Uli's Creative Corner

How often have I used that title on a Friday?  Lots of times............. It's been an odd week with a day off in the middle and all kinds of other things going on.  So, once again, I am truly glad that it's Friday and that it's the start of a 3-day weekend.  We're having guests coming for dessert tonight so I have to figure out what to serve on the fly.  I'll try and get Evan to pick up some treats from a store called M&Ms.  There all over the place here in B.C. but I think they are all over the place in most of Canada - but I could be wrong.  They have all kinds of frozen stuff from soups to lasagnas and steaks and stuff right down to desserts such as frozen, bake at home pies and cheesecakes etc.  So I think one or two things from there might make my dessert dilemma go away easily.  There's a store really close to Evan's office so I'm hoping he'll be able to pick something up after work and bring it home while I run home and do some last minute tidying.  This was a short notice kind of a visit.....

I'm really tired today............ yawn!!!

We still don't have a phone........... sucks!!!!  Our phone has been out since last week now.  Employees of the local phone company are on strike.  We've talked to many people there......... no one can help make the problem go away.  We've figured out that it's not a problem inside our home.  It's somewhere else.  Our free cell phone minutes are almost used up and we're really close to exploring a voice over internet type service or something like that. 

Tomorrow we're going to see my Mom and Dad in the afternoon and we're staying for dinner.  Yummmy........ I love my Mom's food.  She's a good cook.  She's been waiting for Erika to come over because Erika helped her plant some vegetables in the spring and now they are ready to harvest and Mom wants to let Erika help her harvest them since she helped plant them.  Erika will have fun.

Other than that,  I want a fairly quiet weekend.  I need to focus on at least one of my projects to make some progress.  I'm not getting anything done these days and it's a bit overwhelming.   I don't even feel like starting anything new.  I must be sick.  I think I need to just pick one of the projects that's furthest along and work on it consistently just to finish something. 

Have a great weekend.  yawn............ I'm so tired.

Yup............. the hobby I vowed I wouldn't try in fear that it would be something new I would have to devote time, energy and money,too.

It's my new drop spindle................  I had two quick lessons on it and it's actually harder than I imagined.  I certainly haven't got it all figured out yet.  There is something in the motion to draft the fibre that's eluding me at this point in time.  I got a bunch of roving from a friend (who also sucked me into buying the drop spindle) to practice with and it's definitely neat but I will need lots of practice.  We'll see how it goes.

Here's a picture of my flowerbasket shawl in the making:

I love the colours.  As I said the pattern is not as clear as if it was a solid coloured yarn but I'm still quite pleased with it.

I had a prenatal appointment this morning and so far so good.  Deep down I was hoping she'd try to hear the heartbeat but I also knew it was too early on still and she was about to do that and saying at the same time that at 12 weeks the heartbeat should be audible and I said "well, but I'm only just over 10 weeks".  So she put the doppler away again.  Probably good in some ways because I would only have worried for the next 4 weeks if we hadn't found it.

It's hot........... we're busy with watering the garden and going to the park so none of the knitting projects in my pile are showing any great progress.  It's a bit frustrating and overwhelming.

Our long weekend is almost here!!!  I'm happy.

I need some photography lessons........... I just can't get the pattern on my finished SockPalTwozaa socks to show up in the pictures.  In reality, they do look lovely (I think) and the few people who have seen them in real have expressed that they liked them, too.  All finished........ 1 pair of gift socks down, 3 more to go (all in partial stages of completion).

I'm going to have to try and capture a better image.  This does not show off anything.  The pattern is called Wavy Rib.

On to other things............ I believe in training them young........ don't you?

Especially when it comes to cleaning the bathrooms.  Shall I mention that doing it with my willing helper probably took me 3 times the amount of time than had I done it by myself (swish, swish, swish).  But look at the gleam coming off those tiles and that floor.

I had an interesting conversation with another Mom at the pool on Sunday.  When you're at swimming lessons, you see the same parents week after week.  So yessterday, while we were watching our kids, we sat next to each other and she asked me what I was knitting.  I sometimes get embarrassed saying "socks" because I do get funny looks from the non knitting public.  Socks - what the heck is that all about.  But she got it....... but then I noticed her little 2 month old in the stroller was wearing a most definitely little hand knit cardigan in a very traditional baby pattern.  She proceeded to tell me that her mother knits and has knit all her life and went on to say that it is so sad that knitting is a dying art and that nobody knits any longer.  Well, I had to point out to her that it was really popular again these days and that people, young and old, were picking up the needles again.  Forget about those of us who have never put them down in the mean time.  To me it just seems that everyone out there must know that it's popular again and that everybody needs to have some knitting needles. :-) (just kidding)  We had a nice conversation though and it's fun to chat while you're waiting for the little ones to be done. 

The other interesting comment someone made to me about knitting was the hair salon on Saturday.  When you get your hair coloured you seem to just sit there forever and as always I was knitting on a sock.  One of the stylists came to talk to me about how she used to knit and how she prefers crochet more and that's what she does these days.  She seemed to be familiar with the popular knitting/crochet magazines and made a comment about the cool modern stuff that's out there these days but then she kind of waved that off saying "but you're more the traditional type and probably only knit the traditional kind of things".......... what the heck was that supposed to mean?  Huh?  I had no answer for that.

I took Friday afternoon off.  I had a lovely lunch with a coworker and then I proceeded to the grocery store and then home.  I was going to tidy up (real quickly) and then I was going to sit and watch some mindless TV and pick up my knitting.  Most likely I was going to start one of my new projects.  As I started tidying up, the phone rings........ guess what, "can you go get Erika from daycare, she's running a high fever".  Don't get me wrong......... I will run to the end of the earth, if I have to, if I hear that my little one isn't well or whatever.  I drop everything and I'm out of there to go rescue the munchkin but I've also rescued her when they overreacted at daycare.  But in that instance of selfishness knowing that my quiet little "me time" afternoon had just come to a sudden and drastic end, I was very frustrated.  Frustration or not, I jumped in the car and was already travelling, probably well above the speed limit, toward daycare (about 20 minutes from home).  Evan heard my frustration when he phoned but he felt he couldn't leave his office because he was the only one left in the department and had to hold down the fort.  So, I'm already cruising down the highway when the cell phone rings and he says "well, I could go get her for you".  Ah well, not worth it now.  I keep going and she was thrilled to have Mommy pick her up as I usually don't ever do pick-up duty.  She was very hot and just sort of lying on a mat in her room.  So I got her home and we watched Dora and I actually got started on the Flower Basket Lace Shawl (see my last post for a link to the pattern and the yarn).  It's a lovely pattern to knit.  Easy to follow, easy to keep track off.  I haven't memorized it and I'm not sure whether I will memorize it ever but I can easily get through one row without referring to the pattern after I've done the first repeat.  I do admit that the handpainted yarn is definitely taking away from the overall appearance and detail of the lace pattern.  At the same time, it gives it quite a lovely appeal.  I'll have to take a picture tonight and get your feedback of it tomorrow.  I do want to do this shawl in a solid colour some time as well.  I'm very much enjoying knitting it.

Saturday, except for knitting socks at the pool and the hair salon, I didn't pick up my needles at all.  And yesterday....... I only managed one pattern repeat of the shawl lace pattern over the course of the afternoon and evening.  I go in two day spurts.  One day I have energy and then I race around like I did on Saturday until everything is done that needs to be done.  Then the next day I'll have a day like yesterday where nothing seems to happen because I'm just so exhausted.  I guess balance might be the trick.  I'm starting to close in on the first trimester now.  Only a few more weeks.  Another month maybe and then the major fatigue might stop a bit.

Enjoy your week.  It's going to be a hot one here but right now the air conditioning units of my colleagues are blasting cold air and it's making me uncomfortably cold.

Today you get to look at my lovely new stash.

#1 - Easy Lace Mesh Triangle by Fiddlesticks Knitting

I bought the pattern and a hank of the Country Silk Yarn in the shade wine.  Perfect colours for me.

I've already wound that skein and would love to start but my old lingering projects are holding me back.

#2 - Fiber Trends Flower Basket Lace Shawl

I bought some lovely Over The Rainbow yarn to try that shawl with.  The colours are quite striking.  Maybe a bit much for the pattern but I for one do enjoy lace patterns in handpainted yarns, especially once they are blocked.  Time will tell if yarn and pattern will work together.

#3 - Opal Batik yarn in purple/grey.  This yarn is a DK weight (leaning toward sportweight) yarn that is so beautifully soft.  I had Shelley bring me down a hank in the purple and a hank in the green yarn when we first met in Vancouver last year.  I knit up the green into two pairs of very, very cushy warm socks with still some yarn leftover.  The purple, from the moment I saw it, was destined to become more than just socks.  I have a vision for this yarn to be a comfy, sweatshirt style sweater, probably with raglan sleeves either knit top-down or bottom up.  It will be very simple, maybe mostly stocking stitch with simple borders but the border in my head has maybe been a lace border or something - just to give it enough detail to make it interesting.  So I added 3 more hanks to the collection and I hope I have enough now to fulfill this vision.  I probably need to not be pregnant any longer before I turn that sweater into reality.  I'm scared to make anything for myself now not knowing where I'll be at body shape wise when I've had the baby.  So I'm focusing on little knits and accessories, shawls, scarves and other non size requiring items for the next little while.  And after I'm done with baby, I also want to finally lose the rest of the weight..... so I've got a ways to go.

#4 - Opal Rainforest Collection.  I went to Shelley's place with every intention of buying one of each but I had already accumulated so much other yarn that I couldn't justify it.  So I ended up with a skein of the tropical fish and a skein of the flamingo.  I also bought a couple of other skeins that I needed to complete a couple of Beesknees Knits patterns but I'm not showing those off as they are just part of the basics that I needed to finish some stuff.

Oh yeah............ sock knitting will be a good thing to stick to as well while I'm pregnant.  Socks will be forgiving.  I do remember ending up with a slightly bigger (wider) foot and therefore generally taking 1/2 size larger of a shoe since I've had Erika.  Let's see if this baby will take me up to the next full shoe size?  I hope not.

Tonight I'll try and get a few pictures of the sock knitting I did while we were gone.  I finished my SockPalTwoza socks.  I think they turned out quite nicely.  And then I finished two other socks - one sock each and now they are missing their partners.  I'd better get cracking on those partners as they are gifts for a sock exchange as well.

Going back to work this week has really affected me in terms of my level of tiredness and lack of energy.  I'm really struggling by about lunch time.  A walk really helps with that so I haven't been knitting but doing something more healthy for myself - getting some fresh air and walking (mind you yesterday I walked to a park bench and knitted in the shade for about 15 minutes and then I walked back).  I might do that today, too.  When I do get that little burst of energy the walk offers I'm usually fine for the afternoon but then as soon as I get home, I'm beat again.  I hope this fatigue passes soon.  With Erika I didn't feel quite so fatigued after the first 12 or 13 weeks.  Next week I have my second Dr. appointment.  It's the full pre-natal........... I don't even want to think about it.  I think it will be too early to hear baby's heartbeat with the Doppler so I'll still be "in the dark" for a bunch longer.  Until I heard Erika's heartbeat for the very first time, it all seemed so unreal and I was very skeptical and I'm the same again this time.

The weaterh here has finally turned to real summer weather and I'm glad about that.  It's been a good week.  Enjoy your summer days.  They won't last long.

Phew............. re-entry into work life wasn't a lot of fun yesterday.  Monday was still a day off and instead of relaxing like I should have done, I spent the entire day doing laundry, folding clothes, running to the grocery store, preparing dinner etc.  I didn't sit down for more than 15 minutes and didn't even knit one full round on Dancing Vines.  I was so exhausted that I felt I overdid it and yesterday I was even more tired as a result.  Work was tough.  Stupid politics had led to the cancellation of our flex days while I was gone (a pilot project for the summer - work an extra 50 minutes a day and get a day off every two weeks).  I was supposed to have this Friday off and was counting on it.  That was such a disappointment.  I already worked over half my "extra" time before it got cancelled so I'm going to at least take half the day off on Friday.  Everyone else has already had their first day off so I'll at least take what I've earned as well.  Besides that, lots of little issues had accumulated in just one week.  Always so much fun to return to work, isn't it?

I'll write about my new stash and the knitting I accomplished  tomorrow.  For today, I'll leave you with some pictures of our vacation.

ERIKA PLAYING in Victoria, BC

We had a really lovely time in Victoria.  We stayed with my friend Monique.  I've known Monique since university and we've stayed in touch throughout.  Often more off than on but we've seen each other numerous times over the years.  It was wonderful to spend some time with her at her lovely home.  Erika was very excited about the prospect of sleeping on an air mattress on the floor next to our bed.  We had just fallen asleep and we heard a whimper.  What could it be.  Evan looked down at the air mattress looking for Erika.  She wasn't there.  Where could she be?  We figured it out.  With the slippery sleeping bag, she had slipped right off the air mattress and slid right under our bed.  she was kind of wedged under the bed frame.  Evan carefully pulled her out and back on the bed.  You'd think she'd wake up and be upset but she just opened her eyes once and was back into the deep sleep that's so typical for her.

On Monday in Victoria we spent some time at the Inner Harbour and visited the Undersea Gardens.  Erika enjoyed seeing all the fish and marine life including a really big octopus and crabs and other native sea creatures.  After our visit to the Inner Harbour we met my friend Bonny.  We spent a fun day having lunch, going to the park (see pictures) and visiting a couple of yarn stores.  We started out with a small store (and I can't remember the name now) but unfortunately we found out that this store is closed on Mondays.  We still enjoyed an awesome lunch in a cafe next door.  Then we headed back downtown and checked out the Beehive Wool store.  It's a nice, spacious store with lots of variety of yarn raning from Koigu and Fleece Artist right down to Patons and Bernat.  I thought that to be a very, very ecclectic mixture of brands but it seems to work for them.  There were great samples hung all over the stores.  They also sold a variety of kits but I thought some of those were a bit pricey, for example a 100% cashmere baby outfit (sweater, hat and stockings).  Very cute but very impractical and very expensive to dress a baby that will spit up on it and grow out of it in just a few weeks.  I only bought one small hank of a Fleece Artist/Hand Maiden lace weight mohair called Angel in rainbow colours.  Very, very pretty.  It will become some sort of a scarf.

Tuesday was a driving day.  We drove up toward Nanaimo.  I hadn't intended to check out the Loom at Whippletree Junction (a collection of really historic buildings with antiques and other stuff right along the highway) but I was encouraged to check it out and since it was right on the highway, we decided to stop.  They're usually closed on Mondays but this was Tuesday so there shouldn't have been an issue.  But guess what..... on the the Tuesday we travelled, they were closed for their annual staff holiday.  So I peeked in the window, saw that it could have been a neat experience to browse around and kept on driving. 

Our next stop was Mad about Ewe in Nanaimo.  The store was a little bit tough to find - because we forgot our directions and for some reason couldn't find our Nanaimo map. :-)  Evan was going to stop but why he picked the other end of town before he stopped I have no idea.  Asking for directions didn't happen but we bought a new map. Men...... We backtracked and found a lovely little store with all kinds of goodies from Manos yarns to Fleece Artist to Sirdar for kid's knits, sock yarns including some Opal and some other treasures.  I fell in love with some more Fleece Artist mohair in shades of dusty rose but I left it at the store.  Instead I picked up 2 sets of my favourite bamboo sock knitting needles in a 2.25 mm size (I didn't have any yet).  They are from the Kertzer SRK collection.  I truly enjoy knitting with those and I can't seem to find them locally very regularly. 

Our next stop was Coombs, BC where we stopped at the Old Country Market.  This market is known for the goats living on the roof.  It was a hopping place.  We enjoyed a nice lunch and bought some goodies from the bakery and the deli for us to eat once we got to the cottage.  After a short stop we went on our merry way pursuing our destination of Ucluelet, BC.  It was a long and windy drive but it was well worth it.  Our destination were the Reef Point Cottages where we would spend the next three nights.  We had made a good choice.  Very new, clean, basic but nice accommodations.  Most of all, the bed was comfortable, Erika loved the loft to sleep in and we had a basic kitchen to prepare most of our meals.  That was the best part.  We really enjoyed our stay.  Here are some shots of the cottage, inside and out.

We spent our days at the beaches in Pacific Rim National Park.  The weather was fairly decent but not too warm.  When you combine the strong ocean breeze, I wore my sweatshirt pretty much all the time.  It's just so beautiful there.  Here are some of the pictures.

We had a fantastic time.  It rained again on our way out of Uculelet as it did when we drove there.  There was no rain while we were there.  On Friday we headed up towards Campbell River, our final destination.  Our first stop of the day was Butterfuly Gardens in Coombs, BC.  Watching and observing all the butterflies was a great experience.  Erika really enjoyed herself.  It was a bit hot and humic (tropical climate) in there and unfortunately, that was giving me a hard time, making me feel kind of nauseous.  It was worth the visit though.

Our next stop, lunch at McDonald's in Parksville, BC.  Parksville is a nice little ocean side town on the east side of the Island but short of stopping at the McDonald's we didn't do anything there.  We looked at the various accommodations as we were driving through to register where we might like to stay on a possible future Island trip.  I saw a little store front called "The Wool Shop" but we didn't stop or look.  I wasn't really interested at this point.

We were on our way to Courtenay, BC to check out Uptown Yarns.  Uptown yarns turned out to be a nice little yarn shop with some interesting things but not a whole lot that I felt I "had to have".  So after a short little browse around the store I left without spending a dime.  Erika was sleeping so Evan waited in the car for me.  The store was in the centre of Courtenay and the area was very, very busy.  That was all we did in Courtenay before we headed back out on the Island Highway. 

Our last destination was Campbell River, BC.  We stayed with "Uncle" Ian, Evan's friend from highschool.  Erika loves her Uncle Ian.  The higlight of my visit there was the day we spent on Saturday on Quadra Island.  We met Brenda on the ferry and then enjoyed the farmer's market and a lovely sea side lunch on a patio.  Then we met up with Shelley from Fun Knits and had a blast chatting, knitting, going through the store and leaving lots of money behind.  That's where all my stash acquisitions came from and I'll show those off tomorrow.  It was an awesome day.

On Sunday, we packed our things and returned back home to our own bed and a huge load of laundry.  And now we're back to the same old, same old.  A vacation worth while!!!!

Are you still here............... this was long.............. but I wanted a record of our trip somewhere, somehow.

We're back in town and we had a really fun time.  Too bad that summer only really decided to start on our last day of vacation.  I'll be back with some awesome pictures and stories later.  Right now I'm dealing with laundry and grocery shopping - how smart was I to take today off still to deal with the "after vacation clean-up"?  Very smart I think.

Check out Brenda's blog and Shelley's blog for a glimpse of how I enjoyed Saturday.  It was a great day...........  very, very fun.... although a bit expensive. (right Shelley?)

Be back later!!!

Since that one lovely moment in time when I had that 45 minutes to myself...... I haven't had any more time to myself since.  Hardly picked up the needles at all last night or the night before.  Actually, yesterday, I didn't pick up any needles at all.  Not at lunch, not right after work, and not in the evening.  There just wasn't any time.  Erika hasn't been feeling too great either so she's been clingy.

But I did put out the yarn I'll be taking along for my trip.  Sock yarn mostly.  We'll see how many socks I'll get knit up in a week.  What's your guess?  I'm taking 5 different sock possibilities, 2 of which are already on the needles.

Behve and have fun.  I'll be back!!!

What do I call bliss these days?  One hour (actually about 45 minutes) of "me" time, on the couch, in front of the TV, with my knitting.  Watching something mindless and actually knitting something mindless, too.  After Erika declared in no uncertain terms that Canadian Idol "is not my favourite" (Dora is and I'm going Dora crazy), Evan convinced her to exchange watching Dora on the tube for going upstairs and playing her Dora computer game......  I got 45 minutes uninterrupted peace and quiet out of that one.  I was tired but it felt good to make progress on JoJo.  If you see yesterday's picture, now, I'm only about an inch away from the armhole shaping.  It was nice.

Laura asked me in a comment from a couple of days ago regarding the colours for the baby yarns I was picking out.  Yes, right now, the colours are very, very neutral.  I picked one colour that's a shade of yellow that looks like it's been mixed with green olives.  Does that make it "yellive".  I also like bright primary colours and I would dress boy or girl in those.  With Erika I had no idea what we were having but I always thought we'd have a girl first and so even though I tried to keep things very neutral, I had a few pieces all geared up for a little girl.  This time, baby cooperating etc, I would like to find out ahead of time so that my colour choices won't be limited to cream/yellow/green etc. 

I almost forgot to mention that I sat down with a crochet hook and the poorly treated Hearts and Lace and to my surprise, I managed to fix it up with very little noticeable damage.  One stitch seems a bit off but I had to fix up a section of about 15 stitches with many dropped down as far as 5 or 6 rows and little eyelets in the middle.  I'm happy enough with it.  I think anything that's left noticeable will come out with a washing and a blocking.  As well, it's off to the side, under the arms so it won't be too noticeable in the end.  Phew.............. I was getting ready to toss that one in the corner.  Now I should probably work on finishing it.

Don't think quiet time will return for tonight.  I've got errnads to run.

Enjoy the day.

Finally got my blood tests done.......... that's always such a pain.  Try and find that vein and then extract 6 viles of blood........... go ahead, why don't ya!!!  I hated every second of it even though it didn't really hurt.  It was just a little uncomfortable.  But it's done now...... 

I have some little socks to show.............. a pair of socks for a special little girl all the way in Germany.  Erika has a matching pair and the yarn is KnitPicks Simple Stripes.  It was a nice yarn to knit with.  I liked the colour changes.  I could swear the yarn was produced in the Regia factory just because of the imprint of colour number and dye lot on the label.  The font is identical to that on Regia sock yarn.

The bigger socks are the start of the Sock-Pal-2-zaa socks.  The picture is blurry and the colour isn't perfect so they probably won't make that much of an impression on the picture.  But I'd love to hear if you think those are nice looking or if they are just plain yucky or just too simple or whatever......  The pattern is growing on me.

How about a picture of JoJo using Opal Petticoat and an Opal Uni in a light blue:

Bad lighting on that one!!!!

I love how the light blue works with the Petticoat.  I think it will make a lovely cardigan for Erika.  However, nothing is progressing quickly these days.  I seem to make the slowest of slowest progress on anything.  Part of it is that often in the evenings I'm just too tired ot even lift my arms but most of it is that a lot of time is spent outside watering, going to the park and just plain old spending time with Erika.  I'm hoping that I'll get some rest and relax time while we're on vacation.  I know that I'll most definitely be knitting while Evan is driving but since we're taking my car, I'm sure I'll have to do my share of driving during this vacation.  When we take Evan's SUV,  I never drive because it's a standard and I never properly learned how to drive one so it's a darn good excuse to knit in my point of view.  We're taking my car because it's better on gas and with soaring gas prices that's a good thing and I figure so that Evan doesn't have to do all the driving.  We'll see.  I'll still get my share of knitting time. :-)  I'm also mapping out the best route to hit all the yarn stores I want to hit.  That's a very important step about going vacation, isn't it?

Have an awesome day.

Where did that nice long weekend go?  Oh, who knows?  It just kind of disappeared into thin air and now it's already Monday.  All in all, we had a fun weekend though.

The highlight of my weekend was a visit to the Knit & Stitch Shoppe.  What a lovely store and the atmosphere seems welcoming and friendly.  That's a very important thing for me when I consider whether I'll visit a store for the second time.  I got that vibe so I'm sure I'll be back.  It's a bit of a trip but one just never knows when I'll get a chance to go on another outing.  I was a little rushed because Erika and Evan were with me but they took a detour to the beach.  We agreed to meet at the car at a certain time.  Definitely not quite enough time for me to explore everything I wanted to explore.  And since my cell phone had no charge, I couldn't contact them to find out if they were still having fun or if they were waiting for me already.  Well, it turned out that there was a little playground with swings right at the beach and I had to actually walk all the way down to the beach to find Evan and Erika.  Erika was having a blast on the swings.  Moral of the story - I could have stayed much longer and if my cell phone had been charged I could have phoned to find that out quite easily.

What did I come home with?  Not a whole lot.  I gave myself permission to buy some baby stuff so I ended up with a ball of Sirdar Snowflake to make a little newborn top down one button cardigan with and I ended up with some other Sirdar DK yarn (can't remember the name right now) to make something.  There was a very cute pattern in the store but for some reason I didn't pick it up.  But I went back to my baby patterns and found a very cute hooded cardigan that seems just right for the yarn.  I already made the vest and the hoodie from that same pattern.  I guess the pattern is getting really good use.

The rest of the weekend really is a blur with tough times getting Erika to sleep and many, many things to do.

We went to visit my inlaws for dinner last night.  My MIL had just come back from another visit to California and she was gifted to 220 skeins of the loveliest Alpaca.  She's a bit of a knitter but not enough of one that she wanted to keep them so I was the very lucky recipient of the lovliest skeins of Alpaca.  It is so soft and so lovely.  There is a mulberry kind of a skein and a green coloured skein.  The Alpaca is from Honey Lane Farms in Washington and I'm so pleased.  I'm thinking maybe a warmer winter version of Branching Out might be the destiny for one of the skeins.

I do not lose my temper very often with my child but I was brought to tears last night.  Erika assaulted my knitting because I didn't put Dora on for her fast enough.  I caught her lassooing her growing Hearts and Lace sweater over her head and she thought it was very funny.  After I got it away from her, I looked at a piece of knitting that was all scrunched up on the circular needle with about 20 stitches dropped and some of them running down 5 or more rows all inside a lace pattern.  She's usually very good and doesn't get into my knitting.  That's why I don't keep it under lock and key.  I was very upset as my immediate reaction was - "I can't fix that".   I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  Today is another day and I will probably try to fix it by bringing up those stitches to see if I can make it work out.  But I have a feeling that because so much was dropped and so far down in some instances, it will show.  I won't be able to resemble my even tension.  So I might have to rip that all back and picking up all those stitches will be a pain as well.  Arrrrgh.  I guess I'll have to start putting away my knitting where she can't pull a fast one on me like that.  At least it was her sweater and not my Dancing Vines for example.  Well, she may not get that sweater any time soon if I can't find an easy way to do the fix.

I also started my Sock-Pal-2-zaa socks yesterday.  I'm doing a pattern called "Wavey Rib".  I like it but it's only a simple pattern.  I hope it will look good all finished and be "good enough".  For now they are the Sock-Pal-2-zaa socks.  I reserve final judgement on that when the first sock is finished and I can see what the whole thing looks like.

Vacation is a week away.  Yeah!!!!