Life as it happens

I'm afraid I don't have much to report on right now. I'm in a bit of a funk and it's cold, really cold. Well, I guess it's warmer now, 12F according to the MSN toolbar I somehow acquired. I've been seeing little traffic on the congo and not sure what direction to go. I have a hat I'm knitting for a trade for some wetbags (yippee! no more plastic shopping bags for dirty diapers!) and doing a cat sweater for another customer. So I've got a few things in the gauntlet and I really need to get a few patterns written up. I'm surprisingly excited about the cat sweater. I'll post a picture of the hat I'm knitting too along with the grief it's giving me (well, it's just huge, that's all. I'm duplicating a picture with fair isle designs and either it was knit at a much smaller gauge or out of dk instead of worsted. It almost covers my eyes and I'm about to start decreasing for the crown.)

Speaking of patterns, I'm semi-in-love with this hat pattern I've been working on, "Intertwined". I charted it out months ago and just never got to the actual knitting part. Here it is mostly worked up:

However, it's much too small. Not sure what I was thinking, but I've got to rip it out and reknit on larger needles. Such is my life these days. Anyway, I'm excited about it. I just have to figure out how to get it charted so someone else can duplicate it without spending a fortune on charting software. I have found one free online charting program and once I get the crown figured out I'll probably give that a whirl.

I still need to get Tweets written up and name that other washcloth. You'd think the dead of winter would be wonderfully productive knitting and designing time, but unfortunately the cold and dark tends to also suck out motivation.

Why it Smells Like a Bonfire in My House

Finally, I fixed the pictures. I think. (2/16)

So here you go, my bonfire story:

We got home last night from my parents' house just before 10pm. I was working on winding down the kids and getting ready for bed when dh decided to start a fire in our fireplace. We have lived in this house since April 05 and have never had a fire. We have had two kids born here, one in the dead of winter, and we've never used the fireplace. It's not because I didn't want to, on the contrary, I would love to have a big fire burning and keeping us warm. But my darling husband has been holding out that someday we'll get a gas insert.

So needless to say, I was surprised when he cleared the candles out and started piling up kindling. He got a flame going and it looked like this:

He went outside and got some logs and it looked like this:

After 20 min or so, it looked like this:

Yes, that's snow. You see, it apparently isn't wanting to draft properly and my upstairs was looking a bit like this:

And these pictures are after I've already opened windows and let it ventilate for a bit. When I went up for these I could actually see without my eyes burning. He was so frustrated, he was snapping at the kids (it was after 10, they were tired and cranky... so was he) and immediately got online to find out what he could do to fix it. Keep in mind now, my husband is a firefighter. Wouldn't it have been nice if the neighbor's called the FD and said it looked like our house was on fire? Not so much.

We have decided to keep it wood burning, because I figure if the world all goes to crap at least we can chop down one of the trees in our yard and keep the kids warm.

So, it smells like a bonfire in here today. :)

Post Holiday Post

So a bit of an update...


Christmas was nice. I didn't even get close to finishing my projects, but that's okay. I got dh's family done and mine will have to wait. Let's see, I finished one pair of glittens, they turned out nicely.


I actually had to gift them before I got good pictures. I finished the second one up after we finished opening gifts so I don't have a photo of an actual pair. I got started on a second pair for my brother with some fair isle and didn't change the size from these ones, but because of the fair isle it was turning out way too small. So I ripped back to the cuff and have to redo the charts and haven't been motivated enough to do it. I really should though because my brother actually sounds excited to get them, and they don't take too long once you get going.


This is the scarf I made for my other brother, it's the Easiest Farrow Rib Scarf.



Turned out nicely too, I went down a needle size as it was just too loose to be a proper scarf with the yarn I was using, Cascade 220 doubled. The picture isn't that good, again it got gifted before proper photos were taken and I took this one at my mom's house yesterday with her iPhone. He likes it, and that's what matters.


We also had a stocking last Tuesday, which accounts for more of my time spent not blogging. I finished up a set of Tweets that are WAY cute if I do say so myself.



And a goldfish



I have some other things listed as well, including some baby leggings and a hat modeled here by my blue-eyed beauty (who is going to be 1 next week, I can't believe it!).



I have one more story for you, but my laptop is freezing up when I try to upload pictures, and it' just not the same without them.


To Be Continued...