Uli's Creative Corner

I finished them.............. my first pair of socks of the year 2007.  Given that for the longest time last year, I managed about 2 pairs a month, this is pretty sad.  But here they are and I love them.  My first time I did a short row heel when knitting from the top down.  I quite like the fit.  I might do some more.

Yarn: Regia Cotton Surf - 2.25 mm DPNs and I got the stripe match perfect!!!

Random pics of the kids (just the girl today) because I haven't had any recently.  I adore how she's brushing her animals' teeth:

She's growing up so fast and getting so big.  I can't believe all the things that she is learning in school these days.  She knows so much already.

And my newest listing are these pretty butterfly earrings:

At first I wasn't sure about the combo of the celtic type link with the purple butterflies but they are really growing on me.

Busy days these days.................. and it snowed last night.  Not a lot but just enough to make it feel like we're backsliding into winter and not moving forward and onto spring.

Thanks for the well wishes......... my birthday was fun but it was interesting, to say the least.  Just after lunch, while I was getting ready for a very important meeting at work, Little Miss' school called to tell me she wasn't feeling well and that someone probably needed to pick her up.  Go figure....... I won't go into detail but for some of you who know where I work, the irony of the whole situation was enough to make me shed a few tears.  It was stressful but I went to my meeting and Evan got the Little Miss, who, upon returning home seemed just fine and about as hyper as ever.  We had a lovely meal of Chinese Food and Baskin Robins ice cream cake.  Right after dinner I took JR to the walk-in clinic because there were concerns that his ear infection was clearing up and yes, the ear was still infected so we got a new round of antibiotics.  Speaking of doctors........ to make the long story short, on the weekend, his eye infection also returned (or he picked up a new one) so we were back at the clinic for more eye drops.  And the pharmacist tries to tell me that we should avoid letting him crawl around as much as possible.  Yes, of course..... tell that to a 13 month old, extremely active, crawling young man.  It's just not going to happen.

My big gift............ a gadget............ I love gadgets:

I'm now the proud owner of a Garmin Forerunner 201......... a personal assistant/personal workout buddy.... as in a functioning GPS that will help me track and evaluate my walks and hopefully future runs.  There's a lot to it.... more than I can begin to describe because I haven't really had the chance to play with it yet but I can't wait to get out there with it and have it map out my walks, chart the distances, times etc. etc.  Fun gift..... thanks to my dear husband who collaborated with all the members of his side of the family to give me a great gadget gift like that.

Evan also bought me a course at a local (not so local) bead shop.  He signed me up for a pretty basic earring and necklace class.  I think I already have all the skills that this class will teach me, except that I haven't incorporated any chain into any of my designs.  I was consdiering switching because there is one course I really, really want to take but I figured that I might as well go because it's next Sunday and gives me a few hours away from home and the kids, spending some time, doing something just for me.  The course I really want to take is for these wire wrapped rings.  I just really, really want to do that one.

This week will be about earrings so I'll be showing off my new listings one by one as I put them up on Etsy.  These are probably my favourite creation of the weekend:

Click on either image if you'd like to see the actual listing.

Knitting............ I am just shy of the very, very tip of my pair of socks I've been working on.  They'll be finished tonight.  I'm getting some pressure from Little Miss to finisher her purple hoodie (Ruby from Beesknees Knits).  So I think I should get back to that.  It will make an easy take-along knit at activities kind of a project.  I need to finish it before she grows out of it anyways.

JR needs a new sweater, too.

Let's celebrate............ it's my birthday today!!!  Not the big 4-0 yet but close............. I feel a little old.  Pretty low key day.  I got some gifts here at the office.  My big fun of the day is that I get to have budget discussions with the top brass.  Very nerve wrecking to say the least.  Can't wait until it's over and all settled.

I got to knit on my sock last night during gymnastcis and made it 2/3 of the way to the heel.  That felt so good.

No new jewelry creations to show or list but I might have a possible custom order for a wedding party.  Isn't that cool!!!!  Just really, really simple earrings and basic necklaces.  I kind of hope that works out for me.  I already have a few other custom orders that I'm working on including a copper bracelet, an earring and pendant set (those celtic star pendants) and another pair of earrings.  It's paying for my hobby. :-)

Well, I need to go................. and I think I'm taking myself out for lunch today.

Tonight I get an hour to knit at gymnastics.  Yahooo......... I'm taking my sock #2 so I can work on actually finishing a pair.  Can't wait.

For the kiddo record books:  The kids exchange library books every day.  One for one.  They can only take one out if they return one.  We forgot to put Little Miss' book into her backpack yesterday so she couldn't exchange books at the daily book exchange.  But no, not my daughter......... she came home with a new book so that there were 2 books.  So we had a discussion about it and I told her that she needed to take both books back today.  She freaked out about that thinking that "they" would be mad at her for doing that and she had to "trick" them by only taking back one book at a time.  We read the 2nd book and it was time for bed.  This morning, I put both books in the backpack and we had a huge issue......... she still believed she could "trick" those teachers.  In the process of arguing about it, I promised to call her teacher and explain it to her so that she wouldn't be mad.  Now her teacher and I get along beautifully as we're two of a kind in terms of our sense of humour and attitude toward the little ones and I just had her howling on the phone.  She did promise me that she wouldn't tell Little Miss that the library police was on their way to take her to jail......

Just listed another funky necklace:

Have a wonderful day.  Mine is going so, so...........

Saturday was my day at the Spa.  Last year for my birthday I received this gift certificate from my family and I never got around to using it.  Well, I used it on Saturday and got treated to a pedicure, a manicure and a make-up application lesson.  It was all very luxurious and fun and relaxing.  I never had a pedicure before so that was a neat experience and I've only ever had one manicure before.  3 well spent hours but I sure can't see myself putting out money like that on a regular basis - even though it was very, very enjoyable.

A Sock, a sock, a sock................... I finished one sock.  Don't have a picture yet but I finished a sock.  It's so exciting to me.  I'm actually looking forward to Little Miss' gymnastics tomorrow night because I started the 2nd sock right away and got the ribbing done and since I won't have to take JR with me tomorrow night I have one hour of watching her at gymnastics and knitting on my second sock.  Yes, I look forward to my daughter's activities because, as long as I don't have JR tagging along, I can sit and get out my knitting and watch without the pressures of feeling like I have to do anything else.

I made a couple of casual necklaces this weekend.  The first one I listed in my store this morning.  A very simple necklace, with a faux suede leather chord and a dichroic glass pendant.

Fun, eh?

I knitted 14 rows on the sleeve of my marble cardie last night............ that's HUGE progress for me.  Okay, so I'm a bit sarcastic but I'm finding it tough to be positive these days.  I think I mentioned that JR has an ear and eye infection.  Well, the medication is really helping him.  Guess who is heading to the clinic this morning to get eye drops?  Of course I picked it up from him.  Nobody wants to get too close to me.

Something else to whine about............ we've had 4 power outages in the last 6 days.  One on Saturday night, one on Monday night, one in the middle of the night last night and then a really quick one this morning.  Now, our electrical company here basically has a monopoly so they don't have to be accountable - or that's my opinion anyways.  When you phone them up to find out why this unusual occurrence has been happening and so often, they are very wishy washy about the whole thing and don't give you any real answers.  Do we have grow ops in the area that are sucking up the power supply and messing with our ability to have reliable power?  Why just recently?  Is it construction that's causing it and why in the middle of the night?  We'd like some answers because it sucks big time.  This morning, I was late because, of course, the power messed with the alarm clocks and since JR was also giving us a bit of a lack of sleep in the middle of the night, we were tired....... ie. didn't wake up in time this morning.

I quickly put these ear threader earrings together the other night.  They are so much fun and look really cute.

The ear threaders are sterling silver, 4" long and I used emerald coloured Swarovski crystals and sterling silver beads.  You can see them over on Etsy, too.

Weekend is getting closer.  I think I'm off to the clinic soon.

I said I would show you my copper so here it is:

This is quite a solid bracelet.  Copper is a beautifully soft metal so it's a pleasure to work with.  It is also quite heavy so there is some weight behind this bracelet.  If you compare it to yesterday's bracelet, the chain that is created is thicker as the rings have a larger gauge (18 vs. 20) and are larger rings.  I totally loved creating this bracelet.  There is more copper in my future.  I have some 20 gauge, quite tiny, copper rings that will make the same bracelet just much more light and dainty looking.  I hope to get started soon but first I'm going to finish a moebius flower bracelet in stainless steel and shades of blue enameled copper.

Oh and go visit Brenda's new shop on Etsy, Island Crafts.  She's branching out, too, making some cool paper creations.

As spring is approaching, I need to finish Little Miss' hooded Beesknees Knits sweater, Ruby.  I have sleeve one finished and need to start on sleeve 2.  Not that much left to do but I guess I'm stuck in sleeve boredom with all my projects.  Of course, JR needs a spring sweater of some sort, too.

Oh and an update on JR's condition........... he is on eye drops for an eye infection in both eyes and on Amoxicillan for an ear infection.  And he was up from 1 am until almost 5 am last night.  He just wanted to party.  Yuck.  I think I'm running on about 2 hours of sleep today.  Caffeine is keeping me going.

I'm sure being Ms. Positive around here lately but I am so tired of all the sickness.  JR got sent home on Friday with flu symptoms.  He didn't seem to bothered by it all once I came home to see him.  At the same time, he's not 100%.  By Sunday, Evan had the flu and sick men just are no fun at all.  I guess I also wasn't particularly sympathetic.  JR's teacher, as I found out this morning, has also got the flu now.  I'm just waiting for the rest of us to come down with it.  Judging by Evan's day yesterday, it's nasty.  I don't really know yet how he's doing today.  JR stayed home with him today and Evan is supposed to take JR to the clinic this morning to get his goopey eyes looked at.  I haven't heard yet so we'll see what's up......

I want to show you my latest bracelet.  I actually made two bracelets this weekend.  The one I will show off now and then a solid copper one that I'll get some pictures of later.  I really like this for a casual, fun spring bracelet.  I have one that uses the same pattern but has no colour accents.  The one I'm wearing is solid stainless steel and I wear it all the time and don't take it off.  It's very comfortable and extremely durable.  I think I need to make myself a colourful one, too.  But the one I just finished, I listed for sale, just because it's fun to do.

I'll show off the copper bracelet soon.  I totally love that.  It turned out so cool!!!

Have a great week........... it's off to a bit of an odd start for me.

Well, here's the sickness update........... I'm not sure what's going on.  JR hasn't shown major signs of the flu once Daddy got him home.  He seems to be motoring at normal speed.  His nose is running a bit more again.  The thing that bothers me are his eyes.  They've been leaky and crusty and stuff.  I'm worried about pink eye but having been through that ailment numerous times, his symptoms don't seem quite right for it to be pink eye.  So we're watching and waiting and will make a decision later whether he needs to go to the clinic.

Just listed some new stitch markers: Flowers and Butterflies

Little Miss is at ballet and swimming and I've just got JR down for a little nap so I need to hustle and bustle and tidy up downstairs and maybe watch a few of the PVR recordings (like TIVo in the US) so I can catch up on at least a few of the shows before Treehouse TV gets put back on.

I would really like to finish one sleeve of the marble cardie this weekend.  I'm also working on some more chainmaille and I'd love to finish a few of those projects.  One of them is a solid copper bracelet.  The other is what I'll be calling a hodge podge bracelet because I'm using stainless steel and silvered enameled copper in combination but my enameled copper colours appear randomly as I don't have enough of one or two colours to finish a whole bracelet.  Figured I'd make it fun.

Well, as I said........ I'd better get going and do the tidying.  Enjoy your weekend.

Some new earrings:

and a sick boy............ apparently, it's coming out from both ends.  Evan is gone to pick him up to daycare.  We'll see what the weekend shall bring........... probably lots of laundry, cuddling and staying home.

When will we all feel better again?  This is very stressful and very frustrating.  Makes me feel guilty being a working Mom, to say the least.

Hopefully, the weekend will include some knitting relaxation.