The Pirate Map

The shawl is blocking, finally. It took nearly all my available pins. I hope she dries fast, because we kind of need our bed for sleeping tonight. The pins are stuck through the cardboard and into our bed.



The green towel is stretched all the way across and taped to the back of the cardboard. It is my favorite blocking towel because it is very big.

This is the pirate map I made:



It is complete with a sea monster and an X to mark the spot. All good treasure maps have sea monsters if you ask me. When I was a kid, I loved pictures of old maps with sea monsters on them.

I can’t believe that it is almost time for school to be out. Next Wednesday is Knitter #2’s last day of preschool. In the fall, it will be kindergarten and riding a real school bus. Fortunately for her it will only be twice a week. She’s a real slow dresser. I made her go to school in her pj’s one day a couple months ago. Her teacher said she wouldn’t speak to anyone for 10 minutes. That child is ALL girl…

That reminds me. Some people may remember the incident back in February when I got tulips that my husband believed were roses on a certain holiday. One of the guys he worked with said “You’re just all man aren’t you?” So, Mother’s Day rolls around and he goes into a local store and finds me a gift he is just sure I will like. Before I tell you what it is, I have 2 things to say. First, my birthday is coming up and I am scared. Second, we are keeping the gift as a reminder. He bought me a mirror with a frosted image of a bull elk bugling. The girl at the store asked him if it was for me or him. I was thinking about getting him a new hd tv for Father’s Day, but now I am wondering if I should get him a spinning wheel instead…

Return of Summer Projects...

Today, I have a picture of my Luna Moth Shawl in its finished-but-not-blocked glory. I plan on blocking it tomorrow.



A few weeks ago, I got my hands on some heavy cardboard and turned into a blocking board. In the current state, the shawl would barely tie around my head. Blocking should make a world of difference.

The Tour de France KAL is coming up in July again. I am thinking about making another Clapotis for it. I’d probably have to buy yarn for it, though. And I am nowhere near my 35 ball goal for Stashalong. Maybe I should come up with something sort of French themed I could make with stash yarn. I could always make something for the girls from one of my Phildar books. Last year I designed a cropped, ¾ sleeve sweater for myself. It was really fun.

It has been hot the past few days, so we’ve had the air conditioning on. For some reason, having the ac on makes me want to knit. I find it odd that hot weather makes me want to knit.

Speaking of the hot summer weather, I got some fabric a while back:



These fabrics are for my youngest. She is in need of some really cute summer clothes. Mommy to the rescue! I kind of need to finish up my spring time projects. I might want some summer tops, too!

I Finished Something!

I can’t believe I hadn’t posted this month yet. Eek. It’s been really, really busy here. After our oldest had her birthday, we went headlong into yard work and gardening. And our lawnmower went south. First it wouldn’t shut off, then it wouldn’t start. We had to borrow a lawnmower to get the yard mowed. I think maybe I am finally starting to catch up on my outdoor work, though.

I finally took a picture of my box of knitting:



This box housed the baby chickens while they were small enough. I washed it out really well before putting any yarn in it. I finished one of my projects this past Thursday. The Luna Moth shawl is done and ready to get blocked. Now I am working on the Happy Hen Sweater. My intent is to get all these languishing projects done, and get back on my one project and a pair of socks happy place. When I get these projects done, I want to do some winter knitting. I hope to do that in June or July and then do some Christmas projects in August. Just some toys for the kids, probably. Right now I am in the list making stage. Don’t we all LOVE to make lists? I do. I am making a Christmas list and a birthday list for Knitter #3.

My toy making has been going pretty well, so far this year. I made the puppet theater that is in Bend the Rules Sewing for Knitter #2’s birthday and she loves it. I also made a pirate map that was my own design. I’ll have to take picture and post it. Maybe it will inspire someone to make something for their favorite kid! I hope so, anyway. It was really fun to make something totally unique like that.

I promise more posts this week!

The Family Tree Needs More Branches...

I had a rather strange experience today. A while back, one of my cousins told me about a family website that contained a will of what would at the very least be our great-great-great grandfather. It was a bit disturbing to read a will bequeathing slaves to various children. At least he specified that children and spouses all went to the same place. When I was a kid my mother lied to us and said Granddad’s family were very poor people and didn’t have slaves. I have a difficult time understanding how people can be treated like livestock. The most disturbing thing of all was seeing that several of my ancestors married and had children with their first cousins. It seemed to explain some of my relatives though.

What a dark, depressing way to start a blog post.

Supper last night was fabulous. I didn’t need to make the fried rice. I worried the soup wouldn’t be filling enough for Brent. He ate half the rice anyway, though. The soup was so easy and filling that I couldn’t believe it. I will definitely make the soup again. It could be a great lunch time choice. Today I picked up some Japanese noodles and tofu for some more adventures with my cookbooks.

I’ve found a box to house my pile of knitting projects. Maybe I will show you a picture when I stuff it with projects.

Intervention, Please

I really think I might need an intervention. There are so many knitting projects in and around my knitting chair, I can’t sit in it. I can’t even bring myself to knit. It seems like I can’t focus on just one project when I am surrounded by so many. I feel pathetic. My plan is to place them all in a box. Patterns and all. Then I won’t SEE them every time I walk through the room and maybe I will get my crap together and get them finished.

Tonight, I am making Chinese food. Fried rice and one piece noodle soup. We are shy on veggies for a stir fry, so starch all around. The soup does have lettuce in it, though. It has been a real cooking kind of day here. At 11 am, it got overcast and felt like a day to stay in and cook. Plus, the lawnmower got all psycho on me. I’ll get into that later. So, today was ideal for baking my sourdough and making cupcakes for preschool tomorrow. I’ll be making the frosting after I finish this post. MMMMMM.

About the lawnmower. As soon I started mowing the yard, it didn’t act quite right. I decided it needed gas and at the time, that seemed to cure the problem. I mowed merrily along until the blade caught some wires for the sprinkler system and cut them. When I tried to shut the mower off, it wouldn’t quit. Thankfully, the wires weren’t still caught in the blade. I decided to keep mowing until I ran out of yard or gas. Fortunately, a clump of grass killed it. I think the cable that runs down the engine must be loose again. Either that or we need a new mower…

A Replacement Toy

Many of my regular people may remember that I bought a fabulous red Kitchenaid mixer the day after Thanksgiving. You may also remember that we had a little electrical problem a while back. It seems that the mixer blew out the GFCI receptacle in our kitchen. There wasn’t a bad breaker. I smelled something funny right before the mixer quit that morning. If you have never had a stand mixer, you don’t know how painful it can be to go without one for a couple weeks. They are addictive the way they do ALL the work. I was so glad to see the UPS man today:



How about some proof that I still knit:



The Happy Hen sweater. I am still almost to the arm decreases. I hoping to at least be almost done with it by the end of the month. It would be a shame to never finish anything for a kal.

And a picture of the Luna Moth shawl:



I haven’t worked on it since my last post. I could easily finish it if I sat down and just put forth the effort.

The reason I haven’t gotten much knitting done lately is that I have a birthday coming up and we had a busy week. We had Kindergarten registration along with the regular stuff. I have spent most of my spare time cutting fabric for some birthday presents for Knitter #2. She will be 5 next week. EEK! It doesn’t seem like I’ve been married THAT long, let alone had children that long. In 2 weeks, we will have been married for 6 years. Time really DOES fly!

Just Me, Again

This month has not been good for me, blog-wise. After all of our sickness, we started soccer. I am an official soccer mom now. I’m not sure how to feel about it. I don’t like being lumped into a group like some automaton. Or a Stepford wife. My oldest is in a beginner soccer where they just teach the kids how to play. It finishes this week, in fact. They don’t have any games, they just play against each other. There are 6 or 7 kids. Some of them are barely 3, so it can be very amusing. Yesterday one of the little girls had to stop playing to run and hide behind the goal because her mom had just gotten there.

I’ve been knitting in all this non-blogging time. I am almost to the armhole decreases on the Happy Hen sweater. I am in the third repeat of the Luna Moth shawl. There are 3 full repeats and then half a repeat. I’m getting anxious to finish it because I’d like to wear it before winter turns to summer here.

Our weather has been lousy for April. The temperatures have been running more than 20 degrees below normal. It really isn’t good for gardening. Today we have rain and I am hoping it will help my peas come up.

Before I go, how about a picture of the tea party we had a while back?



I intend to post a picture of my Crinkle sweater when I can get Brent to take a picture.