Fabulous Friday

LOL, I may be thrilled it’s Friday, but my work week is far from over. I will be putting in a few long hours this weekend and so it begins. I’m sorry to say but my blogging may slow down over the next few months. Work is finally getting underway and I don’t even know if I will be able to breathe this summer. Yesterday Caveman came home to find me so overwhelmed that I told him starting Monday he could find his own dinner! He got me calmed down pretty quickly and we agreed we would collaborate on dinner plans from now on. See I have a tendency to put unnecessary pressure on myself, which results in me freaking out and then blowing up at other people, namely Caveman. Ok, enough venting. Moving on…

Here is the completely finished with the button sewn on, ends woven in, button loop sewn on, - Stripes Baby Cardigan

So cute! I will be making another one, but it will be towards fall for the girl cousin. I plan on using an eyelet instead of the purl to join the colors and a picot edging instead of the garter edging. Right now I’m thinking it will be in red and lime, but this used less than a ball of the blue & green so I just don’t know yet.

Here are a couple bibs I’m planing on sending the girl cousin right now though.

I just made a button hole in one strap and slipped the other loop through it. It actually works really well like that. I only used one ball of the Peaches & Creme, 100% cotton to make the two bibs. It is soft but it really hurts my hands. So I’m taking a break from the baby knits for a while. Whew!

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Catching my breath!

It seems like I’ve been trying for days now to post but I just couldn’t find the time. We tried to cram as much as possible into this past weekend, so I’m still recovering. LOL! Oh, Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

Friday I made a Pumpkin Pie. Don’t ask, ’cause I don’t know why? I just wanted one. I used 100% Maple Syrup as a sweetener, so that’s why the top is cracked. I’m still eating on this thing and I’m so not in the mood for it anymore!

Last Friday, Caveman’s Spring semester ended and yesterday the Summer semester began. I typically coordinate with him to double check that he’s on track, so he’s been busy all weekend completing everything and getting started on the new semester - I supervised. LOL

Caveman has been attending Liberty University’s Distance Learning Program since August 2005. The classes started out like a traditional school semester (16 weeks), but 6 months into the program the classes were broken into 8-week sub-terms. This may sound nice, but in reality everything is in overdrive - including our lives. Also, like most people he changed his major once, but on July 4th he will have completed all the classes he needs for an Associate of Applied Science degree in Business Administration with an emphasis on Finance. He wants to go ahead and solidify the Associates degree and then work at a slower pace on obtaining the BS. He checked with his adviser yesterday and once he completes the AAS he will only need 11 more classes for his BS. Needless to say I’m so proud of him for going back and getting his degree. It’s been a long hard road, but we are both excited to see where this will lead him in the future!

We took time out on Saturday to help his family move is younger brother’s stuff to it’s new location. This of course took longer than we expected - most of the day, so we (mostly Caveman) were wore out.

Sunday, we headed to my parents to do laundry and visit my Mom. It rained alot and the wind blew so hard it knocked a tree down in front of my parent’s house. The tree just blew over, it really didn’t make a sound. Caveman was sitting outside on the front-porch swing, he said he looked one minute and there wasn’t anything there and the next the tree was laid over!

Anyway…I’m sure your here for the knitting, right? LOL

Friday, I finished the first of two baby bibs.

Then I started a second bib on the trip to see Caveman’s family Saturday. I finished it off Sunday night.

So here’s a question for you (esp if you’ve made it this far); do I launder all the baby gifts before I send them or not? I plan on including washing instructions for the gifts, but I just wasn’t sure about washing first.

Now I’ve started on the baby girl knits. Sorry, but it’ll be baby knits for a while longer.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and a Happy Mother’s Day too!

Celebrity Look-alikes & Self-portraits

I’ve always wanted to do one of these but never had a good classic “head-shot” photo I liked. A few weeks ago I was playing around with Caveman’s cell phone and came up with the photo I used in the collage below.

It’s kinda funny ’cause I’ve always found myself drawn to most of these women! It must be something in my subconscious? Anyway, Caveman made a MySpace page the other day and now he wants one of these Celeb look-alikes for himself! Of course he couldn’t find a picture of himself he liked so I suggested he take a few head-shots using natural lighting this evening. The following is the result…

Those are crazy! Hope you guys are ready for the weekend, ’cause we sure are!

Photo Mosaics

So the other day BubbleKnits over at Alabama Fiber Dreams asked how the yard was coming. I was all set on Monday to answer her, when it happened again…the water backed up into the house and overflowed into the deserted master bedroom. (Jessi, I’m not blaming you at all, I’m just saying… you asked…LOL! ) I do have some photos of the yard and other stuff, which I condensed into mosaics so this post wouldn’t be too picture heavy. I will spare those of you who’d rather not hear about it and move on with pictures. However, if you’re the curious type and want to hear about it go to the bottom of this post.*

Anyway, Jessi’s question: How’s the field line problems? Is the French drain finished?

Both are finished and are working like a dream! You would not believe the difference the French drain has made (top pictures). (First pic, finished French drain under the rocks & an earthen berm below the rocks. Second pic; long before the French Drain, we had to put down cross-ties along the property line due to horrible neighbors.)

We never realized the volume of water that ran into our yard due to the run off of the other properties above us. The areas that used to flood on the other end of the yard, do not now. Needless to say this has helped the field lines dry up and work properly! The new section is in bottom pictures - first pic; finished, last pic; what’s under the dirt!

Here are some pics of the Tulip Poplar blossoms that are littering my yard these days, the Camo baby burp cloth and a soon to be Blue/Green baby bib.

The Camo Burp Cloth started out with intentions of being a bib, but I cast-on too many stitches. Then I decided not to frog but use the whole ball for a burp cloth instead. I finally cast-on the correct amount of stitches for the blue/green bib and hope to get two out of this ball. That’s all for now unless you’re reading on…

*Curiosity is tough to live with, no? So I guess you’re here for the rest of the story…

And if your wondering, esp since this post is titled Photo Mosaics, no I didn’t get any pictures of the latest disaster! It’s just too stressful when trying to suck up puddles of Drano water on your Master Bedroom floor to think about pictures (although I did think of it! hehe). Anyway we got the water up from the bedroom/bathroom - thankfully we recently purchased a nice 20 gal wet/dry shop vac! The bedroom only had a little water on the surface, but as you can imagine the bathroom flooring is shot and its a mess in there. After the initial cleanup we sealed it off and aren’t going to deal with it again until it’s completely dry! Also, we are thankful that bathroom has a window and it’s sunny and the wind is blowing on that end of the house!! Oh, you might be wondering why this happened? Well, we first thought the pipes somewhere under the house were stopped up and we needed a plumber. But later we realized that wasn’t the problem. Instead the problems was actually where the house pipes meet the septic tank that was getting stopped up. So yesterday Caveman came home early and long story short, minus the gory details, he fixed it.

OK, show of hands how many of you scrolled to the bottom for a continuation of the story before reading the whole post? Yep, I thought so!

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Dishcloths, Scubbies, & Bibs

First, let me say Thank you to Michelle and her hubby, who is now known as the Tamer of The Beasts! Michelle had her 2 year blogiversary this week and to celebrate she had a contest to come up with a great name for her hubby on her blog. She always mentions her Beasts; Dog: Nimitz, Cats: Callie & Peaches in her posts, so I entered the “Tamer of the Beasts” as a name and they picked my entry! Thanks guys!! It was a lot of fun to be involved in naming her hubby!! When I receive my package I will be sure to post pictures of all the goodies.

Had you guys heard about these scrubbies? There are loads of them on Ravelry! Anyway one of the blogs I read posted about making scrubbies (different pattern) on Earth day and I thought I would give it a try. Sponges are bad for the environment and I needed a dishcloth too, so the yarn up there will get purposed for a couple of each.

These (above) will get turned into a couple of Boy themed Baby Bibs. Then these (below) will be a couple of girlie ones…

I’m going to need to see the pink & green yarn knitted up first, ’cause I’m not completely sold on it as a girlie bib.

Well laundry and other house-keeping chores are calling my name again, but I think I’ll just go knit a few rows first! LOL Hope you guys are having a great weekend!

57th Annual National Day of Prayer

Today is the day our country has set aside as a National Day of Prayer. I would like to encourage you to find a group or event and participate in this life changing event.

America was founded as “one nation, under God” by our founding fathers. This history of our country is rich stories of heroes overcoming terrifying circumstances by putting their faith, hope and trust in God. Here is an excerpt from an article by David Jeremiah:

‘Detained by enemy troops, he was forced to watch a brutal bombardment of America’s eastern seaboard. Toward morning on September 14, 1814, it became clear that we’d survived and Francis Scott Key scribbled our national anthem on an envelope. Little known stanza four says:

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just.
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.’

Another great site to check out is How to Pray for America.

Babies and Buttons

Yesterday my other cousins welcomed the newest member of their family into the world, rather unexpectedly I might add. Madelyn Grace was supposed to come sometime in May, but she decided she would rather be an April baby instead. Sorry I don’t have any photos to show, but I am told she looks like her Daddy - just like her older sister.

I only need to weave in a couple of ends, choose a button and the Stripes Baby Cardigan is complete! This little cardigan is so cute and Mom found some really cute fish buttons to go with it. I’m not 100% sold on them, in fact I think I like the natural button best.

So which ones do you like best?

It’s kinda funny but I had worked on this baby knit for so long over the past few days it was really nice to sit down and finish the second short-row toe on hubby’s next pair of socks. It seems I’m squeezing in my knitting time this week. Tomorrow I’m traveling to Nashville for another meeting. This time I will be there to present and explain why everything is going good or bad, instead of listening to someone else.

Also as each month of 2008 comes to a close and I draw nearer the October cut-off date for my job, Caveman and I both get a little more anxious! As far as job leads are concerned, there have been a few bites, but nothing more. I’m really trying not to think about it too much, ’cause when I do I really start to freak out! I do have a couple of fall-backs, but those are an absolute last resort. I am thankful that my current position is secure until then and I am just trusting that God has something great in store for us this fall.

Ok enough of the downer stuff, back to the knitting!!

The Baby Knitting continues…

So when we last left I was busy knitting away on the Stripes baby cardigan. At first I thought I wanted to use 3 colors, but after much deliberation I decided to keep things simple with only two.

First attempt with 3 colors (these kinda clash)

Here’s the sleeveless shot…

So far my only modification has been the color changes and to shorten the middle blue stripe. I have the sleeve OTN in the photo completed and have been working to finish the other one all morning. That will just leave the finishing of the front bands and a little around the neck.

As you can see the front sides of the cardigan are straight, that’s because I don’t read patterns well. I am going to fix this little problem with a few short-rows that will create the illusion of a v-neck. I’ll be sure to explain further when I’ve completed it. My Mom picked up a couple of buttons yesterday, so we will see how they look later when she drops them off. This is a cute, quick little cardigan - perfect for a baby gift.

Hopefully I’ll be back later this week with an FO post and moving on to a few other projects on the needles.

1st Baby Knit of 2008

Pattern: Berry Baby Hat by Michele Sabatier (on Ravelry)
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease;
Main Color: Candy Blue (discontinued color) Leaf Color: Lime
Needles: Size US 7 for cast-on, then Size US 8

Mods: None really, but what should have taken only a day or two at the most, has taken a week to finish! I think it’s cause I was trying to make two hats at the same time while knitting on other stuff too. Oh well I guess I’ll know next time.

I picked this pattern because it looks like a blueberry! My uncle and his wife love to collect blueberries during the summer in Alaska, so this little hat will be perfect for my little cousin as he accompanies them. It think it will be warm enough even though it’s made out of a cotton blend. You never know how warm or not it’s going to be in Alaska during the summer-time.

I cast-on this morning for this and these using of the same colors, plus I’m using a touch of the newer Lake Blue Cotton-Ease on the cardigan. I’ve managed to make one short-row toe on the next pair of socks for Caveman and almost finish another baby hat in purple. The next baby set will be for the other cousin due in May. So cute!!

How are you sending your Earth Day?

I found this great image over at the Beekeepers Granddaughter’s blog and thought I post it here too. I’ll be spending most of my day working. I got to take a road trip for my job yesterday. That was kinds fun, but mostly just really stressful.

There has been lots of knitting over the past few days but nothing exciting to show yet. I’ll post the baby project (for my cousin) hopefully tomorrow. Then I have to get it in the mail. I also started another pair of socks for the Caveman! After receiving his first pair, he promptly requested 20 more pairs, to which I started laughing uncontrollably. When I’ve just about recovered he asks, “so do you think I should take up knitting too”? Um yeah, cause 20 pairs aren’t going to come quickly! Nevertheless, I’m having fun learning new techniques and the history of knitting socks. It’s very interesting, but then again history always was my favorite subject in school!

Oh yeah, I’m sure most of you have already discovered this little gem, but have you ever hear of Cute PDF? Basically you save the free file to your hard-drive, and install. Then when you want to make a PDF file you just click PRINT in your software application (like MS Word), then select Cute PDF as the printer, then a pop-up window will come up asking where you’d like to save, etc. and it will save your work as a PDF. I love this! I’ve had a pattern for a bag that I wanted to convert to PDF for a while, but just didn’t know how. Hopefully now I can get it tweaked and uploaded to Ravelry & my blog. So cool!

Ok, that’s all for now. I must get to work. Have a great week!