Three things I absolutely love

My husband Jeff

Summer

The pit group furniture.


Okay, so the first one doesn't require any explanation. The second one is tied very tightly to the first. The third one will be an enigma to those who don't know me very well.


Since my husband is a teacher, he has summers off. So not only is summer the time we get to take vacations (like the one to Disney and Savannah from which we just returned, pictures are coming) it also is a time of year when we are able to really get the house cleaned. By "we" I really mean Jeff because he dedicates the first couple of weeks of his summer vacation to super-cleaning the house and getting in order some "summer chores" or major projects to undertake.

One of those for this summer was child-proofing the game room. Not for us, (not yet at least) but for our friend's son Alfie (whom you've seen featured here frequently). It will become incredibly useful for us in due time, but since the young lad is nearly ambulatory, the time to do it was now.
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We got home last night at around 6 PM. Energized and having taken a portion of the car ride time to contemplate how we would successfully child-proof the game room, we ate a light dinner and got right to it.

This brings me to why I so love that pit group furniture. It's 2.5" sections of the most coma-inducingly comfortable couch. We have 10 of such coma-inducing pieces, all of which is currently housed in the game room.

Since I was a major contributor to last night's cleaning frenzy I can say that I'm proud of what we've gotten done so far, and while it's not 100% complete, it's probably 90%. We're missing baby gates and outlet covers, and some of the weapons must be moved. The former two will be remedied soon, the latter will be remedied as the children involved get more and more mobile, until we need to put them in storage until they're old enough to be trusted not to play with them.

And so, without further ado, the pictures:

The gaming area

The "kid" area

The stairs down and up to main level (need 2 baby gates here)
The TV/video game area (need 1 baby gate here, plus a childproofer for the cabinet)

Alfie sez. . .

NOM!






Avocados are good!

Knitting and Spinning fun!

Mom Kass's felted vest is coming along very nicely. It has all of its edges bound up in cotton, and it's ready for it's trip through the washing machine. I'm overall extremely happy with the way it's going. Not doing miles upon miles of stockinette stitch is definintely good for my hands. I like the challenging, finishing stuff!

Here is Jeff modeling it and Callay giving it one nose up!




I also spun up some more absolutely gorgeous yarn for market, I think I'm going to call this one Rumplestiltskin.

Opinions Sought

I'm making a very simple shrug out of my first handspun. I'll post the pattern when it's done, but it's basically a rectangle with a circular border. My quesion is this: The first handspun yarn is blue and brown. There isn't nearly enough of just it to make what I have in mind, so I'm using it for the main part, and I spun more to work as the border.

I thought a dark brown/light brown ply would work well, and this one has some black in it as well. I think I like it, but I want to get some others' opinions on this color combination.

Fire away!

Regular


Extreme close-up



And, as a side, you know you've got to go food shopping when this is what you come up with for dinner.

I call it baconcheesepeas. Acually, it's really really good. Kinda like macaroni and cheese, but with peas instead. A healthy South Beach recipe maybe?

Choices, choices

Said Callay "Let's see, I have two beds within about 2 feet of each other. Or. . ."



ahhh, papasan.

103

Despite the fact that it's supposed to be 103 here today, I put on some wool socks to model them. The things we do for art.

I'm calling these my flag socks. The pattern, Broadripple, I think is absolutely perfect for what this sock yarn does.
Why thank you, yes they do stripe nearly identically, thank you for asking!

I also finally have a picture of my first attempt at "froggy feet"
I like it! I think I'm going to dye some really REALLY bright yellow for a certain MIL who just adores yellow.

Lastly, we spent last week in Michigan. It was for a sad occasion, the death of Jeff's grandfather, but we made a very nice trip out of it. On the way back we saw this jackass:

Katrina Roundup

Mom suggested I make a single post containing all of the projects completed during my time working in NOLA. Some of them were finished at home, but they were all primarly done there.













Not bad.

Economic Stimulus

My economic stimulus check arrived, and I decided that Jeff and I should make good use of it. In NOLA, of course I spent quite a bit a quarter stitch and I spent a bunch at the Scrap Happy Quilter as well. Couldn't touch on that one though so I didn't spoil the surprise for Mom!



It was a fun little quilt shop, and I ended up with a bunch of fat quarters, some for me, some for Mom, and a book which uses fabric coiled around clothesline, then sewn together to make bowls and purses and stuff. It sounds neat!

Then this past weekend I visited my favorite yarn shop in GA, The Oconee Yarn Company. She was having a sale, and oh boy did I stock up.

First, she had a box of yarn which was comprised of partially used skeins. They were marked $1 each, and I pretty much bought her out of natural fiber skeins.



These skeins all feel pretty full. I'll have to weigh them tonight and see just how much got used, but I really don't think that much at all was pulled out of these.

Then I stocked up on some fun sock yarn.

More of the Cascade Cotton


Some really neat self-striping yarn that will make flag socks


Some Berroco Sox, something new!


Some Cascade 200 Superwash for finishing Mom K's felted vest. It's a slightly mottled brown, which is exactly what I was looking for. I think it goes really well with the bright yellow which is the body of the vest.


And

a

Few

Tofutsies!

Can you tell I liked working with the Tofutsies yarn? Heck! I'm even planning on making socks for Jeff's paddle-feet with it!

My mom also gave me some wool which was donated to her Project Linus group, but since it's wool they can't use it. I'll make a blanket on my USM as a donation of time for this. It's really nice, and back when Red Heart made wool! It's a bit scratchy, but I'll figure something to do with it.

Hot Zone

Yep. I did it.



Note. This picture was taken in my apartment, then superimposed over the demolition site. NOT taken at an actual demolition, and the asbestos tape came off of a roll. No, I do not contain any asbestos.

Augh

After so many productive days I hit this



Yesterday and today, work got shut down due to bad rain and thunderstorms.

Am I the only one who sees the irony in calling a stop to hurricane damage cleanup due to inclement weather?

I love a challenge

Heather suggested I be held to the "Sock-a-day" standard. I can never resist a challenge, but I made it a little more interesting. I used a slightly more complex pattern, Knitty's Froot Loop

How did I do?



Let's check the timestamp on that. . .

Yep, did it!



And I even started the second one that night.

It promises to rain today, which may mean an early day. Whether I'll stay motivated to keep knitting when there's something to do other than look at a landfill,
who knows. Certainly if the weather keeps me confined to the car, I'll be in good shape.

Thanks for the motivation Heather!

2 in 2

I did it. I did two socks in two days. I can't believe it. They aren't even like big boot socks on size 3 needles. They're for me, 60 stitches on size 1.5 needles. All that's left is sewing the ends in, but my darning needle is at the apartment.

I'm so happy I can knit without looking at the knitting. I caught a tire and a dorm sized refrigerator (both of which are unauthorized waste for the landfill I'm currently at) while knitting. I think if anything, it makes me more vigilant, because I HAVE to be watching what's going on outside the car.

Anyway, here's the socks


. . . and the groove that the yarn left in my poor dried out skin. I need some moisturizer!

Wow

I didn't know I had it in me.

I started this on Monday



And this today.




Think I can do two whole socks in 2 days?

On the Kindness of Strangers

I made my way today to the Quarter Stitch in the French Quarter. There I met the two owners, and a lady whose name I found out later was Mary. Mary (and the owners) had been here when NOLA flooded. Mary chose not to leave, and rode out the storm and the flooding in her two-story house. She helped to save some of her neighbors whose houses had gone completely underwater. She was smart and had stored food and water so that she and her neighbors would have somewhere to go. She is still living in a FEMA trailer, and is slowly refinishing the first floor of her house. She only has the summers to really work, being a catholic school teacher.

We talked for a while, about teaching, and I told her what I've been doing here. She told me about a book, where students from the University of New Orleans went out and interviewed people affected by Katrina, and put some of those anecdotes into a book. I take notes so that I can find and purchase it and she says she's going to go check and see if the bookstore, La Librarie has it. I stay, chatting with the owners, and she returns with the book, for me! She wanted to get it for me as a thank you for all that I'm doing here. I was so touched. Here she is, having gone through hell, and she's thanking me for helping with the cleanup efforts.

I also spent an exorbitant amount on yarn in that shop. I'm all for helping keep these local businesses up and running. They wrap it up like it's your birthday, but the shop owner is a little shy abou thaving her picture taken, so I told her she could hold the package up in front of her face. . . Then shot the picture as she laughed!

Knitting progress so far

Here this fine Mother's Day, I've completed the second of two hats for my cousin Jenny who is going to be a mother again on Wednesday. Now there are two little pink matching hats. One for her daughter Madison, and one for Emma, who will be born this Wednesday. I really like the idea of a big sis gift. They're made with the same yarn, Sirdar Baby Bamboo, which is 80% bamboo, 20% superwash merino. It's incredibly soft, which is nice for a hat, but did make this yarn a bit of a pain to use. I have one more skein that I bought as a just in case it was needed, but they did each take exactly one skein (97 yards) with a little modification. I did the decreases every other row for the first 4 rows after the pigtail hole, then every other row. I started to see that the skein was running short and didn't want to run out. It makes the hat a little short, but it's so cute, I think it will work just fine.

Here is how tiny it is when it's not stretched. It's just a little bigger than my open palm.

But it looks cute, and is a hat I'd definitely wear myself!


I've also made it completely through Jeff's first sock, and have made very good progress on the second!

(do you like my yellow vest in that shot?)
Now that I have one project off the needles, I"m going to start on a pair of socks for myself, for when I need a change from shades of brown!