Signs of Spring

Mim’s having a “Signs of Spring” contest, and of course my daughter and I just partook of our favorite harbinger of spring. Our first trip to the greenhouse. We have a green house that is about a 1/4 of a mile from our house. It is run by a nice Amish family. Each spring since moving down here we take a walk over after the Monkey gets home from school, we take the camera and just wander looking at all the lush green. Most of the flowers aren’t even in bloom yet, but we like to look at the promise that is waiting within. We do several trips like this throughout the season, but the first one is always the most special. So here you are Mim, our favorite harbinger of Spring, the local greenhouse.

Oh and this is Evanrude’s favorite spring announcement, real patches of sunshine on the floor to nap in…even if they are in a messy 11 year olds room.

P.S. Mim, I recently cast on for the Lightweight Mountain Peaks Shawl while I was down and out with the flu, and your pattern was clear and simple enough to read even with severe brain fog and flu fatigue! Loving it!

Isn’t she lovely

Look at this kid. She’s a young woman? When the heck did that happen? Sheesh. On her day off yesterday we had a girls day out that included, Nathans hot dogs and fries, ice cream from Brusters, a trip to the library, capped off by a walk around the Greenhouse. I had her sit on the bench, it was just so lovely there. And look at her? Isn’t she lovely? That’s my girl.

And for your viewing pleasure, some springtime, brought to you by our local greenhouse. *Clicky to embiggen*

The bump…are you happy Kelly?

I keep forgetting to take pictures of the baby bump, so tonight I finally remembered and the hubby captured the Tad’s temporary condo. Which, by the way, he/she is quickly outgrowing! Only two more months to go…eeps! May 22nd. I have to say, despite the heart burn, the constantly being hungry (especially for things that aren’t good for me), and the fact that it is getting harder to bend over and tie my shoes…I am loving this.

Bump

Do not talk about farting before someone takes your picture, you laugh and have squinty eyes.

I picked it…problem solved?

* A note before we begin. This post is supposed to have pictures of several blocked swatches. But it won’t…for a while as the hubby is on the poop list. You see he built me a new ‘puter last night and was so eager to show me the built in card reader. He kept poking around the tower until he found the slot and shoved my poor little memory card in, then he couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t read the card. I figured it out this morning when I removed the card and tried to put it in the camera. He bent one of those teeny little plastic slats on the back. *grrrrrrrr* He’s been a computer tech for over ten years. Unfortunately, he’s been a man for a lot longer. Pictures to follow when thoroughly chastised hubby brings home his card for me to use while he sees if he can fix mine. Grrrr again.*

For nearly all twenty years that I have been knitting I have had a problem with purl. Oh I like purl well enough and when it’s just purl and me, we get along fine. It’s just that when knit comes along right before purl, well let’s just say purl doesn’t like to be that close to knit. So all of my ribbing has a weird laddery effect between the last knit stitch and the first purl stitch when ribbing. The rest of the ribbing looks great, even the last purl into the first knit, nice and smooth and seamless, but if knit gets to go ahead of purl…forget it.

See?

I have even tried different things on advice from others, to pick up the slack between these two stitches, so to speak. Here is a swatch where I tightened up the knit stitch just before moving into the purl section. See? Big honky-wonky knit stitch and still some laddering.

In this swatch I tried tightening up just the purl immediately after the last knit stitch in a ribbing pattern. Again, wonky last knit stitch and some laddering.

At this point last night when knitting these examples of things I have tried in the past, I was near tears, swearing, and stabbing someone with my needles. Here in the last example I tried tightening up both the last knit stitch and the first purl stitch. Again, no improvement except that it really tightened up my knitting and threw off my gauge.

Somewhere between the second and third swatch a nagging thought started tickling my brain. Continental. “What? No way, I’m a thrower, shut up.” Continental. “Um, nope, tried it once, holy slow.” Continental, it takes practice to get faster dummy. “Oh for crying in the mud…FINE! I will try it.” So I did, and boy was it awkward. I felt and looked like a kindergartner just picking up the needles for the first time. The hubby was even laughing he said, “You look more awkward than I did when you had me try a few stitches! You should see the face you are making.” I resisted the urge to give him a good jab with my needle. Finally after consulting a book or two and just being frustrated to death I came to bed at 12:30 with a smallish swatch of continental in hand. Yeah, see? The ladder has definitely improved. *sigh* My only fear is that it has improved because I have that “I’m-still-learning-death-grip-gauge” going on right now. What if it slackens again once I get comfortable with Continental?

So? What’s a girl to do? I’m tired of my cabling looking crappy. I’m tired of weird laddery ribbing. I’m at my wits end? I have emailed a “knitting doctor” to see if they can help. Any suggestions here would be great. I’m willing to try anything at this point.

Hee, hee, a funny

The Monkey has fallen for the site opposite of I Can Has Cheezburger…I Has A HotDog. She found this little gem and emailed it to me. Hee, it’s pretty funny.

Ravelry rocks and so does Mr. Greenjeans

I have had a major case of startitus hit me this past week. Hmmm, wonder why? If you really want to see all of it, it’s over on Ravelry, but trust me, it’s scary people! You can find me under Fuzzybritches. Anywho, I fell in love with Mr. Greenjeans last week and prowled Ravelry to find the perfect yarn to use. I decided on Araucania’s Nature Wool in Pea Green. It’s the perfect springtime shade of green. And I was mightily impressed with The Yarn And Fiber Co. I ordered this yarn on Wednesday and Bam! It was in my PO Box on Friday, and that was their free shipping! The color in the top photo is more true to life. It’s not so yellowy as pictured below. I

I love this pattern. I love this yarn. This is a great sweater because it allows for the baby bump to peek…okay, protrude, through and then I can still wear it post baby. It’s also knitting up pretty quickly considering I cast on this Friday evening. I can not even begin to sing the praises of Ravelry, people. Before casting on I searched through many project notes on Mr. Greenjeans. Because of the wonders of Ravelry I am now armed with some key info about this pattern and I can thus plan ahead and avoid disaster in the end. Because of Ravelry I know that almost everyone commented on how they would not go down a needle size for the cabling if they did it again and how some people reported saggy shoulders after a little bit of wear. I can now, thanks to the info gleaned at Ravelry, stick with the larger needle size for the cabling and also put some crocheted chain in along the back of the neck and shoulders. Whereas before I would not have realized these things until it were too late. Thank you Ravelry, thank you.

Someone had there maiden voyage into the world of pancake making this Saturday morning. She did great. Didn’t burn a single one, which is more than I can say for my first few pancakes.

She even made a Mickey Mouse pancake or two. Not bad eh?

Favorites At Home

I have to say Valerie’s contest sounded easy enough, but I actually had a hard time narrowing it down to three of my favorite things at home. I think I could post every day for all week about the little things I love about “home”. Well, anyhow possums, I did manage to narrow it down to three. Here they are in no preferential order. And now, new and improved thanks to Chris…clicky to embiggen pictures!

This is my bird watcher. I find him here each morning and on occasion in the afternoon. I don’t know why he prefers this spot, but prefer it he does and it makes me smile every time I see him. When a bird lands on the feeder he hunkers down in his “bunker” and all you can see is the tips of ears sticking up out of the sink.

The next on my list is something very special to me. It was the first gift my hubby ever gave me, back when we were still friends and I was trying to set him up with someone else. 🙂 It’s not just a heart, it’s my heart. He gave it to me so no one else could ever break it again. How’s that for romantic. It was about that time I decided to quit trying to give him away.

And last but certainly not least, my yarn corner. I have an entire corner of my house devoted to the display and storage of my fibery goodness. I love it. It gives me comfort to see it there. I can’t look at it without smiling. There is a rubbermaid tote covered in a small tablecloth under the baskets, that is full of yarn too. All the cheese boxes are full as well. It’s good insulation I tell you…but one can never have enough, especially with these fuel prices on the rise.

Oh yes, and not really related to the contest, but this does happen to be one of my favorite things as well. I recently discovered why my clean laundry I was folding the other day was “fuzzy”. Little poop. Anyway, it’s a good thing he’s so darn cute.