and those parents are the ones sitting back wondering why little johnny and janey are sick all the time. Don't get me wrong my kids get sick. It can't be helped it's going to happen but my kids aren't constantly sick.

Ok, rant overwith. Time to move on to the knitting related portion of the post. I finished Shawn's sweater and it doesn't fit him. So it's now my sweater and I'm knitting him a top down raglan sweater out of Miss Babs Yowza. 

I think he's getting the better end of the deal since he's getting a sweater made out of soft handdyed yarn. The colorway is Denim. I love Miss Babs yarn and the Yowza skeins are awesome. It's her worsted weight yarn and it's sold in huge 8oz skeins. There's approximate 560 yards on each skein. I have 4 skeins but I'm not sure if I'll need to crack into the 4th skein.

My Feb YOSS socks are coming along nicely. 

I'm just going to keep knitting until I have a nice long sock. I'll most likely have enough yarn to make a pair of socks for Bree and add a new square to the sock yarn blanket. These are definitely not getting finished for Feb so I'll probably knit on them through March too.

I've gotten some goodies in the mail since my last post. 

These will be the last of the yarn for now.  Well not completely since I get paid in yarn from Woolgirl for my test knits and I did sign up for the Twisted Fiber Art sock club. So for March, April and May I'll get a skein of self striping sock yarn from them. I really really need to work on using up some of my stash. The two mini skeins in the upper left hand corner are Miss Babs yummy toes yarn. They're going to be paired with some dark pink Miss Babs sock yarn to make a pair of Choix Entrelac socks for myself. I test knit these socks awhile back for Miss Babs and Woolgirl and now I'm going to make a pair for myself. The two solid/semi solid skeins are Wollmeise from the last TLE update. The purple is Der letzte Versuch and the pink one is roter Himbeermund. The two colorful skeins are Twisted Fiber Art sock yarn. The top one is Crush on the Tasty base which is a merino/cashmere blend and Haunting is on the Playful base which is 100% superwash merino. 

 Last night I had Shawn help me with this. 

I took one of the little keys that is used to tighten your Knit Picks Options needles and altered it a bit. I had this stitch marker or whatever it is that had a little stretchy band on the end instead of the normal metal loops that I never used. Well I had Shawn tighten down the looped end of the key around the band part of the marker so that I have something that is easier to pick up. I don't know about you but I have a hard time picking up those tiny little things. This makes it easier to pick up.

I also got some lovely additions to my fiber stash. The top one is from TLE and it's dyed by Enchanted Knoll Farms. The bottom was a trade with a lady on Ravelry for a bunch of my worsted weight wool leftovers. It's 1 pound of Copper Moose Colonial top. 

I leave you with an introduction to our newest family member.

Meet Stormy our white faced cockatiel. We're not sure if Stormy is a male or female but we'll know tomorrow because PetCo has the paperwork to give us that has all that information. Apparently they haven't been doing their job very well when they sell birds because we were suppose to get paperwork with all the info on the bird like hatch date, DNA test that shows if it's a male or female, the breeder the bird came from, etc. Stormy is a loveable little bird. 

Happy Crafting!

A Little of This and That

As I type it's a balmy -22F outside. Yes folks, the extreme cold is back again.....brrrrr. It's suppose to warm up a bit this weekend and snow some more. I was reading in the paper the other day (before this last snow storm dumped a good 3-4 inches of snow) that we'd already seen 27.5 inches of snow in the month of Feb. So with the last storm we should be up above 30 inches and then it's suppose to snow all weekend too. Wonder if we'll hit 40 inches. These snow totals are not normal for Feburary. Our average snow total for Feb is around 7 inches. I don't think we've quite broke the record yet but I think we're getting close.

Lets see, what have I been up too. Well there was a test knit which I can't show you but I have been working on my Feb YOSS socks.

They're my basic toe up recipe. I'm past the heel now but I'm to lazy to take a picture. The yarn is Twisted Fiber Art Kabam! in the Saucy colorway. I have to say they're my favorite handdyed self striping yarn pusher. I love how their colors blend. I was lucky enough to get a spot in their sock yarn club. 

I've also been working on Shawn's sweater and am almost done with the hood. I've decided that when I'm done with the hood I'm going to rip back the sleeves a few inches to make them wider. Their going to be way to small for Shawn's arms.

I finally got a cup holder for my spinning wheel (Etsy site).

I've been wanting one of these for while now but kept putting it off. When we moved the living room around I lost my spot to put my cup when I'm spinning. So the cup holder was kind of important. I won't be spinning with an open topped cup because I don't want fuzz in my drink. I have several cups with lids that I'll use I just happened to have a cup of iced tea when the box came in. 

I'll leave you with a picture of Bree and Penny chillin in my rocking chair. 

I'll be back soon with a new blog post. I finally found the perfect buttons for my Cassidy Cardi and should get them in the mail very soon.

Crazy Weather

The 10-12 inches of snow we had the other day is just about gone and the weather has warmed up. Of course with that warm weather we've been having high winds but at least it's not freezing right now. The constant up and down of the temps/weather is killing my joints. Any time there is a major fluctuation in the weather my joints start hurting and it takes several days to start feeling normal again. I think the cold is suppose to be back toward the end of this week. 

Silly me, I looked up the weather for Boise, ID and wished I was there instead. Our cold and snow are coming back while they're stay it bit warmer. I'm so ready to go home it's not even funny. I do find it odd at times that this So. Cal girl (born and raised) now calls Idaho home. I have the chorus from the Beach Boys song Sloop John B stuck in my head....let me go home, Let me go home, I wanna go home, let me go home, why don't you let me go home. Anyone who has every gazed upon my iPod will say without a doubt that I have a very eclectic taste in music. My iPod is a very crazy mix of music that includes music from the Beach Boys, Kenny Chesney, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Temptations, Patsy Cline, Metallica, George Jones, Lenny Kravitz, Alannis Morissette  and on and on and on. Although Rascal Flatts and Kenny Chesney have the biggest play time on my iPod and country is the largest selection of music on there. Kenny Chesney's No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem is my happy song. There's just something about that song that makes me smile every time.

I'm working like crazy on Shawn's sweater. 

It now has both sleeves.....woot! I'm working on the hood right now although it's on hold for the next few days while I finish up a test knit. I'm so close I can almost taste it, which is a silly thing to say since it's a wool sweater and wouldn't taste good at all. I swear on all that is holy Shawn will wear this damn thing even if he has to lose 50 pounds to do it. Actually the only thing I'm worried about is the sleeves. I think I'm going to have to rip back about half the sleeve and work less increases because the sleeves seem a bit skinny. I've already cut out at least 8 decreases but I think the sleeves are still going to be snug. I know it's going to block out a little bit wider after it's washed if the measurements are correct from my gauge swatches. This sweater has taken me almost 2 years to finish. It's mostly because it's nothing but cables so it's a labor intensive pattern, very well written but very labor intensive. I kept throwing it to the side for more desirable projects that don't require as much concentration. Not to self when knitting sweaters for Shawn, pick something with less cables. Lots of cables for kids sweaters, good....lots of cables for dude that needs a 50" chest size sweater, bad!

I recieved my TLE swap package.

It was full of yummy goodies (the girls and I killed the homemade peanut butter cookies in nothing flat), a lovely neckwarmer (l love neckwarmers/cowls), and Dream in Color Smooshy. I have an obsession with DIC Smooshy, well actually I love their worsted weight too. I think the only other two yarn brands I might have more of are Zen Yarn Garden and Miss Babs.

I ordered a few things from Knit Picks. 

The books were on sale so I went ahead and picked them up. To round out the order I picked up a skein of Chroma sock yarn to try, a smaller niddy noddy, and some extension connectors to make longer cables....I probably won't use them often but it'll be nice to have them on hand when I need them instead of waiting for them to get here in the mail. I went ahead and paid for the extra shipping. It was a slurge since I normally go for the snails pace shipping. It's the last time I'll do that. I forgot how absolutely stupid my Fedex delivery guy is. I normally don't deal with him because he only handles the express mail package and most stuff I buy goes FedEx ground. They lady who delivers the ground packages is awesome. The idiot delivered the package to my neighbor across the street whos house number looks nothing like mine. We thought the package was stolen off our door step (something that has never happened to us since we've been here) and we were afraid that the new water delivery guy might have been the one to do it. Thankfully my neighbor came home a few hours later and brought the package to us. The quicker shipping was sooooo not worth the extra headache.

I also got my TLE order in the other day. 

I had like $55 in store credits which if I spent it all it would be close to free shipping so I decided to throw in enough stuff to make sure I got free shipping. The roving is Perchance to Spin Polworth wool (haven't tried that one yet), a skein of bright Trekking XXL (you know how I love me some self striping), the newly dyed Loopy Legends in the MomSue's Yellowstone Sunset (Lorna's Laces is now dying the Loopy Legends colorways), and a skein of Bugga in the Miss Spider colorway.

Here's a shot of the old Loopy Legends next to the new one (new one is on top and old below it).  

They're both lovely but I think I like the skein died by Lorna's Laces. Sue has been a good friend of mine for a few years now and I hope that this summer I will be able to visit with her. Shawn and I are planning on a weekend trip to Yellowstone with the girls this summer. Lets hope that the military doesn't screw it up with another stupid inspection.....I have a feeling that they will though. I couldn't resist getting the new skein of her colorway. It's so gorgeous. I've seen sunsets here similar to the ones she sees in Wyoming and they're so beautiful you can't help but stop to look at the sky. They're so full of pinks, purples and yellows. Montana's not called Big Sky Country for nothing. The wide open sky make for some very gorgeous sunsets and on a clear day the blue goes on for miles and miles. 

I can finally post a picture of the socks I knit for my swap pal. 

The pattern is WonderWings (Ravelry) and the yarn is Fiber Optic Foot Notes sock yarn in the Smoky Teal Batik colorway. She loved her socks and the whole package I put together for her. I was so happy to hear that the package was an absolute sucess.

I'll leave you with a shot of Penny crashed on the couch. 

I'ts so hard being a puppy. I can't believe how big she's getting. She's 4 months old and weighing in close to 30 lbs. 

 

Happy Crafting!