Finishing weekend

It's been another frigid weekend. That makes for good weather to stay in and finish long postponed projects!


The most recent Baby Surprise Jacket was sewn together, buttons and all.



















Two baby sweaters that waited patiently for a very long time, had their buttons attached
.

Paul's Retrofit sweater became a finished, zippered sweater.

He modeled it, then promptly sat down to read. I guess he likes it!

(It is much better, now that it's the proper gauge, isn't it?)









My Rogue sweater got the sleeves sewn in, and the zipper inserted.

Girl of the House models it. She might borrow it, but it's too big for her, really.

Well, that took close to a year to complete. Whew...









And the "Easter Egg" roving was plyed, and is hanging to dry.

280 yards, 167 grams.












By the way, if you think using a tear away stabilizer would make zipper insertion easier, be really sure it tears away easily!

Also, a good tweezers is also a useful knitting accessory!

Just saying...

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, if you know what I mean...

Fun new stitch markers that I received in my Christmas stocking.













Bonus points if you know what they refer to!


The Baby Surprise Jacket is almost complete.

Just a few more rows, then I can sew it together. (My least favorite part.)







I messed around with the new camera at sunset.

I've a sort-of mentor, Ordinary Girl. She's upgraded her camera fairly recently, and takes extraordinary photos. She sets the bar high!

But I watch, I learn, I grow.

ADD continues

I feel as if I shouldn't really say ADD, but can't come up with more appropriate wording.

Forgive me...

But I'm still skipping 'round, project to project.

I spent Friday evening spinning, while we watched "A Fish Called Wanda". (One of our favorites.)

This is the last bit of crockpot dyeing - the easter egg colored bits of BFL. Only plying left!






I started a Baby Surprise Jacket with the recently dyed turquoise/chestnut superwash merino.

The colors are not photographing very true. The pictures of the skein were more accurate.
(Why is that? Same camera, same photographer, same technique.)






There was a nice surprise in the mail.

This is the December fiber from Chameleon Colorworks.

A lovely superfine merino/tencel blend.


More to spin. YAY!

March is Food Shelf Month in Minnesota.

My hospital does many things to raise money for the food shelf. One of our activities is a silent auction. I entered this little baby Surprise Jacket that's been marinating with my stash.

I was quite pleased when it sold to one of the execs for $25. Not too bad for something knitted out of leftovers!


Several people asked if I would knit a baby sweater for them. I'll have to contemplate that a bit. It would have to be for pleasure. There certainly isn't enough money in the proposition, as all you hand-crafters know!

We're off to Texas for spring break. It's snowing like crazy right now, and scheduled to continue. We're taking the camper, so we don't know if we'll leave this evening or Saturday morning. Have to check the weather in more depth later!

cool geocaching on a sunny WARM day

Saturday, while the Girl of the House was on her choir trip, Paul and I did 11 geocaches. A new one day record for us! We geocached our way from Owatonna to Burnsville while running a variety of errands.

We ended with a very cool series of geocaches that had the most challenging hides we have ever come across.

Can you see this geocache?

It's the branch running parallel to the trunk of the tree. It's woven in and out of the other branches, holding it in place. The actual cache is a film canister stuck into the end of the branch.


How 'bout this one?

Look way above Paul's head, in the hole in the tree. We needed to use a long forked branch to snag it out.





This was the most difficult one of the day.

Paul climbed the tree, then used another long forked branch to reach way over his head for the cache. It was another film canister, stuck in a piece of branch, hanging from another branch. It was at least 20 feet up in the air. If the trees had leaves on them, I don't think we'd have found it.









Today, the little dog had a bath. GotH snuggled him up to warm and dry him.










The knitting is finished on the Baby Surprise Jacket.

Now on to the seams and buttons!

Shiny little blue zircons

No school today - President's day!

We had a girls day out. Girl of the House got her ears pierced. Or perhaps, I should say, re-pierced. They'd been pierced in kindergarten, but due to lack of interest, she let them grow shut. She chose the blue zircons - what Claire's passes off as the December birthstone.

We each got a new pair of shoes. (I will be ready for this new job!)

We did one geocache. We were thinking about a few more, but the windchill was sub-zero.

So we went to see Enchanted. We both enjoyed the movie. (But isn't $11.50 for two matinee tickets an obscene price? And then, add popcorn and an icee to it - we walked out with 75 cents change from a twenty - YIKES!)

We went to JoAnn's and got buttons, embroidery floss, and sewing thread for our crafts. GotH wants to make a few button bracelets. We stopped at Half-Price Books and left with five books. We hit PetSmart for Chip-puppy food and visited with the rabbits, gerbils, ferrets, mice, rats, guinea pigs, snakes and lizards. Gotta see 'em all!

We hit Knitter's Palette and I got some sock yarn. I was looking for some washable wool, but nothing quite suited. We went to Penzey's Spices for Cajun spice mix for the jambalaya we want to make.

Then we stopped at Leeann Chin, and brought supper home. Yay Leeann Chin!!

Sunday, Paul and I got out and finished placing our three part geocache in the Carleton Arboretum. We though it had been appropriately placed last weekend, but when we went to publish it, the second stage was too close to another cache. We hiked out and moved it. It was a nice enough morning, we saw many skiers and hikers. We felt a bit stealthy, trying not to be observed.

However, we weren't as stealthy as the beaver who's been eating up the trees down by the river. This looked to be fresh beaver dinner. We also saw one sneaky deer, hunkered down in the tall grass, pretending he was invisible.













When we came home and made brunch, this deer decided to join us. She walked right up to the bird feeder outside the kitchen window and started to snack on the sunflower seeds. This feeder is about eight feet from the house.


Baby Surprise Jacket continues. Not too much more to knit!

100th Geocache

We had company in the front yard and driveway this morning. There were a total of five of these beauties.







Girl of the House had her summer soccer tryouts at Shattuck/St. Marys school today. While she was there, Paul and I grabbed a few caches in Faribault.








When she was finished, we hit Dairy Queen for a fun treat. Then we headed back to the Cannon River Wilderness Park for our 100th cache. It was only right that she should be with us for our milestone find.

We started geocaching on Mother's day 2007. One hundred caches in nine months makes us happy!




I went shopping with my own personal shopper (a co-worker of taste with an honest voice) last evening. I now have at least one week of clothing to wear for my new job. And a nice solid base to grow on.

So, there wasn't much knitting. But the Baby Surprise Jacket did grow a bit on Thursday evening. Let's see how much we like the yellow stripe, eh?

How much SALT do we possess?

I went to make some lentil soup for supper last night. Going through the cupboard, a sudden question arose. "Holy cow, how much salt DO we have?"

I pulled it all out to have a look.

Yes, we have six kinds of salt in our cupboard! And that doesn't include the salt grinder on the table.

Rock salt for the grinder, kosher salt for cooking, the old classic Morton's salt (dated as opened in 2004 - does salt go bad?), iodized sea salt, canning and pickling salt, and finally the salt grinder brought in from the camper for the winter. Yikes!

So we had some yummy lentil soup with smoked sausage for supper and waited for the big snowstorm they promised was coming.

And waited, and waited... The big snow storm went to the North and South of us. We got about a half inch.




See, I TOLD you there wasn't going to be any more snow for us!


The Baby Surprise Jacket grew a bit more.







I guess I'm postponing casting on for the body of Osterdalen.

Four months to the finish line

Well, I finished the knitting on this Baby Surprise Jacket in May. It was a very quick, enjoyable knit. It languished in the UFO pile for four months! Yesterday, sitting snuggled up on the couch with my cold, I finally sewed the seams and attached the buttons. I can't believe it took me this long!

This is my first Baby Surprise and I'm sure I'll make more. It's a good use of partial yarn balls. I really like the Cottage Creations Babies and Bears sweater, too.

Still cool weather today, and I'm home from work with my cold. You wouldn't want a nurse with laryngitis and a cough when you're having surgery, would you?

The boy is HOME!

Ben is home from college! He returned last evening in time for supper. Yes, this is how he showed up - shirtless. Apparently it was warmer in Iowa. (Only 55 degrees here) Didn't take him long to put on more clothing.

He'll be home for about two weeks before he's off to camp for the summer. He'll be the boating director/camp counselor at YMCA Camp Pepin. This will be his fourth summer as a staff member there.
He truly loves being at camp.





I made some felted clogs for a friend at work. Plymouth has come out with Galway Paint. I couldn't resist these colors. They're in the wash right now, being shrunk up..

This is my sixth pair of these in 2007!










I've got the knitting done on the Baby Surprise Jacket. I need to do a bit of weaving, sew the seams, and find some buttons. It was a fast and easy knit, gotta love some mindless garter stitch!










And the kittens are growing. The mamas moved them. They now live under our front steps. It's a bit hard to crawl under and get much of a picture, but here's a picture. Three weeks old, more or less.

Small projects

The Lorna's Laces socks are moving along, albeit slowly. These are my carry around project. Got a handy new small bag at Target in the dollar area. Yeah, put small cheap fun things right by the door, and you've got me!

The foot is done on size 0 needles. The ankle is on size 1. I plan to knit til the ball is gone, but I've got quite a bit left - maybe I'll give in and bind off soon.




The Baby Surprise jacket. I'm inventing the stripes as I go along. So far, I'm pretty satisfied.

Last evening I sat on the deck as the air cooled (It was 92 degrees yesterday!) and knit. Sitting quietly, knitting, invites the Girl of the House to chatter away extensively to me. I learn quite a bit about fifth grade friendships and social politics. I remember how terrible middle school was with social politics, and it is already beginning. Not sure I'm looking forward to the whole middle school experience next fall...

Broken body parts...

The Girl of the House broke her arm on Saturday. Ben was home from college, and they were jumping on the trampoline together. She didn't fall off, just landed on her wrist wrong on the trampoline. No tears, just "My arm really hurts".

Off to the ER for a quick xray. Fractured radius and a chip out of her ulna on the right arm. Temporarily splinted. We saw the orthopod Tuesday, and now she has a bright blue cast from hand to over the elbow. With all the wonders of modern technology, it's made of fiberglass and lined with gore-tex cast padding, so she can get it wet! Yay for bathing!!!

No soccer for 3 weeks. Well, he said she could work on her ball handling skills, but no running or actually playing the game. Unluckily for her, the first traveling soccer game is next week.



I've knit a bit more on the Wallaby, up into the placket. It's always a bit tricky putting a second color on the placket when working in the round. (Just don't look TOO closely on the inner side...)











I started a Baby Surprise Jacket out of Encore. I have never knitted one. Only have the very beginning, and can't quite picture the assembly, but I know that's a frequent issue with this pattern. I've got lots of fun colors to put in.

I like Encore for gift baby sweaters - it's machine washable and dryable, and doesn't pill.