Some projects

Here are some cross stitch/embroideries I have been working on -

This one is still in progress

Sorry I didn't iron them yet. It's harder to see them when you're distracted by all the wrinkles isn't it? They are for my mom. When I'm done there will be a total of 10 and she is getting them framed in two horizontal sets of 5. I hope I can show you the finished framed pieces one of these days.

Scrap or Keep?

I used a self patterning yarn to make a set of baby legwarmers. Unfortunately if you don't start the pieces in the exact same spot you don't get good results. In this case I find the two pieces don't match at all and I assume that people are so used to 'perfect' manufactured items these days that they expect things to match. Do you agree? 

So, here's the question - should I scrap these leg warmer and make something else? 

How frustrating!

Oh I hate when this happens! I look at some yarn and think I have enough for a project and then I run out! See this?

 These are wrist warmers. The one on the right is completed. The one of the left needs to be 7 1/2" wide  but it's only 4" wide. On the far left is how much yarn I have remaining. There is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks  that I have enough yarn to complete this project. There is no way, in it's current configuration, that I can suddenly change yarn on one mitt on one hand.

Nope.

It's just not going to work.

The only thing left for me to do is FROG IT! Oh, what does 'frogging' mean? In knitting/crochet it means to unravel your piece because as you pull the yarn you 'rip it, rip it'.... hence the name. Don't get mad at me, I didn't make that up. Any of it.

So here I go, pulling it all apart. I guess what's left will be turned into a baby hat.

Frustrating.

I hate wasting time like that.

Projects - one done, one to go

I finished my mom's shawl/wrap and it couldn't have come at a better time since she fell and broke her left arm and cracked her wrist on the right arm - now she's having difficulty getting her arms into coat sleeves so perhaps just pulling a wrap around her shoulders will help her while we still have some chilly spring days. Here's the finished piece :

I've also been working on this Marie Antoinette doll. I don't normally make toys but I fell in love with the curls and so I had to make it. Ravelry is a site where knitters can log in their projects as well as record what yarns they are using and what patterns they are doing. This is helpful because you can see all the different projects make with a certain yarns or how other people interpreted patterns. I don't like to be negative but if I had've seen how other people were making this pattern before I started, I probably would never have made this pattern, here's an example:

It's nice to see their interpretations, but I intend to follow the pattern as closely as I can. This is what I have so far: 

Her hair curls and bottom skirt still need to be sewn in place, 

plus an outer skirt, arms, leg and face are needed

Soon I will get off the computer and pick up the needles again. It's a cold and rainy day so no need for gardening yet, and I did all my housework yesterday. What are you doing today? 

Hurry up and wait

Today I am crocheting some boot toppers (not exactly these ones, but you get the idea)  - which is basically an accessory  that goes around the top of your knee high boot for decoration, so you don't have to necessarily wear a heavy sock in your boot but it looks like you do - kinda like a dickie for your leg (I wonder how many people still wear dickies or for that matter how many know what one is?)

My work in progress:

But I'm in a weird place today because it seems so slow going - it can't be done quick enough. I have so many things I have to do and want to do but can't get them all done. For personal projects and for my little shop.

Perhaps this is because of some recent events -two of which are personal stories of my brother - a friend with inoperable brain tumours is suddenly not able to work and no longer able to take care of his children; my brother's closest friend and business partner just suddenly died last week; my dance instructor was re-ended by a drunk driver at a red light(severe whiplash); a co-worker who's 22 year old daughter who was a busy model and semi-professional volleyball player, lost her battle with cancer just after graduating from university; as well as other tragedies currently on the news - it seems to serve as a reminder that life is very short and we can't delay anything! And I am so far behind.

No, I'm not having a panic attack but I do feel that I need to expedite things. And then it's the holiday season so I'm torn between "hey, relax, it's Christmas" and "there are so many things to do!"
How many batches of cookies do I want to make? and how many kinds? And how many more presents can I afford to buy? And "who did I forget?" And, and, and...

Eeep, are you feeling it as well?

 Any solutions? Suggestions? 

And this song has been going through my head for the past 24 hours:



I was taught this song in elementary school, why did it pop into my head now? Is it a Christmas song as well?

Okay so I hadn't finished shopping as I said in my last post - there were a couple of people I wanted to get things for -one was a little stocking stuffer for all the girls in my dance glass. That was kinda hard because I needed at least 8 items and I'm not exactly rich - it took days of hunting for something that wasn't too cheap but was still a cute little item and I needed to find multiples of them so just when I'd find something I'd realize they didn't have enough of them... I ended up finding a little box on a ribbon that looked like an ornament but had chocolate bells inside. I passed them out at the end of class and they seemed thrilled -Mission Accomplished.

I did get a couple more rows knit on my ripple/wave scarf - here's a quick snapshot of the progress.

It'll look better once it's finished and 

I've blocked it (that gets it wet and stretches it out) 

Continuing on our James Bond movie watching, we're now up to Licence to Kill (1989) with Timothy Dalton. While watching the Living Daylights (1987), the first movie with Timothy Dalton, I could see why many fans didn't like him that much but then I also didn't like that movie very much. Licence to Kill was actually pretty good. Being a bit of a Pierce Brosnan fan I'm kinda looking forward to Golden Eye(1995).

Winter in Vancouver isn't so fun. Oh sure it's mild and all that but we go for days with grey skies. I'd much rather have -19 degrees celsius and bright blue skies with the sun shining than have +8 degrees and the grey skies. And it's not the rain that gets me (lots of people complain about the rain) - for me, it's the darkness. All the lights have to be on in the house all day because it's dark. And some days it's been so dark my Christmas lights on dawn/dusk timers go off at 2:30 in the afternoon! See? It's not just me that thinks it's too dark, the electronic sensors do too!

So.. why am I telling you this, only because if you have the same type of weather, you'll appreciate this pick-me-up:

See that happy dish? That was our dinner last night  - Pina Colada Shrimp and Rice. YUM. It's shrimp and pineapple and coconut and yellow peppers and green onions. Not only is it yummy but it helps put a little summer into winter! Try it, you might like it!

Well this sucks

Remember those "City Gauntlets" I started last week - well I got busy finishing them but guess what?

Yup, that's right - I ran out of yarn.

Blast!


The instructions say 1 skein. I followed the pattern. I usually get gauge (although there is gauge, I don't think I've done anything too wonky). I'm about 2 inches too short - that's a lot - see?

So now I have to wait until I can get back to that store to buy another skein. No, I'm not going to rip them out and re-work them. I figure that the dye lot doesn't matter so much with this  mixed-n-matched yarn and so I'll buy another skein and then make a baby hat or two with the left overs. Maybe I can recoup some of my losses.

It still sucks though.

I have grass!!!

Ever since I got our  Labrador (3 1/2 years ago-my how time flies!)  I have less and less grass in my back yard, and since it rains so much here the yard gets more and more torn up every winter as the dog slides around chasing her ball (oh I know - I do throw the ball in other areas, but still she manages to bump it or fumble it and slide on the same areas of wet ground). A lawn is cleaner throughout the winter - you only have to wipe wet dog paws instead of wet AND muddy/dirty paws - and so I have been working hard trying to regrow some lawn before winter.

Now look, I have baby, baby grass blades!

I'm very excited! I sure hope
these little guys get strong enough before
winter and can survive until next spring. 

*************************

For a crafty/knitty update, here is 1 finished wrist warmer that I've made for me:

I know it looks kinda limp and not-so-attractive laying flat on concrete but I think it looks pretty good when it's on. I'll have to show you a photo when I've finished the second one. All this yarn comes from the same skein and 1 skein will do the pair. It's been quite fun knitting along wondering what colour and texture of yarn will come up next.  If you like these, here's the pattern!

Knit.... not?

I'm currently working on a little red hat, but I've had some problems - first it was too big, then I made an error changing colours, then I added an extra row in my 2x2 stripes - I've ripped it out once and back twice. Have you had a project that felt like it didn't want to get made?

Here's where we are now: 

Hmm, I'm wondering do I keep going? Or maybe I should move on to something else? 

In case you're wondering*...

...why I've slowed down on my projects - it has to do with the fact that my arms and hands keep going numb. Sometimes it's my whole arm, from the shoulder all the way to the fingers. Sometimes I try to work through the numbness but it doesn't go away so I must stop and flex my arm and my hand. My doctor sent me for an x-ray and confirmed that no nerves were pinched or compromised in my neck, so next he's sending me for a nerve conductivity test. This is like hitting your funny bone - except someone else has control of when it will happen and they do it multiple times. And, I really wanted to kick the technician in the head (I know! I'm not a violent person - except when someone causes me pain) but the last time I had it done, the ladies were so nice I couldn't do it, but boy I sure wanted to!!!

Two years ago I was told I had mild to moderate carpal tunnel and that my left hand was worse than my right. No one can figure out why the left is worse because I'm so very right handed. All I can think of is that I walk Eco on my left side and maybe all the leash handling is related to it, although I don't recall even getting numb during our daily walks. Holding the embroidery hoop seems to compress something in my thumb and so it goes numb, and both hands can go numb during knitting, somethings I can't even finish the row. I do wear splints at night which definitely seem to help me to sleep through the night and not wake up with numb arms.

When this subject first came up I wanted to do everything possible to avoid the surgery, and changed a bunch of things at my desk. Jp did some research and bought me a computer mouse that uses your thumb to move the curser around instead of your wrist and I think that's helped a lot. Since the initial diagnosis I've talked to several people who had the surgery and said it was a very good thing for them to have done and they were able to resume all the crafts and activities they used to enjoy without the numbness. Today I am more open to the option of surgery for this issue.

So now you know why I don't post as much about what I have been working on. Just in case you were wondering.

** and actually I'm pretty sure you weren't wondering about it since this quote is so very true: 

"You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” 

― Eleanor Roosevelt


PHOTO CREDIT: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001469/

Stitching Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek of what I'm working on:

That's all I can show you, because that's all I've done!!!

Family Fun

Phew that was an exhausting weekend! Jp's dad was in town so we had dinner at one sister's house on Friday night and another sister's house on Saturday night. Although we weren't cooking the dinners, we still made and brought the dessert plus had to drive an hour each way to get there.

For Friday night, I made a carrot cake with fresh peeled and grated carrots and cream cheese icing. Jp knows his dad well and told me to only ice 3/4 of the cake and leave one end plain. I followed his instructions and it was a good thing as there were a couple of people who didn't like icing.

On Saturday I baked peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies AND made rice pudding. My rice pudding recipe has me simmering the milk, sugar, rice and raisins for about 45 minutes until it's thick enough for the spoon to stand up in it. I know there are lots of other faster/easier recipes but I find that this recipe is really worth the slow simmer and stirring as it's so very rich and creamy. Many people come forward to tell me their easier version, but everyone likes my rice pudding! Even his sister who worked at a hospital for many years, who wouldn't eat rice pudding because she felt it was made from left over dinner rice and tasted horrible - she actually gave it a try and said it was good. That's pretty good of her to try something that she had an aversion to for so long.

It's hard these days is trying to align everyone's likes and dislikes and what they can/can't eat -  but I've taken my brother's advise to just make the food and not worry about it - some couldn't eat the peanut butter cookies, some didn't like the rice pudding, some didn't like the cake icing... you just can't please everyone and really, why should I expect to and why should I try? There were other choices and I don't think anyone left the table hungry.

Sunday my back muscles were screaming and I was very slow moving in the morning. My neighbour invited Eco and I over for a play date so Eco burned up a whole lot of energy romping with their dog and I didn't have to walk her - that plus some Aleve helped a lot. Eco doesn't necessarily pull during our walks but she does like to make a sudden stop every now and again to sniff something and that jolt seems to pull a muscle or two. Do you have that with your dog?

I did put up an Etsy shop for some of my baby hats, but I'm still tweaking it so I won't post the link yet. The two hats in my previous post have already sold - yippee. I like having 'mad money' in my pocket.  This weekend I started this hat, but I need to add the ties on the ear flaps so here's a quick snapshot only:

I would love to see that on a little baby head. 

Wouldn't you? Who? Hoo? 

You! 

Things I Did on The Weekend

Besides the normal, routine, mundane things done on the weekend, here are two things that standout

1) homemade butter tarts - I had no idea they were so easy!!

And yummy too (it's a remake recipe!!) 

2) kitty cross-stitch - still in progress:

(it looks all crooked-y because I just laid it across my knees and took a quick snapshot)

I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but  it is almost done - just two borders (one crossstitches and one backstitches) and a paw print in the corner.

Embroidery on the Go

When I went to Kelowna for my mini vacation, I decided to take some embroidery instead of knitting.

By the way, here's a sunset from our room:

When I was packing up the supplies for my project bag, I realized  I didn't know what colour I would need and wondered "what if I leave the very colour I need at home? Then what?" So I decided to take all the floss that I had already on cards.

My embroidery box before:

My embroidery box after I packed for the trip:

Packing to leave, was the easy part, but coming home and arranging all the colours in some sort of spectrum was a wee bit harder.

What was I working on? Two Molly Crabapple designs from Sublime Stitching. I'm thinking of adding a red stage curtain around this girl:

I really don't like showing unfinished, unironed work, but well, we're among friends, so here goes:

I'm knitting socks - WIP

Here's what I've been working on for the last little while. Unfortunately progress is slow because I have moderate carpal tunnel. I will do what I can to avoid having surgery, so I have been taking it easy on my wrists. I've been doing lots of other things though - work, dog play/training, housework, yoga, dance - it's not like I'm sitting around eating bon bons - although I sure would like too!

Details in Ravelry (I'm 'wayoutwear')