Arbutus At Best

Oh, you gotta love four day weekends... By Sunday morning I didn't know what to do with myself (my body was telling me that my weekend was over and I should be in my cube neck deep in Excel and drinking lots of coffee), so I dug out some Patons Classic Wool that I had bought recently and decided to play.

Andrew walked in on me in the sunroom, walking backward around two lawn chairs. "Um, Jo - what are you doing?" Me: "I'm going to dye this yarn with some Wilton's icing dye." Him: "Please tell me *not* in the bathtub!" Me: "Huh?" (I really was confused - why would he think I would do this in the bathroom? We have a *small* bathroom.) "No - I'm doing it here in my crock pot." He walked away, probably muttering to himself about what a nutcase his wife is.



I created a long skein - my intention was to create self-striping yarn so I wouldn't have to continually change colours while I knit hats this winter. I love the look of striped hats but really am lazy about changing colours (see previous post about my hatred of weaving in ends). Then I tied it up at various intervals, using a different colour yarn at each point behind the chair to mark the division in yarn colours.

Willow helped to poor the vinegar in and smush the yarn together so it would soak up the liquid. She wasn't pleased me with afterward. She insinuated that I didn't inform her that vinegar is stinky and that the smell would stay on her hands...



I was halfheartedly following Julie Theaker's tutorial from Knitty Spring 2007 for this exercise. She didn't have anything specifically geared toward self-striping yarns, so I tried to use my head (dangerous, I know) and stuff I had seen in various blogs in the past. I put half the skein in my crock pot, topped it off with water and a bit more vinegar, and let it start steaming (about 30 minutes on high).



Then I dissolved about a half to three-quarter teaspoon of Wilton icing dye in 'Teal' in a cup of boiling water (note to self - next time stir it longer!) and poured that into the pot. I gave it a brief swish with a spoon to distribute the dye evenly, but on the pot, and set the timer for and hour and forty-five minutes.



At that point the dye had been sucked up and the water was clear. I pulled the skein out and piled it into a pie pan to cool overnight.

The next morning I repeated the last few steps with the other half of the skein.

And added in some Wilton's icing dye in 'Brown.' One small problem... I had read on a few different tutorials that the purple dyes sometimes act weird when exposed to vinegar. Basically, the blue and red of the purple become their own entities and the yarn is dyed splotches of red and blue rather than purple. Apparently brown does the same. As soon as it hit the water, it divided up into pink-auburn and light beige. I panicked and mixed up another batch of brown, hoping to counter-act the division, but was only somewhat successful in the end.

After everything had been taken out of the pot and cooled down, Willow helped me wash the yarn in her Mango Madness shampoo and put it through a spin cycle in the washing machine. Then I hung it up to completely dry on the sweater rack and walked away for a few hours.

You can see here where there are differences in colour in the brown half of the skein:

And this is what my beauty looks like all skeined up again!

The colours weren't quite what I was looking for - my desire was to have a more aqua and chocolate coloured skein, but I don't think this is bad for a first try with Wilton's icing dye. I was looking at the skein in the sunroom with the light on it and it made me think of an arbutus tree, so I'm calling the colour 'Arbutus At Best.'

And a bonus shot - all caked up and ready to go!

I want to try this again with sock yarn - but I have to say I am a bit afraid at the diameter of skein I will have to pull off to get the stripes I want!

And finally, a blurry Willow action shot:

We were at my in-laws' house today for lunch and Willow was having her own little bubble party in the backyard. I was trying really hard to catch her but she was running a mile a minute to make the bubbles dance behind her.

WiP It Wednesday

It sure looks like a finished object, doesn't it?



Sadly, it is not - I have a gazillion ends to weave in - probably my least favourite thing about knitting. Even more so than seaming pieces together.



Here is a finished hat:



Both of these hats, and one to-be-determined are intended for Hats for Alex. I am really glad I saw this on Pam's blog - I was looking for someone else to make hats for now that Dulaan is no longer accepting this stuff.

And the other UFO currently in play? Willow's Polkadot sweater that I had started to knit for Willow as a school sweater... before I found out that this is not one of the pre-approved colourways. Colourways, hell - only solids and only a handful of them at that.



And lastly - something precious out of Willow's mouth this morning. She has a toy piano (courtesy of my friend Carrie) that plays the odd muzak selection if you hit the right buttons. So this morning she is hitting random songs and apparently finds one she likes. "Mom!" She calls out - "It's like church music." and she has this absolute serene look on her face. The song? "Let It Be" by the Beatles.

Happy First Day of Kindergarten, Willow!

Oh my goodness - how did this happen?!!?!? There she is, decked out in her within-the-dress-code finery after her first day of Kindergarten. I'm not sure what this teacher is in for - the class consists of 13 boys and 8 girls, and of those 13 boys, 6 of them have names that are only a letter or two off each other. I am not sure why they didn't switch some of these kids out with one of the other Kindergarten classes to even things out a bit.

WiP It Wednesday

Wait a second...



That's a finished object! I finished sewing on the rosy-pink buttons last night and I am so proud to say that I finished Willow's school cardigan *five* whole days before she started school!

The Particulars:

Yarn: 2.5 skeins of Forest Green Lion Brand Wool-Ease
Size: 6
Pattern: Child's Top-Down cardigan by Mary Rich Godwin I" wasn't a fan of the pattern, but to each his own)
Needles: Size 8 Knitpicks Options Circulars and Susan Bates DPNs
Duration: About three weeks.

And this was the picture after we took the cardigan shots...



Mommy does not have patience with kids who can't stand still for 10 seconds... She got over it - this interlude lasted a nano-second. Child, thy name is mercurial.

And for another exercise in frustration, the ball of yarn I unwound last night:



Yeah, the one that Had 7 friggin' knots in it! It is one of those 615 yard behemoths from JoAnn's - I was going to start a baby afghan for my sister but scrapped that idea when I started coming away with multiple balls. I am glad I decided to re-wind this instead of just knitting from the middle.

Reading Habits of the Average Adult

Wow. It's nearly 11pm here and I only came in the computer room because I noticed Andrew had left the computer on and I needed to turn it off. I did one more check of MSNBC News to check on Hurricane Dean's progress and I saw this news article on adult reading habits instead.

What the hell?!!? One in four adults read no books last year? I'm not sure whether to feel more outraged or disturbed about this. I read four books last week - three fiction and one non-fiction. At any given time I have about 20 books out of the library - admittedly, some of them are for Willow, but I read those, too (and I'm not counting them in my four of last week). Oh my. People, no one said you had to read behemoths like Watership Down or Moby Dick or War and Peace, although kudos to you if you do.

I realize that the people who read this blog are probably not one of these one in four, but it saddens me that there are people who just don't get excited by books. On Monday morning I was running errands on my lunch break and I caught a conversation on my local NPR station about Jane Austen (see hour 2 on 8/20/07) that had me clamouring to re-read Persuasion, my all-time favourite Jane Austen novel.

So... what about you? What are you clamouring to read? Come on, give me some suggestions for my ever-expanding 'to read' list.

Eating Healthy

I do try. Obviously I am not overweight for no good reason. Certainly there are things that play into it - hypothyroidism, family genetics, living the sedentary lifestyle of a desk surfer... but my love of not-great-for-me food also plays a part. Chocolate? Yum! Caramels? Even better! Cheese... oh my, well you had me salivating at the beginning of that fricative. And I know that good-for-you food can taste wonderful - it just takes a bit more work.

May I present my dinner from tonight?

Taking a page from Bezzie's not-lettuce salad idea, here is my salad:



(Forgive the blurry photo - I must have taken about 10 and all of them were blurry). Yellow 'Lemon Boy' tomatoes from my garden, basil (also from my garden), light feta cheese, and a little salt and pepper.

And the main course:



Thai Chicken Pasta with Peanut sauce. This is so easy and so filling - whole wheat thin spaghetti, julienned carrots, shredded broiled chicken breast, green onions, and spicy peanut sauce.

On the weekend I bought myself a DietMinder Journal from Barnes and Noble. I have used this journal in the past to jostle myself back on track before and I am pleased with how it works. You would be surprised what is in your food - how many fresh vegetables and fruits have a noticeable amount of sodium in them. I am also using The Complete Food Counter book and Nutrition Data's website to help me fill stuff in.

So, just in case you wanted to know... tonight's dinner, including the cup of skim milk I drank along with my meal, came to 671 calories, 15g of fat, 96g carbs, 45g protein, and 13g of fiber. I am such a geek when it comes to detail...

Quiet Weekend

Sorry, nothing big to report or show. It has actually been a lovely weekend - it is raining right now, but the temperatures have been in the high 60s to low 70s and I love it! Of course it won't last, but I am enjoying it while it is around.

Last night Andrew and I watched Blood and Chocolate and I have to say I wasn't terribly impressed. Normally I like these supernatural creature kind of movie but I was really meh about this one. To start with, I was crestfallen that Hugh Dancy had an American accent in the movie (what on earth was he thinking?) and secondly, I had absolutely no empathy (or any feeling, for that matter) for the female lead in the movie. Oh well - chalk it up as a loss. I did finish the sleeves on Willow's cardigan during the movie.

Speaking of the cardigan, I am having a frustrating time of finding buttons for the sweater. I figure in the end I will probably need 8 - 10 buttons, and I would like them to be a rosy pink to provide some contrast with the dark green of the sweater. Did I find any at JoAnns? Of course not. Or, rather, I did find some. Several somes - but none of them had enough of any one colour for the sweater. There is a more upscale fabric store in the neighbourhood I will try to go to tomorrow so that I can finish the sweater.

WiP It Wednesday

You know, I may actually get this sucker finished before she starts school...



I was further along yesterday morning than I am now, however. You may remember that one of my gripes with this pattern is that it doesn't tell you how many stitches you should have at critical junctures. I had finished the sleeves as the pattern called for, but my skinny-minny daughter could hardly get her wrists through the cuffs! So, I went about a third of the way up the sleeve, ran a pink yarn through the stitches, and ripped them out to that point. I started re-knitting the right sleeve last night and am almost finished. The pattern calls to switch from the size 8 the body/sleeves are knit with to a size 4 for the cuffs. I now have 6 more stitches on the sleeve than I did before and I am just going to continue with the size 8s to to the ribbing on the cuff.

And as for my more horticultural works-in-progress, see the big tomatoes behind Willow? Those are 'Lemon Boy' tomatoes - to be yellow when ripe.

Here is the plant (rescued from the compost heap) that yesterday's cherry tomatoes came from. As you can see, there looks like we will have many more in coming days :)



Yeah... I know I need to weed the bottom of that pot.

Tomatoes and Field Trips

Woo hoo! Look what I grew!



I hope these turn out life-size on the blog - they are cherry tomatoes. I'm not really conducting an urban vegetable experiment like Bezzie, but I do have a few pots of tomatoes and peppers in my backyard. There is a garden spot already blocked out in the backyard, but we didn't get started early enough to use it. These tomatoes came from a plant that my mother-in-law rescued from her compost pile - it just started growing and she scooped it into a small pot for me. Does that count as a recycled plant? Bezzie, how cheap-ass is that?!!?

If today is Tuesday, it must be field trip day... Today me, about 5 other adults and thirty-some-odd four and five-year olds tromped off to Plumpton Park Zoo over the Maryland border. It was okay - but having seen some of the bigger zoos in the area this was more like a zoo in someone's backyard. What did impress me was the amount of rose quartz on the property. They must have found it on site and dug it up because it was everywhere - garden edges, fences, big chunks in animal habitats - everywhere.

Here's a pic of Willow on the bus:



And I found fiber-bearing animals...

The llama:



The buffalo:



And the sheep:

And, while not a fiber-bearing animal, I had to take a picture of this for Cristi - let's see if she notices. Happy Belated Birthday, Cristi!

Now this next picture confuses me - can anyone tell me what it is?

If you have ever seen asparagus growing, this is sort of what it looks like - but these stumps (?) are about 2 - 3" in diameter and 8 - 12 inches tall. They were quite creepy, but I am curious what they are.

WiP It Wednesday

Look, Ma! Her eyes are open!



This is the top-down cardigan sweater I am knitting Willow to conform to her school's new uniform standards. I am under no illusion that I will be finished the sweater by the time she starts Kindergarten in two weeks - but then again, it will be a good 2 months before she probably will need to wear it.

The temperature today people? 95'F/36'C in the afternoon with a humidity factor of 107'F/42'C. I *hate* summer.

Anyway, I am not terribly keen on this pattern. It is not well-written (many line mistakes in different areas), they don't give how many stitches you should have at crucial areas of the sweater, and I have had to fudge things as I have gone along. I don't think I will be knitting anything from this book again. I know my Mom loves doing top-down patterns, so this book may be coming her way (and she can feel her way through it). I much prefer raglan sweaters worked from the bottom up.

Heavenly Hibiscus

Isn't that gorgeous? This bloom is another one of my father-in-law's babies. The plant itself is very interesting - some flowers are entirely pink like the inside of this flower, and some are light orange and pink. Whichever way they bloom, they are beautiful. I even like the dark crisp leaves of the hibiscus plant.

I was going to title this post "Too Damn Hot" but decided I wasn't into looking up the rest of the Cole Porter lyrics to make the post flow. But it is too hot. It was about 95'F today and we haven't had any rain in over a week. There is pollen flying everywhere and I am miserable. The skin around my eyes are all irritated - I look like an albino raccoon (or at least what I figure an albino raccoon might look like). We need rain to dampen down all this pollen and get rid of the haze - but those thunderstorms are awfully elusive right now.

Willow and I headed out to Stitches With Style this afternoon so I could find another cardigan pattern to knit her a sweater for school. I ended up coming home with the "Wonderful Wallaby" pattern - which is very whimsically written - sort of like a storybook. One drawback is that there isn't even one complete drawing or photograph of the finished sweater in the book - but I know I can find photos galore at Ravelry. I also came home with a cabled cardigan pattern, 4 skeins of Plymouth Encore in a medium blue, and the new Interweave Knits Fall 07 magazine. There are quite a few patterns in there I would like to make - especially the Placed Cable Aran. I'm very pleased to see how many of the patterns are in my size as well.

Okay, off to take some more allergy medicine...

With Many Apologies to My Upstream SP9

This lovely package arrived Tuesday from my equally-as-lovely upstream Knitty SP9, and I meant to blog about earlier than this, but I have been laid low by allergies :( My nose is raw, my eyes and palate itchy, and my allergy medicine is doing precious little other than make me sleep. But! I have lovely balls of roving to show off!



SP9 (whose name is Shannon but that doesn't help me so much in the sneakiness part) said she had read in my Knitty questionnaire that I had bought a drop spindle at MDSW and thought she would 'enable' me a bit more. This is probably the push I needed to actually start using the drop spindle! The three coloured balls in the back are ones that she dyed herself, and in the front there are three 1-ounce balls of (from L-R) Australian Merino, Ashland Bay Corriedale Cross, and Falklan 56 Wool Top. I opened the package at my SnB Tuesday night and my friends all had a chance to fondle the balls. I especially love how soft the merino is!

Here is a close up of the large ball in the back - it is a mix of blue, purple, rhubarb-red, and charcoal grey:



This photo turned out a bit brighter than intended, but it is a lovely peachy-orange colour:



Thank you, SP9! I promise I will try to put it to good use!

And now, a gratuitous Willow fluff shot:

And I Am Still Recovering From This:

Actually, Willow's birthday happened while we were in Canada, so she had to wait until we returned to have her kids birthday party with her friends. We held it at the YMCA pool - for a very reasonable fee you get to use their pool for an hour and they set up a classroom for you to use for another hour for food/cake/presents. Why did we do this? My friend Carrie warned me last year - never, EVER, hold a kids birthday in your house. You don't want them wandering about, you don't want to clean up after them - so why do it.

Here is Willow (with her soon to be patented squinty-drugged look) and her friend Julia (who seems to have no problem keeping her eyes open for the camera) in front of the Tinkerbell birthday cake. It was very yummy - yellow cake with lemon curd in the middle! (Yeah... if I am paying for the cake I want a say in what kind of cake it is - I don't care whose birthday it is...)



The little Tinkerbell figurine comes off the stand and becomes a keychain after the cake is done with. Which will be a while. There is still a 1/3 of a cake in the fridge...

Probably the present she has had the most use out of so far are her 'jewels' courtesy of Asami, Gara and Ray. Here she is looking all royal (...sigh... Must face the commoners now...):



Beyond that, I'm just exhausted and allergy-ridden at the moment. I've been spending a lot of time out in my in-laws' garden and last night I managed to break out in hives. I think it might have been because of picking all the tomatoes - but I have done that before and not had hives, so who knows. Two benadryl allergy tabs and I had the best sleep I've had since we returned to the US!

I started a new project out of Willow's school uniform necessity. It's a forest green neck-down cardigan from the poorest written pattern I have ever tried to knit. Seriously - three times now I have counted through the lines and found places where they have mis-labeled purl rows as knit rows. I'm going to go as far as the point where you divide off the stitches to create the sleeves and see what I have produced. If it still looks like a sweater despite the bad pattern, I'll continue with it.

Oh, and I finished the last Harry Potter book - Mollywobbles' fight scene totally did it for me. I won't go into an in-depth review because so many others already have. Right now I am in the second book of J. Gregory Keyes' 'Age of Unreason' trilogy, A Calculus of Angels. This series is fantastic - I don't know how I managed to miss it when it came out in the mid-90s. Oh yeah... I was in Japan. Still - if you can get a hold of them (Newton's Cannon is the first and Empire of Unreason is the last book), do so. I also started (and finished) Janet Evanovich's Lean Mean Thirteen on Monday night - a giggly good time - but she was with the wrong guy for my liking. The next book I will read after the Age of Unreason trilogy is Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam; I saw it in the new books section at my local library and it intrigued me.

Oh - and I received my first Knitty SP9 package yesterday - pics will be up tomorrow!

At last! The Vacation

Forgive me, this will be a picture heavy and link-heavy post. We returned from Canada yesterday morning - all groggy and jet-lagged as we could be. There is so much I could say about the trip, but I will try to keep this to brief musings... oh, who are we kidding?!!? Here we go:

1. The Empress Hotel



This is what the weather looked like when we arrived in Victoria on July 13th - sunny, beautiful, nary a cloud in the sky. Yeah... that didn't last. It clouded over the next day and proceeded to rain every day until July 23rd. The local TV station said it was 'statistically improbable for it to rain seven days straight in July on Vancouver Island.' Um, it did!

2. More Canadian Things I ate on vacation:

Old Dutch Potato Chips and Popcorn Twists
Nalley's French Onion Dip
Nanaimo Bar
Garlic Coil
Butter Tart
Canadian Chocolate bars (at least a 6 of these...)
Maynards Wine Gums
Licorice Allsorts
BC Cherries
Hawkins Cheezies
BC Salmon
My Mom's Blackberry Jelly (seriously - the best in the world)
Pizza Pretzel (I can't find a link for this - it's pizza dough shaped into a pretzel form and baked with toppings on top)
Wild Raspberries

... Yeah, I ate really healthy. In my defense, I was there for two weeks and only sampled these things along the way. Some of you may argue that these are British Foods rather than Canadian ones, but I only can get these in Canada, so to me they are Canadian Foods.

3. Willow Behaving:



I think it only happened this once. She and Emma (the baby doll mentioned in the 'Eight Things About Willow' post) are wearing the same dress courtesy of my Mom.

4. A Trip to Victoria



Of course, in the rain. This is a picture of the Friendship Gate on Fisgard Street. I wanted to find honey buns and bubble tea, but struck out on both counts. The rain got heavier and subsequently so did the grumblings of the progeny, so we hung out in Mayfair Mall and then Bolen Books to waste time until we could pick Andrew up at the ferry.

5. Willow and William Playing:



The last time we were out here William was only 5 months old and there is only so much playing you can do with a five month old... but he is a more robust and rowdier 14 month old and he and Willow had a blast playing together.

6. The Creepy Trees:



We pass these trees on the way to my parents' house - there is a whole forest of them and they creep me out because the short branches all look like arms to me.

7. I got to touch my sister's pregnant belly!



I didn't get to see Jaime when she was pregnant with William, so I was excited to see her pregnant belly. She isn't planning to find out the sex of the baby - but I saw the ultrasound pics and I am predicting she is having a girl. On a completely unrelated note, I love Jaime's new haircut - I think I may get a similar one soon.

8. Willow's Birthday Cake:



Craptastic cake writing aside, I like my decorating attempt! I got the idea from a Canadian Living Magazine. You take a candied fruit slice, slice it in half lengthwise, and put licorice in the middle to make your butterfly.

9. William and Gram (GG to him) hanging out:



10. Willow and my Dad being silly together:

11. TV Shows I Watched While on Vacation: .

Due South
Dr. Who
Coronation Street

Again, you may not consider these Canadian programs - especially the last two - but I don't get to watch them here (partly because we haven't had the cable hooked back up since we moved).

12. Willow and the Pigs:

While not Canadian at all, Willow did meet up with some fine looking pigs while we strolled around downtown Seattle. We were in town for a couple of hours and enjoyed both Tully's Coffeehouse and Cutter's Bayhouse.

13. Sea-Tac's Playroom:

Thank goodness for this! This pic was taken about 10pm and as you can see from her airborne pose, she was still full of energy.

14. And the knitting:

I did rip out the baby sweater I was working on and gave the yarn to my Mom as I didn't want to lug it back to Delaware. My Mom has a pile of old Patons pamphlets from the 50s and 60s and in one I found a pattern for a 'Boy's Helmet.' Why they called it that I don't know - girls can't wear helmets? It was a very easy pattern and I love the results. The green is knit from Patons Astra (the recommended yarn) and the pink from some unknown acrylic in my Mom's stash. Personally, I like pink one better because of the stripes. It's a 6 - 12 months size.

All in all, I had a great (if not soggy) trip to BC. Mom? The last two trips have been rather dismal, weather-wise. Think you can do anything about that? We miss you and Dad already.

Well, this was unexpected...

Willow has to wear a school uniform when she starts Kindergarten in August. I was checking her school website last night hoping to find a school supply list when I found a notice saying that the school's clothing policy had changed. This kid is going to need a whole new wardrobe - she is only allowed

- black, dark blue, or beige pants/skirts/jumpers
- all shirts must have a collar (plus a precious few additional colours)
- absolutely no writing or pictures (i.e., logos) on clothes

Now, the logo thing isn't so much of a problem - she doesn't have much in the way of that because I don't like it. However, both of her grandmothers have made her dresser-fulls of clothes... and in a riot of little girl colours and patterns - flowers, pinks, purples, turquoises, butterflies, hearts... all which are pretty much verboten under the dress code. Honestly, in her current wardrobe I can only think of a handful of things that fit the wardrobe (a yellow polo shirt, a red sweater, and a white turtleneck).

So, I guess this means I need to crank out at least a sweater for her to wear to school. It's really too bad - I am working on a beautiful shawl-collared sweater (and that in itself is not a problem) for her right now in a beautiful turquoise and sage green colourway (and that is the problem). I have some dark green Wool-Ease in my stash I can use... off to find a pattern.

Eight Things... about Willow!

I received this meme from Jen and since I have received something like this in the recent past, I am going to change it up a little. Instead of me, I'm going to tell you eight things about Willow.

And I'm not going to tag anyone... if you feel so inclined to write up one of these, go for it!

Eight Things About Willow

1. She hates fresh tomatoes, but loves tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, ketchup... practically anything else you can think of that is made from cooked tomatoes.

2. Her grandfather has been teaching her long words that describe her: obstinate, procrastination, cantankerous, etc. She is good at this - she can even give you synonyms for these words now!

3. She can read easy readers and hasn't even started kindergarten yet.

4. She and her friend Soren are always playing duos - Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, Harry and Hermione, Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann... and despite the fact she tells me she is going to marry Soren someday, they never seem to pick marriageable pairs! I had to inform her that Luke and Leia were brother and sister, which confounded her to no end. Andrew said I was spoiling the story and we would let her find out the rest of the family tree on her own.

5. The kid swims like a fish. Three cheers for the Y!

6. She has a penchant for expensive foods: prime rib, steak, lobster, shrimp, etc. We had barbequed steak last weekend and she ate more steak than anyone else (mind you, over three days, but still!)

7. She loves her baby dolls, and after watching Toy Story 2 she is worried about outgrowing them. With tears in her eyes, she made me promise that I wouldn't ever let her throw her baby dolls away.

8. She routinely tells her teachers that I am pregnant (I'm not!), to the point that every couple of months one of the teachers pulls me aside and surreptitiously asks, "Are you having a baby...?" She wants to be a big sister in the worst way.


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

The trip to Victoria was a mixed bag - the rain wouldn't let up and Willow complained about walking outside (despite the fact that she was the only one with an umbrella!) We did get to Beehive Wool Shop where I bought some stuff for my SP9, some Patons Deco in rose garden to make a baby sweater for my sister (she isn't finding out if she is having a boy or a girl so I am making random outfits in different colours), some Aero needles, a set of Pony Pearl dpns in size 2, and Patons Astra to make a baby helmet from an old (perhaps 1960s) Patons pamphlet. They had Fleece Artist stuff there, too and it felt soooooooo nice. A little expensive for my means (damn exchange rate!), but is sure was soft and in pretty colours.

WiP It Wednesday

What? You thought I would forget simply because I am on vacation? Silly mortals...



I can forget for much simpler reasons than that!

Unfortunately, this WiP in destined to be frogged. It is the ribbed baby's cardigan from the new issue of Knit Simple, and I really don't like how it is working out. The ribs are doing what they are supposed to do - bunching up - but that is going to cause it to be quite cropped. It's too bad - I thought this would be a nice, simple, one piece baby pattern I could work up while away. Not so. I will have to go back to my old baby pattern standby - Daisy from Knitty.

Whenever I come up to my parents' house, there are a few foodie stock things I *have* to do, and so far I have accomplished:

1. Had Heinz Tomato Soup for lunch. This stuff makes Campbell's taste like salty crap and despite not living far from the Heinz factory in the US, I have never seen it in our grocery stores there.

2. Eaten a Coffee Crisp bar. Yes, I know there are a few select places in the US where you can buy these now (My local Dollar General, oddly enough) but it isn't the same.

3. Had Stinky Noodles for lunch. Yes, I know that isn't the real name, but that is always what we called them. And for some reasons, my local grocery stores don't carry this variety, either.

We are heading off to Victoria today, and there are a few things on my list for there... Purdy's chocolates, Rogers' Chocolates, honey buns (this I couldn't find a link for - but you buy them at an Asian bakery - it's like a steamed cake), Murchie's Tea... Yes, there is a reason why I am only having yogurt (albeit Island Farms Vanilla Plus Yogurt) for breakfast...

I've been tagged by Jen for a meme, and that will be up tomorrow!

Singing In the Rain

Okay, I am not known for my melodious voice, so let's skip the singing part... I caught the weather report this morning and it looks like it my rain on and off for the remainder of my vacation. Truly, I don't mind. Willow might go a little stir crazy and demand to play down at the lake in the rain anyway, but that's okay, too.

I didn't take my Mom's camera with me when we went out walking yesterday, but here is a pic of what the area looks like. We are quite isolated here and I am so enjoying the slow pace. Life and work were rather hectic before we left for vacation and I have a sneaky feeling that my head may have exploded if I had continued much longer.

Knitting has been happening - I will have a picture up for WiP It Wednesday tomorrow. I am working on a baby sweater right now - and I hope to finish it while I am here. There are a couple of good knitting stores are on the Island that I will be frequenting in the next few days. I am excited about seeing Beehive Wool Shop because I hear it is just huge. I want to stock up on Aero needles - I love using them and have never seen them at my LYS in Delaware or Pennsylvania.

Hmmm... it is nearly 10am. Maybe I should get dressed. Oh, I love vacations!

Best Laid Plans

I had this plan for a really cool contest - I am on vacation right now, and yesterday I took a picture of a world famous hotel that was outside the Customs building as I waited to be let into the country... I was going to post the picture, have people guess from the photo where I was, and then send the winner a postcard from said location.

However, I cannot seem to download pictures from my camera onto my host's computer. Bah humbug!

Anyhow, I am taking lots of cool pictures, and you will all just have to wait until I get home to see them.

And the photo? The Empress Hotel - downtown Victoria, British Columbia.

Disturbing

I hope all of you find this as disturbing as I do - I saw them while buying Willow new sneakers today. Check the sizes out... some of those are *baby* sizes. As in one year old to maybe three years old. What on earth are people thinking? The picture doesn't give you a clear view of the heel - but there is about an inch of clear plastic heel there - not platform, but an actual heel.

Off to Dulaan Today

These babies will be in the mail to the Dulaan people:



It looks like I will be a little late for this year's container - I misread the flyer and though the stuff had to be there by July 15th, not July 1st - but I know they will get there eventually. There are 11 hats, 2 pairs of mittens, and 1 sweater. Yes, that is the sweater I had knit for Willow, but she wore it once and by the time the cool weather rolls around again, it will be two small on her... so better someone else gets some use out of it.

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People, it is going to be ungodly hot here today. 95'F and high humidity... Yes, I know that us nothing on the scale that some of the western states are going through, but beastly nonetheless. Do you know how hard it is to find indoor things to do in the summer for kids? I mean, if it were just me and Andrew, we would just walk through the mall, maybe catch a movie or two... but you can't do that with a kid and keep your sanity. A few of my co-workers had mentioned The Crayola Factory, but I found out that it would be a nearly two hour drive. It sure looks like a lot of fun, but I think I will keep that idea until the fall when the weather will be nicer.

You know what the ironic thing is? On days like this, I *like* going to work. I will be in happy air conditioning all day (at someone else's expense), get to talk to my friends, not have to wear sunscreen (I am very fair-skinned and wear it religiously but hate the feel/smell of it), and not have to worry about Willow being overheated or bored. Why does this heat have to happen on a weekend!?!!?

WiP It Wednesday

You didn't think I had forgotten, did you? Okay, I did forget last week. Or rather, by the time I remembered I was so tired and hadn't taken a picture of any of things I was working on and so let it slide.

Anywho... Here is Willow's 'Oh My' vest:



I'm making really fast progress on this and I like that! The pattern is a child's hooded vest from Knitting Pure and Simple (scroll down and see pattern #271). I'm knitting it out of Plymouth's 'Oh My' in an olive/forest colour and it is terribly soft. I went to JoAnn's today to pick up a separating zipper and found that there is not much colour choice in short zippers (10 - 14 inch). Basically, I had a choice of white, cream, or black. I went with a 12" cream one. I brought it home and measured it against the vest and found I could have done with a 14" one after all. I was worried about the zipper being too long for the vest - apparently that was an unfounded worry.

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Happy Independence Day to the Americans out there! We had a barbecue at my in-laws for lunch and we counted the American flags we saw between our house and theirs. It is about a 2 mile drive and we counted over 60 flags!

When Cheap Chapstick Happens to Good Kids

Guess who found her way into my 79-cent Avon Candy Cane flavoured chaptick tonight?



See how she artfully filled in her eyebrows as well? Bezzie, be thankful you have a boy!