Uli's Creative Corner

Yeah............... it's Friday.  We're living in interesting times and work has been busy with the things I usually do and then other things that are completely not in my regular realm of what I do.  It's tiring but I'm making the best of it, putting a smile on my face and going with the flow.  The fun part of the day was a lunch that us, the managers, prepared for all the staff as an appreciation and thank you for everyone's hard work during September.  Last year we did a breakfast and today we had cold cuts and cheese and veggies and goodies like that.  It was a very nice little lunch.  I think everyone enjoyed and since I was so hungry, I ate 1 1/2 sandwich buns and now I'm absolutely tired.  My body wants to take a nap.

I had a wonderful knitting evening yesterday.  After talking about the rainy and stormy day yesterday, my evening actually turned into that "stay at home, curl up on the couch" kind of an evening that I was imagining having.  Erika was good and content to colour and do stuff like that and Evan was doing stuff around the kitchen.  I figure I had almost 2 hours of knitting time and got really close to finishing the 2nd sleeve of JoJo.  Oh, so cool!!!!  With any luck, I'll finish the sleeve tonight and then it's on to the back.  Yikes........ miles of baby blue sock weight stocking stitch.  Oh, it will be okay.  Just some determination and patience.

Have a Knitty kind of a weekend

Wow........... we go from glorious sunshine to absolutely miserable.  A day to curl up and relax instead.  But, I'm working.

Thanks for all the comments about Spice.  Yes, she's worth it.  It's hard to take because outwardly, besides the throwing up and what cat doesn't sometimes throw up, she has no other symptoms.  So for us, it's hard to tell whether the medication is effective.  She goes back for another x-ray tomorrow to see if her lungs are improving.  The Flovent will be a permanent deal but the other inhaler drug and the antibioitics, fortunately are only temporary.

Last night I took Erika to Walmart and she was putting sewing thread in my cart, just for me, because she thought I needed more knitting.   I quietly "lost" the sewing thread from my cart.  I didn't need these particular colours.  I did buy a sewing pattern for some fleece baby things such as a little sleeping bag (to use instead of a crib blanket).  I have tons of fleece I never used up from when Erika was little.  It's time for me to use some of it for new baby.

I'm working on JoJo and am currently about 1/3 done with sleeve #2.  After that it's the plain stocking stitch back.  The least fun of these cute little sweaters.  I'll be looking forward to getting to the detail squares at the top of the back.  I'm still sticking to my strategy and focusing only on JoJo and the new Phildar baby cardigan.  I would have finished the baby cardigan first if I hadn't needed that extra ball of matching/complementary DK yarn.  I still haven't picked up anything.  I did a quick run by one LYS yesterday but unfortunately there was a sign on the door "sorry for the inconvenience - will be back at noon".  Well, I was on an early lunch and I couldn't hang around for 1/2 hour.  So no luck.  Walmart didn't have anything I wanted to use.  But as soon as I get the ball of yarn I need I will finish the baby sweater and then JoJo will be full steam ahead until it's finished.

I've seen a few blog writers who have started talking about Christmas and the associated knitting craze.  I want to be a selfish grinch this year.  Otherwise, I'd have to start digging in now.  I'm not motivated.  I had contemplated some more cardigans for my nieces but decided not to go there.  I am contemplating a very simple (and also cheap - if I use the suggested yarn) sweater for Evan but my list of projects is so long.  Erika could use something really cute, couldn't she?  But I knit for her all the time anyways.  I don't think my gifts of socks last year were a real hit.  The giftees I don't think ever probably wore them.  I know my Mom wore her Soft Socks quite a bit.  My MIL probably never ever wore the cardigan I slaved over.  Yes, the sleeves were long but I was offering to fix them for her but I think her solution was to try and wash and dry it and see if it shrunk enough.  It's just up in that closet somewhere.  Is it taboo to ask for it back.  I'm taller.  It fits me better and would accommodate my growing belly without much trouble so I'd at least have a warm sweater this winter.  As a result, I think I won't bore anyone with my hand knitted gifts this year.  I stress every year...... but I question whether any of my gifts are ever really appreciated. 

So call me GRINCH.......... I just consider myself selfish 'caus I've got lots of baby knitting to do.  Maybe I'll make Evan that sweater after all but I'll have to think about that some more.

Go and knit..... this is perfect fall weather for it.

Actually, by the time it's all said and done I should have probably titled this one the $1,500 cat.  We have two cats, one is Patches and one is Spice.  Over the summer we had lots of throwing up incidences and we ended up pin pointing it on Spice.  We thought hairballs?  Nope that didn't really seem to be the issue.  Certain foods seemed to trigger it so we played around with different foods.  We found a few that caused almost immediate reaction and others were hit and miss.  This was all going on while it was quite hot.  So we decided that Spice needed to see the vet.  I love my kitties so don't get me wrong when I say "tongue in cheek" that we use the Rolls Royce of veterinarians.  She only specializes in cats, sees no other animals and cats are people to her.  Of course, her fees are a little higher and no test or treatment shall be spared.

The first visit ended up in a overnight stay because they had to do a urinalysis and had to collect a urine sample which wasn't immediately possible.  She went there on Saturday and we picked her up on Monday with an approximate bill of $350.  That basic analysis didn't solve much of anything and the urinalysis didn't really give any hints.  The next suggested treatment was an X-ray so a week down the road we took Spicey down for an X-ray.  The idea of the X-ray was to determine that there was no internal blockage or a foreign object.  At this point in time, the vet was suspecting some possible food allergies or related reaction.  As they x-rayed the stomach, they caught a corner of the lung and noticed something abnormal so they x-rayed the rest of the lungs.  The lungs were all cloudy.  When I picked her up, they showed me an x-ray of a healthy lung and compared it to Spicey's x-ray.  Definitely something wasn't right.  We were told it could possibly be asthma.  In order to find out that it was asthma or whatever lung related issue, we first had to have Spicey undergo an ECG to make sure there weren't heart related issues.  So the same day Spice got an ECG.  Nothing unusual showed up there.  This was the lead-up to a procedure called a lung lavage and the ECG was necessary to determine the heart was fine because she would go under general anaesthetic.  So Spice comes home and we wait for the next procedure.

A couple of weeks ago, we take her back for the lung lavage procedure and the give her another X-ray to see if the lungs have improved but they are worse.  Unfortunatley, this was also a day where we had a lot of smoke in the air due to a fire that was burning in the area.  Therefore, it was hard to tell if it was the smoke in the air that made the x-ray appear worse or if she was really worse.  The vet was concerned and so she called us to ask if she could call in a veterinary colleague who specializes in overseeing cats under general anaesthesia.  That would have been another $300 on top of what we were already paying so this is the first time we declined and told her that we trusted her and if something was to happen during the procedure we would live with it.

So, the lung lavage turns up that Spice has some bacterial infection and also chronic bronchitis.  To make a long story short, we are now treating our ktity twice a day with Salbuttomol and Flovent, administered through an Optichamber (like asthmatic kids have) and also we make her pop a pill of antibiotics.  Can you see it?  My cat is getting two puffers in the morning and two puffers at night and then we pry her jaw open twice a day to get her to suck down on an antibiotic.  She is skitterish now and runs when we come to get her for her medicine.  But she does hold still for her puffers.  The pill is a bit more challenging but we seem to have worked out a system for that, too.  Only 14 more pills and another x-ray on Friday to see if the lungs are improving with the treatment.

So this is how our $20 run of the mill (but very cute) house cat turned into a $1,000 cat........

Giving her all these meds cuts into my knitting time. :-)

Worked more on JoJo last night - but not very much.

Well, the last bits of the 4 year old's birthday have been celebrated.  As always.... she was very spoiled by our family.

It took me 3 hours on Saturday morning to ice the Dora cake but here it is:

And the birthday girl blowing out her candles:

It was fun.  Combining both families is always very stressful for me and I worked in the kitchen and around the house all day so I was tired by the end of it.

I decided to start one baby project this weekend before finishing one of the UFOs.  It went so fast that I could have had it all finished by today if it wasn't for the fact that I needed a solid colour of a DK weight to go with the fancy, fluffy Phildar Neige.  So I had to stop because I didn't have anything in my stash that would work.  I'll have to go find something this week.  So for now I'm working on UFO JoJo, trying to get that done.

Here's my progress on the little Phildar hooded cardigan using the Phildar Neige (it does feel soft like freshly fallen snow).

It's fluffy, it's soft and it's cuddly and it's baby sized.....

Have a great week.

I'm trying to present some decent shots of Erika trying to learn how to knit.  It didn't go very far but she had fun and it's on her own initiative and not her Mommy trying to convince.  She wants to make a scarf and a sweater for the baby.  Any tips on teaching a kid to knit would always be welcome.  But here are our first attempts that went beyond wrapping yarn around the fingers:

So I needed a strategy for finishing projects and also getting a bit of baby knitting done.  I feel eager to do some baby knitting but I feel held back by all my WIPs.  So while sitting in traffic, driving Erika to daycare this morning, I came up with a plan.  The "Baby Project UFO Accord".  I get to knit one baby project and then I have to finish a UFO and then I get to knit another baby project etc.  Or maybe I have to turn it around and as a reward for finishing a UFO, I get to knit a new baby project.  So I will line up my UFOs, in order:

1. JoJo
2. Top Down Swing Coat
3. Mitered Corner Capelet
4. Hearts and Lace
5. Victorian Ruby Scarf
6. Eris
7. Flower Basket Shawl
8. Canadian Shield
9. Dancing Vines

So between finishing each one of these I'll sneak a new baby project and I need to try and get one project at a time out of the way.  I might move Eris up a little higher on the list.  I have to think about that a bit.  As I'm growing bigger I won't wear any of the stuff for myself for now but we'll see.

What do you think?  Could it work?  I have at least (probably more) than I can tackle between now and next February.  I guess that truly shows me that I don't need to buy any new yarn...... at all. 

There are issues at work that I choose not to share here at work because they are controversial and I'm not into making a public statement about how I feel about what's going on..... but having said that, I have a feeling things will get busier and really heat up with stuff that's usually furthest from my regular duties and responsibilities and that will all need to be done on top of those regular responsibilities.  So that might impact my time with my knitting as well..........  I'm always one to chip in wherever help is needed but this will be a very interesting time.

Tomorrow is Erika's family birthday party and I still have one big order for a Dora cake.  Baking it tonight, setting the alarm clock for 6 am tomorrow to decorate the cake - so that I can do it before Erika gets up and gets involved.  She will get her own little round cake to decorate later on.

Have a great weekend.

Thanks for everyone's well wishes for Erika's birthday.  She's growing up so quickly.  It's hard to believe.  The party was fun although I found it kind of stressful for me.  I'm a pretty social person but I had a hard time with all these Moms and Dads some of who I knew really well and others who I'd barely met.  I wanted to make sure I didn't ignore anyone or make anyone feel left out and at the same time make sure that the kids were having fun.  McDonald's did a good job though to keep the kids entertained, fed and happy.

Here are a couple of pictures.  Doesn't she look happy?

Obviously, that night I didn't do any knitting.  During the day I worked on a little sock while waiting for an appointment with the genetic counsellor.  Yikes...... I'm getting tired of all these medical/baby related appointments.  They are all a little stressful.  I'm supposed to have my "big" ultrasound next week and the genetic counsellor wanted us to postpone it by a week so the baby would be a big bigger and they could get better shots so she told me to call my Dr. office to reschedule at the hospital.  Well, my Dr. office can't get another appointment for one week later at the hospital.  Blah, blah, blah..... big run around all the time.  So now I'll probably end up having the ultrasound at a private clinic but a week or so later.  I'm just waiting to find out when.  Hopefully I'll know later today.  I think a private clinic might be more likely to tell me "boy or girl" if they can tell but in BC they really aren't supposed to.  I do want to know this time around though but in all reality, I really just want a healthy baby.

Boy, am I rambling. 

Last night I finished the first sleeve of JoJo except for the casting off.  That small sleeve has taken me 2 weeks, I think.  That's so pathetic.  A real sign of how little time I have to sit down these days.

Tonight we're going shopping at Michael's to get the last few icing colours I need to decorate the Dora cake for our "family birthday party" for Erika on Saturday.  I also want to pick up a few other little things.  Erika has a vision of decorating her own cake.  I think I might make a second cake and let her go to it.  I don't want her touching the Dora cake.  Those shaped character cakes are a lot of work and I like doing them but I don't really want to get little hands involved in that one.  Erika has been collecting smartiese and chocolate chips and other things she wants to put on her cake so I'll make her a small round cake and put some icing on it and let her decorate her own cake.

All this will keep me busy for the rest of the week.

Hmmm, am I tempted to start baby knitting?  Of course I am.  Have I started  yet?  No, not really except that I needed to take something to knit for the movies on Saturday night (my big girl stayed at Nana and Papa's house over night) so I started on the Lucy Neatby Celestial Baby Sweater using some Opal Rodeo from the stash.

But I do have a bit of a baby knitting stash now...........

On Saturday we did a little excursion to the Knit & Stitch Shop in West Vancouver.  I don't get over there very often but when I do, it's fun.  And a good thing is that there's a little beach front park right at the bottom of the hill so it's the perfect entertainment for Evan and Erika. 

I ended up with a few things:

Some Phildar Neige (a very heavenly soft yarn) in a shade of navy blue to make this cute Phildar cardigan from the Layette Winter 2004 magazine.

I also ended up with a very simple pattern and yarn for a basic little fisherman's rib sweater or vest.  I bought the matching white/blue yarn.  Geez.... I'm going for the gusto with all these blues.  It's just my gutt feeling and I wasn't wrong with Erika so we'll see.  I'm not opposed by any means to put blues on a girl so it doesn't really matter in the end.

Some time ago, I also picked up some Sirdar Tiny Tots to make a little pullover and on the weekend I finally got my hands on the pattern.

I also have some yarn to make this Fibertrends baby blanket.

And........... well......... I have all kinds of ideas to use up some of my lovely sock yarn.  But since I seem to have a difficult time finishing my other WIPs, it's all a slow process.

And my BIG girl is turning 4 years old in just a few hours.  Happy Birthday baby girl........

This is my baby on her birthday 4 years ago:

Oh, how she's grown!!!

We're having a big party at McDonald's tomorrow and then a family one on the weekend.

2 years in blog land now and right now I'm missing my blog and my blogging buddies that I've met in the last 2 years.  But I'm hoping that I'll be able to resume my regular blogging habits by Wednesday this week.

Work has been going so so......... sometimes, things fall into place.  Other times they don't.  Right now I'm finding myself proving to others that the decisions I made are sound decisions and were necessary.  Yikes.... can be very frustrating and very time consuing.  I hope to resolve all that by tomorrow afternoon.

I'll leave you with a picture of the quilt top I finished during the week.  Now just to add the backing.  There's no batting sandwiched in the middle because the fabric is already so soft.

It's not perfect.  There are some less than perfect seams and matches of joins.  The fabric is so pretty and soft but a real killer to sew with.  But a little baby won't look for those flaws.  The baby will love how soft this blanket will be on baby's little skin.

I have another baby related appointment this week and another one next week and another one the following week.  One is at the hospital, with a genetic counsellor, the next is the ultrasound and the last is the regular dr. appointment which will also give us the results of the "big" ultrasound.  And then my current doctor (my family doctor) will refer me to the maternity clinic operated by the hospital.  Just when I'm getting used to one doctor, she has to pass me along because she no longer does full maternity care like she used to a few years back. 

Hope to be back on a regular basis real soon.

Oh yes........... gotta show off......... we had an unexpected early ultrasound because of some stuff I don't really feel like going into.  But I'm feeling fine and things are looking good.  Although not all worries are gone and they probably won't be gone until we actually hold little one, I'm feeling much better.  The ultrasound was just meant to date the pregnancy - just to make sure my dates (that I knew were right) were really right.  Well, they were right......  but the tech was good.  He let Evan come in for the whole exam and we got to go home with pictures.  They don't tell you much but he was talkative and showed us lots of stuff and we got to see and hear the heart beat.  He said that at this stage there are many things they can't tell for sure but that everything he could see looked fine.  I feel a lot better now and here's a shot of the little one:

Imagine baby's head on the left and baby lying on its back.

Last week was incredible.  It was so busy.  I was so stressed.  I didn't knit.  I didn't do anything but work.  I still worked a good bit on the weekend, too.  Today is the first evening that I'm not working at home.  My work days will continue super busy but I think the days of after hours work is almost over again.

Tonight I'm working on Jo Jo's sleeve.  It's turning out quite nice.

Better check on the rest of my family before they send out a search party.

Busy............ busy.......... busy............... I'll be back next week.

No knitting - just work. 

More to come next week or on the weekend.

So here are just some recent sock pics for you to look at: