My Best Friend's a Dork

Meet Frank

So, last month, I let the dog out after dinner and an orange ball of fur strolled in through the front door.

Meet Frank (Yes, Jess named him.)

(You'll have to excuse him for not getting up.  this picture was taken the day after he disappeared and returned to us as a walking scab.)

After Frank introduced himself to us, and made himself comfortable, I called all the vets and shelters to see if someone was missing a cat. (He was obviously someone's cat) After a week and a half of no word, we realized that Frank was probably dumped. (Which seems to happen a lot out our way. I guess we look cat-friendly) so we adopted him.

Since my last post, a month ago, (I'm sorry, things will get better when I have internet access.) We've had two more trees come down. No, My widow maker is still there.

Jess's last day of school was the 27th, and we've been having a blast since, but I had forgotten how tiring it can be to entertain a 6 year old all day, everyday. 

I'll try to post more and even throw in some knitting along the way.

Balancing act

The trees are toying with us. Friday, I was trying to keep the cat from climbing the curtains and popping her stitches, (I'll explain in a bit.) and I heard something like a shot, ran outside and saw this.

A very large limb broke off of the tree in our drive, and then landed on another limb, so now we are parking in the church lot and keeping a close eye on this limb as it teeters in mid air.



Ok, cat with stitches.  I took Princess to the vet last week for an ear infection, and noticed a lump on her belly.  Princess had a rather large hernia, so she underwent surgery to repair it. When I picked her up the next day we were told to keep her as immobile as possible.

Great, immobilize a cat who makes a regular practice of scaling the drapes to perch atop the curtain rods. This was not going to be easy.

We decided to pen her up and made her a kennel, so she would have enough room to move around and play, but not to climb.  She keeps escaping, and we cannot figure out how she is getting out. 

My finished Swallowtail Shawl.  I love it. All my socks in progress have been set aside as I search for my next lace project.

overwhelmed.

Jess continues to have issues at school, which has made it impossible for me to plan on doing anything lately.  It seems like every time I try to get out and do something I get a call from the school to come get her.

I have been involved with the E'ville ravelry group knit along. We're all doing the Swallowtail shawl.  mine is done, blocked, and awaiting a photo shoot. Here's a sneak peek.

We have been going back to Valpo every other weekend to get that house taken care of.  It's seriously wearing me out.

Don't mind me, I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed.

But when I do, I take a walk through the yard.

plugging along

It's been a crazy week so far. We cleared the Valpo house out and put everything in storage.  One more step to being rid of it.

Jessica continues to struggle with her behavior at school, but we had a very long meeting yesterday. the law was laid down and the details were explained to Jess.  She seems to understand, so here's hoping that today is a the first of many good days to come.

Our pastor's wife has been ill, and seems to be heading into surgery here soon, so I made her this.

Pattern:  Shetland triangle shawl by Evelyn A. Clark.
Yarn: Silky wool, 1.5 skeins
Notes: knit to pattern.  although the cat proved a chaalenge when it came to blocking this sucker. I hope she likes it.

While in Valpo this last weekend. I attended a baptism, and gifted the bonnet I made from the vintage pattern I mentioned in the previous post.

Pattern: Baby's bonnet by Nancy Cary and Mildred Mowll
Yarn:  Colinette jitterbug
Notes: My gauge was different and I had to adjust the pattern accordingly.  I added 1.5" grossgrain  ribbon ties. I can't wait to see Mara in it.

I've started many things but I need to take some pictures for you all.

hung up

Sorry, folks. Jessica has been having some issues at school that have kept me home, and made it impossible for me to make the journey into Evansville for a WI-FI connection. If you have emailed me and are wondering why I have not responded, now you know.

Some good news.  My corrected Jolene pattern is for sale here.  I've started another pair in some smooshy sock yarn. Pictures to come.

Not much has happened in the past few weeks. Jess has been having some problems at school, and we spent our Spring break in Valpo, to get the house there ready to sell. I look forward the the day when we only have one mortgage payment.

I have never seen our house here in the spring. We have always visited in the summer and winter. I'm amazed daily at the flowers that are coming up.  I'll take some pictures for the next post. The flowers had motivated me to start cleaning out the house again, and in doing so I injured myself.  Nothing major, but some of you already know that when Jess was a baby I broke both bones in my forearm, and I now have a plate in that arm. Sometimes it gives me trouble, like it did all last week.

But I was rewarded for my efforts.

A heap of old magazines.  Home Arts Needlecraft.  from 1933 to 1940.
All sorts of old patterns and the ads are hilarious. I sat on the floor and thumbed through them, giggling like a school girl.

Princess was unimpressed.

Mean while, I have started a gazillion projects with no real progress to show.

This week I have to concentrate on two things, a baby bonnet for a baptism this weekend, and a shawl for a friend who is going to have surgery. Hopefully my sore "bionic" arm will let me get through them.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

Hello!

Sorry for my lack of posting... As Erin mentioned I moved in some new digs a couple weeks ago. New digs that currently doesn't have internet access. We're working on that so hopefully soon I'll be connected to the world once again.

The long and short of it is The Boy and I found an apartment closer to where we're building and closer to where we both work. Or rather he found it. He saw the apartment, committed us to a 6 month lease and paid the deposit before I ever laid eyes on it. I saw it for the first time two weeks after he saw it, on the very day we signed the lease. It's a really cute place, it's small though. The Boy VASTLY under estimated the amount of stuff I own. Thankfully his parents offered up a corner of their basement for my storage needs.

Hopefully The Boy and I will get some stuff up on the walls in the next couple days and I can get some pictures for you all.

Right now the only wall decorations are a couple of my purses that I hung up for lack of place to store them.

Other than that there hasn't been much knitting (all of my knitting related stuff is at the new place, The Boy is smart enough to know he shouldn't suggest otherwise) because of the need for unpacking and general adjustment.

Moving is a pain....

*clears throat*

psst...Carma, aren't you going to tell us about the new digs?

Ollie's 1! (approximately)

Princess is unimpressed.

Although she should be, It's quite a task to turn one, after you do this to a pair of my favorite shoes.

Yes, Carma, those shoes.

picture heavy

Thanks for all the comments on our tees.  Jess has been working hard learning her braille and all the contractions she has to memorize, and she was very excited to share it.

It's been a rough couple of weeks, so I spent most of this week laying low to avoid having the world devise new and creative ways to challenge me. I'm doing better now, thanks.

I have some finished objects to share.
I took part in a swap on ravelry and my package arrived.

It made my day, I've got to tell you.
In the package there was a hat kit, which I made for Jess, although it's yet to be fulled.

Pattern- Lady bug hat from pick up sticks
Yarn- cascade 220 i skein of two different colors
Notes- I used the pattern as more of a guideline for the hat.

Meet bunni (yet to be named by Jess)

Pattern- The Roxycraft “Amigurumi Animals” Collection
Yarn- Cascade 220 superwash
Note's- cute ain't it? It's for Jess' Easter basket

Happy anniversary two months late. I finally finished Nate's gloves. It's ok though, he still owes me a Christmas gift.

Pattern-fulled gloves by Nancy Lindburg
Yarn- naturspun sport, 2 skeins
Notes- these weren't nearly as hard to felt as I was lead to believe.

Then One of my fellow Yarnhos is expecting a baby boy.

Pattern- two needle baby sweater by EZ
Yarn- sugar and cream twists in denim, 3 sleins
Notes- not lace here, just a combination of STst and garter.

Then on to my project i work on while working out the details of another, the  washcloths I'm making for our tiny bathroom. The yarn is patagonia cotton.

Things are looking better around here. The trees knocked over by the storm we had at the end of January and nearly cleared. Nate's truck came back yesterday repaired and whole (although it would not start this morning.) and we've extracted 6 raccoons from the attic.  All we have left now are one or two that have figured out how to get the bait, spring the trap and escape.

We had some beautiful weather early this week, so we took a walk through the back yard, to decide what we want to do.

Looks like we have more work to do.

"faux braille" tees

Jess and I made some of these for Valentines Day, and I have had some requests for instructions.

Materials
A black tee
A spray bottle filled with a 50/50 mixture of bleach and water.
Coins or other round waterproof markers to make the braille dots.
(you will need six for each letter/character.)
A plastic barrier to put inside your tee, so that the design does not bleed through.
Braille alphabet, and word or phrase you would like to put on your tee.

Step one:

Lay tee out flat on work surface. Place barrier inside of shirt (Mine was a flexible cutting board.)
lay out flat, smoothing out any wrinkles.

Step two:

Lay out what you want to say.  there are many braille links out there, but I'm just going to link to one.

Each braille cell holds six dots.  I find it easier to lay out the complete braille cell, to make sure things are straight and where I want them.

Step three:

Remove dots that are not needed.

Step four:

Take your spray bottle of bleach.  Make sure it's set to a misty spray. Spray the area. where your markers are placed.

Step five:

Watch for your tee to lighten, when you are satisfied with the the color, CAREFULLY remove your markers, rinse tee in cold water then dry.

Enjoy.  My apologies for picture quality. Oh, mine says "k1 p2".