Uli's Creative Corner

Nothing much new here......... not much knitting this weekend but a little bit......  my sock kit for my sock kit pal is almost finished.   I have to sew a snap on the opening of the bigger bag and then I can put it all together.  I have a bit more work to do on the pattern that I am writing up.  And my pair of socks made with that pattern is also almost complete.  That was my biggest knitting accomplishment this weekend.  We drove out to my Mom and Dad's and back and that's worth about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes worth of knitting.  On the way back we listened to the traffic reports and of course, the bridge where we cross the Fraser River had a stall in one direction mid-span and another accident in our direction mid-span and then there was some other stuff going on around there as well.  So as to not turn our drive into a parking on the highway adventure, we took the long route around and drove to the next bridge over and the back tracked.  Extra knitting time - yeah - and the kids were sleeping so no complaints from them.

My little guy has started motoring.  A huge milestone in itself but I'm not going to chalk that down to true mobility.  Just mobility that makes his Mommy cringe and him frustrated.  He has turned into an inch worm.  An inch worm with carpet burn.  Flat on tummy and face, let's all lift our bums up high and push forward and repeat.  Evan called me to see last night from where he had started to where he had gone that way and it was pretty amazing but his poor little face was all red.  He's going to have to figure out something else soon or I'll be a nervous wreck watching him do that to himself.  I'm getting the various quilts out today and covering as much of the family room floor as possible so he can at least motor on a bit softer of a surface if he so chooses.

So there's that dilemma about tummy sleeping, too.  We can't keep him on his back any longer.  Put him in his crib, flip goes the pancake right to his tummy.  What can you do, once they can do it themselves?  Not a whole heck of a lot I think. 

Well, I'm going to go and have a cup of coffee and knit a few rows.  Enjoy your Monday.

What do you think.......... does this look like a sock to you?

Okay, so this picture is blurry (because I can't seem to get lace close-ups to work on my camera at all).  Get over that hurdle and imagine.

For me this was good for a laugh and chuckle:

Me: Look, what do you think of this project?  Doesn't it look nice?

Hubby: Yeah, is it that sock?

Me: Stunned............ Nothing to add to that.  I thought I had him trained a little better than this.

If it's not obvious, it's not a sock but the Hanging Garden Stole.  I'm on row 39 (or so) of the first 55 row repeat.  Very slow going but I managed to knit about 3 rows last night.  Yes, I picked up my needles and knit........... a whole 3 rows.

So now you know why I need my blog - just so I can talk about my knitting and other projects and have people actually get it!!!!!  Maybe I'll have to cast on for something really mysterious next just so I can really make him guess.

My little girl was very sad last night.  It just about broke my heart.  She wouldn't really tell me that she was sad.  She didn't cry.  She just sat around and hardly made a sound.  We cheered her up a bit by taking her to the park.  It will take some adjustment for all of us.  And I never did get to try a cup cake because there weren't any left over when Evan came to pick up Little Miss.  They were all gone so I figure they must have been yummy.  I'll bake some more soon so we can try some.

I haven't touched a knitting needle in 2 days.  Yikes.  I'm in withdrawl.  At least we have some driving to do tomorrow and that means I can make some progress on one of my lonely, forgotten socks in progress.  But other than that, tomorrow will be a run around kind of a day.  Maybe Sunday will be more quiet.

Today is "washing day" as the Little Miss has termed it aka clean-up day.  And she says that means that you have to clean everything except for the stair railing.  Go figure.............

But first we have to head over to the pool for JR and my Aquafit class.  Little Miss will get to colour in the toy place for an hour.  She's looking forward to that.  Having said that, I need to pack our swimming bag and get that ready and then I have to start the waking up process.  That always takes some time.

Have a great weekend.  I didn't get any pictures yet so I won't go into my sock kit bag problem that I was fighting with yesterday.  Let it be said that I almost threw out the whole entire project.  As of this morning I think I've salvaged it.  This is bag #2 to make a bigger bag because the little one will just be sent along as the small project bag.  And if this bag won't work out, I don't know what to do because I really can't afford any more fabric.  The fabric for this 2nd bag had to come from the stash and my stash of fabric isn't nearly as big and versatile as my yarn stash.  I think that's a good thing though.

Now I'm done chatting - do have a great weekend.

bake cupcakes of course!!!

It's the Little Miss' last day at her daycare.  She is so sad because she will miss her friends.  That's the reason we kept her in part time daycare for so long even though I was home on maternity leave.  She loves her friends and the learning and socialization that goes on there.  It was good for her and for me to have a bit of a break.  But now it's almost August and she will be getting ready for Kindergarten and won't attend school in the neighbourhood where her daycare is......... so it was time to move on and time to move on for her before her other little friends, who will continue on at this daycare for before and after school care, start the process of transitioning in preparation for Kindergarten.  I'm sad, too.  This place has been a very positive part of our lives for 4 years and now she won't go there any longer.  We've met some nice people though and have made friends with some other parents so we will keep those friendships going even after she leaves.  And before you know it, JR will attend there and we will start the whole process over again.

So, to say good bye to her friends and teachers, she wanted to bring in a treat and we made cupcakes. 

I baked a great thank you to her teachers and all her friends and all of our memories and positive experiences into these cupcakes.  My heart is baked right into that dough somewhere.  It's so hard to leave your children in a daycare setting but when you feel comfortable that they are safe and secure and nurtured and cared for...... it's a great feeling.

Phew......... who would have thought that I would have a cry over this one?  I think I'm taking it just as hard as she is........... and then, let's be realistic..... all of August, as much as I love my kids..... I won't get a break and I'll have both of them all the time.  That will be something I'll have to get used to and it means even less time in pursuit of my crafty hobbies.

Thanks for all the comments about the car.  It's an expensive repair job and we're on the hook for the whole deductible even though it was a hit and run.  But the deductible is only half of about the $1000 total repair bill.  We will survive and I've stopped griping about it.  I found ot later on that day that friends of ours (the Mom and 2 daughters) were in a car accident with their brand new car and the Mom and older daughter are hospitalized and the younger girl also has injuries.  That's when I really remembered to count my blessings that we weren't in the car at the time when our car got swiped and that nobody got hurt.

And since I did absolutely no knitting yesterday, here's my little ballerina:

She takes her ballet lessons very, very seriously.  Soccer didn't work out again.......... she really wanted to try soccer again and got hurt after her second week and wouldn't participate for week 3 and 4 of the class.  But ballet was a great success so she gets to continue.  I guess she's just more of a girly girl than I thought.

I've also got a couple of little short video clips:

Clip #1

Clip #2

And not forgetting about JR....... he's getting his shots this afternoon.  Tonight I'm knitting. 

You know those conversations/phone calls that have to start out with: "Don't worry, we are all fine...."?  Well, I had to have one of those with hubby yesterday except at first I forgot the "don't worry, we're all fine phrase".......

I took the kids to McDonalds for lunch and more so a break from the warm temperatures in the house.  I figured I'd let little Miss play in the play place for a while enjoying the airconditioning and getting her off the couch.  It seemed like a good idea at the time and we had fun while we were inside.  When we came back outside, we found this:

Some jerk hit my car in the parking lot, leaving the mirror dangling only by its wires and put some pretty good dents and scratches in my driver side door.  Looks like a white vehicle to me.  Of course the driver of that vehicle had taken off by the time I came out and not even stopped to leave a note or anything like that.  Of course, nobody saw it happening either.  It's just a great big pain now.  Today I have to deal with the insurance guys.  Unfortunately, my deductible is quite high so we'll end up having to pay a large chunk of the repair bill ourselves.  I already didn't have any play money to do some fun stuff with yarn or try out the new Knit Picks knitting needles........... now I even have less.  It also restricts my travels this week until we get it fixed.  It's no fun driving with a dangling mirror.  These next 3 days were my last chance of "freedom" ie. Little Miss is coming up to her last 3 days of daycare.  As of next week, she'll be with me every day, all the time until she starts Kindergarten.  I'm looking forward to having her around but I was also looking forward to enjoying my last 3 days where it's just JR and me.  It just makes me so mad that people out there are so dishonest and don't value others' property and don't have the courage to own up to their screw ups.  So yes, Evan's main concern was that we were okay and we weren't in the car at the time does put the whole thing in perspective....... it could have been so much worse but I'm still mighty frustrated and very angry.

Lucky I bought this project I'm about to show off before this happened

See my first attempt at beaded knitting:

It's a bead soup bracelet from Earth Faire.  I'm almost finished and it has been a ton of fun.  Never having done one, I must say, this was easy, quick, simple and a lot of fun......... and it really does look very, very pretty.  They would make Christmas gifts.  Lots of fun and something new and different.  It was a good project for the hot weather.  Now I'm all hooked on beads as well.......... bad thing.

I'd better get going and get JR fed his breakfast so that we can make it to our appointment with the insurance guys.

Sewing is a good pastime in the heat.  I stole some moments here and there to finally finish my sock kit swap pal's first bag.  This was intended to be the main bag I was going to use for my sock pal's sock kit but it's just too little to hold a lot.  It will be the perfect project bag for a ball of sock yarn and some needles but that's about it.  So now, I'm working on the bigger tote bag that will contain this little bag and the other goodies that will go along with the kit.  I'm hoping that I can finish bag #2 this week.  I got the first two seams sewn yesterday afternoon but that was about it. 

Here is the little one........... I think it's quite cute.  I was sewing a practice purse at the same time and told the Little Miss she could have it once it was done but I abandoned the practice purse at the handle stage because I just wanted to get the real thing finished.  Little Miss saw the finished product and reminded me that she gets the green and pink purse with the roses on it.  Great.... she never forgets.

Cute?

Details:

Pattern: Sassy Bag by Lazy Girl Designs

Fabric: 3 complementary fat quarters - the third colour used for the inside pocket and back is a light blue

It's still hot but cooling down just a little.  Little Miss declared that it was Washing Day today......... when I asked her, she told me that it was the day when we had to clean everything in the house but the couch and she is particularly interested in cleaning the toilets.  She already told me yesterday that the toilet in the powder room needed to be cleaned!!!!  Yikes. She said she'd help.

Mr. JR has been doing okay through the heat.  He now gets the point of eating solid food and once he got it, there was no stopping him.  Squash and sweet potatoes and apples so far go the distance.  I started out with a couple of baby food jars just to get me organized but now I've got the production lines going and the homemade baby food is being made.  Sweet potato puree was first.  I think I'm going to make some apple puree and carrot puree today.  All gets frozen in ice cube trays and then stored in labeled zip lock bags.  And then you take out a cube or two at a time heat it and serve.  The two books I love when it comes to preparing home made baby food are written by Annabel Karmel and are called First Meals and Top 100 Baby Purees.  Great feeding ideas and recipe ideas for the little ones.  The First Meals book goes into stages way past the pureed baby food stage and also helps with recipe ideas for toddlers.  I used this book extensively with Erika and of course I have it out again now.  I have to admit that some of her ideas on presentation are way out there ie. a lot of work but the basic underlying recipes are great.  Good for a healthy start.

Back to my latest obsession............ beads.

It's beautiful outside......... the sky is clear, no cloud in the sky...... but there is also no breeze and even at 9 am in the morning, it's already stifling hot.  I'm not complaining but it is hot.  It's almost too hot to knit.  Right now might be okay but later at night when it really gets stifling hot around the house, it really is too hot to even deal with cotton.

We spent the day yesterday with some friends who also had access to their neighbour's pool and the kids and adults all had fun cooling off in the pool.  And as it did cool off on their deck after dinner, I was able to work on some of my Trekking socks.  I got the heel done yesterday.  These days that seems like a lot of progress.

Daddy is at swimming lessons with the Little Miss and JR and I are hanging out.  I'm going to get my cup of coffee now and maybe I will even knit a little.

Have a good one.

You can't see much yet but I started the Hanging Garden Stole.  I'm using Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in colour Tide Pool.  I have some awesome beads, too and it wasn't too hard to incorporate them into the cast-on. 

Can't say I got much done on it but here's the first shot:

So far, so good......... I started - now I'd like to go back to finish the Diamond Fantasy scarf and maybe my Heartstrings Eyelet Ribbed Top. 

JR is having a bit of a morning nap so I'm going to try and sew a bit.

A heat wave that's been talked about on the weather forecasts all week seems to be upon us.  It's still nice and cool this morning but I can tell from the sky that it will be a hot one.

Bad Photographer......... or maybe just that the camera just isn't as good as some of the newer stuff out there or that the colours of this particular yarn are really tough to capture especially when you throw in a lace pattern on top of a highly variegated yarn.

As I said, I have a very tough time getting a well focused shot of my progress on the Diamond Fantasy Scarf by Sivia Harding.  It looks waaaaaaay better in real life than on any image I've tried to capture of it.  But here's a shot of the progress.  It's coming along.  I'd like to knit more on it today but so far I'm not managing to do much.  I have laundry waiting and if I sit down on the couch to even do just one quick row, I feel guilty about the lack of laundry doing.  I've got ironing waiting.... same thing.  I've also got tidying in the kitchen.... well, let it be said that I only really enjoy my knitting time when all the chores around me are done.  And if I do all the chores...... well, actually, I don't even think I have half of a chance to get them all done before I have to pick up Little Miss for her ballet class.  And then, it's ballet from 3:30 to 4:15, rush home for a quick throw together dinner (but here's a great quick recipe that's popular with picky Little Miss - Sweet and Sour Meatballs), and off to soccer at 6 pm.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, JR just fell asleep on the bed behind me.  Good time to run around for a bit and do some stuff.

So here's a less than perfect shot of the Diamond Fantasy Scarf.  It still looks tiny but I'm down to the last 2 repeats.  But it's the smaller scarf version, of course, and then there's that magic of lace blocking.

What else is new???? Not much on the knitting front or the sewing from my sock kit pal front. 

JR had his 6-month check-up yesterday and he only gain just over 1 lb in the last two months so he's dropped from his 50th percentile for weight (adjusted for his prematurity) down to the 10th percentile.  He still nurses like a pig but he's been sleeping for 10-11 hours at night not getting night time feedings.  My doc is a great breastfeeding supporter so she didn't send me down the "supplement with formula" road but she did send me right over to the lab to get a blood test done for his iron levels.  Now he's had lots of blood tests done in the hospital so I thought I'd be okay with it........... but man, he was screaming so hard.  The lab tech was taking the blood drop by drop and squeezing his little leg to get more to come out of the little prick in his heel.  I think it took her at least 5 minutes to just get a 1 ml blood sample.  And then after she was done, he screamed even louder.  He was sooooo mad.  Fortunately, the lab tech had the good sense to offer me the room so I could nurse him because he was hungry as well.  That worked.  She had good sense in that way but on the other hand, she gave him a big, round "good patient" sticker.  That was funny.  JR has no idea about stickers yet.  Little Miss found it and stuck it on her knee.  It covered her whole knee, that's how big it was.  So we'll see what come out of those results.  It seems JR is following in Little Miss' footsteps.  She was 50th percentile the first little while and then dropped off to 10th percentile for weight.  Anyways, he was 15 lbs 8 ounces and 25.5 inches long.

Off I go.......... I'd better at least start the laundry.  I was going to make a recipe - ham and broccoli muffins.  My Mom has had the recipe forever.  She got it in a store sampling promotion many years ago.  We still love it.  Last time I bought the ingredients, I couldn't find the recipe.  So I copied another copy from my Mom.  Guess what........... I can't find it again.  I have no idea where it ended up.  I hadn't used it yet and I remember seeing it around but of course, now that I want to quickly throw it together before my ham and broccoli go bad, I can't find it. 

Stop rambling now.........

Another Monday.  A quiet one so far because Little Miss is at her grandparents and JR is still sleeping.  And what am I doing wasting my time at the computer when I could be sewing???  I did not get to touch my sewing machine all weekend nor did I get to even pick up my knitting needles much.  I guess I'm learning the hard way........... with two little kids not much of my time gets to be devoted to "ME".  Ah well........ get over it!!!

JR is 6 months today.  He goes for his check-up this afternoon.  I think he's doing well.  I love seeing how much he's grown from appointment to appointment.

Little Miss is getting to hang out with her grandparents and her great grandmother.  I will pick her up after the check-up appointment.

I have to get JR up in a little bit so we have half a chance of making it on time to our baby backpacking class.  I almost feel like skipping it just to savour the quiet house for a while longer but that would be silly.  I need all the exercise I can get and it's a beautiful day.  I went last Wednesday when it was yucky outside so I have no excuse on a sunny day.

I would like to show you a picture of the progress of my Diamond Fantasy scarf but I cannot get that thing photographed and focused.  I don't know what it is.  It's quite frustrating.  I've tried to get a good picture.   I'm on repeat 6 of 6 suggested repeats.  I've been doing the math and I'm pretty sure I have yarn for a 7th repeat which I will add.  I'd like it a bit bigger anyways and I don't want to waste any of my lovely yarn.  I'll try and get outside again with the camera today and maybe I can get another picture.  Blogging is boring without pictures but I don't have anything that you haven't already seen and if it's 5 extra rows that I got to add to something........ whoopty doo......  But I'm going to perservere and try to finish the Diamond Fantasy scarf this week.  If I get my beads I really want to cast on for the Hanging Garden Stole.  I've also got to knuckle down with the sewing machine.  Oh and don't knit lace at 11:30 at night when you're tired but you're just trying to squeeze out at least a few rows after the kids are all finally in bed.  The fixing of those darn mistakes in the lace at that time of night is even harder.

Have a great one!!!