Knitting at Night

Why I'm Not Posting...

2011-12-15T23:54:00.000-05:00

Christmas decorating, Christmas shopping, and Christmas cookies...

How I Did It

2011-12-07T20:04:00.001-05:00

This is how I did yesterday's bokeh shots of Christmas lights.

You need:

Camera (Dslr works best, but I think you can do this with a P&S, with a little perserverance)

Lens - I used a Canon ef 50mm f/1.8 - aka the Nifty Fifty. This is basically a cheapo plastic lens, but it gets good reviews everywhere and with good reason. I picked mine up used on ebay for about $70.00

Black construction paper, paper punch, or small sharp scissors, depending on how dexterous you are.

First, cut a strip of construction paper to fit around your lens. Tape together. Next, cut a circle with tabs to fit over this. You want to block as much light as possible from your lens.

Then, depending on how good you are with circles and cutting, you can proceed two ways: either cut a circle with about a 1 inch diameter out of the middle of this circle, or freehand cut your desired shape. If you have cut the 1 inch circle out, do this next: Cut a slightly larger than 1 inch circle out of construction paper, punch your desired shape, and tape over hole you cut. Tape the tabs over the taped strip that fits over your lens, and voila! You have a mask.

Set your lens to manual focus. Make sure you have the lowest aperture you can get with your lens = mine is 1.8, duh. Point camera at lights, make certain they are out of focus, put mask over lens, and shoot. You should have something similar to what I posted yesterday. Depending on your camera, you may have to play with this a bit. If you are using a point and shoot, you may have to play with it quite a bit! Also, make sure your cut shape is very small if you are using a point and shoot. I was able to do this with my Canon S5IS, so YMMV.

Also, you can see my lens masks are a bit battered. Don't let your cat sit on them!

Bokeh

2011-12-06T19:01:00.001-05:00

My camera, my Canon ef 50mm f/1.8 lens, and a couple of construction paper masks, and come Christmas lights:

Night Sky

2011-12-05T17:01:00.000-05:00

My first attempts at getting long-exposure star shots. It was a lot of trial and error, and sometimes just dumb luck, but I did manage to get a few that I liked. Unfortunately, all my tripod connections apparently were not tight enough, so I did get a bit of star wiggle on a few of them, so not posting those. Just as I started getting the hang of it, the clouds moved in.

Cold

2011-12-04T12:34:00.000-05:00

Over on Cat Patches, this week's Foto Challenge is cold. I had my pick of images, giving that last winter was one of the coldest we've had, with endless snowstorms. The image I picked was that of my windowboxes taken the day after our December 26 snowstorm last year. The windowboxes are filled with holiday greens and lights, and covered with snow, even though they are set way back under my eaves.

Back to Knitting...

2011-12-03T16:42:00.000-05:00

So, I made these gloves last year. I'd never had a pair of fingerless gloves, and wasn't sure how much I'd use them. The short answer to that is a lot! I was amazed at how much I used them - while on the computer in my family room (AKA "Siberia"), while taking pictures outdoors, while driving, even while reading in bed at night! Wow. So, I'm making a few more pairs of them. This one is in ShibuiKnits Midnight and Ivory. I made the hand part a bit longer, which worked well for keeping more finger real estate warm. I can just fold or push the extra fabric back when I don't need it. The tricky part is that there isn't a lot of yardage in the Shibui skeins = just 191 yards. I had been thinking about using some of my Koigu, too, but that's even less yardage, so I'm just going with the Shibui. I just weigh the yarn when I get to the hand so I have an idea how much further I can go. Of course, I could solve the whole problem by making the pair fraternal rather than matching, since you use less of the beginning color, but I'm way too OCD to deal with fraternal rather than matching gloves!

Not getting much quilting done lately because, well, it's December. My son's birthday was yesterday, and I have a million things to do for Christmas. Only some of my decorations are up, and I still have to shop and bake, and oh yeah, go to work too, so I can finance this wing-ding.

Oh, Snap! Or "Has This Ever Happened To You"?

2011-11-30T16:15:00.001-05:00

Aargh. Last night, while in the locker room of my unit, getting into my uniform and getting ready for what promised to be a busy night, I lean down to tie my shoe and hear (and feel!) a big old SNAP! Uh, oh, this can't be good. It wasn't. No, I didn't break a bone, but something worse - I snapped one of the underwires in my bra. Great. Not only did it poke me periodically for the rest of the night, but even worse, it left me looking a bit, um, uneven. My left side was behaving nicely, staying just where I wanted it, but my right side was acting like a free spirit, doing it's own thing. I spent most of the night trying to discreetly hike up my right strap to bring things back into line.

In case you haven't guessed, there's been no quilting or crocheting going on around here lately!

Where The Hell Is Godzilla When You Need Him?

2011-11-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

Grrr. Pulled out my Chevron Scarf that I knitted two years ago (well, it *is* November), and was greeted with this:

A giant hole. And that wasn't the only one. There were at least a dozen holes, some big, and some small, and other placed that were near-holes. Damn moths! This scarf was knitted with two colors of Socks That Rock: Farmhouse and Watermelon Tourmaline. 99% of the holes were in the Watermelon Tourmaline rows. Why? Who knows? Maybe the moths didn't like the taste of the darker Farmhouse colors. Or maybe they just liked the Watermelon Tourmaline better. Either way, this scarf is now on it's way to being balls of yarn again, or more accurately a ball of yarn, and a big pile of chewed-up yarn. I originally thought I could just cut out the chewed up yarn and rewind everything, but clearly that is not possible with the Watermelon Tourmaline, unless I want a scarf with a million knots in it, which I don't. Fortunately, the same yarn is still available on Blue Moon's site, and is now winging it's way to me as I type. I love this scarf. It's from the book "Last Minute Knitted Gits" by Joelle Halvorsen. I don't know on what planet this would be considered Last Minute, because it took me a few months to knit, and from the looks of everyone's comments on Ravelry, it took most people at least that long. So don't count on making this in a weekend. It ain't gonna happen. First of all, the instructions tell you to knit til the yarn is gone. Hmm. When my scarf hit 7 feet, I bound off, still with at least 1/3 of each ball of yarn. Once it was blocked, it got looooonger! Whoops. At least my neck will stay warm. My neck, and everyone near me, because it's that long!

Try New Things

2011-11-24T22:02:00.001-05:00

Well, one of the bloggers out there has something going called "Try New Things Thursday". So, getting into the spirit of things, I figured I'd try tatting. Technically, it's not really a new thing for me; I learned how to do this when I was about 11. My grandmother taught me, and I think I tatted for all of 20 minutes before I gave it up. So, flash forward about 50 years, and here I am again. I am annoyed to say that I am having quite a time getting this right. I know how to make the stitches, I just seem to be making them on the wrong thread because when I close the ring, I have to pull the wrong thread. Of course it doesn't help that I have a 16 pound crazy cat who is hypnotized by the thread moving - he keeps attacking the thread and pulling the entire shebang out of my hand. No matter where he is, he seems to know that I'm working on this, and comes skulking around to take a flying leap on my tatting, sending me into near coronary arrest while he's at it!

It's Almost A Quilt!!

2011-11-23T00:21:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited! In the home stretch of my Civil War Stars Quilt. I have all the blocks done, some of the sashing sewn on, too. I just have 4 more sashing strips to sew on, then the outer border, and tadaa!! I'll be done! This quilt actually moved along fairly quickly. And it'll be the second quilt I finished this year, which sets a record for me. If I chose to make quilts with fewer pieces, I would have more finished, but I like a challenge. I'm going to work on the "Happy Dance" quilt next, but I can't say exactly when that will be, what with the holidays coming up.

Click on the picture for a way larger size!

Home Stretch

2011-11-22T21:54:00.002-05:00

Finally finished with all 30 blocks for my Civil War Stars quilt. I can't tell you how much I love this quilt. I love the colors and the fabrics. The original quilt I saw was made entirely with reproduction fabrics, but mine is only about 60% or so repros. I was trying to keep costs down, so I used other fabrics in my stash that I thought would work, and I think they blend nicely. For those who keep track of these things, the 2-1/2 inch sashing strips are Kona Cotton Sand. The lovely deep pink and brown flowered material for the border is "Toast II" by Jo Morton.

It Said "Buy Me" So I Did

2011-11-21T19:42:00.000-05:00

A fat quarter bundle of Jinny Beyer's "Kashmir" line. I love the blue and red colorways; the greenish-bronze color, not so much. I saw a quilt made out of the red and gold, so I'm going to make a test block to see how I like it. I'm also going to try one in the blue colorway.

New Kid On The Block

2011-11-20T16:21:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it again, didn't I? Wandered away for a while. One more day, and I probably would have seen my face on a milk carton.

Time just got away from me. It's been very busy at work. A full moon, combined with it being 40 weeks after Valentine's day, and what do you have? Non-stop babies, that's what. Plus, I got the unpleasant news that I was going to have to work on Thanksgiving Day, so we managed to put together a Thanksgiving /Housewarming at my son's house. We put together a dinner for 20+ people in less than 5 days. Pretty good, no? We had a great time. I went over early in the day to make the potatoes and help him cook a turkey (his first time cooking one!) I had to also bring over half of my kitchen, plus the apple pie I made the day before, too. Everyone who came contributed something, as is usual in my very large family. All in all, the food was yummy, the company was great, and I was thrilled that so many people who mean so much to me could make it on such short notice. I'm a little less grumpy about working on Thanksgiving now.

Anyhow, Mike and Jess were feeling under the weather last week. I made a run to the store for Bananas, rice, applesauce and bread for toast - you know, the BRAT diet. While I was over there dropping things off, I noticed that it was a bit stuffy in the apartment. Being that it was a reasonably nice day out - no snow, rain, ice, gales, whatever - I suggested they crack open a window for a while for an air exchange. She opened the sliding door a bit, and later she heard meowing, which wasn't coming from their cat. There was a young ginger cat at the door, who allowed her to pick him up. He's now a member of the family, and getting used to their household, which includes Murray - all 27 pounds of him!

I'm guessing this little guy is about 5-7 months old. Jess thought he was a girl, but there are definitely pompoms under that tail, so those will have to go, too. He has a bit of an eye problem, but will go to the vet this week for a workup

Who could resist this little furry face? His name is Zach, by the way.

I Have Been A Bad, Bad Girl...

2011-11-02T21:23:00.001-04:00

Gads, why does everyone have a sale at the same time? Every time I open up my email, there it is - another email with the word "SALE" in the header. How can I resist? Especially when it's followed by the words "quilt fabric". What's a girl to do? Heh. I'll tell you what she does. She gets busy clicking through that email to see what's going on. First stop was at my not-so-LQS, the day after a surprise visit from a pissed-off Mother Nature. The roads were plowed and clear, so off I went. I came home with this:

This is Jessica Levitt's Kingdom line for Windham Fabrics. There is a very pretty quilt made from this fabric line. It's a free pattern, and it's here. I like it; I think it has a lovely art-deco feel to it. The two solids at the left are not from this line; the purple is Quilters Cotton from Joann Fabrics, and the dark gray is "Coal" from Kona Cottons.

So, I've also been trolling the web. I needed one more fabric for the above mentioned quilt. Like a dummy, I bought the wrong color of one of the florals. Oh well, it will just go into my stash. No harm done.

Then I managed to track down some of the beautiful stripe of Paula Barnes "Cotton Club". I love this border stripe. I don't know what I'm going to use it for, but I'll think of some thing. In the meantime, it will hang out in my stash. Good =border stripes are hard to find.

And, just because I want to, some mini cupcakes that I made for Halloween. Dark chocolate cake with a cream icing - half orange, half chocolate. Yum.

What The Hell??

2011-10-30T19:08:00.002-04:00

We had a nor'easter yesterday. Considering where I live, not a terribly unusual weather event, especially for this time of year. What was unusual was that this storm came armed with snow. And serious snow, too. Not the "oh, look, it's snowing" kind of light fluffy flakes, either. It was Mother Nature with PMS and no Motrin to take for it. The Jersey shore got socked with torrential rain; we got snow, then sleet, then rain, then back to sleet, and then, oh goody, ice! What fun! The entire mess finally turned to snow around 6 pm last night, and continued on that way through the rest of the evening. While this could have been a disaster of major proportions (and is such in other parts of the state), we lucked out. Just about 2 inches of snow, and no high winds. I was nervously watching my trees, which are still fully leafed out, bend ominously towards the ground from the weight of all that snow on them. Happily, I did not hear any cracks during the night, and all my trees stayed put, with only the loss of a few minor branches.

The real annoyance came today. I wanted to make a quick trip out to my not-so-local quilt store. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I wanted to take advantage of the last day of a sale there. Ran out of the house to the driveway, only to be greeted by the sight of my truck locked in a frozen cake of sleet, snow, ice and oak leaves. Grrr. It took me 20 minutes to pry all that stuff off my car, and to hang on to the roof rack with one hand while prying ice off the roof with the other, and not break any bones in the process. Finally, the truck is in driveable condition, and I hop in and drive away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a little yellow light. Uh,oh. Low on gas. Zip over to the local gas station, get gassed up, and finally I'm on my way. Got to the store in time for the sale, and stocked up on Windham Fabrics "Kingdom" line by Jessica Levitt. I'll try to take pictures tomorrow, because it's dark here now, and I want some natural daylight for those shots. What I have in mind for this fabric is this.

Woo Hoo!! I Love A Good Sale!

2011-10-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

While clicking through my email today, I noticed that there was some thing from my favorite not-so-LQS that they are having a sale starting tomorrow - 20% off all regular-priced fabric! I'm not sure I really NEED anything, but for 20%, I think I can find something.

In the What's Happening At Chez Knitting At Night category, I got my recert in CPR. So, for the next two years, I'm good to save your life. The new guidelines made it a bit more difficult physically this year. 100 chest compressions per minute is hard work. My shoulders and arms are killing me. And lastly but not leastly, here are some shots of my favorite season. The afternoon sun was so gorgeous today, I couldn't resist dropping my studying for a few minutes and grabbing my camera.

Civil War Stars

2011-10-19T20:00:00.000-04:00

Just to show you I have actually been quilting lately, here is a bit of my Civil War Stars Quilt. I have 21 of the 30 blocks completed, with fabric for six more cut out. After much searching, I think I finally found the perfect border fabric. Each block is separated by a strip of Kona Cotton in Sand, and the lovely border print is "Toast II" by Jo Morton for Andover. I love it! Any thoughts??

Signs Of Fall

2011-10-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

Let me begin by saying I love fall! I love everything about it. I love cool, crisp days, blue skies, awesome sunsets, pumpkins, gourds, indian corn, mums, and Halloween! It's been a bit rainier than I would like, but I still got out today to take some shots of some of my favorite things on my front porch:

The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly On The Terrain...

2011-10-13T22:44:00.000-04:00

Ok, bad joke, I know. But, I am now the proud owner of at least fat quarters of all the fabrics in Kate Spain's Terrain line. All except for one - pebbles in Stream, I think. Oh, well. Not a big deal. I also have 4 yards of Fern in Foliage. I'm not sure why I have 4 yards - I'm pretty sure I said two yards at the quilt store. Anyway, not a big deal. I think I mentioned before that I was not impressed with this line when I first saw it on Moda's site. It looked so flat with dull colors. I was amazed at the actual colors when I saw it in person, and am happy I was able to get my hot little hands on some!

Much to everyone's amazement (mine included), I have actually had Some Quilting Going On! Really!! I cut out some more pieces for my Civil War Stars quilt, and worked on several blocks. I now have 19 of the 30 blocks sewn together, pieces for four more cut out, which leaves me only 7 left to do! The hardest part of this quilt is picking out the fabrics, and deciding how I want each block to look. It's also the most fun, and I'm afraid time gets away from me when I'm in the Deciding Fabric Zone. I think it's a close cousin to the Twilight Zone.

I do have some shots of my Terrain Fabric, but no shots of the finished blocks of the Civil War Stars quilt. I blame that on my photography assistant. He was being a fuzzy pain in the a** today, as evdidenced by this shot of him on my Terrain fabric:

Yes. That's my little stinker bicycle-kicking my fabric!

It Followed Me Home - Can I Keep It?

2011-10-01T22:31:00.000-04:00

I've been looking forward to the Quilts On High show in Burlington County for nearly a month now. Put on by Olde City Quilts in Burlington, NJ, the pamphlet promised 500 quilts! Wow! I was itching to go to that show. And since it was to be outdoors, along High Street, keeping my fingers crossed for nice weather. We haven't had much of that lately. Once again this week, it's been rain, rain, and more rain. I think if I look carefully, I have rudimentary gills growing. However, the nice people at the Weather Channel gave me hope. Looking at the long range forecast at the beginning of the week, there were the familiar little thunderstorm icons under every day except, lo and behold, Friday AND Saturday! Could it be true? Could we really be able to participate in something that could be loosely grouped under Outdoor Activities? Really? An outdoor activity that did not involve a raincoat, umbrella, boots, bailing pail, water pump, rowboat or snorkel? I checked that little icon every day, and everyday the little sun was sitting there right under the word "Saturday". Until, that is, Thursday. I brought up the weekend forecast on weather dot com, and there it was. A raincloud. On Saturday. 60% chance of rain. And, given the fact that we have just had the wettest summer (and August) in history, I just knew it would be 60 percenting all over the place.

When I woke up this morning, there were dark murky clouds covering the sky, and the roads were wet. Crud. However, Olde City Quilts said that the show would go on rain or shine, and a quick check of their facebook page upheld this. The show had been moved indoors, to the Quaker Meeting House, and a few empty storefronts, but it was going on. I'm so glad I went. I've been to quilt shows where every quilt is completely spectacular, giving me the feeling that these quilts were not made my mere mortals. Talk about inferiority complex! Now, not to say that these quilts today were not spectacular, because they were, but when I looked at some of them, I could see points that had been nipped off, and some blocks were not matched perfectly. I can't tell you how happy that made me. These quilts were gorgeous in spite of tiny imperfections. I had a great time, and loved seeing everything. It would have been wonderful to have this show outdoors as planned, but I still loved it.

I swore that I would not buy any fabric. I have enough fabric right now to make a quilt for every citizen of any small country you could pick. So, naturally, before I go, I'm trolling around on the web while eating breakfast, and I come across a blog I've never seen before, by Sill Mama Quilts. And there is a gorgeous small quilt made with Kate Spain Terrain fabrics. Well. I've seen Terrain fabrics on Moda's site before, and I wasn't impressed. I don't know, maybe they need to have better color reproductions on their site, but the fabrics in this photo of the quilt looked drop-dead beautiful. So anyway, to make a long story short (why couldn't I write this much when I was in high school and had to produce a 500 word essay overnight?), I stopped in Olde City just before I went home. What's the first thing I see when I walk in the front door?? You got it, a display of Terrain, looking even more gorgeous than the quilt picture, and certainly more appealing than on Moda's site! Somehow or another, I wound up with two yards of Footpath in Foliage, and 5 half-yard cuts of a few others in that line. Honest mom, can I keep it?

Some images of the quilts:

I'm Back, Part IV, Or Is It Part V??

2011-09-20T21:51:00.001-04:00

Hey! Welcome back to Short Attention Span Theater, Part whatever. I tend to forget about blogging every now and then, and when I go to check for comments or views, I remember that there really wasn't anything to comment or view. Actually, come to think of it, even when I remember to blog, there doesn't seem to be too much to comment or view. Oh, well.

Sooo, anyhoo, here I am again. I have no idea how long it will be before I wander off again, but it's been a busy few weeks since I last posted. Hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, floods, hot and steamy weather followed by cold and murky weather, half-drowned baby squirrels, you name it, Mother Nature threw it at us.

Getting to work in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee was quite entertaining. A GPS is not really helpful if it doesn't show the myriad of roads that are either under water or covered with trees, and therefore not passable. And once I get home after slogging through the storm, I find a creature on my front porch that I take to be a drowned rat. Ugh. What are rats doing in my neighborhood? Once inside my thankfully dry house, I am mulling over said drowned rat and realize I think I saw fur on that tail. Zip outside, and realize that it's not a rat, but a nearly dead baby squirrel. I nudged her into a cat carrier, dried her off with some towels, and fed her a bit of KMR and crossed my fingers. Waking up in the afternoon, I see her sitting in her carrier munching on her peanuts! She did pretty well over the weekend, so we took her to the wildlife rehab center, where we were informed that she was old enough to fend for herself, so back to our yard we went. She was so cute! The minute we took the cat carrier out to the yard, she got all excited and started running around in the crate.

We put the carrier down in the grass, opened the door, and waited for her to scamper out. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, she peeked out and disappeared back into the carrier. After 10 minutes of this coy in and out, she finally decided to hang out on the carrier door for a bit, and then she scooted out, and ran up my leg! Oops. Wiggled her off gently, and then she realized, oh yeah, there's a tree there, and it's not wearing jeans! Up she went, running all around, and hanging upside down looking at us. I think I've seen here once or twice since then, and I hope she's ok out there in the cold cruel world.

Oh, and as you've probably guessed by now, there was virtually no knitting/quilting content in the last couple of weeks. Not only did Mother Nature keep us busy, it was 40 weeks after Christmas, which translates to babies everywhere.

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-30T17:13:00.001-04:00

Survivied the hurricane with only a wet basement, some branches and leaves in the backyard, and several dozen new gray hairs.

Saturday night was not a fun night. Things started picking up (figuratively and literally), early on in the evening, when hurricane bands started passing over us, with torrential rain and high winds. Conditions deteriorated through the night, with tornado warnings at 11 pm and again at 3 am. Stuffed the cats into their carriers, and headed to the basement with water, battery radio, and a lot of fear. Either the tornadoes never materialized, or they pooped out before they reached us, but I wasn't about to take a chance.

Our power lines are underground, and thankfully, we never lost power. I couldn't sleep at all, so spent most of the night watching TLC's "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding", a good, trashy series about gypsy and traveler weddings and lifestyles in Britain. At least it kept my mind off the storm to a certain extent. I was also on facebook most of the night, keeping in touch with my sister and brothers, my sons who were not at home with me, and several coworkers who were also hunkered down in their homes. I never thought I would say that I was grateful for facebook, but here it is: I'm grateful I could keep in touch and see what was happening elsewhere, and that my extended family was safe.

The worst of it was actually on Sunday, when the flooding began. Downtown Hightstown was under water; the fire department was flooded out of their headquarters. In Princeton, 80% of the roads were impassable due to floods or downed trees. Getting to work on Sunday night proved to be an ordeal for those of us who need to report to work, hurricane or not. Roads were under 3-4 feet of water; other roads weren't even visible under the debris of downed trees and power lines. On Monday morning, my 20 minute trip home turned into 90 minutes, and that was pretty good compared to some of my coworkers. I'm happy I don't have to work again til the weekend.

Insanity

2011-08-27T10:47:00.001-04:00

Insanity, a photo by momcat14c on Flickr.

Needless to say, knitting and quilting have taken a back seat to hurricane preparation in the last few days. I've done what I can, but I have a nagging feeling I haven't done enough. Although the storm has been downgraded, it's a slow moving storm. We are expected to have 24 hours of tropical force winds. I fully expect to have considerable damage by the time this is over. I'm praying a tree doesn't fall on my car or my house. I'm feeling very frightened by this, and am hoping that the storm speeds up and heads out of here quickly.

Distinct possibility that we will lose our power; I'll be back sometime this week. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

News Of The Weird, August 23 Edition

2011-08-23T23:11:00.002-04:00

Well. They say there's a first time for everything, and today was one of those days. We had an earthquake. A big one. A big one by East Coast standards, at least. I know that everyone out in California is snickering away at us, especially those who "found God" today, certain that they were going to be flattened by oh, say, a book or DVD falling off their shelves. There are plenty of faults around here (earthquake faults, that is) so we are no stranger to earthquakes. What we are a stranger to, is an earthquake you can Actually Feel. When I lived in Monmouth County, we had the Cheesequake Fault misbehaving occasionally, but usually nothing you could feel unless you were right on top of it. BTW, I love that name, don't you?

I worked last night and was sorta sleeping today when I felt my bed jiggling around. No problem. I thought it was my 16-pound pussycat, Mica, galloping around my bed with one of his catnip mice, as he will do. Hmmm. A minute later, my bedroom door pops open and my son Eric says "Mom, something just happened". Lord, you have no idea how much I hate those words. They are usually followed by "the basement flooded/the stove isn't working/the sink is making funny noises/the electric outlet is crackling/the cat threw up all over everything" or something along those lines. Amazing how this stuff always happens when I'm trying to sleep. Awake, nothing happens. Sleeping, all hell breaks loose. But, I digress. I crack open an eye and mutter "huh?", so he continues "I felt like I was moving, it made me feel a little dizzy, and I could feel the house move, and I could hear it creaking". Uh-oh. This sounds like a biggie. So, I mutter "earthquake", and close my eyes. He leaves the room, satisfied with that explanation. That, and the fact that the house is still standing. In the meantime, the meaning of my words (word?) finally sinks through the layers of my sleep-deprived brain, and I sit up thinking, "Holy s**t! That jiggling wasn't that fatso galloping around my bed! It was an honest-to-God earthquake!" Get up, wander out to the hallway, peek out the door, and all I see is some bitchy neighbor allowing her dog to take a dump on my lawn, even though I yell at her to take him elsewhere. Everything is still standing, so I head to the tv, and every station has the earthquake story on. Yikes. It's big news in Washington and New York. I can sort of see that, because I'm sure that quite a few people in those cities were wondering if this was going to be a repeat of 9/11, given that the 10th anniversary of that is only two weeks away. It's mostly an anti-climax, though, because there are no serious injuries; indeed, probably no injuries at all. Several stores in Virginia reported that groceries fell off their shelves, and a few buildings lost bricks or stoneworks, but thankfully, nothing major appears to have happened. We aren't earthquake-proofed out here, you know. Not like California, where buildings are reinforced to within an inch of their lives.

We've certainly had an interesting year here on the East Coast. If we didn't know better, we'd think someone was Mad At Us. A winter full of legendary blizzards, a summer full of biblical rain and flash floods, and earthquake, and if that wasn't enough, it appears we may have a hurricane poised to wipe us off the face of the earth this weekend. Damn!! I'm not sure we'll be able to go to Asbury Park for the Roller Girls bout. If the storm is bad enough, perhaps the Roller Girls and Asbury Park will come to us. Or perhaps I will finally have beachfront property, even though I am currently 30+ miles from the sea. Will my trees stay in the ground? Will we be flooded out? Will I run out of chocolate?

We will see what happens. Stay tuned to this space for furtrher developments.

Anyhow, no knitting or quilting today. Slept, caught up with all the news on the earthquake, head to Target to replenish groceries and paper goods, and vegetate.

Uninspired

2011-08-22T16:28:00.000-04:00

Well, sort of. I haven't really blogged about anything because things are coming along, but no earth-shaking changes to make note of, and really, do you need to see every new row I knit on my Kate shawl or every new block I put on a quilt? I didn't think so.

I haven't really done too much knitting or quilting lately. Things caught up with me around the house, and I needed to catch up with them. You know - vacuuming, washing floors, cooking, laundry, all that kind of stuff that we don't blog about. Well, unless you're the Pioneer Woman, and I'm not even sure how much she blogs about vacuuming.

There has been a bit of stash enhancement going on, but I'll post pictures as soon as we get some decent light (sun? what's that?) It's actually sunny, sort of, today, but I work tonight, so slept late this morning, and missed the morning light.

I figured out that there are two quilt shops and a yarn shop all within 7 miles of each other, and it's just a 20-mile trip, so I did hit them earlier, and if I remember correctly, I blogged about that. Here's some shots I took that day, which was a rare nice one:

More "Record-Breaking..."

2011-08-17T16:59:00.002-04:00

This time it was rain. in slightly more than 24 hours we had nearly 6 inches of rain. We were lucky, though, other parts of our state got 11 inches. Can you say "Noah and the Ark?"

Picture taking conditions have been less than ideal. Considering the fact that I have fairly small windows, and a lot of trees surrounding the house, which makes natural daylight a rare commodity around these parts even on the sunniest days, to get several days of dark, rainy days, really throws a wrench into the works. I've been trying to take a shot of my Kate shawl without flash. Heh. I wind up with pictures of a blue fuzzy blob. So, you're going to have to take my word for it that I really have been moving right along on it. I have 287 stitches on the needles so I'm almost at the end of the body. Honest. Scout's honor.

And, I have been quilting, too. I don't know why, but suddenly Sundays seem to be super-productive days for me lately. I got busy with housework, made dinner, watched tv for a while and knitted up a storm while I did, and then went and pieced for a while. I'm getting into a pattern while piecing these blocks, and they are going much quicker. Good thing, too. I still have 17 more to make.

I also made a visit to my new favorite store, Olde City Quilts in Burlington, along with a visit to a new-to-me store, Village Quilter in Mt. Holly, and oh, gosh, a not-so-quick stop at Woolbearers, also in Mt. Holly. Aren't I lucky? Two quilt stores and a wonderful, well-stocked yarn shop all within 7 miles of each other, and only a 20 mile trip from my house. Did I have fun or not?? I got some quilt fabrics at both stores, and some lovely Dream In Color Smooshy in a gorgeous red color. Red is not usually a color I use a lot, but I have a lot of brown, blue, black, green and purple in my wardrobe, so I like to mix things up a bit every now and then. Once again, no pictures yet, hopefully at the end of the week.

Blast From The Past

2011-08-10T17:05:00.001-04:00

Enthused because I actually managed to finish one of my myriad projects (see previous post), I went searching around in my closet, and managed to unearth the quilt equivalent of Stonehenge - a Log Cabin quilt that I finished back in 1986 or so. I don't know if this quilt has ever made an appearance in this blog before - I doubt it because this used to be a knitting blog, and this quilt has been buried at the bottom of my closet, underneath various strata of yarn, fabric, wreath forms, and god knows what else.

I brought this quilt out today to give it a critical (!) look. Wow. The back looks like a shag rug because I never clipped threads while sewing, and the front looks nearly as bad.

I didn't trim the blocks to size, so some of them are, er, "puffy", to say the least. The colors are amazing - including chrome yellow, poison green, and red calico. I haven't seen these colors in quilt stores in quite a while! Oddly enough, while visiting another quilt store in Burlington, I saw new fabrics in these colors.

So, anyway, I got out my extra-large mat, ruler, and a rotary cutter and got to work "evening up" this behemoth. That took about an hour, mostly because the supervisor kept parking his 15 pound furry ass on the quilt, and took exception to being moved off (read: chomped my hand!). Finally finished without cutting off a paw or a finger, and it looks better, sort of.

I'm going to have to press the hell out of this thing. I don't know how it's going to quilt, but even if I have to utility quilt it, I'm not tossing it. Many of these fabrics are from my maternity clothes (well, I was pregnant in the 70's and 80's. The 70's were my hippie years. Give me a break.), and a lot of them have other memories attached. Plus, I just love it, flaws and all. I can remember sewing on this while my 5th son snoozed in his car seat in my sewing room while I sewed this, while taking breaks to work on Halloween costumes, including an award-winning Stegosaurus, for my other four sons.

Hallelujah!!

2011-08-07T16:06:00.001-04:00

It's finished! 90" x 80", 3,400 pieces, 3100 which are 1 inch squares, and it's done!! At least, the piecing is. Right now, it's unpressed, unquilted and unbound, but I finished it! I thought this would go on forever. Everytime I thought I had enough squares to finish, I had to go cut more! Doing a happy dance. I'll try to get some outdoor shots of it during the week, if we ever get any sun again, and when I have a few tall people home to hold it up!

Surprised

2011-08-04T17:10:00.001-04:00

I just finished three-days-in-a-row at work. All three were very busy nights. I feel like a slug today. The plan is to blog a bit, hang out on the computer catching up, watch The Big Bang Theory and knit on my Kate Shopping Shawl, and then maybe work on some piecing for a bit and then hit the sack. Exciting, no? I don't know how I keep up.

In relation to the title of this post, what surprised me is how productive I managed to be on Sunday. I finished piecing three blocks for the Civil War Stars. I really, really, really love these blocks. Although I have expanded my stash into batiks and modern fabrics, my true love is repro fabrics and traditional quilting though I don't do traditional hand piecing and hand quilting. I'm pretty certain that had our foremothers had electricity and a sewing machine, many of them would have opted to machine piece. And, I don't have any qualms about machine quilting a quilt. Unless I have to do it. The thought of stuffing a ginormous queen-sized quilt through my machine gives me the vapors. I don't have a problem with sending it out.

Looks like I'm off on a tangent again. Back to Sunday. So, I finished working on some partially pieced Civil War Stars, and I managed to knit a fair amount of my Kate Shopping Shawl while watching Food Network Star and Falling Skies. Love both of those shows, and thank God that Penny Davidi was given the heave-ho last week. What was with her? "Bring back sexy to the kitchen"? Ugh. Not working, So, "Stilettos in the Kitchen"? Then, "Middle Eastern Mama"? Yikes. First of all, I don't usually feel very sexy in the kitchen. I don't want to vamp it up while I'm sauteeing shrimp. One extra thought wanders across your mind, and damn, you have rubberized shrimp. Then, who the hell wants to cook while wearing stilettos? Didn't that go out with Donna Reed and the Beaver's mom? Third, she didn't come across as a Mama, unless it was Ma Barker (google her if you don't know the name). Penny always made me think of Phil Collin;s deep dark song "Mama". There was nothing warm and fuzzy about this crazy woman, I figured she was a goner the week she started meowing and hissing at Mary Beth at the end of the show in front of the judges panel. But no, she hung on a bit longer.

Geez, my mind is really wandering today isn't it? The really big surprise on Sunday was that I managed to finish piecing my 1930's repro fabric Spring quilt. I don't have any pictures yet because this quilt is huge, and I need a couple of tall people to hold it up for me to get a good shot of it. I still have to applique the vines in the large white triangles, but that shouldn't take too long, unless I decide not to do it, in which case it won't take any time at all. I decided not to do applique flowers - I did yo-yo flowers, and I think it was a good choice. I like the way they look - a bit fun, and not too serious. The light, bright colors of this quilt make me think of fun, and I think the yo-yo's are right in line with that. I have to get the binding together, but I can do that while this creation is out at the quilters.

Yay for progress!

Knitting At Night...

2011-07-31T15:59:00.001-04:00

...which was the original intent of this blog, after all. I haven't been doing too much of quilting or knitting lately, mostly just wiped out by this stupendously hot weather, and general lethargy. I hate summer for a reason. I have no energy at all, even though I'm in central air conditioning most of the time.

Anyhoo, I'm sure that all two of you who read this blog saw the picture of the Duchess of Cambridge taken right after her marriage - off on a shopping trip to the local supermarket. While that may be amazing enough, that a Royal would go off food shopping, what was really amazing was that gorgeous green ruffled shawl she tossed over her jeans and white t-shirt. Like 98 million other women, I instantly coveted that shawl. And where else to go to look for a pattern but Ravelry? I found two that I liked. One is very true to what she was wearing, done in 2300 yards (!) of lace yarn on size 1 needles; the other is a similar one done in a worsted weight on size 8 needles. Well, wanting a bit of instant gratification (and also because I don't have any suitable lace yarn in my stash), I started on the one done in worsted. Just so happens I had 4 skeins of Patons wool in my stash.

Not in the color I wanted, of course, but a denim-y heathered blue, which will at least go with the jeans that I spend 90% of my life in. Of course, now all I have to do is lose some weight, get some decent hair, and drop 30 years from my life and then I can look like Kate!

I've been looking for lace weight yarn; I forgot how expensive it is! Normally, spending $23 for a skein of yarn for a shawl will not make my hair stand on end - it's a pretty reasonable price for a shawl. However, since I need 2300 yards, that translates to 4 or 5 skeins, which is going to break the bank for me, unless I want to give up eating for a while. And come to think of it, I DID want to lose some weight...

The first picture is the closest in color to the actual yarn I'm using. Unfortunately, my camera chose to focus on the skein, and not the project, which I didn't notice til I uploaded. I'm feeling way too lazy to set this up again, so the second shot was taken at the same time, just without flash. It's a bit more green than the yarn, but it shows off the detail a little better.

I'm still qilting. Still working on green pyramids, and I have started pinning the last few rows of my 1930's sunshine quilt together. Ireally want to be done with that quilt. I just need to sew on the last few rows, and then applique the vines. I'm doing the flowers for the vines as yo-yo's, so they will be attached after this quilt is quilted. This quilt is pretty big, so I think I'm sending it out to a quilter. I have a lot of other tops in various stages of piecing, so I'd rather work on them.

Ice Cream Cake

2011-07-26T23:40:00.000-04:00

My birthday earlier this week, Chris's in a few days.

Union Star

2011-07-21T13:59:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to see little green pyramids in my sleep, so I figured it was time for a break. Besides, as usual, there was another pattern and more fabric clamoring for my attention. So, here to join the WIP pile, which is growing in leaps and bounds, is Union Star:

The original pattern was done in all Civil War reproduction fabrics. I have some, and bought more, but I'm also adding in other fabrics from my stash that I think will work. I'm trying to stick to shades of brown ranging from very light tan to deep brown, and rusts from pale pink to deep burgundy, with golds thrown in. This is my birthday month, so I get a day where I get 20% off fabric and books at my not so local quilt shop plus they just had their 20% off summer clearance, so I did quite a bit of stash enhancement.

Overachiever

2011-07-18T23:15:00.000-04:00

I was running out of a good variety of blues and greens for the Thousand Pyramids quilt, so I spent Saturday cutting out more. As I've said before, I don't use templates any more. It's so easy to cut out strips, and then cut the strips to size using a triangle ruler. Maybe too easy. After a few hours of cutting, this is what I wound up with:

Over 600 new pyramids! Oops! So I guess I have enough for another quilt now.

This Is A First...

2011-07-15T22:55:00.001-04:00

...because I'm only halfway done with my Thousand Pyramids quilt, and I already have the backing and the binding chosen and bought. It usually takes me a while to pick a backing, especially since I have fallen out of love with plain white, which used to be my backing of choice. I still have a queen-sized log cabin quilt that I finished well over 10 years ago sitting in my closet waiting for me to chose backing and even worse, I still have to figure out how I'm going to quilt it. I think I'll wind up sending it out, because the thought of having to hand quilt all that fabric acreage gives me the chills.

Anywhoo, here is the binding and the backing, along with the photography and quilting supervisor. He certainly is a busy boy these days. I chose a light green batik on the right of the picture, for the backing; and a dark green batik, on the left, for the binding. My not-so-local quilt store was having a summer sale, with 20% off selected fabrics, and 30% if you finished the bolt. There was a bit more of the light green than I wanted, but it didn't cost too much extra (read: $3.00!) to buy it, finish the bolt, and get a 30% discount!

Kona Cottons and Photography Assistants

2011-07-10T15:16:00.001-04:00

Trying to set up a picture of some Kona Cotton bundles that were recent acquisitions, I used a white piece of fabric as a backdrop, and a couple of boxes to hold it up. Unfortunately, the photography assistant knew one of those boxes was his favorite sleeping box, and objected to the set up!

I recently invested in several of Robert Kaufman's Kona Cotton bundles. These are wonderful! I love the colors, and one of the sellers (I think Simply Solids on Etsy) labels each fabric with the name for easy reference. I love that! It's nice to look through the bundles and decide with color I like best for my project, and have a name to it, instead of trying to match it on my computer monitor.

Left to right: Purple People Eater, Spicy, and Pretty in Pink.

My Blue Heaven, Denim.

Well, there are a few more to post, but apparently, Blogger will not let me upload any more shots. Does anyone else think that Blogger has really gone downhill since Google took it over? Not only that, it's next to impossible to get an answer from anyone at Google when you have a problem. You have to post to one of their help forums, and hope you get a decent answer. I posted there a couple of months ago, and all I got were ridiculous posts, most saying, yeah, I have that problem, too" or "check your cookies". I finally got my techie son to help me fix it.

Error 503

2011-07-09T18:02:00.001-04:00

What a frigging pain in the ass blogger is.

More Thunder

2011-07-07T17:03:00.002-04:00

Well, if it's July in these parts, there must be thunder. And there is. Lots of it, and the biblical, here-comes-the-Ark rainfall that goes along with it. After a frustrating night at work, and not being able to go right home and fall face-first into bed (my son is out of town, and has a diabetic cat. Said cat needed insulin and food; lives 8 miles from my house.), I was ready for some retail therapy when I woke up this afternoon. Jo-Ann fabrics has just remodeled their store, and sent out some nifty coupons that are only good for three days. I was itching to use these things today, and make a pit stop later at my favorite LQS. Grabbed purse, car keys and walked out of the house, only to hear thunder booming away, and watch a downpour begin as I stood on the porch. Grrr. In the last few weeks I've slogged through too many thunderstorms to be interested in heading out into another one. We had the walking across the parking lot into the movie theater storm a few weeks ago, which left both my son and me soaking wet, which was delightful, considering that the theater was chilled to temperatures approximating Antarctica in midwinter, so I spent two hours freezing my butt off. Oh, and then there was the storm that rolled through as I was checking out of ShopRite, which made me wait 15 minutes inside the store, anxiously wondering how long my frozen food would actually stay frozen.

So, the upshot of this is: no retail therapy today.

I worked the entire holiday weekend, so no fireworks for me. However, Mother Nature was thoughtful enough to provide an amazing July 4th sunset:

Tokyo Subway Quilt

2011-07-05T00:39:00.000-04:00

I first saw this quilt over at Oh, Franssonand loved it. So, I have 791 1 1/2 inch squares cut out for the subway lines. I haven't started it yet, because I'm still deciding on a background color. The original was done with a white background, but i saw a couple done with Kona Ash, and I think I like that better. Also, since I cut these out, I've improved my stash of pinks and grays, which were sorely lacking in my fabric collection. I might cut a few new squares from the new fabric just to have a bit more variety! My personal favorites so far are the cross-eyed chickens, and Alexander Henry's Baddanna print in black.

|As always, click on the picture for a larger version.

Sweet Pea

2011-07-02T16:38:00.002-04:00

A squick return to the original intent of this blog, knitting. The Susan B. Anderson "Sweet Pea" baby hat, for a coworker. Pattern available on Ravelry.

I Lied...

2011-07-01T15:48:00.000-04:00

I said I would not post for the next few days. Well, here I am. It's a short post, but a post nonetheless.

I got busy last night with my new toy and trimmed the heck out of those Flying Geese that were all wonky. I wasn't sure when I originally cut them out, but I can see on the back of them that they were traced from templates. And none too accurately, I might add. I trimmed everything up; some were not salvageable for use, so they went back into the scrap pile to be reincarnated as something else. Once I was finished trimming, I decided to sew together a few blocks so I could see how they fit:

Looks 100% better. I could have sewed them all together last night, but I don't have much of a variety yet. I need to look through my stash for more fabrics for this quilt. I'm trying to stick with blacks, grays, gold, orange, dark blue, dark greens and brown for the birds, and beigey fabrics for the sky. I have a lot of stuff from the 70's and beyond that I'd like to use up, so I'll see what fits in this top. Each block is only three pieces, which makes them work up really fast! And, this new tool makes cutting them easier, too. I found some strips that I had traced the triangle template onto, but I flipped it over, and used the tool and my rotary cutter to accurately cut more large and small triangles. I don't think I'll ever go back to pencil, template and scissors to cut quilt pieces again!

Here We Go Again

2011-06-30T17:27:00.000-04:00

Digging around in my closet the other day, I came up with a bag of triangles I'd cut for a Flying Geese quilt. I must have cut these 10-15 years ago, or more. Once again, as I pulled them out of the bag I was wondering what I was thinking when I cut these? Was I really that math-or-measurement challenged? I'm a reasonably intelligent person, so how did I wind up with this, and why didn't I notice it then?

The bottom block is more or less the correct size - 3"x6". The top block is more like 7"x4". Unfortunately, I have about 2 dozen blocks "finished", but I will have to pick them all apart, and remeasure. I guess I'll do that tonight while watching "the Big Bang Theory".

I work for the next three days, so there will be no quilting, and most likely no blogging either, but once I get back, I have this nifty little item to help me cut these pieces to the correct size:

I took my 50% coupon off to Joann fabrics today, used it on this. Fons and Porter's stuff rarely, if ever goes on sale, but this I think is a good investment!

WIP Wednesday

2011-06-29T17:37:00.001-04:00

Oops! Forgot it was Wednesday, so I dragged my unwilling quilt holder (aka Eric) outside to hold up my current WIP so I could take a photo of it. I'm moving right along on it; I have 10 rows done, although I don't think all 10 rows are visible in this picture. I have 12-14 rows left on this - I haven't decided which. I'll see what happens when I get 22 rows done.

Thousand Pyramids, although it will have about 1200 when I'm done. 600 done already. For other WIP bloggers, see button on the right side!

Accidental Stash Enhancement

2011-06-28T16:56:00.001-04:00

It's been a few weeks since I've been to my LQS, and I had an itch to go visit the fabrics and pet them for a while. I had planned on picking up a few fq's, if there was anything interesting, and maybe pick up a fq or two of some batiks that might go in the quilt I'm working on. Well, I did find some lovely batiks, all of which can and probably will go into the current WIP:

And, while I was there, I also picked up a few others:

Some really pretty blues and greens. Some of the blues are only blue and white. I have an idea for a quilt of just blue and white fabrics, but I'm surprised at how difficult is is to find fabrics that are just blue and white, without any green, yellow, red, or any other color in them. So, as I find them, I just pick up a fq or two.

And lastly, so reproduction fabrics in browns and maroons. Yes, another idea for another quilt.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. I was using a 70-300mm lens to take some shots of the birds at my feeders when I remembered I needed to post today. Being too lazy to walk into my room and switch lenses, I just placed the fabrics on the dining room table and stood across the room, but it really wasn't far enough to get sharp photos.

June 25

2011-06-25T15:39:00.005-04:00

It's June 25, and that can mean only one thing - six months til Christmas! And of course, what better day for the postman to bring me yet another package! What was in it? This, of course:

Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley collection. I think this is out of print now, and like her other collections, is going for big bucks nearly everywhere. I love her fabrics, too, but I'm not willing to part with $114 for a stack of fat quarters, or pay $18 or more for a half yard of fabric! I have other things to think about, like eating, car payment, mortgage payment, electric, you get the idea.

I found this stack of 24 fat quarters on Etsy for $57, which works out to less than $2.50 each!

Ive noticed that these fabrics have a very "1930" feel to them. Individually, there are some in this collection that I don't really like, but I know from past experience that these fabrics usually blend in well with the whole. I might have to see if I can find a bit more of these, or dig in my stash and find a few other 30's repro fabrics that will work for these for the quilt I have in mind. I'm not sure I have enough here to make a full size quilt, and I rarely make a small quilt, which is probably why it takes me forever to make a quilt. That, and the fact that I do have to work.

While trying to take pictures of these lovely fabrics, my loyal photography supervisor felt that he wasn't getting enough attention, so took matters into his own paws:

Mail Call!

2011-06-23T19:44:00.007-04:00

I love when the mailman leaves me a package in the mailbox! This came today:

The cat in the box has been here for a few months; the package in front is what arrived today. This was in this package:

Five fat quarters of Japanese Daiwabo elephant fabric! I first saw this fabric in the Tokyo Subway Quilt at Oh, Fransson, and loved it. I managed to score five fat quarters for a reasonable price - slightly more than $3 each! I got these from one of my favorite Etsy stores - PoppySeed Fabrics. I love this store - great fabrics, quick shipping, great customer service.

I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to make with these elephants, but I suspect they might be showing up in several quilts I have planned!

Penny Lane

2011-06-22T22:21:00.004-04:00

Riley Blake's collection of fabrics in pink, green, and blue. Once again, not what i usually buy, but I loved the fabrics, and found a good deal on the fat quarter bundle on Etsy, so I went for it. Not entirely sure what I'm going to make with it, but I've seen some quilts made with this fabric, so I do have some ideas! I'm trying to not start another quilt at this point - I already have too many WIPS (living on my sewing table or on the shelves above), and UFO's (residing in the closet). Plus, Halloween is coming up (in 4 months!) so I have to start thinking about whether or not I want to make a Halloween quilt. I already have the fabric!

And The Big Man Joined The Band...

2011-06-20T16:33:00.005-04:00

We were in Asbury Park on Saturday evening. The original plan had been to go down a bit early in the afternoon with our cameras, and take some shots along the ocean and the boardwalk, but as usually happens, life got in the way, and we got there just in time to buy tickets and grab decent seats for the Murder Beach Militia vs Right Coast Rollers of the Jersey Shore Roller Girls bout. While there, an announcement was made that Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band had died an hour or two earlier. Wow. Although I don't live on the Jersey Shore now, and have not for more than 30 years, I still live in Jersey, and I grew up at the shore - I spent more than 25 years living there. I'm the same age as Bruce Springsteen, and I remember him playing at the shore. I remember when he was in the Castiles, and they played at a dance at my high school. I think Clarence Clemons was one of those people that you kind of thought would go on forever. I'm more a fan of Springsteen's early stuff than I am of his music lately, but I still wonder how he's going to replace Clemons. I guess Rock and Roll heaven is going to have a pretty good band going.

How To Relax

2011-06-15T16:21:00.001-04:00

How To Relax, a photo by momcat14c on Flickr.

Remember to take some time to relax every now and then! Mica shows us how it should be done.

City Weekend

2011-06-12T16:49:00.004-04:00

No, I'm not going away for a weekend. City Weekend is a line of fabrics designed by Liesl Gibson of Oliver + S for Moda fabrics. I posted a picture a few days ago of a WIP using some of the fabrics. I just wanted to post a picture of the fabrics themselves.

The lovely leaf pattern is "Treetops", the clould-like pattern is "River View Bistro", and the dots are "Roundabout". I love the colors in these fabrics. Again, these are colors that I don't usually use, and I think they're lovely. I bought a pre-packaged kit from Pennington quilt Works, and I think there was 1/2 yard of each fabric, with the exception of the blue and white dot at the bottom, which is for the binding,and was 3/4 yard. This fabric has a different "feel" than most of my quilt fabrics. It's silky soft. I love working with the fabric, and I can't wait to get back to working on it. It's just that I have all these other quilts started...

Break Time!

2011-06-11T16:12:00.002-04:00

Taking a quick break from quilting to go back to the original intent of this blog - knitting! One of my coworkers is having a baby girl next week, so I'm knitting a baby hat for her. Or trying to, at least. I've knitted this hat several times in the last few months, but this is a variatin with a peapod on top. I started knitting the other night, but messed up while watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Honestly, that show is like watching a train wreck - I can't look away. So anyway, pulled it off the needles, and then restarted on a 16" circular. Ugh. I didn't like the way it knitted on that needle, so pulled it off and restarted on dpns. Knitting merrily away, and Mica comes into the room, sees what I'm doing, crouches down, wiggles that butt, and takes a flying leap into my lap. 15 pounds of pussycat landing in your lap at high velocity hurts, let me tell you. He snatches the yarn in his mouth, jumps off, yanks, and the entire thing comes off the needles. Grrr. Another restart. I'd have had the damn thing done if I didn't have to do restarts. I'll post a shot of it when I'm done. In the meantime, this is the last hat I knitted. It's the Upside Down Daisy Hat from Susan Anderson's Itty-Bitty Baby Hats.

Kitty Cuteness

2011-06-08T17:10:00.006-04:00

I'm continuing to work on the Thousand Pyramids quilt, so nothing really new. I'm sure you don't want to see each row as I finish it! Now that I have all the pyramids cut to the same size, it goes together well. It went from being a project I hate, to a project that I love. I was at my LQS yesterday, and bought some new fabrics for it, to replace the ones that I ditched. Heh, my bad - I forgot to take pictures of them. As usual, it took every ounce of self-control to not walk out of that store with another quilt kit - there were quilts hanging on the wall that I loved. One of them was a beautiful batik done in blues. I think it was called rainy day. That's the kind of rainy day I could love. I also tried out a Bernette sewing machine. They have a new line out that runs from about $229 - $499. The lower range are mechanical; the upper two machines, the Bernette 20 and the Bernette 25 are computerized. I liked both of them, and since a Bernina is not in my budget, and probably never will be, one of these seemed like a good replacement. I want to look around a bit though. There's a Viking/Husquvarna dealer near my Joann Fabrics, so I might look at them, too. $500 is a lot of money to plop down, so I want to make sure that I love what I get. Not just like; I want to love it. I don't love the machine I have now. It's a Singer that I got for $149 at Target four or five years ago. It's ok, but it does have some drawbacks to it. I will say that I've been reading reviews about this machine, and many people said theirs stopped working after a few months. Mine has been humming along just fine, but I want a bit more in a machine.

In the meantime, a picture or two of Mica helping me quilt. He's settling in nicely. I think he's happy to have windows to look out of, and space to run and play. My birdfeeders are set up outside my family room windows, so it's cat heaven there. They all enjoy watching.

What's On My Cutting Board

2011-06-05T14:30:00.003-04:00

Pieces for a Thousand Pyramids quilt. I first cut these pieces in 2007, right after my mother died. I don't know what I was thinking, because when I pulled this UFO out of my closet the other day, and started sewing the pieces together, I noticed that they weren't going together right. Grabbed my Tri-Rec tool, and checked the pyramids. Wow. Some were too short, some were too wide, and some were just too much of anything to be useful. I trimmed the too wide or too long ones, lopped off the too short ones to make smaller pyramids for other blocks, and got to work. I also cut some new pyramids from some batiks. I'm hoping to get a kind of "oceany" feeling from this quilt. I'm trying to go with blues, greens, turquoises, things that remind me of the ocean and sea glass. Now that everything is cut to the right size, it's going together really fast.

I was also wondering why I do marathon quilt sessions when there is a death in my family. As Isaid, I started this quilt in 2007 when my mom died. I also started another quilt, which I will eventually post pictures of. For that quilt, I cut out nearly 3,000 pieces in two days, and over 800 pyramids for this quilt in the same amount of time. I quilted for a couple of months, and then just hit a wall, and didn't do any crafts for a while. I eventually went to knitting, which I still do, and didn't quilt much until this January, when I found out my beloved cat, Gremlin, was in the last stages of cancer. He had always spent a lot of time in my room, but used to come out and sleep on the back of the couch in the family room if I was there reading or watching tv or knitting. If I was on the computer, he'd be sleeping on the desk with me. As he got sicker, he rarely left my room at all. My sewing machine is in there, so I restarted quilting to spend time with him. I'd like to think that this burst of activity on my part will continue, especially since I have so many quilt tops in various stages of completion!

Remnants of Hurricane Noel Passing by Long Branch, NJ, 11-3-07

2011-06-04T13:09:00.004-04:00

Remnants of Hurricane Noel Passing by Long Branch, NJ, 11-3-07, a photo by momcat14c on Flickr.

For the Photo Finish Water theme on Cat Patches.

Taken in November 2007, as the remnants of Hurricane Noel passed by the Jersey Shore. We were on the deck of The Avenue restaurant in Long Branch, NJ. The steps to the beach were leading directly into the ocean!

2011-06-03T21:13:00.002-04:00

Hoo. My work schedule has been a bit chopped-up lately, which makes it hard for me to function, much less blog. However, I have been able to get some piecing in this week. True to form, while looking for some batik fabric I knew I had, I came across a couple of quilts I started several years ago when my mother died. One of them is a Thousand Pyramids quilt. It's done in blues, greens, turquoises, anything that gave me a kind of "beachy" feel. I was going for tones of the ocean, sea glass, things like that. I liked the fabrics, but I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I cut the pyramids. Some were just plain wonky, some were too small, some were too big. I recut the too big ones, cut the too-small ones down, and put the wonky ones back in the scrapbag if they couldn't be rescued. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow.

I've also worked on this. It's the "Lucky Star" pattern by Atkinson Designs. I love the floating star effect of this, and I love the batik fabrics, too. This is the first time I've ever used batiks for an entire quilt.

Project A.D.D., Part II

2011-05-27T22:28:00.003-04:00

So here is part II of my posts on project A.D.D. Did you think there would be only one?

I saw this lovely batik quilt in my quilt shop. So, naturally, I resisted for a few weeks, knowing full well that I would be starting this project at some point in the not so distant future. And I did. I spent a lot of time at the quilt store, and online looking at batiks. Fortunately, I was able to snag some lovely Hoffman, Anthology, Robert Kaufmann and Timeless Treasures batiks. All were lovely, but I especially loved the bright colors of the Timeless Treasures Tonga Batiks. I need 42 (or 49!) batiks, and I can tell you I'm going to have a hard time choosing. The background is a lovely cloud print sand colored batik from Timeless Treasures.

I've already sewn two test blocks for this quilt, and will post pictures of them later.

Project A.D.D.

2011-05-24T16:03:00.003-04:00

As usual, I have more than one project ready to be worked on. I have the gorgeous Moda "City Weekend" fabrics, being worked into the "Happy Dance" pattern by Me and My Sister. This pattern was originally developed for their line of "Happy" fabrics, but I saw it made up in the City Weekend fabrics at my quilt shop, and couldn't resist. I love this. I'm using a white tonal with small dots for the background. This pattern is a treat, too, because it's 64 blocks. Each block has 16 pieces. That's quite a difference from the 1939's repro quilt I just finished, which came in at 3,380 pieces!

Back Again!!

2011-05-23T16:34:00.004-04:00

Well, posting has been a bit sporadic lately. Unfortunately, my beloved gray cat, Gremlin, got sick last summer, with what turned out to be cancer, and went over the Rainbow Bridge in February. It just about killed me to lose that cat. He owned me for 11 years, and was a constant companion. I still miss him so much.

I'm still knitting, but I've been quilting a lot in the last few months. I restarted quilting because as Gremlin got sicker, he spent more and more time sleeping on my bed. My sewing machine is in my room, so I started quilting as a way to keep him company during the evening hours.

This is a gorgeous quilt made with 1930's reproduction fabrics. Not at all what I usually quilt with, but I love it. One of my coworders described it as "happy colors", and she's right.

I have several other quilts in the pipeline, and will post pictures as I work on them. Procrastinator that I am, I also have several from about 4 years ago that I need to finish too!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

2010-09-20T16:34:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I know, it's one day late - should have posted this yesterday, but I didn't.

Sherrie's Skull and Crossbones hat:

The End Is Near...

2010-09-16T13:16:00.005-04:00

Of this miserably hot summer. I barely left the house at all. I don't do well in temps over 90, and we had 60+ days of high 90 temps, and a few in the 100's! Recently, it's been mostly in the 80's during the day, with temps in the 50's at night. Much better, but I'd be happier with lower daytime temps. I'm starting to feel alive again!

Last week I decided to take a drive to Ocean Grove, a lovely town about 35 miles from here on the coast. Unfortunately, it was 96F, but I figured it'd be cooler down by the ocean, right? Wrong! No cooling ocean breeze that day! I didn't stay as long as I'd planned, but I did manage to get some great pictures of the tent colony that surrounds the Great Auditorium. These small tents, measuring about 18x30 ft, are enourmously popular. The waiting list to rent one is 5-30 years, depending on who you talk to. My money is on the longer wait. Although there is no a/c, and the tents are packed in, elbow-to-elbow, people love them. They are well cared for, with tiny gardens, and a sight to see. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of them at night.

Some of them have been taken down already. You can see two empty platforms in this picture. The wooden structure at the back of the platform serves as the kitchen and bathrooms when the tents are occupied, and then serves as winter storage for the tent itself and any furniture remaining. A few other tents were being taken down while I was there. They'll be back up starting next June.

Haste Makes Waste, And All Those Not So Silly Things Your Mother Told You That You Never Bothered To Listen To

2010-09-09T17:09:00.004-04:00

I have been dying to make this pattern since I saw it two months ago. I even bought the yarn for it, several skeins, truthfully, because I couldn't make up my mind when I saw all the color combinations on Ravelry. Besides, these will come in handy in the winter. My family room tends to be a bit like Siberia in the winter, which makes knitting, reading, time on the computer a problematic thing. So after knitting three Skull and Crossbones hats in a row, I felt it was time for a change. Started this pattern at 1 am a few nights ago, knitted like crazy, and then went to bed. Knitted on it some more the next day, and as I was knitting, it dawned on me that the fair isle pattern wasn't lining up correctly. Damn!! Ripped it back to where I thought the problem was, knitted back up to where I had been, and saw the same damn misalignment. Yanked the whole thing off the needles, frogged it entirely, and restarted the next day. Much better, although I will say this pattern is kicking my ass for some reason. I can do fair isle in my sleep, but there is something about this one that always has me ending up with an incorrect count at the end of a row. I still love it, and can't wait to have at least one pair of these done! This one is in ShibuiKnits Sand and Mulberry. I have Ink, Midnight, Wasabi, Bark, Ivory, Peacock, and more Mulberry and Sand waiting in the wings, along with some unnamed Cherry Tree Hill in a gorgeous green, and also several skeins of Koigu KPPM. My only concern with the Koigu is the much shorter yardage in each skein, I think 175 yds vs Shibui's 191. I'll see what kind of yardage I use when I finish this first pair.

Aargh, Me Mateys!

2010-09-07T15:08:00.002-04:00

Arrgh, mateys. I know it's not Talk Like A Pirate Day yet, but I have been knitting Skull And Crossbones hats until they're coming out of my ears. Three done, and one more to go. Well, I say one more, but my son wants some editing on his. I had a feeling this might happen, so instead of starting the hats with the earflaps, per the instructions, I knitted the hat first, and picked up stitches for the earflaps at the end. That way, if I had to modify some part of the hat....

I'm psychic, I swear. I finish the hat, he puts it on, and says, "wow, I really like it, but could we (we?? I only see one person with knitting needles here!) change a few things?" Like he doesn't like the ridge around the hem of the hat where it is, or more to the point, he doesn't like the way the earflaps start under the ridge. Move the ridge up, or eliminate it altogether, knit the earflaps smooth from the body of the hat, and put the ridge around the border of the earflaps and hem. To his credit, when he finished with the modifications he wanted, he looked at me and said, "I'll bet you're regretting offering to knit me a hat!"

No, not really.

Please consider becoming a foster parent today - and don't forget to cli...

2010-08-15T15:16:00.000-04:00

It Fits!

2010-08-03T00:31:00.002-04:00

Moving along with my Buttercup. I finished the neckline and one sleeve, and I have about 5-6 inches left to knit on the bottom. I changed the sleeve edging - I used the fan-and-feather lace pattern for the bodice. Knitting the neckband pulled up the bodice nicely. I was afraid this would be showing way more of me than I wanted to, but that's not the case.

I really love this pattern. It's easy, pretty, and easy to fit. I'm already looking for a linen type yarn to make this for warmer weather.

Growing Buttercup

2010-07-28T12:52:00.002-04:00

My Buttercup is moving right along. This picture was taken over the weekend, just after I separated the sleeves. It looks like it fits perfectly. I think it will "bloom" a bit after it's finished and washed, so I'm leaving it as it is right now. I knitted a bit more on it on Monday night, got to where I start the body increases. This is one of the things I love about knitting top down - it's so easy to check fit as I go along. Much less ripping this way.

Jon came home from three weeks in Europe last night. Unfortunately, there was a suicide on the train tracks at one of the stations near us, which threw the entire train schedule into turmoil, as the investigation progressed through the night. One of my other sons was also trying to get home from work, and running into a lot of misinformation. NJ transit seemed to have it's wires crossed on information. Depending on who you talked to, it varied wildly. When I finally picked Jon up at 10:15 last night, there were hundreds of people who had just gotten off trains that were finally allowed to stop at our station. In the end everyone got home safely. My heart goes out to the person who felt this was their only option, and their family.

Another Year Older And Deeper In Debt...

2010-07-26T21:00:00.004-04:00

Well, not deeper in debt - I keep a close eye on that, but certainly another year older this weekend.

Tinking

2010-07-24T15:59:00.004-04:00

I broke one of my cardinal rules the other night - "Never Knit While You're Sick", subtitled to add "you will regret it". So, last night I was feeling somewhat better, so decided to get some more work done on it. After all, how much could I screw it up? Just a few more rows of lace, and separate the sleeves from the body, and then an increase row. Since I wasn't feeling well, and I know my track record from f**king up projects when I Knit While Sick, I was very vigilant.

Or, so I thought.

Knit the last few rows of lace very carefully - check, all stitches are there ,and lace looks fine.

Slip sleeve stitches on waste yarn - check, all stitches accounted for; didn't even drop one!

Cast on stitches for sleeve underarms. Whoops, this one threw me a bit. Had to do it twice, and still wasn't happy with it. Doesn't matter, because, read on:

Knit 16, then m1,k2 16 times. To my sleep-and-02-deprived mind, I just read this as "knit 16, m1 16 times". Which is exactly what I did. For both the front and the back. So, when I get to the end of the row, I count stitches. "You should have 118 stitches on both front and back sections".

Huh?

Why do I only have 97 stitches for the front? Uh, oh. Pick up the instructions, which I reread (should have done THAT before I started!). Crap. Now I have to frog that whole row.

Frogging goes well until I get to the newly-cast-on stitches for the sleeves. Can't tink them without dropping them, so I just drop them, and continue on. Carefully tinking all those stitches takes me the better part of an hour. At this point, I should have just gone to bed, and not gambled on dropping any stitches. Thankfully, all I wasted was time. Didn't drop any stitches I really needed. I'll work on it again tonight, this time reading carefully, and using a different cast on for the armhole stitches.

I really like this sweater. Already I'm perusing Ravelry, looking for yarn ideas to pilfer for my next Buttercup.

Don't I Make A Cute Vampire??

2010-07-19T19:39:00.002-04:00

Gremlin, trying to fit in with the current vampire craze. He turned 11 years old last month, and he's scheduled for a vet appointment soon.

Since June of 2009, we lost 6 of our cats, and our Golden Retriever, Dusty. Two of the cats we lost just to old age, 17 and 18 years old, but Dusty and the other four cats were lost to cancer. My sweet hand-raised 9 year old kitty, Megan, was diagnosed and died of a brain tumor on one horrible weekend in June 2009. Had no idea anything was wrong with her, until she jumped off the desk one Friday night, landed on her face on the floor, and then just could not get up - her front legs didn't work. Bundled her up in a carrier, and made the 70 mile round trip to an emergency vet. At that point, no one knew what was wrong with her; by that time, everything was in working order. On Saturday, she seemed a bit better, but by Sunday morning, it was apparent that something was terribly wrong. Her eyes were not focused, and her front paws were crossed. Back to the carrier and the emergency vet. She was failing before my eyes, and I had to say goodbye to her, which was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I got her when she was 3 days old, along with a brother and two sisters. The other two girls didn't make it, but Meg and her brother Cal survived. Cal had surgery for a cancerous eye nearly six years ago, but is still going strong.

In September, we noticed that our beautiful big Tuxedo cat had a swelling in his back leg. Diagnosis: sarcoma. Surgery the next day; survived the surgery, died from shock shortly after. He was 8; a wonderful cat, the official family "greeter". Always had to say hello to anyone who came in the house. And, if that wasn't bad enough, Jon's 17-year old kitty died 24 hours later.

We lost one of the other cats in January, and in March we lost our 18 year old kitty, Fuzzybuns. He had been deaf and blind for a few years, but was still going strong until the beginning of March. He became very frail very quickly, and I knew it was time to say goodbye to him.

IN early April, Dusty took a turn for the worse. He had started having seizures in the late fall, just occasionally. Even with meds, they became stronger and more often , until it was a daily occurence. Dusty was living with my son Dave for the last six months, so I spent a Sunday with them, just hanging out with Dusty. He was on his dog bed, and I was laying next to him petting him, and talking to him. He was breathing so hard, and it was hard for him to get up and move around. Again, we knew it was time for him to go, just a month before his 10th birthday.

In May, I got another nasty surprise. My sweetie cowkitty, Alex, suddenly started losing weight and refusing to eat. He'd had surgery in January for a large nasal polyp, but had recovered nicely and gained weight, and the lab reports indicated it was non-cancerous. A trip to the vet revealed he had a desperately low red cell count, beyond anything that could be done, and I lost him a week later.

It's been such a rough year for us. Our pet s are such an important part of our lives. The only bright spot in this is Murdoch, one of our other cowkitties. He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in his mouth in January, and given 3-5 months to live. So far, so good. We're seven months past diagnosis, he's still eating well and doing well; no weight loss or loss of energy, and I have not seen any more episodes of bleeding. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him.

I'm Back, I Think

2010-07-13T19:19:00.000-04:00

I haven't knitted in quite a while. That's not to say I haven't done anything. I've done a fair amount of crocheting during my hiatus. I'll post pictures when I get a minute. Oh, wait, I'm wrong - I did knit some thing. There seems to be a baby boom where I work (among my coworkers - we already know about the patients), so I've knitted a baby sweater and hat or two. I was happy to be working on baby clothes again. It's been 23 years since my last child was born, so there hasn't been too much of that going on. I love the baby yarns that are out there now. I used a lovely self striping yarn to make an adorable "fair isle" sweater and hat.

Right now, I'm working on a sweater pattern - "Buttercup" _I found on Ravelry. I loved the pictures I saw of other peoples Buttercups. Alas, when I downloaded the pattern, I found that there are no longer two sleeve options, and the one option that's left is for puffed sleeves. Ugh. I am so not a puffed sleeve person. But, optimist that I am, I'm knitting this anyway. I'll rip it back and figure out something else if I have to. But so far, I like the pattern, and I love the yarn. It's Wool Cotton by Rowan. It's been in my stash for a while, originally meant for something else. It's a nice blue-greeny color. I"m about 15 rows in so far, and I noticed a problem tonight when I was on row 8. Seems that I split the yarn on row 4 on the back side. Not terribly noticeable, and i thought I could ignore it. I should have known better. On Row 13, I knitted up to that stitch, dropped it down, and hitched it back up with a crochet hook. I'm so much happier now.

Still Alive

2008-08-29T22:07:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted at all this summer. I hope to rectify that soon. In the meantime, here:

Things Change

2008-06-19T16:51:00.001-04:00

While I was doing pretty well with blogging every day for the first few months, it became more of a chore rather than something I liked doing. I work 12-hour days that often turn into 14-hour days. Add travel time to that, plus time to sleep so I am patient-safe, oh yeah, and time to eat, too, and it adds up to precious little extra time on work days. It wasn't too bad on weeks when I only work three days, but more often than not, I work four or even five days, and it is a problem. I need to work that much so I can keep a roof over my head, and that takes precedence over blogging. So, I'm still going to blog, but not every day. I want this to be something I enjoy doing, not something I remember I have to do while I'm running out the door.

Not much knitting lately, either. I'm still working on Flower Basket, but I don't think I'll have it done by the wedding. Just as well, because I looked at the skirt I'm going to wear, and guess what, the colors don't exactly match the yarn! My memory must be slipping!

Thunderstorms

2008-06-11T23:49:00.002-04:00

We had them last night, or more accurately, they were all around us last night. Lots of thunder, but little lightening in this area, and little rain. But the result was the same - the heat wave broke. Nice today, low humidty and nice temps.

Nearly 300 stitches on the needles for Flower Basket. It'll stay that way for a few days - working eight out of the next nine days!

Glah

2008-06-10T23:21:00.002-04:00

Pretty much how i feel about this whole weather thing. Way too hot for spring. For that matter, it's way too hot for summer, too. We're having thunderstorms right now, so maybe that will cool things off a bit. i still have some planting to do outside, and the family of bunnies that was here finished off all my morning glory plants around the mailbox post, so now I have to try to replant.

I'm hoping to finish 8 rows or so on Flower Basket tonight. Still plugging away.

On Track

2008-06-09T23:47:00.002-04:00

With my knitting, that is. I've knitted about 10 rows of Flower Basket today. Considering that each row is now over 250 stitches, that is progress. I still have to get up to over 400 stitches, and i am working a long eight-out-of-nine stretch, starting this week. Will I make it in time for the wedding?

Well, My Intentions Were Good...

2008-06-08T22:16:00.002-04:00

I did knit last night. Really. I just didn't knit much, that's all. How much? Heh, about half a row. That's about 150 stitches at this point. That's more than a few rows on a sweater. First off, I couldn't remember what row I was on in the pattern. The marker fell off the page, so I had to fiddle around and figure out from the stitches. After a false start or two, I got it right. Then, I fell asleep. Didn't see that one coming. I can't knit lace when my eyes keep closing. I already tried that once, and it was a disaster.

Spent a lot of time cleaning today. I have a fairly large linen closet, and you would think that there would be more than enough room for linens in it, but you would be wrong. With five people, and five beds, that closet gets pretty crowded. Add to that the fact that my sons don't really keep it as neat as they should, and it is a mess. So, I tossed out lots of stuff, organized sheets with matching pillowcases, and sorted them by size. Any bets on how long this lasts? Til the end of the week? I'd be happy.

We must be busy at work. They called three times today to see if I'd work tonight. No. I haven't had enough sleep, and I'm not patient-safe, plus starting this Thursday, I work eight out of the next nine days, and I need a break.

Munch, Munch, Munch

2008-06-07T18:40:00.001-04:00

Baby Squirrel
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

I didn't take a picture of the sky today. It's a uniformly washed out pale color, which is not very attractive. And, I forgot. So there.

One of the baby squirrels that infest my birdfeeders. What's he eating? Birdseed of course. Annoying they are, but still cute.

Hey, guess what I'm doing tonight? Knitting. Yep, that's right. Even though I went to AC Moore today and got some yarn to work on one of my in-progress afghans. Don't you just love when you start a clear-out-the-stash project, and damn if you don't have to go buy more yarn for the stash so you can finish it?

It's too freakin' early in the year to be this freakin' hot. I went to Petsmart today and I thought I was going to stick to the parking lot surface.

Ugh.

I Think I Hear Buster Poindexter...

2008-06-06T23:00:00.001-04:00

Singing "Hot, Hot, Hot". Yikes!! It's supposed to be in the 90's this weekend, and maybe near 100 on Monday! What the hell?? This is still spring, isn't it? This is what I would expect in August.

Crap.

Thank god for a/c!

Um, Isn't this Supposed To Be Spring?

2008-06-04T15:40:00.002-04:00

Spring seems to be an odd season anymore. It's been fairly cool and chilly, with below normal temps. Actually, that's ok with me. I don't mind cooler weather, and even with the cooler temps, spring has been beautiful. Things are growing nicely, my flowers look wonderful, and I'm happy with the temps.

That's all about to change. Yesterday was really warm, today is somewhat cooler with rain, but we are about to head into the 90's. No, not the decade, the temps. Ick. I have a hard time dealing with anything above 85. I still have lots of planting to do, and that means I have to do it while it's hot!

Last month, I planted a ton of morning glory seeds around my mailbox. Not one has popped out of the ground, that I've seen. I've been wondering what the heck happened. With a few dozen seeds, you'd think that I would at least see one, don't you? I think I figured out what happened. While standing near my front porch, talking to my son, I noticed some of the leaves in back of the pacysandra wiggling around. Walked back there, lifted the leaves, and found five baby bunnies! That means mom is around somewhere, and I know from past experience, she loves morning glory plants!

I Give Up!

2008-06-02T17:03:00.002-04:00

Gray Squirrel
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

We have had some amazing squirrels this year. I've had a birdfeeder in the yard for years, one on a pole with a baffle on it. It's been enough to keep the squirrels off it. They couldn't jump past the baffle.

Until this year. I have at least two squirrels who jump past the baffle and clean out that feeder in a matter of hours. I'm spending a fortune on birdseed. Yes, I have tried the red pepper powder that they are supposed to hate. They seem to love it. They finish off the hot-pepper suet with gusto, along with every other kind of suet I've tried. I have a hummingbird feeder, new this year. Do they bother it? Of course they do. They pried off the little yellow flowers surrounding the feeding holes. I found three of them in the grass, put them back in, and tried to get them out myself. Couldn't do it.

I'm ordering a new pole, so we'll see how it works.

There Isn't Enough Coffee In The World

2008-06-01T23:35:00.002-04:00

To keep me awake and functioning tonight after the night I had last night.

No knitting lately, did you notice?

I Need A Map Or A Traffic Cop

2008-05-31T17:14:00.004-04:00

Getting to work the last few days has been interesting, to say the least. This is Princeton Alumni Weekend, when alumni descend upon the town, snarling traffic, jaywalking all over the place, walking against lights, and generally making drivers fear for their licenses. A lot of alumni show up for this. Even alumni who graduated way, way back in the mists of time. On Saturday, there is an Alumni P-Rade.

Thursday night, it took me 30 minutes to get from Route 1 to my place of employment. I usually pull through the garage at 18:43, according to my parking stubs. Thursday, I clocked in at 19:00 on the dot. Friday night wasn't much better. Made it over Route 1 with no problems, and it looked like usual traffic ahead. Until I went over the canal and lake, and came to a screeching halt. And sat. Sat some more. Any progress I made was because cars were pulling out of line to turn around, or make a right down Faculty Road. After waiting through six changes of light, and traveling about 20 feet, I made the same decision. Down Faculty Road to Washington, which is usually a pain any time of day. Clear sailing, much to my surprise. I made it to work with time to spare.

Ohhh,

2008-05-30T16:36:00.002-04:00

While I love my job, there are days that I really don't want to go in. Today is one of them. It has nothing to do with the job, and everything to do with the fact that it is just beautiful outside. I have four flats of impatiens that need to be planted, along with various other plants, and I want to get them in the ground before it gets to be oppressively hot outside. This is one of those days with blue skies, nice breeze and perfect temperatures - a lot like yesterday was.

We have seen some new baby squirrels around. Baby being a relative term - they are not tiny, but almost the size of an adult, but they still have that young squirrel look on them. I'll try to post some pictures of them this weekend. Although they drive me crazy by cleaning out my birdfeeders and wrecking them, too, I still enjoy taking pictures of them.

Another Day, Another Dollar

2008-05-29T17:03:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I think the hardest part of posting is coming up with a title. I'm not sure if I've used today's title before or not, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

I'm back to work tonight with reservations. I don't feel entirely comfortable. Chris is still having some problems, and I don't want to hear he's in the ED.

It's so beautiful outside. Perfect temps, blue sky, nice breeze. I really want to b e outside planting. My next day off is Sunday, and I hope it's a day like this one.

Back

2008-05-28T20:42:00.003-04:00

Sunset from the seventh floor.

Wow. I was doing pretty good with the blogging-every-day. Until Friday. Nothing like a family member suddenly hospitalized to make things turn upside down. My son was hospitalized unexpectedly on Friday night, and released on Sunday. He's been pretty good, and we hope that there are no further problems, but that is uncertain at this time.

Needless to say, between last week's workathon, and then spending the better part of the weekend in the hospital with my son, I didn't get anything done.

On a brighter note, the chipmunks are back. I saw three of them today. One was on the sidewalk on the side of the house, and had a few things to say to me in chipmunk every time I walked by, and the other two were drinking the water that comes out of our sump pump. I was really happy to see these little guys.

What Else?

2008-05-23T16:37:00.002-04:00

Family emergency today, so I can't do a real post. I
hope I'll be back tomorrow.

Duck Yoga

2008-05-22T16:42:00.001-04:00

Duck Yoga
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

I'm sure there's a funny comment here someplace, but I'm too tired to find it.

Two more nights, and then I get six days off!!

Green, Green

2008-05-21T17:10:00.002-04:00

Right now, we are in late middle spring. It's rained a lot. As a matter of fact, we had rain about an hour ago, and now I hear thunder out there, and it's getting darker by the minute. I just had to turn on my desk light, even though it's only 5 pm.

One of the upsides of all this rain is all the green. Myriad shades of green all over. Each one of my trees has a different shade of green, the trees in the wooded area behind me have more, and my grass, flowers, and bushes add more green. It's wonderful to look out when the sun is out, or for that matter, even when it's cloudy and murky like right now. There's something about all that green that makes me feel like all is well.

Q: So, why don't I knit with green more often?

Have to think about that one.

Survivors

2008-05-20T16:03:00.004-04:00

Although my true love is knitting, I find crochet very satisfying at certain times. Like now, when I'm tired and frustrated and wondering if I'm going to lose this cat. I had to rehydrate him today, and he really rebelled. It was difficult to do with him wiggling around, I wound up wearing nearly as much saline solution as I managed to get in him, which was the required amount.

Anyway. Crochet. Round and round, all those rounds add up to some thing pretty neat. I don't crochet sweaters, unless I'm looking for a very open, lacy effect, and even then, I'm more likely to knit a lace pattern. I love knitted lace, but that's a subject for another day. And given the fact that I've ignored the lace shawl I'm working on, it's a pretty weird statement.

Crochet is just mindless to me. Round and round, join another color, more stitches, end it, throw it in the pile, and pretty soon, I have another afghan. As I stated before, I make my afghans out of acrylic yarn, which I know makes some people shudder. I don't care. A wool afghan costing upwards of $100 makes no sense in this house. When my kids were young, they would put them on the bare floor when they were playing video games, or just watching tv. In colder weather, they would wrap up in them on the couch. They played with the afghans. They made them into tents over furniture. The afghans went with us the the fireworks on one particularly cold July 4. I have pictures of the kids wrapped in these afghans. The cats sleep on them. The dog adores them. They go in the washer and dryer once or twice a week. They survive. I have afghans I made 30 years ago and more. I don't have to worry about them. They are the workhorses of my home. I like it that way.

Four nights in a row coming up at work.

Oh, Damn!!

2008-05-19T23:50:00.001-04:00

it's been a frustrating, unhappy day. Waffles is sick again, and I don't know if I can pull this one out of a hat. I'm trying, though.

It's Not Even An Afghan Yet!

2008-05-18T15:24:00.002-04:00

It's Not Even An Afghan Yet!
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

I don't know how the cats know when I'm working on something, but they do. Last night, I decided to play around with some granny squares, made with yarn from my stash. I settled on this pattern, and started making some squares. Gremlin hopped up on the desk, sniffed around, and then settled his furry gray behind on my squares. He was insulted when I moved him around to see the directions.

These squares will be bordered with black yarn, when I get some. The majority, if not all, of the other colors will come from my stash. I have a Rubbermaid tub of acrylic yarns that I make my afhgans with, and it looks like I have most of the colors I want for this one. The afghan that is nearly finished is muted colors, burgundy, soft green, taupe, white, and gold. This one is brighter colors, bordered with black.

And, yes, I'm aware that I have a shawl to finish.

Saturday Sky

2008-05-17T18:29:00.003-04:00

Saturday Sky
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

When I went outside this morning to take my Saturday Sky picture, I looked up at the sky, and thought, "eh, I'll take it later." Well, what is that saying about not doing things when you think of them? The sky was a brilliant blue. No clouds, not even puffy little white ones. Just a huge expanse of beautiful blue. Well. I went outside a few hours later, aimed the camera at the sky and thought "what the ~~hell~~ heck?" That beautiful blue was not to be seen; replaced by a murky gray sky. I guess that means we have more rain in the offing. Gee. Like we need it..

I am embarrassed to say I still have not knit a stitch. However, I am seriously considering doing some crocheting. I seem to have the afghan bug, which is not a great bug to have when you have a load of UFO's cluttering up your craft desk already.

And, in the Things Falling From The Sky Department, my son looked out his window today, and saw a bird skeleton sitting on top of his window a/c. His room is on the second floor of our home, underneath a huge spreading oak tree. All I can think of is that one of our resident hawks was snacking on this unfortunate bird in the tree above the a/c, and the storms this week dislodged the remains. Ick.

Raindrops

2008-05-16T20:53:00.003-04:00

Raindrops
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

Raindrops on my Fringe Tree (Chionanthus virginicus) earlier today.

Well, the knitting drought continues, but as you can see from the picture, we certainly are not having any other kind of drought. After the high winds and heavy rains of Monday, the rain at least has made a return engagement today. Heavy rain, but thankfully, no winds. On the other hand I did a lot of planting yesterday, and while the plants are enjoying the rain and cool temps, the seeds I planted are not. I had to stand out there today and poke all my morning glory seeds back in the ground. Not fun.

I don't know what gives with the knitting. I know I have to have this done by a certain time, and that certain time is creeping up on me. What have I been doing? Reading, playing websudoku (got bored with spider solitare), mostly. Outside planting and working on the yard. Yesterday I weeded an entire bucket of weeds. Planted morning glory seeds after picking out a million or so weeds from around the post. Planted mountain pinks around the rocks in the gardens. That sort of thing. Knitting, no. Went to dinner up at Rutgers with my son. It took me slightly more than an hour to make a 25 mile drive. I could have ridden a bike faster, If I could ride a bike that far.

I'm hoping that after I finish this post, I can convince myself to pick up my knitting and get working on it.

Happy Birthday!!

2008-05-15T16:45:00.001-04:00

To my crazy Golden, who is 8 today!

Where Have All The Chipmunks Gone??

2008-05-14T20:00:00.002-04:00

I realize that is not exactly an earth-shaking question, especially in light of all that has happened in the world in the last few days.

Last year, I had several little chipmunks running around the yard. They drove the squirrels crazy, and caused me to spend way too much time staring out the window watching their antics.

I'm sure that the squirrels had something to do with their disappearance. I know that they found one of the chipmunk food caches and raided it all winter long. I'm sorry that they seem to have disapeared. I looked forward to seeing them every day.

Do I need to get a life?

Look Out World

2008-05-13T20:20:00.003-04:00

Heh. I can now IM anyone. My son set me up with it the other day, so I have hopped right on that bandwagon. Sigh. Another thing to take up my time.

Been kind of out of a knitting mood lately. Haven't knitted at all in 10 days. I'd better get going, soon, because next week I'm at work 5 nights, and I know that I'm not going to be knitting on my nights off.

I Need A Boat And A Sail

2008-05-12T18:09:00.002-04:00

I signed up for a seminar today, which was being held at a hotel 32 miles from here. No problem (usually), because I know where I'm going and it's not a bad drive. However, today we had high winds and torrential rain, and even with 4-wheel drive, it was a scary drive. It was difficult to see, difficult to stay in one lane, and on local roads, trees were down. Plus parking at the hotel was the pits, and I wound up parking in the back of the lot (I was late), and had to slog across the parking lot to the entry. Slog is about as good as a word as I could think of. And i wondered why I had tortured my hair with a curling iron before I left. Between the wind and the rain, I looked like a drowned rat by the time I blew through the door.

Interesting seminar - legal issues in charting. Some of it very serious, and some of it downright hilarious - various examples of misspellings, whatnot, that left us thinking "did that nurse really write that??" At any rate, I will be examining my charting closely after this.

Hangin' Out With Mom

2008-05-11T11:40:00.001-04:00

Hangin' Out With Mom
Originally uploaded by momcat14c

Happy Mother's Day!

Saturday Sky

2008-05-10T22:43:00.003-04:00

This afternoon's murky gray sky. Right now, the moon and stars are out. The clouds did a quick disappearing act.

I got another call today to come in if I could. Unfortunately, I was sleeping, and I couldn't.

There are going to be a lot of new moms for this Mother's Day.

...And, Boy, Was I Right!!

2008-05-09T18:17:00.002-04:00

It was even crazier than I thought it would be last night. What happened nine months ago? Blizzard, earthquake, power failure? I am working an additional eight hours tonight for BB (BigBucks!), and an assignment on our overflow area, which is where I was last night. If I'm not in the nursery, I usually love being on overflow. It's much quieter and saner. It's all postpartum, no one giving birth, so a more relaxed atmosphere, usually.

I had intended to get up after a few hours sleep this morning and really get going on my yard work, but Mother Nature threw us a monsoon, instead. So, I slept in, and I'm really glad, because I can work tonight without feeling exhausted. At least the ground will be softer tomorrow and everything will be well-watered!

I haven't knit a stitch on Flower Basket since Monday night. Haven't gotten on the treadmill, either. Bad me.

I Think It's Going To Be A Third Crazy Night In A Row...

2008-05-08T16:38:00.002-04:00

More OJ

2008-05-07T16:40:00.002-04:00

I sent an email to Consumerist.com detailing my problems with the shrinking oj containers. It was published, and I got the usual assortment of good and bad comments, including a few who wondered why I reamed out the poor customer rep. Well, first of all, I didn't ream him out, but he was exasperating. He sounded bored, like he would rather be part of the conversation behind him, rather than answering my questions. Am I wrong to expect actual customer service from a customer service rep?

One thing I did find out that was interesting, is T*******a is no longer "Florida orange juice". More to the point it is now "Mostly Brazilian Orange Juice". Hmm. Someone suggested I try another brand - Florida's Natural. I might just do that.