Friday Flowers

Verbena, perhaps? Not entirely certain. A big bunch of it is growing near my home, wild or at least not cultivated. Quite beautiful in colors that would be garish on me.

Good News!

Last night I had the very pleasant opportunity to teach three people how to knit. That is the beauty of being in charge of a youth program; sometimes you do what you want to do (both the girls did ask me to teach them, though). We began with Sugar n Cream cotton and the diagonal washcloth, just like everyone who doesn't get started on a scarf. I am certain the other adult leader will stick with it, she is already the crafty type and is lucky enough to have a little girl who likes ruffled cuteness her momma made for her more than anything. I am already interested to see if either of the girls has worked on it any more by Sunday when I see them next.
This was the most fun I've had in Young Womens so far, after basic instruction had occurred and everyone got down to practice, and sit around and chat. I really that; the only Stitch and Bitch I've found around here meets on a night that doesn't work for me. But the really good news is that I will be back in Utah for a few days in a week and a half! I will see you grrls on June 11th!

Duh.

See this? I completely skipped an entire needle, about 5 rows back. This is what happens when you are paying not enough attention to your knitting due to the siren song of Settlers of Catan.

(Post-production) Flower Friday

Is it cheating to post this as Flower Friday? Because I am so excited about the prospect of real tomatoes I could just die.

Something with yarn, this time.

In case anyone was wondering, I do still knit.

Cute cotton baby blanket, doomed to sit unfinished for who knows how long. Its only crime: it is the wrong gender. My neighbors were adopting a baby, and were uncertain of the gender. I placed my money on girl, which he turned out not to be. So I gave the little guy one of the many baby hats from my stash, and the blanket lounges here until I know someone having a girl.

It really is beautiful-big wide stripes in deep pink, with a planned semi-lacy border of chocolate brown. Very contemporary. Sadly, there are no girls in the development stage in anyone I know, so it will just have to wait.

I also got an early start on my Summer of Socks, since it is already summer here. I cast on and nearly immediatly turned the heel on a little footsie sock out of leftover yarn from knitting my mom and sister socks. They are not microscopic, this is just an enormous fern. I haven't done any socks in quite a while, and kind of forgot how convenient they are to stuff in your bag for emergencies. It was the perfect distracting/security blanket for some emergency dental work earlier this week.

Friday Flowers

Jasmine planted in my front yard. Not quite as prolific as the star jasmine in the back, but the flowers are lovely and it smells wonderful.
Great idea Kim!

It's here!

Mother's Day came a bit early for me.

And as soon as I was able to wrestle is away from Monkey

I was able to take this. Best present I could ask for.An actual smiling picture of the kid.

Marble Magnets

I am apparently the last person in the world to make those marble magnets. But if any of the, oh, two people who read this blog haven't made them yet, I recommend it heartily as a nifty project with amazing results. I cropped the photos and resized them to 3/4" in Photoshop, and had a dozen printed up on a single 4x6 print (as well as a couple others for all my other tiny photo needs, like finally putting pics of my boys in the locket I've had for over a year now). I used 5 minute epoxy to glue it all together, because it is what I had. The back of the marble will probably be wavy and not that optically great, but the glue clears that all up magically when you bond the photo and turns the marble into a great little lens. I topped it off with tiny rare earth magnets because they are awesome and my kitchen can be a windy place. Never have my grocery lists and school calenders hung with such style.

Now my fingers smell like Kool-aid

Dyeing yarn today, in preparation for Summer of Socks. I divided a skein of Knitpicks Bare yarn into vaguely equal amounts, which should be plenty for two pairs of footsie socks (the season for long socks here is brief).

Totoro

Further improvements of the Monkey's bedroom include Chu Totoro, standing on the molding above the closet. Kawaii!

How much lumber can you fit inside a Ford Focus?

It turns out, a lot.

I try to do a big project every time Lawyerboy goes out of town on business. While I do miss him, a week here and there isn't that big a deal and it does free up some extra time for crafting. Monkey is thrilled if we have pancakes for dinner-we even had green eggs and ham turkey bacon earlier this week.

This weeks project was constructing a bed for Monkey; he has been sleeping on a mattress on his bedroom floor for...maybe a year now (we are so ghetto). I took apart his crib/toddler bed conversion last spring because he kept falling out of bed. For his birthday I gave myself a present and bought him a twin mattress, because it was terribly uncomfortable to snuggle on the tiny crib mattress. So this week I finally got together the courage to build him a bed, greatly inspired by this guy. Monkey helped drill holes. I got to use every single power tool I own. The whole thing was designed to house the blue bins under the bed for storage. It is sturdy, (hopefully) should move easy, and made me feel really tough to go buy all the lumber.