Good Neighbors
Over the weekend while DH was gone, I had a flat tire. I had decided that I would just do my best to change it myself, but couldn’t get the jack to work. Turns out my neighbors son was outside and thought I might need some help, so just as I was headed over to see if they had a better jack, he met me at the fence and asked if I needed help. Within a matter of a few minutes he was over there with their jack, helping me change my tire.
Next thing I know his brother is over there to help, too, and his friend is looking for a better tire iron. We couldn’t get the lug nuts off with my tire iron. It’s also quite short, so he brought over his which was much bigger. Then another friend of theirs pulls up and he comes over to help, too. So I had 4 guys between the age of 16 and 20 at my house on Saturday, helping change a flat tire. It was great.
I fully intend to bake them some cookies or something for being so nice to me. First, I have to survive today, which includes two Dr. appointments. So there will be no baking today.
Can’t Stop Making Mittens
Pattern: Child’s Simple Striped Mittens by Sivia Harding
Yarn: Wool-Ease in Blue Heather and Azalea
Needles: Size 3
I had forgotton how eyeball-frying that Azalea was! 
The Butterfly Emerges
Thank goodness it didn’t turn out to be an ugly caterpillar!
I’m really happy with the changes I made to this sweater. I used the yoke decreases from Meg Swansen’s EPS Revisited in place of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Workshop, which made the yoke fit much better. The tricky part was getting the neck opening right. I really thought after the third and final round, I would need to decrease a little more to make it fit. Turns out I didn’t, DD#2 has a 21-inch head! That’s how big my head is. And if the recipient’s response is any indication, I think this sweater was a success. She’s worn it every day!
I used the instructions for the Hawser EPS from Knitting Workshop by Elizabeth Zimmerman for most of the sweater, adding the hawser pattern above the cuff of each sleeve, and also placing it around the chest in the body of the sweater before joining the sleeves. The pouch pocket instructions are from the Wonderful Wallaby Sweater pattern. Yarn was Wool of the Andes in Beryl Heather and Pink Cheeks, with a few miscellaneous scraps of wool yarn I had leftover.
The Pneumatic Walker….
…sounds cooler than it really is. DD#1 saw the podiatrist today after 2 weeks of pain in her left foot. It turns out she has a tiny little fracture on her heel. She has to wear an air cast for the next 4-6 weeks while it heals. Of course, she thinks it’s really cool. I spied her showing it off to her friends after school today! LOL
Sandblasting is the New Microdermabrasion
We spent the weekend camping at Little Sahara Recreation Area. It was fun to spend time with my Brother-in-law, his wife, and my nieces and nephews. The down side was that it was so windy that we didn’t stay as long as we planned. For starters, all the dust, sand and whatever else was in the air really aggravated my allergies so I was just a big drippy nose and a pair of itchy eyes the entire time. It was so bad that we sat inside of our trailers and played games (Phase 10, anyone?).
Now that we’re home, I’ve noticed how smooth and a little bit sore my skin is. There’s no way I was outside long enough to get sunburnt, so my guess it’s from the wind and the sand. Why pay money for microdermabrasion when you can let the wind and sand take care of it for free?
American Engrish
I’ll pass on the water passed by the manager….
I always figured Engrish to be an anomaly only present in east Asia, but I’ve come to learn that it also exists in, of all places, *gasp*, the United States. My wife found this example at a mall in Michigan. She took the picture with her cell phone, so the focus was a little off.
The next best thing to walking tall?
You Can Never Have Enough Yarn….Right?????
Remember a few weeks ago when I said I though I could stop buying yarn a few weeks ago? I was really good until my mom came out for a week, we celebrated my birthday and a friend decided to gift me a few extra skeins from her stash. All of this resulted in my stash exploding by 24 skeins in two weeks time! (blush)
There are a few I’d like to introduce to you individually. I’ll just do one today and save the others for another time.
Everybody meet Paris Rain, from the Yarnmarket Impressionist Collection. I didn’t even know that someone had made yarn inspired by the impressionist painters! Isn’t it just lovely? Of course my Mom picked this out for me, she still has the magic touch when it comes to gift-giving!
My next yarn acquisition will have to be a colorway inspired by Monet’s Water Lilies.
More Tiny Mittens
I’ve been rather compulsive about using up my scrap yarn. I like the mental exercise of figuring out what to do with every last bit. My really short bits of yarn go to DD#2 for her little weaving loom.
So far my favorite pattern for scraps of worsted weight yarn is Child’s Simple Striped Mittens by Sivia Harding. Here’s a pair I just finished made out of Wool-Ease White and, I think, Blue Heather.
I think that eventually I will have a whole family of these tiny mittens. Not only do they make great use of scraps, they’re wonderful for portable knitting and they’re simple enough to knit and chat or watch TV at the same time.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with my parents visiting and the Regional History Fair for DD #1. This history fair was the end of the line for DD#1’s project, as it was for all 4th and 5th graders. However, her project took 2nd place in her division. I’m quite happy with the results considering this was her first project of this sort!
And now it is on to the next big school project, Creative Pursuits. This one is a group project, in which they are required to build a car that will carry four pieces of chalk the distance of one meter, when placed in front of a box fan. They also need to write and perform a skit. I’m not quite sure how the two tasks relate to each other, but that’s the assignment. Anyhow, we’ve been working/struggling with putting together wheels and axles that wil work well. Her group had a Barbie car that they were taking apart for the wheels and that’s where the trouble started.
- The axles the wheels where attached to were not the width of the base of the car.
- In order to remove wheels an be able to use them, we needed to cut the axles, which required the use of a saws all.
- After cutting the axles, we discovered that the wheels do not turn independently of the axles. We traded the old problem for a new one.
- I gave DD#1 some leftover irrigation tubing to cut and use to put around the axles and then attach the tubing to the bottom of the car to leave the axles free to turn.
- Tubing was too narrow to allow the axles to move freely.
- We decided that a trip to the hardware store would be necessary to find something bigger, and decided to go the next day.
The next morning, DD#1 had a new idea and got to work on it while I was doing some other things. By the time I saw what she had done. It looked like this.
See how she cut the notches and placed the axle?
Wow! I never would have thought of that!
