The Ride Home

I took these pictures around town a couple weeks ago and they have been hanging out and waiting on my desktop for me to finally post them. I truly love where I live, here in the foothills. Things have a little more color on them now with all the rain we've been having but you can still see how beautiful the countryside is in the little town I live in.

Just Call Me Murphy

I don't know if it's creativity, a mischievious muse or maybe just pride that makes me look at something that's already wonderful and think, "Yeah, I can do better."

It all started with an idea. Let's have another TwitterKAL. I've had that Susie's Reading Mitts pattern in my queue since the last TwitKAL and 2 skeins of Lavish super-fine alpaca in a gorgeous blood color, sent to me by a fellow knitter in a yarn swap. In preparation for the cast-on date (which is Fri!), last night I took my beautiful yarn and wound it around the back of my Mom's couch so I could dye half of that skein and the yarn would self-stripe. (We discovered Mom's couch is actually the perfect circumfrence for dying yarn for socks/gloves so that they stripe in 2row wide stripes!)

For some reason the black dye I used didn't work. This morning I mixed orange koolaid with grape koolaid and the resulting color is very dark dried-blood/almost black which works for me cause I was planning on channeling Tim Burton's version of the Queen of Hearts with my mitts anyway. I'm calling this colorway "Iracebeth" in her honor.

Which brings us to Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it will. Great idea, bad in execution. The part that went wrong? The re-skeining. I made sure not to tangle or twist the HUGE skein while it was dying, being rinsed and hung to dry. I began to wind it around my swift to form a 2yd skein and got exactly 3 rounds before it all went to hell. Tangled. Terribly tangled. I think it took me 3 hours to untangle it. While I was working on it, I made homemade pecan cinnamon buns though so it wasn't a total loss.

But finally, I have my 200yd ball of dark red and darker red which will stripe in a spectacularly gothic manner. I wonder if I should try to wind it into 2 center-pull balls so I can make sure to make each mitt the same size (since I'm already 20yds short, gonna have to tweak the length) or if I should just wing it? After all, it isn't like I couldn't dye the other skein....

How About We Twit-Along?

At the beginning of the year SpazzyYarn hosted a Twitter-Knit-A-Long thru her blog. We voted on the top suggested patterns and eventually settled on knitting the Travelling Woman shawl (pattern available on Ravelry.) It was a ton of fun!

One of the patterns we voted on was Susie's Reading Mitts; an adorable fingerless gloves pattern that could be knit from wool to be warm for winter or from cotton or silk for a pretty little summer accessory. From what I've read while paging thru the pages and pages of completed projects they knit up quickly (graduation present anyone?) and seem to look good in solids and variagated yarns!

Let's have another Twit-Along, knitting the Susie's Reading Mitts! How about if we have a cast on date for this coming Friday, June 11th and a finishing date by Wednesday, June 30th.

The pattern for these mitts says it calls for approx. 220 yards of yarn, which I'm sure most of us have in our stashes. Join us! If you tweet about the KAL or your progress, make sure to use the "hash tag" #TwitKAL2 so we all can track progress!

This will be FUN!

I Love my Living Room

Finally, finally we have our living room "back to normal." It's taken almost two weeks (though I've been sick this last week) but last night for the first time since we tore it apart to paint the floors, it's clean and decorated like we usually have it!

We still need to paint the trim along the back (or side, however you look at it) wall and put the quarter round molding around it and the entry way but at least where any furniture needs to be the molding is complete and the trim is repainted! Amazing what a difference a little piece of quarter round makes.

Tony also found us some beautiful grate covers for our air conditioner vents in the floors. Since we moved in we had these ugly generic brown ones that didn't fit in the holes. They just sat in them, lopsided, half sticking up on one side. We'd spent hours looking at them at Lowes and Home Depot but didn't think they made ones that fit. Tony, on a lark, picked the next size up from what we thought and beyond belief, they fit perfectly! Black wrought iron looking too like our lamps and DVD racks. I love them.

I am so happy with our progress. We are still planning to texture the ceiling to cover up some patchwork we had to do before we moved in, and hang a ceiling fan but for now the living room looks AWESOME! I love the black floors, what a great idea!! I love how the new bright white molding and trim just pops.

In other news... we passed the building inspection for our bedroom upstairs, just need to get the electrical inspection ordered on Tuesday (ran into a little snag and that got delayed a week or two). Then it's on to insulation and drywall! Stay tuned....

What We've Been Up To

What did you get for Mother's Day? I tend to be a little unconventional, and my husband hasn't had a day off since April 12 so I took the liberty of shopping for him. I got a really awesome, sexy pair of black high heels, 2 books by Janet Evanovich and a painting for above our fireplace.

When Jeremiah was about 18 months old I let him finger/brush paint an 8"x10" canvas and we have it framed hanging in our stair well because it turned out really cool. We've been unable to find an appropriate art print or painting for over our fireplace for an amount of money I want to spend on one, so Friday I bought a large canvas, set the kids up with paints and brushes on plastic in the yard and let them have at it. The result was awesome! Mom and the kids showed up as they were finishing painting on their way home from Kentucky to pick up ducks so we painted duck feet and let the ducks walk across the painting as well. I try to be a cool Mom and I think I succeeded this week.

I, we, also got the "gift" of re-doing our living room floors this weekend. I thought we could do it yesterday but it's turned into a 3 day thing as we put the first coat of clear/hard sealer on it this morning and have another planned for tomorrow morning since my MIL will have the kids all day. We can insulate around the cracks and put up half round molding too and finish it with one fell swoop.

Conventional "wisdom" said we couldn't paint our nasty, stained and dog-urine ruined hardwood floors without sanding and re-staining them. Bah. I laugh in your general direction, sir. Our theory was that if we could find the right type of paint/clear coat we could simply paint the floors the black we wanted without staining and ruining the wood (that way if we ever get tired of the dark, we sand up the paint, sand up the sealant already there and have light wood to work with.


It is fabulous.
We are so in love. Now the molding looks shabby but that's nothing another gallon of bright white paint won't fix.

We've also still been making progress upstairs, we have both windows in now!!! Our friend came over Tues and helped us finish the electrical so
we're ready to order BOTH the building and electrical inspections!! Hooray! We missed calling the electrical inspector this week, he only takes calls on Tues and Thurs mornings from 8am-9am and we called the building inspector but apparently he took Friday off, so tomorrow... it's on.

I've also spun this skein of hurt your teeth pink merino I carded with black merino, blue bamboo and blue and black angelina (I handdyed the last 3). I got 167yds of bulky wieght average yarn.

And I was in a yarn swap and received this gorgeous hummingbird green 100% bamboo sock yarn. I have a wonderful mother in law. She loves green, hummingbirds and all things luxurious. She is allergic to wool so bamboo is perfect. She can wear them, sitting in her menopause-ily freezing air-conditioned house, in comfort. She loved them.

Betsy Dresses, round 1

Two new dresses for my babiest sister Betsy, who just turned 3. Her favorite color is red and she had startling blue eyes just like the vampires in the Underworld series (when they start to feed, LOL! Google image search if you'd like.)

When I found this small mushroom print in the clearance rack at a local quilt shop, I thought it was perfect for a Betsy dress. I pulled the perfect red from my stash, washed and ironed it and then realized it has very faint paw prints on it. What the heck? Anyway, it doesn't show up very well and I am unable to go buy more fabric right now so the pawprint fabric was made to work for the top of the dress.

For the skirt for the 2nd I used a 1/2yd of "fat eighth" fabric that Tony got me for our anniversary years ago. I think it was our 1st anniversary, he and baby Jeremiah went out and bought me several half yard cuts of fabric (3 of which were these type), some thread and a really good pair of scissors. : ) He's so sweet! I had to piece the lining of the top to get it all cut out of the piece of solid blue I had but it looks very nice inside so I'm happy with it. I would rahter have to piece the lining then just throw the larger chunks of fabric in the scrap bin.

I have a couple more dresses I'm planning for her, one shaped just like this from some AWESOME fabric I found in mine and Mom's stash. You'll just have to stay tuned to see it, I'm excited so I'm not giving anything away.

Bouncy House USA

This post is basically for anyone in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. Hidden away in the gently rolling hills off Clinton Highway in the Shaad Rd. area of Knoxville is the most wonderful creation ever: The Bouncy House.

An indoor, heated and air conditioned, fairly clean, inflated playground wonderland awaits all children for open play between 10am and 2pm on weekdays! Have a roudy kid? Boucy House! Raining, don't know what to do? Bouncy House! Can't take anymore sun exposure? Bouncy House!

This place is awesome. My friend Tara has 3 small children roughly the same age as my own and we hit this place several times over the winter because there isn't a whole lot to do indoors for pre-k kids around here (though the Children's Museum in Oak Ridge is terrific too!) We love this place and go as a treat every few months.
They have one moonwalk type thing specifically for children 2 and under, complete with a mini slide & ball pit; another one that's a mini obstacle coure just for 7 and under and then all the others are any age!

We took Tony and Artemas while Tony was on vacationed the day it rained because the kids had been wanting to show him how much fun it is. For the 3 of us adults to take the 2 kids to bounce for the 2hrs we stayed cost me $14.60. Where else can you entertain the whole family for that??

The larger obstacle course one is quiet a workout for grownips and the giant slide is a BLAST! They have (slightly overpriced but still fairly reasonable) drinks/snacks you can purchase and they also do birthdays, but for us just going during open play works well.

If you go, make sure you bring socks as the bouncing area is strictly no-shoes but don't worry, if you forget they have socks for sale for about $.75 LOL!

Lily Dresses

Lily is my 2nd and youngest, beautiful Goddaughter and she loves to dress up pretty! She's very girly, into accessories and frills. She loves cake.

I've been having a lot of fun lately making those few sundresses for Hannah. They were so easy and so quick, and honestly write now my quilting and knitting have taken a back seat because I just can't deal with the tiny bit of added stress of another ongoing, long suffering project. These dresses take about an hour and tada! Something to show for your effort!

The other day I took advantage of JoAnn's 40% off quilting fabric sale, raided my stash to see what larger pieces I had that would work and came up with materials for 4 little dresses for Lily. I actually dreamed the cupcake one and I was so thrilled when I made it first and it turned out just as cute as it was in my head! For Lily, who wears about a 4-5T and has about a 24" waist, I needed 1/2yd for the skirt and about a 1/2yd for the top (though I bought 5/8ths/yd just to make sure I'd have enough.) For Hannah's I used the same 1/2yd for the skirt but it took considerably less for her tops, in fact one Mom managed to squeeze out of an FQ and the rest I bought 1/4yd cuts for.

One has the same skirt fabric as one of Hannah's, where Hannah's was dark purple on top Lily's is blue. The brown colored bottom of the one dress is a old-prairie looking chicken fabric. Lily also loves chickens. : )

I can't wait to get these to her, and I so hope they fit! I will probably have to come up with a couple dresses for my other Goddaughter, her older sister Summer too but might have to use a different pattern. We shall see. : )

Slowly, slowly

We have had a very busy couple of weeks. I've had good intentions of keep y'all posted with pics and whatnot, but honestly, at the end of the day I'm too tired to bother with the computer. Plus my darling hubby bought me 4 of the "Full..." books (Full House, Full Tilt, Full Blast, etc) by Janette Evanovich so I've been reading instead of wasting my life in the internet.

We had great expectations of Tony's 2 weeks off. We greatly over estimated not only our ability, but also our energy and the amount of help we'd be able to get. As it stands it was pretty much Tony and Artemas all week, with our friend George coming by a couple times to help out invaluably and me helping when I could and the MIL had the kids. We had thought we'd get the room done (at least to the point of drywall, though I had hopes for paint and carpet too), paint the floors in the living room, build the tiny little deck for the other side of the front porch and put in a small garden. Go ahead, laugh. It's okay, we are. What did we get done? We got the bedroom destroyed and *almost* framed back in. All the other stuff will either become morning before Tony leaves for work or weekend-warrior type things.

At this point we still have one small triangle piece of wall to tediously built on the left side (if you're looking at the back of the house) and then put "flashing" along the edge of the new structure and old shingles so that crack won't leak. Then it's *simply* putting up siding, putting in windows and putting on shingles. For the outside. Inside we still have to run elecrtical (a friend is supposed to come help Artemas and I do it Thurs while Tony is at work but we'll see if he can make it), then insulate, drywall/tape/mud/sand. Then it's ready for paint and carpet. Will this ever be done? *sigh* Eventually. The good thing about this project is that it's sort of like pregnancy; once it's begun there isn't an out and you just have to grit your teeth and see it through til the end. The end result is always worth it; it's just the process that's laborous.

We had a great day on Thursday because we took the day off on the count of rain and treated the kids to a trip to the "Bouncy House." I have a whole blog post about that planned in my head because it is really an awesome thing to do around Knoxville, for fairly cheap, in rainy (or too hot or cold) weather.

Saturday we had Hannah's 2nd birthday party at the little park behind our house. We set up under the shelter, and in retrospect should have set up in the sun because the cool breeze left the kids freezing while they ate (though the strong sun left my shoulders and neck sunburned while they played). Hannah got a bunch of really nice presents but what is more spent some quality time having a ton of fun with her aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. We let her pick out the decorations which were simple flowers with a gigantic 10lb princess tiara piniata. I packed that sucker full, I'm telling you. It was so heavy in fact that on the first whack the loop on the top broke and Tony had to rig it up again by wrapping the rope around the middle of it. Still, a blast!!

I've been trying to spend as much time outdoors as I can with the kids who are tired of being in the house. Lots of sunscreen has been used, lots of knees have been scraped and lots of showers have been taken afterward but we are having fun. I have been trying to knit Jeremiah another pair of socks, something mindless I started on Thursday to help me relax and cope with the stress we had/have going on with not finishing the room and getting ready for Hannah's party. It hasn't exactly gone as planned though since the first sock I finished too small and (after throwing it across the room) I had to pick out about half of it and start over. Then in the middle of finishing it I dropped a needle at a local pizzeria (New York Avenue Pizza, newly opened on Kingston Pike between Lovell Rd & Campbell Station Road, VERY YUMMY PIZZA). Thankfully the bamboo needles I use come 5 to a pack so I had a "spare" at home.

The only bad thing about the newly gorgeous weather and spending time outdoors in it is my son Jeremiah's allergies are acting up terribly! He went through this last spring too, after the first few weeks when the pollen died down he was fine but for now, poor baby. He's been almost mainlining benedryl or zyrtek, itchy eyes all the time (medicine isn't helping that at all.) We're trying flushing his eyes with salt water; my MIL says that helps her sometimes and I don't want to use eye drops on him if we can help it. Even with the medicine in his system his face is still swollen. If it doesn't slack off in a couple days I am making him a Drs appointment. I'd hate for him to have to have allergy shots or something but I would rather the little pain and bother to help him be able to play and sleep without a problem. : ( Still he's a big boy and is very diligent about washing his hands before rubbings his eyes, etc and is having so much fun playing outside though he told me tonight "Pollen is the worst thing. Ever."