The Crafty Lizzard

The 4th of July has long been an outstanding family tradition at my parents' house.

7. My dad's yard is, as it was put today, better than a lot of parks. There's usually something really cool happening too. One year, it was a baby hawk. This year it was cactus flowers

and twin fawns.

*WARNING*

These were the finished Ravelympic projects that present on Thurs. night.

it's extremely fast and she doesn't even watch while she's doing it.

Then we had Kate's first pair of socks. Well, at least the ones that now have her totally addicted to socks! (Yes, another one into the fold!) A year ago she wanted handmade socks so badly that she wanted to pay someone to make them for her. Now, she's come a little further to the dark side and will be making socks forever.

But now we saw Cat's Endpaper Mitts that added to the Ravelympics haul.

Ok, so technically this challenge started last year -- on Christmas Day.

But, I'm counting it as the first of the new year (since that's when most of the work on them will occur)...

This is the first half done of my very first pair of knee socks! I've been wanting to do a pair for a while now and finally started the Treetop pattern on Christmas day. I've had to modify the pattern a bit because I have HUGE calves and TINY feet. These are knit top down so I started with the large for the leg and then added extra decreases around the ankle to give the stitch count for the small foot. The foot fits GREAT and the leg is still a bit tight but doable!

Another change I made was to do an Eye of Partridge heel instead of a ribbed heel. I think that the eye of partridge holds up better over time and I like the look better. (Even if the ribbing isn't continued down the heel!)

I also thought that I would get SO bored doing the super long leg but the diagonal cabling actually really kept me interested. I do have to admit I thought I would also hate the cabling. I've only done cabling on one other pair of socks and I couldn't stand it. Which was very odd seeing as I LOVE cables! However, now that I know someone else who has done that pattern and also hated it, I think it was a case of a bad sock cabling experience.

I'm quite relieved to realize that cables on socks doesn't have to be an excruciating job!

during Choir class of my 8th grade year, I was summoned to the Principal's office. I guess I must precede this story by saying I wasn't the type of kid to get called down to the office. My brain shorted out until my dear friend turned to me with great excitement and said "It's the baby!" This being my best friend (who's part of the family), she knew that my brother's wife was pregnant. I got to the office and there was my dad with my 2 year old niece. To make a very complicated story short -- My niece, Amy decided very quickly to make her appearance in the world. No one was left to watch her sister so I was called into Aunt duties from school.

Tonight, that niece looked like this....
Amy has made it through high school. Loving band, hating math, laughing with friends. All the trials and tribulations that make up the drama of high school. And yes, she will learn to deal with some of us saying, "Oooh, the day you were born..." (and to us it will feel like it was just maybe 5 years ago.)

Sitting up in the balcony, paparazzi-like were her sister (Cora-now 21) and I. With cameras poised we were set to catch the action in the beautiful venue.
This is the beautiful Civic theater in downtown Akron. An old remade movie house. Awesome. As I walked in tonight, memories kept flowing. I realized that I had not been to this theater since my prom was held here 14 years ago. They've made some changes and it's nice to see it's still wonderous.


May the good frenzy that surrounds you in this picture stay with you. Congrats!

ok...so these were actually painted on Thurs. but by the time I got everything up and running and cleaned (because I wanted to prove that my counter is not usually THAT bad!) it was this morning! Here it is:

Now I just have to do a few touch-ups and I'll be done with painting for a while!

As far as my knitting goes....I have been working...not as much as I wanted to over this vacation but I got some done. I also cranked out a couple of really quick washcloths for part of a wedding shower present. I promise I will have pictures soon. I feel like the needles were a little ignored this week because of the whole kitchen thing but I will update here and over at Ravelry very very soon. Plus, I'm lusting over the new Imagination yarn over at Knit Picks -- I see a bit of red in Munchkin -- hope it's a lot! must...finish...current...projects...argh!

Ok....so day 2 went pretty smoothly...I almost had a CATastrophe though. Bailey came down quite confused and looking for her food when she almost put a paw right on the corner of the very wet, front of a cabinet door. I know I'm going to end up doing some touch up anyway but whew, am I glad that didn't happen. (Thanks to my very loud, very scary scream!)
As I started this morning I did have to keep repeating the paint mantra of "it dries darker"-- when I opened the can of paint it looked VERY purple. I looked at the paint sample again and sure enough it said "fine wine". As I watched the paint go up, I thought this looks more like just smooshed grapes. But remembering that dark paint especially dries a different color, I went for it....glad I did! It's definitely what I wanted!

The difference between the two reds is amazing! No more angry red! Now I just have to do the bottom cupboards and finish everything (read: clean) before I have a newish kitchen! Now off to go put a second coat on the inside of the doors so I can hang them tomorrow...

Ok...so this week I took vacation to try and get my big winter project done. I was hoping that I could get a couple of days solid to work on my kitchen. Well, the fates conspired against me and this week is actually going to be a REALLY busy week -- so the kitchen is going in stages.

On Saturday I tool a trip down to Ikea (LOVE this place) to pick up a few handy, dandy things. A new tv stand, door pulls, storage space for kitchen walls, etc. etc. etc. Of course, walking through that store always makes me want to spend so much more money than I have...:(

So with new kitchen toys in hand I'm ready to start. Here's the mess before I started this morning:

Filthy white walls (that I had to splash some ceiling paint on when I moved in just so I wouldn't be grossed out cooking!) and bright, fire-engine red cupboards. Now I'm not afraid of color -- my bathroom is rubber duckie yellow -- but these cupboards have been screaming at me for a year. It doesn't help that the paint job is horrible (that's been a common theme with this house-- half done jobs.) It's not relaxing to cook with harsh colors staring back at you. As far as the walls are concerned, I've never understood the need to have the whole house white (which mine was) so the white walls are now gone!

I know that this picture isn't that clear as to what the color is.....how do I describe? It's tanblushgrey. Ok,Ok,Ok....so the name of the color is actually Unfussy Beige but once I get the cupboards done it will look better. (The red now is REALLY screaming at me -- it clashes like you would not believe!)
Hopefully, I will be posting the finished product in a couple of days -- complete with pretty new stuff and an actual clean counter! Now on to have a sit in my chair!!

Ok. I know it's been a while since I actually posted some knitting goodies.

So Here I Go:

We'll start off with the not so exciting...but they are made with awesome yarn! I just have to say I love Knitpicks for starting the Imagination line -- and for naming them all after fairy tales (this one is Looking Glass)! These are the armwarmers that I made for my niece, Amy's birthday. This was an easy project as I had just made some for me and they are almost purely stockinette stitch. She seemed to like them (she's 18 so...) and they did fit her!

Now for the stripey fun: I love these colors. The name of the color is Patina and that is just what I think of. The color combination reminds me a piece of copper that's only been half left out to turn green. I'm using a simple stockinette stitch on the foot so the colors show through well. But I'm using a floating rib stitch on the cuff to give them a little more personality. I think the best part about these was trying to explain self-striping yarn to my dad -- no matter what I told him he couldn't get that the yarn did the stripes. I showed him the lengths of different colors, tried to explain that the fewer stitches the thicker the stripes. Didn't work. He thought that I had it all planned out in my head. Silly dad...that's the fun of playing with yarn -- waiting to find out what it looks like when it's done!

The Big Job: this is the long project right now. This is a taste of a sampler shawl that comes from the Folk Shawls book. I LOVE this book. I am a person that gets very tired of big thick coats -- so to wrap myself up in a nice, thick blanket (for all intents and purposes) is wonderful. They are perfect for those inbetween days where you need something but you're also not freezing your toes off. (It's also a good thing in a movie theater if you like to curl up with a blanket!) This one will be a sampler of 5 different lace patterns. I've got 2 done...3 more to go...this is knit horizontally and I believe there's around 350 stitches per row so it takes me a good long time to do one row. Hopefully, the draw of using this soon will keep me going...knit, knit, knit.

...is something that we all should do once in a while. It revives the spirit, connects us with our fellow humans, and sparks imagination. It can also remind us to take a look at the world around us and the impact that we have on said world. It can also provide us with a load of fun and hopefully we see something in a new way or have a new fun thing to do. So...

After a suggestion from a friend (not that it took much convincing) I am embarking on a new project tomorrow. I'm attempting to do my first Photo-A-Day project -- The 12 days before Christmas! I plan on toting the camera around like I did with my favorite Teddy Bear when I was little. (Except I probably won't trail it down the stairs when I get up in the morning! WAY too expensive...) I'm not sure if these photos will make it into a scrapbook(not really my thing) but maybe, just maybe, they will...eventually.

So stay tuned and find out what the adventure will be!