Dust Bunnies Can Wait!

Don't know if I should be happy ...

2009-11-13T21:43:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, it has been way too long since my last post. I'm sorry about that. My life took the wrong turn back there and it has taken this long to get things back to an even keel. If it is OK with y'all, I'll just ignore that hiatus.

Now for my post:

Here's the thing, I'm not exactly sure if I should be happy or not. My oldest had a bag boy at the local grocer try and flirt with her ... and she didn't even notice! Should I be happy that my almost 12 YO has not gotten boy crazy yet? Or should I be concerned that she doesn't even have the rudimentary knowledge of dealing with the opposite sex? Or should I be really really terrified that high schol boys are trying to pick up my baby???? I just don't know.

On the crafty side, I am making a concerted effort to use my Ralvery account. It's about time, I've only let it lanquish there for two years. What I've seen I like though. I do like the project feature and I have already posted two new projects.

The first one is a mystery stocking from the Thrifty Knitters sock club. DD1 wants it in green with red, DD2 in pink (big surprise there!) and hubby is getting this one.

The other project is a scarf designed by DD1. She wants it super long ... like as long as the Dr. Who scarf Oh, and she wants it by Christmas. Yeah, don't see that happening ...

Weeeee

2007-11-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

There is something magical about a twirly skirt on a little girl! Although this one is a bit too twirly ... when she really gets going it shows off her underwear. Luckily she loves the "tights under a skirt" look so I don't have to worry about little boys ... too much.

Here is what it looks like sitting stillI also got a picture of the third skirt I made. I think this is my favorite of all the ones I made her. She should be set now. At least for a little while.

And not to be left out ..

Black Friday was my downfall

2007-11-24T07:06:00.000-05:00

Darn! I forgot to post anything Friday. And then I forgot to publish this yesterday. Darn! Darn! Darn! I was so close too. Only one week more and I would have made it. Oh well, it did make me want to write in my blog again ... which is the real reason I took up the challenge.

I was busy though. I'm in the process of turning all of those leftover tie ends into headbands. It is really really easy to do since half the work has already been done.

Here are the steps I did:

1. Snip off the small point on the remaining end.

2. Cut off the other end just before it starts to flair out again. Cut the longer piece in half. You should now have 3 pieces:

3. Se aside the flared piece. I'm not sure how I'll be using that. Look at the remaining 2 pieces, one should have a seam or 2 in it. Remove the interfacing from this piece and sew into a tube. Turn right side out.

4. Thread some elastic through the tube. 1/2 - 3/4 works best but I used 1/4 on a couple of them and they worked just fine.

5. (This is the easy to do, but tricky to explain part) Push the Tube down so that you have an elastic tail poking out. Stuff this tail into interfaced portion and sew into place. It should look like this

Now, tuck in the cut ends of the tube and slide it up over the unfinished ends of the interfaced section. Sew into place.

6. Wrap the Headband around your head and mark the elastic for a good fit. Cut it a little long (1/4 inch is good). Repeat step 5, making sure the cut end of the interfaced tube lines up with your mark on the elastic.

Your done!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

An answer to an age old question

2007-11-21T18:33:00.000-05:00

What in the world do you you do with all those ugly ties?

Well, you could make a skirt out of them, but I for one wouldn't want one. I imagine it would be way to hard to clean.

So what did I do? I made a purse!

The kind folks on freecycle helped out (a lot). But you know, even the butt-ugly ones look great on the purse!

More finished objects!

2007-11-20T19:43:00.000-05:00

I actually finished 3 skirts for Princess this weekend. But in typical lazy mode ... I didn't take pictures of them. But, that may be a good thing because now I have fodder for my Blog! I'm almost there, at the end of the challenge.

So without further ado, here is skirt #1.

Princess is sporting the latest in tween style. I didn't think that the shirt and skirt went all that well together ... but I'm just a mom, what do I know

Did you notice the matching headband? I'm quite proud of those and they took hardly any effort to make. I guess this is the part where I thank my mom for giving me the idea. Apparently as a "child of the sixties" she made a lot of these with ribbon and elastic. I made the green one with that idea ... substituting a fabric tube for the ribbon.

It came out nice but was missing something. So I looked online and figured out what it was ... and got this fantastic tutorial to show me exactly how to do it.

I cheated slightly and used the serger. Turning a tube is so much easier with on of those. Just serge a long chain. Wrap the fabric around it and serge the seam. Pull on the chain, and viola!

I could use a little Raul

2007-11-19T18:52:00.000-05:00

Quick ... go read this

You done?

So how many of y'all could use a little Raul in your life? I know I can! DH and I used to have a running joke that started in college. It involved the guy hiding in the closet.

He was a great catch-all for those questions boyfriends seem to come up with. You know the ones ... "What took you so long?" "I was doing the guy in the closet"
... "Why are you so tired?" "Talk the he guy in the closet"

Somehow, the guy in the closet disappeared once the kiddos came into the picture. I think he needs to come back, gain a name, and start giving me gifts!

Happy birthday Princess!

2007-11-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

Happy tenth birthday Princess! May all your days fill you with as much wonder as the smoke from your birthday candles!

Fun day

2007-11-17T20:52:00.000-05:00

I got started on the Christmas presents today. Princess helped and we made this

Cute, isn't it? Easy too ... good thing with the late start I've got on them. I used the directions here with one change. To give them a little extra thickness/protection I used a peice of felt instead on the fusible web.

Princess had a grand time making them. She cut out all the squares and layered them. I did the pressing. I may let her sew up the next one. They are fun and come out quickly ... almost like magic.

I soent the afternoon watching my MIL sing with the Greater Richmond Chorus They put on a great, but really long show. It started at 2:30 and we didn't get out until 6:00. That was just about at the girls limit, but the made it. I was so proud of them. Here are a couple of the better pictures that were taken. Belle was the one who had my camera. Princess had her own ... which was my hubbies old one. By old, I mean ancient in digital camera terms. I can't get the pictures off of the camera ... it writes it to a 3.5 inch floppy!

Here they are during the opening song.

and here is one lovely picture of your's truly. Not too bad for six.

I love my Mom

2007-11-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

I love my mom, I really do. So why do I want to shoot her sometimes?

She is visiting here for Princess's birthday and arrived today. I saw her all of 1/2 hour before I had to just leave. I don't expect much ... but .... there are certain things she does that drive me insane.

What was it today? Well, remember I told you that we were trying to sell our house? One of the things we took apart and put away was the extra bed. No big deal, mom has several air mattresses that she can bring down with her to sleep on. I remember specifically telling here to bring the Twin, although I admit that I didn't tell her why. Well, she ended up bring the double ... along with extra bedding because she assumed that was why I wanted her to bring the twin. Besides ... "the double is more comfortable"

I'm all for comfort, but that doesn't change the size of the room. Quite frankly, there is only room to comfortably fit an extra twin in there. The double can squeeze in, but the room is now crammed. This is where we get back to the selling the house part .... If ( a big IF this close to T-day) we get someone who wants to look at the house ... we are now going to need to deflate the mattress, find somewhere to stash it, and move all of the furniture back to where it was. An hour or so later we will get to repeat the process in reverse Oh joy!

Happy Birthday DH~

2007-11-15T23:59:00.000-05:00

This is hard

2007-11-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

Or at least it is starting to get that way. Until I challenged myself like this, I didn't realize how much working was taking out of me. Wow.

I did get another skirt almost finished, This one is for princess instead of me. I love the fabric but didn't buy enough of it to make anything. IE I didn't notice that the border print was only along one side. It is making a beautiful skirt for the girl though.
There wasn't enough border for her skirt either. But there was enough width to the fabric so I was able to cut the back from the top part.

I should have it done in time for her birthday. Yep, she's turning the big 1-0 on Sunday. Double-digits. Is it wrong that I feel old now? Alright, alright ... I felt old before too ... but now I feel older.

A star is born?

2007-11-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

Teaches me for leaving my boots where Belle can get to them Yes, I got the whole diva show, although I don't know what she was trying to sing.

I had to laugh since this was one of my favorite things to do as a kid too! Gramma always had some of the gaudist stuff for her grandkids to play with. We had a blast!

Finished object

2007-11-12T18:39:00.002-05:00

Perfect marriage of fabric and pattern!

Almost didn't make it

2007-11-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

Dang, almost didn't make it there.

Looked at some houses today. Saw one we liked ... and below our price range! Yeah!!

Got my skirt done, and will be wearing to work tommorow. I'm making a few for Princess too, since she's out grown a lot of her clothes. Belle will just have to make do with the gazillion and one hand me downs she got from her sister & cosins.

That's all folks ... bake to bed for me.

you know, I really shouldn't try and write something that late at night again. Sorry for all the spelling errors and sentance fragments. Oh and also for not hitting the stupid post button until just now.

Pop quiz

2007-11-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

You come to a four-way intersection. You have a stop sign as well as the car directly across from you. The other 2 directions do not.

You want to make a right turn and the person across from you wants to turn left. Who has the right of way?

I you said the person turning left ... then you must be driving in Richmond today! I almost hit 1, narrowly avoided another, and saw a lot of others pulling this harebrained stunt!

When not nearly colliding with stupid drivers, I worked on my skirts. If I was a little more wide awake, I would show y'all a picture. As it is, I'm exhausted

I promise I'll do better tomorrow.

How did I get roped into this?

2007-11-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

I must be too much of a pushover. Dh gave me those puppy dog eyes and poor Dora was shivering. Sooooo ... I've been roped into knitting a sweater for a cat. Think I can get her to actually wear it?

Anyway, I found this site that will generate a custom dog sweater. I inputed Dora's measurements and voila! a sweater pattern.

I am applying an ease of 5% and multiplying the chest, thigh and belly width by 1.05 to determine the widths of the main pieces. The following values are modified:
chest 18 -> 18.9 inches;
thigh 3 -> 3.15 inches;
I'm finished calculating. Here are the directions. They are custom created for your dog, dora.
General Directions & Design Ideas

The Pieces
The dog sweater is made in 6 parts. To see a general schematic and some sweater design ideas click "schematics".
TOP: The 8 sided "top" piece is the main piece. The cast on is narrow. As you knit, you will increase stitches, knit without increaseing, and then decreases towards the neck. After assembly, the cast on portion of the top will end up by the dogs rump. The cast off portion will be near the dog's neck. The total length of this piece is -0.9 inches; the total width is 12.6 inches.
BOTTOM: The "bottom" is the underside of sweater. It will cover the dog's belly. This piece is a rectangle, and it is shorter than is the top. The two side edges of the bottom "bottom" will be sewn to the "top" matching points "a"-"d" but leaving the portion between "b" and "c" unsewn to form slits. The total length of the bottom is 8 inches; the total width is 6.3 inches.
COLLAR: The collar will be a turtleneck. The directions suggest you knit it separately, and then sew it to the body. However, you can can also pick up stitches from the neck edge and knit until the collar is long enough.
LEGS: These are two little rectangles which are knit and the folded in half, matching points "c" on the two sides. These legs should be sewn to leg slits matching points "b" and "c". One of the main purposes of the legs is to keep the edges of the body from curling at the leg openings. If you knit the body in a stitch that doesn't curl, you may omit the legs. Or, if you know how to crochet, you can crochet around the edges.
WELT: The welt is a long narrow strip of ribbing that is applied to hip edge of the sweater. It is decorative, but also prevents the body from curling. It is best to knit this in a non-curling stitch like ribbing or garterstitch. Th welt be knitted separately and sewn to the body, or you can pick up stitches from the body. The total length of this piece is 1 inches.
You pick your main pattern. This could be fairisle, stockinette, DJ or nearly anything you like. But for your dog's comfort, select a stretchy stitch. For a good fit, the collar and legs should be knitted in a stitch that draws in like ribbing.

Construction and Assembly Order
Knit top and bottom. Mattress stitch top to bottom on one side matching points "a-d", but leaving slits between "b" and "c".
Knit collar. Attach to the front using your preferred method.
Knit welt. Attach to rump portion of sweater.
Mattress stitch top to bottom at the remaining side, once again leaving the slit.
Knit the legs. Cast off. Fold over matching the sides and sew sides to form a tube.
Sew the cast off edge of the legs to the slit openings.
Find your dog; dress him and take him for a walk.

Note: The directions specify both rows and the length of the piece whenever you need to shape or cast off. Handknitters generally use length information. Machine knitters prefer the row information. Don't worry about the extra information.
Top
Cast on 28 stitches and begin to knit using the main stitch pattern. (width is 6.3 inches) When cast on is complete: if you are hand knitting, knit 1 or 2 rows, ending with knit sidefacing, if you are knitting with a japanese machine, make 2 carriage passes ending with carriage on the right (COR), if you are knitting with a Passap, the cast on took a few passes, so you are ready to shape.
Now, begin shaping: increase at both sides as follows:
increase 16 stitches every two rows 0 times then increase 15 stitches every two rows 1 times
There are now 58 stitches and the width is 12.6 inches. The row count is -34. (Length is -8.9 inches). Set a row marker; I will call this marker "d". Knit without increasing to row -24. (Length is -6.4 inches). Set a marker; I will call this marker point "c". This is where the leg slit starts. Knit to row -16. (Length is -4.4 inches.) Set another marker; I will call this marker "b". (The slit opening for the dogs legs will be between markers "b" and "c".) The chest shaping also starts here. Decrease 11 stitches over 12 rows on both outside edges as follows:
decrease 1 stitches every two rows 1 times then decrease 2 stitches every two rows 5 times
Knit the remaining 36 stitches without shaping to row -2. (Length is -0.9 inches) Cast off the all stitches. This row could be marked "a".
Bottom
Cast on 30 stitches and begin to knit using the main pattern. (width is 6.3 inches) Knit to row 10. Set a marker c. (This will be the one end of the slit for the dog legs.) Knit to row 18. Set another marker b. (The slit opening for the dogs legs will be between markers "b" and "c".) Knit straight to row count 32. (Length is 8 inches) Cast off all stitches. Hang a marker to indicate this row is point "a".
Collar
Method 1: Cast on 86 stitches and begin to knit in the welt pattern-- which should be some sort of ribbing. Knit in rib until row count 4 (Length is 1 in inches.) Bind off and sew turtleneck to sweater body. Method 2: This is useful for handknitters. Attach top to bottom at one shoulder. Pick up 86 stitches around neckline. Knit until row count 4 (Length is 1 in inches.) Cast off.
Legs
Knit two.
Cast on 12 stitches and knit using the welt stitch pattern. This should be some sort of ribbing. The width is twice the leg slit opening. Knit in rib until row count 8. (Length is 2 inches.) Cast off. Fold in half matching sides "c".
Welt
Make one.
Cast on (or pick up on rump end of sweater) 142 stitches in the welt stitch pattern. This should be some sort of ribbing. (This will be attached to the rump of the sweater which is 31.7 inches long.) Knit to row count 4. (length is 1 inches.) Bind off and sew to rump edge of dog sweater.

Now all I have to do is knit it up.

no knitting content

2007-11-08T18:38:00.000-05:00

The last thing I knitted was Princess's hat and that all the way back to last weekend! I wasn't kidding about having no knitting time left, I just can't seem to manage it on the days I work. Although I have big plans. I love the Jun0 Regina from the Knitty bonuses. I just need to find an alternative to the Lorna Laces Yarn. Much as I love the feel of it, I just can't afford the hefty price tag that goes along with it. Hmmm ... maybe something over at Knitpicks? Any of y'all have suggestions for substitute yarns. Maybe some of that new SoySilk yarn?

On another note, I need to make myself some new skirts. I have several tops and several skirts ... but they don't seem to match. Bad planning on my part I guess. I'm thinking of getting this pattern

and here is some of my fabric from my stash

This should work ... right?

Where oh where has my knitting time gone?

2007-11-07T18:52:00.000-05:00

Sung to this tune

Where oh where has my knitting time gone?
Oh where oh where can it be?
With my days cut short since I work too long, I find it's nowhere to be!

This just in

2007-11-06T22:13:00.000-05:00

Bossy will now be called Belle (as is Beauty and the Beast)

We had a long talk today, more her than me. She convinced me since she is now a "young lady" at the ripe old age of 6. She also told me that I need to shed the well deserved nickname she earned here on the web. Most of her suggestions were entirely wrong (The Quiet One was one she especially liked ) We finally agreed on Belle.

Thank you for your patience in this changeover!

Done!

2007-11-05T20:19:00.000-05:00

The hat is done!

I even got a "Thank you mom! I love it!"

I used the basic hat pattern with one little change. To get the tail, I did the decrease rows on every 8th row ... instead of every other row. I also added a few more "filler" rows when I got toward the end since it didn't look quite long enough. and of course the big pom-pom on the end was Princess's idea.

Moving?

2007-11-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

Yep, we are moving. Or at least we are trying to move. First we have to sell our home, a feat that is easier said than done I'm afraid. We had a new home picked out, but someone came and snatched it out from under us. So it's back to the drawing boards.

And yes, this comes shortly after I went back to work full-time. You may be wondering why. Well it can be summed up into one person ... DH. I've been wanting to move for years, but DH has been dead set against it. Funny how his thinking changed once he had to stay home with the girls. Don't get me wrong, this is a great house! A great house for 3 people, not 4. That extra person, and all the paraphernalia with her, is just too much clutter for this little place.

But enough of that. You want to know about my projects. I started Princess's hat and sent it immediately tot he frog pond. The 15 needles created a fabric that was much too loosey-goosey. Back to the drawing board.

So far, so good!

2007-11-03T19:17:00.000-04:00

I'm doing well so far. But then it only the 3rd day.

Thank you Anne Margaret for the hat pattern. Now I got a base to start from. I'm thinking of adapting the pattern slightly so that it forms a stacking cap with the really long tail. You know what I'm taking about? One of these but knitted instead of sewn.

I'm way to tired tonight to start it though. DH was gone all day at orentation for his new part-time job so I got stuck with the girls. Not only that, but the house ~~was~~ is a disaster. Our realtor isn't too happy with me. He called around 3:30 saying that someone wanted to look at the house at 4:00. I told him there was absolutely no way the house could be in showing shape in just 1/2 hour. Oh well, hopefully the people that wanted to look are willing to reschedule.

On a side note ... who only give 1/2 hour notice for looking at a house???? When we go looking, we have to plan days in advance. It's hard to get everyone's schedule to to mesh together.

On a mission

2007-11-02T19:11:00.000-04:00

I'm on a mission. I need to turn this
into a hat for Princess.

Thank goodness I found those circular needles! I thought all of them were put in the infamous "safe place" You know that place? It's so safe that you never see it again ... or at least until you either

Don't need it anymore or
buy a replacement

Yeah, that is the place so much of my stuff is. Word to the Wise ... Don't ever let your hubby pack away your stuff "temporarily"! Everything if mine was packed up in unlabeled boxes as preparation to sell our home. You want to guess how many of his tools got the same treatment?

But I digress. Any hints on where to look for a pattern? The yarn is Homespun. The circular needles are 15 and the straights are 10.5. Help!

Think I can do it?

2007-11-01T18:50:00.000-04:00

I'm going to try. I probably won't succeed, but I'm trying anyway. What am I talking about? Well the NaBloPoMo challenge. I'm going to try and make a post every day this month.

Why am I doing this? Welll ... I really, truly enjoyed blogging when I actually did it. Unfortunely, it's ben a wild and crazy year. I haven't even been able to go see my knitting buds reguarly. Maybe this challenge will get me out of this funk, and back to my regular self. At least I can hope it will!

Anyone going to join me? Anyone still left reaing my blog? Bueller? Bueller?

People are stupid!

2007-05-26T23:07:00.000-04:00

Warning .... the following is a pure and simple rant.

Why is it when a group of people get together they lose all logic? This week at Dustbunny haven we have been going back and forth with our homeowners association. They are claiming that we are breaking a rule (which we are not) and their solution is for us to break one. Crazy? right?

You know, I understand that there are guidelines that must be upheld for the good of the community. I signed off on them when we moved in. Heck, DH even wrote the rule book that clarifies the convents. If anyone knows what they say ... he would.

But no, somebody (who doesn't even live in the neighborhood ... they rent out their home) got a bee up their butt. He sent in a several page complaint letter about each and everything he saw wrong with the community. What I want to know is why our board is giving his complaints more weight that the actual convents? I thought that wasn't allowed? ... but I digress. .

What I want to complain about is the logic behind breaking a rule so that we can be in compliance with a non-existent rule? Does that make sense to any of y'all? It certainly doesn't to me! I mean, wouldn't it have been better to go through the procedures of added the non-existent rule to the books? Of course that wouldn't be quick would it?

I also don't know how many ~~suckers~~ homeowners fell for their fake rule. For all we know, we may have been the only ones to ~~bitch~~ point out their error. Of course we couldn't leave it at that ... we also just had to point out to them them that they violated Commonwealth law by not giving us hearing before taking punitive action. That is when the board came up with the "compromise". I wonder how they are going to react when we say "fine, but I need to have something signed by all of you stating that we are allowed to {break this rule} and you will not fine us for it later". That should be really interesting {insert evil grin here}

Like Tommy Lee said in Men in Black "a person is smart, but people are stupid".

I've been tagged!

2007-05-18T21:34:00.000-04:00

Twice! Amanda tagged me a couple of weeks ago and now lmilla has tagged me with the same meme. I'm not good at these thing ... I can't even come up up with 2 random facts ... let alone 7. I'll have to continue working on it, just be patient with me OK?

In the meantime, I'll post this neat one from lmilla. It's a neat little list show where I am in my knitting journey. Enjoy!

Here's the key: Bold for stuff I've done, italics for stuff I plan to do one day, and normal for stuff I'm not planning on doing. The stuff in blue is my comments.

Afghan/Blanket I want to do one, but I don't know if I have the patience.
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn ???????????????
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting Tried to do one once but messed up. I want to try again.
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn Again ?????????????
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting Tried but failed miserably
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dyeing with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding Knit my garter
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars Barbie dress
Olympic knitting Got a silver
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit I'm a lousy teacher
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener
BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards Tried, but failed
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies Bossy was a preemie size
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

This post is brought to you by the letter L

2007-05-14T20:27:00.000-04:00

L for lovely yarn. L for Lace. L for Lucky me! I have such wonderful friends!

Anne Margaret decided to give away some of her stash yarn and I was the lucky recipient of this

A lovely shade of moss green lace yarn. Just enough to do a scarf. She also included a pretty scarf pattern ... pretty but not my style. I picture this yarn with more of an open work scarf. I narrowed it down to three.

Knitty's Branching Out scarf. This one is Bossy's favorite.
Fairy Godmother Scarf. DH likes this one best ... probably because it has a bit of sparkle.
Field of Flowers scarf from Heirloom knitting. You guessed it, Princess likes this one best.

ARRGGHH! Since they are no help, I'm going to y'all to take my poll

Yeah! Happy Mothre's day!

2007-05-13T11:28:00.000-04:00

Guess what I got for mom's day? .... go ahead guess! ... I got a new camera! Yippee! I'm so excited now, I can post goo pictures again, once I learn how to use this sucker. they didn't get me a pain old camera like I used to have. Nope, they got me one with a bunch of bells & whistles. There is even a special setting for taking pictures of food ... I'm thing that would be ideal for taking knitting project pictures. Let's see ...

The top pic is the default setting and the bottom is the food setting. Big difference! Yep, that's my latest WIP. The front & back are done. Working on sleeve island now ... it's a short trip this time. Get it? Short trip ... short sleeves? Don't groan too loud!

Exciting week!

2007-05-05T07:41:00.000-04:00

Top News!

It's been a very exciting week here at Dustbunny Haven! Tuesday, as I was getting ready to go to SnB I see this:
Yep ... one of our neighbor's house was on fire! When I first went out o look there were actual flames coming out of the side. Fortunately nobody was home there, or on either side. That means the only damage was to the 2 houses ... nobody was hurt! One of our local news station's stopped by but I guess our excitement was not enough to make the cut.

Bossy, being her usually self, interviewed a fireman to find out all the details.
Maybe she has a future as a reporter? It seems that the fire started in the mulch and traveled up the side of the building. When pressed, (told you she was good!) he said that it probably was a cigarette that caused it but the didn't know for sure right then.

Now for something on the silly side of life

I got home from work and heard a faint cry for help from the far reaches of the living room. Being a superhero mom, I rushed in to save my babies and stopped dead in my tracks. Turned right around and grabbed Princess's camera. It seems that it wasn't my little babies that need help, but the big one!

Attack of the Sticker Monster!

The news everyone wants to see

I got a lot finished over the past couple of weeks. First up: My RichmondMommies KAL project. Here it is before felting -
And this is what it looks like all felted.
Felting it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (I have a front loading washer). I put the bag into a pillowcase (to stop fussies from mucking up the washer) and ran it through a cycle with a couple of tennis balls and sheets to aid agitation. It didn't shrink much at all, so I threw it into the dryer. That did it! I really like how the felting made the flower pop!

Next up: Princess's new sweater.
Now that was a project I loved! A 2 day/2.5 skein sweater. Can't beat that!
And last, but not least I have a picture of Bossy's Easter Dress. You know ... the one I finished on Easter?
It's not the best quality picture in the world. The dress looks so much better in real life!

Upcoming news

What's next? Well I have a sweater on the needles for my niece. The back is done, and I'm working on the front.

I'm also planning on making some new blouses for work. Got the material and the patterns ... just need to get up the ambition to cut them out. That's my least favorite part to do for sewing. One I get that down though ... I can usually finish easily.

And the laughs continue ...

2007-04-15T19:13:00.000-04:00

It's been a really fun week here at Dustbunny Haven ... NOT! It all started out innocently enough. Easter came and I finished Bossy's dress just as the buzzer rang to head over to MIL's new home. We tried to take Princess's camera ... but it don't work no more. Freshly charged batteries didn't work and DH was chomping at the bit to get going so I didin't have any time to do anything about it. Hmmm that seems to be a running theme through my life now.

My mom was visiting from NY, so she put the kiddos to work on Monday. They got their rooms clean while DH took a practice test to upgrade his contractor's license. The good news is the the rooms looked great and DH easily passed the test (I knew he would). Since it was a good day all around, I took the opportunity to wipe the girl's PC so they could start out fresh again (they are using DH's old PC)

Well Tuesday came and it wasn't so good. Something shorted out on my PC's motherboard ... now it's toast. I'm hoping beyond hope that I can salvage the hard drive ... because of course I haven't backed up in years. Now I'm relegated my using the girls PC ... 9 years old and still plugging along (barely) And not only that ... I don't' have any of the toys I had on mine.

I did get my yarn from Knitpicks! Beautiful stuff, even mom was impressed. I started the buttonhole bag for the RichmondMommies KAL, so much fun to knit. I wanted to add a flower to it ... but ... I think you know where this is going ... all my clip art to make something with is ... guess? On My PC ... grrr Anyone know where I can get a chart for a nice little monochromatic flower? Or even the URL to that site that will turn clip art into a chart? (because of course my links haven't been backed up either!)

Please send good vibes! I need some.

Still no camera

2007-04-06T07:36:00.000-04:00

DH still hasn't found my camera . Doesn't he understand I need my camera?!? Last time I let him borrow anything of mine.

If I did have my camera, I would show you some yarn porn. We went to the Williamsburg pottery and I scored big! I got myself 3 skeins of Moda-Dea Dream in Pecan for a hat and fingerless gloves . I got Princess some Moda-Dea Cheri . She wants a sweater out of it. It should make a gorgeous sweater. I just can't seem to find any patterns that will fit her. Don't they make any pre-teen patterns? Oh, I forgot to mention the price ... 59 cents! Yep, got all that yarn for less than the regular price of one!

I also placed a huge (for me) order at knit-picks. I bought some purple & green yarn for a KAL with the RichmondMommies group. I'm making my first ever buttonhole bag!

I also bought some sock yarn, lace yarn for a shawl I've been eyeing, and some for a sweater for my niece. This should keep me busy for a while!

some quick pictures

2007-03-18T20:52:00.000-04:00

I still haven't gotten my camera back ... But I know who the thief is! Here I was blaming my kiddos and it wasn't them. DH stole it to take some pictures for his companies website and didn't tell me. Here I was, blaming the kiddos and he had it all the time. Now he claims he doesn't know what happened to it. It's not in his truck nor is it at his last job site

The good news is that Princess found our old camera ... The one we bought when she was born 9 years ago! Compared to mine, it's a big clunker that takes lousy pictures but Hey it's Here and it Works! So here is a sampling of what I've been doing

And here's a picture of the girls. Princess is wearing her new outfit. Bossy's outfit is still waiting to be cut.

I have not dropped off the face of the earth!

2007-03-16T15:44:00.000-04:00

Contrary to what you may be thinking, I have not dropped off the face of the earth. Instead I've been very, very busy. I got good news ... I have a permanent part-time position. I'll be doing some accounting work for a local management group. Yeah! And yes, this is the same place that I've been working at for the past few weeks.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to show you on the knitting front. Instead, I've been working on some sewing projects. Would you like to see them? You'll have to talk to the girls. They have taken my camera and "forgotten" where they hid it. I'll get you pics as soon as I find it again.

The dirty little details.

2007-02-22T20:19:00.001-05:00

Since Vicky asked so nicely ... I thought I'd give y'all an update on the job hunt. Or as it's better known as "will the agony never end?"

I actually had a couple of interviews in January. One was an absolute no. "Gee, a local builder?" "Do they know my husband owns a construction firm?" "Oh, conflict of interest? Do tell "

Onto interview #2. A consulting gig went down the tubes because I "wasn't flexible enough". They did get me the gig I'm on now though ... so I'm good.

OK, onto interview #3. That one was me, I didn't want to do taxes that badly. It showed in the interview.

Let's see, we are onto #4. This was the one I had on my b-day. The headhunter claimed that I was just what they were looking for ... and they had an immediate need. She sent out my resume, they liked what they say, scheduled a second interview and then put the whole thing on hold after canceling. This was the amazing job. I'm still holding out hope that the headhunter can change their minds ... but it gets harder to do as time passes.

What are we on now? Number 5? Ahh yes, number 5. This was a promising one, set up through the consulting firm as a possible PT temp-perm position. Would have been good, but as soon as they heard that I can do systems work, they assumed that that's what I wanted to do (and therefore wouldn't be happy doing the books). I don't understand ... if I wanted to do systems work, I would have gotten a computer science degree ... not an accounting one! But, when a certain personality gets that idea in their head, nothing will shake it.

So here I am, on the 3rd week of my 2 week assignment. The company I work for it thrilled with me. Maybe that will mean something longer term? The head guy did say he would hire me for 13 a year. I don't think that would even cover the child care .

A good birthday?

2007-02-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

First off, I had an interview scheduled. I knew it was foolish of me, given my history and everything, but I'm glad I did. The lady I talked too seemed to think I was ideal for the job. "Just what they are looking for". She went on to describe the opportunity, and it is AMAZING! I had dreams of something like this when I went to VA Tech, but had lost hope of achieving it. She wants to work quickly though. I'm under strict "orders" to call back Tuesday to set up an interview with the executives. Send me all the good vibes you can! OK?

Next, I get a call from a consulting from I have worked with in the past. They have a 2-week assignment for me starting Monday! Yeah!!!! From the sound of the assignment, they are going to need someone there for longer that that so if Amazing doesn't work out, I have potential there too. Besides, especially with consulting, the first assignment is the hardest to get. I've done this kind of work before and didn't have so much as a breather between assignments after I get the first one.

Princess brought home her mid-terms. Math? 100! Science 98! History? 100! English? 95! Think she'll believe me now when I tell her she's smart?

On the Knitting front

I've been a busy beaver. Got lots of new outfits done for the girls.

May I present: Fur Collar "cashmere" from Knits for Barbie

And no, I didn't use cashmere, I didn't have any in my stash that was the right color.

Next we have Bridesmaid Tube Dress from the same book

Keeping with the fluffy, girly theme - We have 2 interpretations of #1 from Sticka till Barbie.
The blue is for Bossy and was made on set of #0's. It made it a little tight IMO so I made Princess's on #1's and added an extra stripe. Came out perfect!

From the same site, here is a simple shrug. Took all of an hour to make!

From Craftfinder. We have "White Blouse and Ruffled Skirt"

And last but not least we have "Poolie"Dotty Meginnis' book #3.

Hope this satisfies y'all! I'm off to celebrate!!

Blech!

2007-01-19T15:26:00.000-05:00

Well Princess has successfully given me her cold . I guess that explains why I've been knitting so much these last few days. I feel both bored and restless while at the same time I have absolutely no energy.

Well, at least Barbie is happy. Little projects for her seem to be just the ticket! Here are 3 more finished projects
Bossy has taken the dress and jacket on the left while Princess just loves the on black dress. Black seems to be her new favorite color. Someone in her class told her she looks good in black, so now she wants to wear it All The Time! Actually, I'm not all that unhappy with the idea ... the skater and goth looks are a whole lot better than the hoochie mama look.

FO palooza!

2007-01-17T15:01:00.000-05:00

I've got a lot of FO's to show off today. I've been a busy, busy girl! I have to give credit for the pictures to my resident "picture fairy". She is home sick today and helped me . Personally, I could have thought of a million other uses for her time - like resting so she could get better - but I digress.

Start with Barbie

Isn't that always a wise move? The pictures Princess took just cried out for captions!

I don't know why, but Barbie on the right looked just like a vampiress. See how the one on the left is tempting her with the head tilt?

I think these ones speak for themselves.

Socks!

Yes my second pair of socks are now done. I really like how they turned out.

Thanks Mom!

I made yet another kitty toy (out of pure self defense!) Dora likes it.

Princess2 agrees.

way too funny

2007-01-11T10:09:00.001-05:00

OK, all of you moms out there can relate to this one!

My shame

2007-01-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah I know ... I have a Barbie outfit in my WIP pile. But I have my reasons for not finishing it first. I'm using the needles from it to make the second sock. Hey, I said it was a reason, not a good reason

I made this cute dress and then promised it to the kid who got her room cleaned first. It took all day but Princess won it in the end.

Bossy took the pictures. Here is her first attempt, pretty good except for cutting off her head -

A sitting pose

Barbie doing her Linda Blair impression!

Instead of picking up the orange outfit, I started a different one. I think I'll run the same "contest" again.

Lest you think my other family members are being neglected

My furry Princess had a request. Actually it was more of a demand.

She thanked me in her own unique way -

DH on the other hand is just happy to have some "quiet time" to play his new favorite game

"Quiet time" is such a relative word when you have kids.

Wear with shoes!

2007-01-04T08:01:00.000-05:00

Got the first sock of pair number 2 done! Want to know what DH said when I showed it off to him?

"Those are great! You can wear them with shoes and everything!"

Thanks dear So, without further ado ... here is the sock. Sorry for the awful lighting, I couldn't get my cheapo camera to take a good picture.

BTW, What do you think I did with the leftover yarn from my first pair? If you said "barbie clothes" ... WRONG! I went for a new kitty toy

Princess and Dora said it was about time. They had utterly destroyed the last one I made just before the Christmas madness happened.

My Resolutions for 2007

In the year 2007 I resolve to:
Dedicate my life to making someone else's horribly miserable.

Get your resolution here.

Much as I like this one, and may even post it above my desk, it is not on my list this year! I only have a few this year (after failing most of the ones from last year)

1. I resolve to make 2 new Christmas ornaments a month. We purchased a new tree in January 2006 and didn't realize how much bigger it was then our old shabby one. It looked pretty sparse. I could probably do one a week and still not have enough new ornaments for it! But I know myself, I wouldn't do it.

2. I resolve to get a part-time job. I am so sick and tired of not having any yarn money! I went for a couple of promising interviews already. Wish me luck!

Two is my limit. Should be easier this year.

Socks done ...

2006-12-29T09:09:00.000-05:00

Both socks are done! No second sock syndrome here. Whew ... That's one of the main reason I haven't made any before. Do you want pictures? Of course you do!

Here are a picture of the toes. See how nicely the self-striping yarn lines up? Almost perfect .... and this coming from the Queen herself.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the look I was intending. You see, knowing that I'm a perfectionist, I didn't even attempt to start off the same (going for the fraternal look)

So how did I get the toes so perfect? Must be because one foot is slightly bigger than the other so the adjustment for that threw the pattern off. Anyway here's yet another picture of the completed pair. Just for the record, it took 2 days to knit these. One per sock.

And least y'all think that I'm neglecting poor old Barbie, here's what's currently on my needles ...

Nearly done with this one. I may try to block the peach jacket. It's done in a lace pattern that isn't showing up too well.

I'm backkkkkk

2006-12-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, it's been months and months since I posted. I won't bore you with the details ... let's just say I've had a ton of stuff going on. My life has settled back down to almost manageable now (YEAH!) so I'll be able to get back into the swing of things soon!

Am I good or what?

Yeah, I know. This blog is supposed to be about my knitting and other crafts but I just had to share this.

Picture the scene ... I was making Christmas dinner. Amoung the items I was making, I was using some shaped bread molds. One in particular was supposed to be a heart. Well, the bread rose nice and high and ... well ... ummm ... it didn't come out looking like a heart

Yep, like princess said "How cute! It's wearing a little hat!" What did you think it was? My, what a dirty little mind you have!

I've succumbed

Yes, I have finally succumbed to pressure. Here is my latest project. Yarn and needles curtosey of Santa!

Don't see it? How's this one?

That my dears is my very first sock (and the start of the second one) I have to say, I'm very surprised on how comfy they are! Santa didn't get me the best of yarn ... Red Heart Strata but they are still nice to wear. I may even try to find some good yarn to try.

Dr. Who's on tonight!!!

2006-09-29T12:58:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited!!! Season 2 of Dr. Who premere's tonight on SciFi. Yippeee!! Y'all will know where I'm going to be tonight.

Knitting update

I've been busily knitting away on christmas presents so I can't show you too many pictures. I do have a couple of FO's I can show off.

Bossy's new birthday party hat.

Some new fingerless gloves for me!

Some pics from the wedding

My BIL got married at the end of August. I wanted to share some pictures of the girls from that day.

Bossy was feeling a bit left out since she didn't get to be in the wedding itself. She made up for it by being a ham on the dance floor!

Princess showing off her true colors. Isn't the flowergirl dress the cutest thing?

One down ...

2006-09-11T11:33:00.000-04:00

Out of all the UFO's I've posted recently, I finally have one complete! Yeah for me! You want a pic?

It's cute huh? Princess was the one who picked out the pattern/yarn but it's bossy's dress. We have a new system over here at Dustbunny Haven ... the girls earn points by doing chores. They can use the points to "buy" things/privleges. Bossy chose to use her points to buy this outfit ... Princess still has not earned enough. She's getting better though, nothing like a little sibling riverly to get some action out of her

A sad day in American History

Today is the 5th anniversary of 9-11. See TruthDig for an excellent tribute to this.

As promised ... and promised!

2006-09-07T11:01:00.001-04:00

Behold .... Finished objects!

See I told you, I've been busy knitting. It's no excuse for not updated y'all, but better late than never, right? So without further ado, here are some of the things I've finished since my last update.

These reversible bookmarks are my own design. I wanted a quick little thank you item for some of my RM members.

For those of you without daughters, this dress is based on the pauper from Barbie's Princess and the Pauper video. I have the pattern for the Princess dress too, but no pink yarn to make it with. Don't know how that happened

Here are 3 more Barbie outfits I made over the summer. I really liked the one on the left ... it's my own design too. You can't tell to well from the picture, but it has these really cute butterfly beads down the front. Just ignore the "quality" Barbies I had to deal with.

How about some WIP's?

I also have some WIP pictures to share. This one is a "special order" from Princess but Bossy may end up getting it if Princess doesn't start doing her chores. The dress is done (yes, this is what I was working on at SnB) but I just started the vest that goes with it. It's knit starting at the bottom back, up over the shoulder, then down the front. I'm up the the split for the fronts.

This one is for a swap I'm doing. You can't tell from the picture, but the skirt is pleated at the waist. I'm not sure I like that though, it seems to make Barbie look a little hippy. The jacket is almost done (it's knit the same way as the vest above) Hopefully it will look better with it.

I also had a casualty. My first attempt at the above top was stolen by one of the kitties. When I found it, it looked like this ... (no the picture is not blurry, that's what it looks like!)

I guess they had fun!

Update on us

Ernesto came through here and I was congratulating myself on how well we came though it. It's amazing we did so well, since we went camping down to the northern neck of VA that week. In fact, we checked out Friday morning ... right when Ernesto hit For future reference, packing up a trailer in the middle of a tropical storm is not ... I repeat not a good idea. We lucked out though. We saw no flooding or downed trees on the way home. Our power flickered a couple of times, but we didn't lose it! I thought we did great until I went out the next day and saw this

and in case you don't see the problem ...

Oops, I guess we forgot to take the flag down. Thank goodness the tree caught it.

And in other Exciting News!!!!

I am celebrating! Both girls are in school! Yeah!!!! I can actually clean the house ... turn around ... and the house is still clean! I can also enjoy a few hours without those dreaded phrases "mommy, sissy won't do ..." and "Sissy made me do it!" and let's not forget "But Mommm!!!"

Here's a couple of pictures to honor that special day!

All Hail the WIP parade! (sewing edition)

2006-08-19T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on getting pictures of the stuff I've started/made in the past few weeks. Mainly because I got sidetracked. 17 days and counting until freedom day!

I'm getting everything ready for the big day, when I realized that I hadn't finished the girls art smocks. They had both outgrown their old ones (3 years ... not bad). So I started working on new ones. Dug out an old vinyl table cloth and viola!

OK, maybe not viola but pretty close anyway.

It was while finding all the parts and pieces for this project, that I found some long lost WIPs. I'm going to work hard and finish them up. Or at least try ... remember I have a short attention span!

Here's the first item, a jean bag. Needs just 5 (yes only 5) metal eyelets. What's the age you ask? Oh only about 9 years. Yep, started this sucker to be a diaper bag when I was preggo with Princess ...

Here's another lovely item, 2 Christmas dresses. Just need a little bit more sewing. Started last November so hopefully they still fit. They "should", the girls have both grown up not out and I think I made them extra long.

These next two items are a favorite of the girls (just look at the smile on Bossy's face!) I have 2 of each at the same level in incompleteness. First up ... a Barbie Bathroom

And next a Barbie Kitchen ...

Somewhere around here I have a Fashion Doll House in Plastic Canvas that I plan on using to fill-in the furniture ... but I gotta find it first.

And last, but not least we have this mystery item.

It looks like it may be one of these bags but since the instructions are MIA (along with the handles and lining) I'm not sure it will end up looking like that . I think I'll wing it and see what happens!

That's it for the WIP parade (sewing edition). If I ever get my act in gear, I'll host the equally large Knitting and Crochet editions too. Not to mention the Plastic Canvas edition!

Confessions of a bad blogger

2006-08-14T13:53:00.000-04:00

Alright, I admit it, I'm a bad blogger I can't believe that its been over a month since I last wrote on this thing.

I have lots of pics to share, but that's for another day. Today I just want to catch y'all up with what's been going on here in bunny haven.

When last we talked, summer vacation had started and the girls were enjoying themselves. Well from there things went nuts! First 2 weeks of July was spent up in NY visiting my mom. I came back with a cold that took another week to get over . The last week of July saw me working on a RichmondMommies fund raiser.

The "fun" didn't stop there, oh no it just had to continue! On the 31st my darling, wonderful, completely absent minded DH remembered that his truck needed to be inspected. Do you know what the chances of getting an inspection done on the last day of the month is? Zip, Nada, Zelch! Do you know what the earliest appointment he could get? Monday 8/7! Do you know when I actually got a car I could use? Not until Thursday! Thanks Hubby .

God, I can't wait for school to start again!

Round and round she goes!

2006-06-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

Ahh summer vacation ... gotta love the ability to sleep in! I woke up this morning find this:

Yep, Bossy sound asleep curled up on the couch. All together now ... Awwww Princess on the other hand was busily making breakfast.

She made enough for both of us.

Yummy! I do believe that she is trying to butter me up. You see, last week she broke our entertainment center. GROUNDED! Does she really think she will get out of it this easily?

An update to my little story

Apparently not all the little furry creatures here are smart enough to avoid the big bad monsters

I mean really ... not smart at all. I took off the little coat and 5 minutes later I saw this

Will they ever learn?

Knitting update

I finished a Barbie dress for Bossy. I think she likes it.

I started another one last night at SNB.

And also worked some more on my Summer Berry Shell. I've reached the really really boring part Round and round in straight knitting until the armholes. It looks good and I'm almost there but ...

Picture day!

2006-06-22T09:47:00.000-04:00

I have lots and lots of pictures for y'all today! Aren't you excited? Hmmm where should I start?

How about a little story ...

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young maiden who was innocently typing away on her computer. (Hey it's my story! If I want to be young ... then I'm going to be dang it!) Anyway ... where was I? ... Oh yes, on the computer. When all of a sudden she felt this little fluff of fur tickle her feet. Looking down she sees this poor little creature cowering under her desk:

"Oh my! Why are you hiding oh gentle creature?"

"I'm being hunted by the big ... bad ... monsters!"

"They are merciless!"

"Fear not oh furry one. I shall protect you! But what shall I receive in return?"

"I shall be you loving servant and help you out in anyway I can!"

And they knitted happily ever after The end.

Now onto the FO's! and almost FO's!

I have a few Barbie outfits done

This is the dress I knitted on the way up to NY. There is a matching hat, but it's long gone now.

I started this poncho on the way back and finished it up at my knitting group last week. I tried putting fringe on it, but it looked even worse

I'm also making an outfit for a Barbie clothes swap. Love these things! I have the skirt and top done. I'm working on a jacket. I'm thinking of adding a purse and boots to round out the whole thing. What do you think?

I was also able to finish both of Princess's new skirts. She's already worn one (it's in Mr. Washie as I type) and here's a picture of her other one, It came out a lot cuter than it's pictured here

That just about covers it for now. Happy knitting!

Mother may I?

2006-06-13T08:52:00.000-04:00

Somehow I don't think I'll need to ask mom, but I certainly like the idea of Sunday's Six Chix comic. DH jokes a lot about having a couple of alpaca's in the back yard

I've got back from NY and Gram's funeral on Monday night. It was a very unique experience for me, we didn't sit around crying and whatever. Nope, not from Grams! We ate great food and told stories about her life. When I go I want to have a funeral just like hers! BTW I was slightly off on my last post, her birthday was the 8th not the 7th. She didn't quite make it to 95, but 94 is still a long time to be around!

Now onto a section I call "Scenes from the trip!" I didn't have my camera with me for most of these, but I wanted to share anyway.

Scene One: Picture it ... we are stopped at one of our favorite restaurant on the way up there. This particular restaurant has several Amish farms close by and it is not unusual to see an Amish family eating there. OK? I happen to look over and see this Amish lady sitting with her friend and her friend is talking on a cellphone. At first I think to my self "How Rude!" but before I can even finish the thought, the friend hand the phone to the Amish lady and she starts talking on it... Huh? Is that even allowed? Even DH (Usually a fountain for trivial information) didn't know.

Scene Two: Our family has it's own person Y2K problem! I bet you weren't expecting to see that term ever again Grams bought her headstone when her husband died (back in 1966) and apparently never expected to live well into her 90's. She had her side inscribed with "1911 - 19". I just hope the person they get to fix it doesn't mess it up - I some really lousy work at the cemetery. The worst of the lot just decided to cross out the 19 and write in 2000. YUCK!

Scene Three: While we up there, the town where my Sis lives had a festival. The girls had a blast! Best of all for you ... I remembered to bring along my camera!

Here we all are on the way over to the park.

We played some games.

and DH was particularly thrilled with the whole thing!

Sad day here

2006-06-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

It's a sad day here in dustbunny land. My sister called this morning and let me me know that my grandmother had just died. Today is was her 95th birthday. Yet another notch on the old "I hate birthday's" belt.

She was a wonderful lady, the youngest of 10 or eleven. They grew up very, very poor on an old farm in upstate NY. A couple of her sisters died at a very young age from rheumatic fever but all of her other siblings lived to a ripe old age (just like her).

My grandmother was a very independent woman. When my grandpa died in '66 she went back to work as a meat cutter to support herself. Luckily she only had herself since both of her children had already had families of their own. I remember her kicking and screaming when it was time for her to retire - she didn't want to do it. It wasn't until her eyesight started going (and her job became too dangerous) that she agreed.

At 90 she was still an active part of everyone's life. My DH said that she would outlive all of us! Fateful words, since it wasn't long after that she got her first infection. From then on, she would get over one and just inherit a worse one. The Doctors did everything they could, but we have been expecting this day since she was first put on hospice care 3 years ago.

I will miss her! Happy Birthday Grandma!

Scenes from the Faire

2006-06-06T15:19:00.000-04:00

The Virginia Renaissance Faire that is. We went there on Saturday and had a blast! The girls especially loved it. Bossy just couldn't get enough of the queen.

We were innocently watching a juggler when the queen's music came on. Bossy wanted nothing to do with the juggler anymore and insisted we go see the queen! (And insisted and insisted until we went. I felt sorry for the juggler)

Anyway, they were both presented to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

and were given tokens for being such pretty princesses

They were both invited to entertain the Queen with a production of "The Three Little Pigs"

Click to watch my sad attempt at a video

From there they went to the poppets section where they learned a lot about life in Elizabethan times. I also saw (and petted) some really cute Alpacas from a local farm. DH saw some alpaca socks and fell in love. Unfortunately they only had some bulky weight yarn left there and I couldn't find any yarn on their web site. I'll have to get some, probably from Knitpicks. Have any of y'all knit alpaca socks? Anything I should know before I try?

Oh, and before you ask - The tartan that DH and I are wearing?

That's not my tartan (yes I am part Scottish). No, I'm one of the "lucky" ones that has a butt ugly tartan. The Scottish vendor at the Faire asked me what clan I was. When I told him, his only comment "Well I don't blame you then"

Editied 6/7/2006 - Sorry about that broken link. It should be fixed now.

Because you asked

2006-06-01T06:59:00.000-04:00

Mary asked:
Where did you find the free templates? Those are nice!

I did a google search and found lots and lots of great template sites. My finalists came from Blog Frocks , Love Productions, and Blogspot Templates. I found some close runner-ups at Blogger Templates too (I loved loved loved the Top Secret one but no one else here liked it so it didn't make the cut)

Also, just so you know ... I wouldn't recommend using templates outside of the standard Blogger ones unless you are familar with HTML. I had to do a lot of tweaks to this one to get it "just right" and it still isn't. Dang perfectionism rearing it's ugly head! Die! Die!

And the winner is ....

2006-05-31T11:06:00.000-04:00

Sunshiney Day I wish to thank each and everyone of you who voted in my poll. In case you are curious, the final tally was:

Sunshiney Day

4 votes

Flower

1 vote

Spring

2 votes

Cheerful

0 votes

I like your current one best.

1 vote

Poll powered by Pollhost. Poll results are subject to error. Pollhost does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

I'll be changing over everything in the next few days. Stay tuned!

On another note, DH and I were talking about letting him start his own business over Chinese food. His current boss (at his second job) is looking to move on and wants to get out. DH wants to take over for him and has been working on me to let him. Well we got the fortune cookies and this is what they said (no lie!)

DH: Don't wait for others to open the right doors for you
Me: Don't wait for your ship to come in: Swim to it.
Princess: You will take a chance in something in the near future.
Bossy: Deep faith eliminates fear

Think someone is trying to tell us something?

I'm Bored

2006-05-28T11:20:00.000-04:00

Bored ... Bored ... My other website is down for maintenance and I don't know what to do. I guess I could clean. Naah! Why on earth would I want to do a silly thing like that?

I have been working on painting Bossy's room, but that's about as exiting as ... well ... watching paint dry {get it, watch paint dry? } We started yesterday with two of the walls (one white the other looks like a vanilla milkshake). Today we tackle the other two walls (a Strawberry milkshake and the striped wallpaper that matches the border). While moving her loft around I decided that the floor definitely needs to be changed too (now how do I tell DH?) Boy isn't that going to be fun - NOT! That's going to be a job for another weekend.

Anyway ... While waiting for the paint to dry I've decided to change my blog graphics. Maybe ... possibly ... I think? Did I mention I was bored? Yes? Oh. Did I mention I get very indecisive when I'm bored? Not yet? Good.

I get very indecisive when I'm bored! I looked around the net and came up with several templates that I like. I then asked my family what they thought, but each one of them had their own favorite - not much help there! So I'm opening it up to y'all. Here are everyone's favorites (in no particular order)

Sunshiney day

Flower

Spring

Cheerful

Now go ahead and let me know which ones you like best (yes you can vote for more than one)

Alive and well at Dustbunny headquarters

2006-05-25T09:56:00.000-04:00

Bet y'all been wondering what's happened to me. I haven't been posting here, haven't been going to SNB, I haven't been venturing out much anywhere! It's not burn out - it was plain old illness. Illness brought on by all the craziness that's been going on. I think my body just told me - REST dammit!

I've been slowly working on a few projects. I'm making these cute little key chain bags for my team over at Richmondmommies. (Pen included for scale) Now I just need to figure out what to put in them.

I also started on a new project for me. This is the start to the Summer Berry Shell from Quick Knits to Wear.

Yeah, I know it got lousy reviews from the 2 people who said something but I like a lot of the sweaters in it. I guess I'm just tragically unhip. I got Knitting Nature for Mothers day but am not overly impressed. I like some of the ideas she has but overall there is very little in there that I would actually wear. (Doesn't Ms. Gaughan believe in the concept of putting shoulders in sweaters?) I do LOVE the spiral scarf and see in on me made up with the leftovers from the Dr. Who scarf!

I thought I would end this post with a bunch of pictures of my roses.

This is one of my favorite ones. Pink with just a hint of yellow.

My one and only red rose.

Here is my pink climber. Or at least that is what the package said. Surprise ... What do you expect from a $2 rose from Big Lots?

My oldest and largest bushes. I think I picked the perfect spot for this one!

I also have a few miniature roses. This is Princesses favorite.

And this one is Bossy's

And here is my yellow rose. Yes it was a yellow one at one point ... that is until last year. Last year it was purple and this year it seems to want to be pink.

My babies growing up fast

2006-05-18T07:39:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my baby's birthday. Bossy is officially a five year old now! I don't know if I should be exited or sad My baby is no longer a baby anymore! There are just so many little things that she doesn't need me for anymore - not that I'm complaining mind you (I really don't miss the diaper bit!) but ... It's just sad

For her birthday we are going to be redoing her bedroom. It used to be DH's den so its not very girly if you know what I mean. We went out to Lowe's where she picked out a very pretty border. It was not at all what I expected (either Bratz or Barbie or Dora) so I was thrilled! This should be able to last her all the way through High School! Yeah! Now I just have to convince her that we don't need to paint the room pink.

We came home later and decorated the cake. I frosted it and the girls decorated it.

They obviously missed the memo that said "less is more!"

Yep, they pretty much emptied every jar of sprinkles we had! Considering the fact that I have two girly girls - that's a lot of sprinkles!

Bossy did grab the first taste. She told us it was "yucky" and that we didn't need to try it. She will make the supreme sacrifice and eat it all herself! Somehow I think she was trying to fool us.

From there it was dinner at Cici's pizza and opening a few gifts. She'll be celebrating again on Sunday so we get to do this all over again. Lucky me

Busy days

2006-05-04T08:49:00.000-04:00

Don't you just hate it when everything happens all at once? I know I do! Thank goodness there is an end to the craziness. Unfortunately it won't be until after this weekend and the MS&W thing. Someone needs to send out a memo - There are only 24 hours in a day! -

On the plus side, spring is here which means flowers! I love flowers, I just wish I could grow them. The only ones I seem to be successful with are Roses. See the the ones on my bush out back? Purty huh? There has got to be a couple hundred buds on it!

I've been knitting too. I decided to scrap the Fibercrack blanket I started last year and use the yarn to make a shrug. I was originally going to donate it to Princess's school for a silent auction but I don't know ... I like how it looks on me. I may still give this one away (either to the school or as a prize for the RichmondMommies.com Membership Drive) and then make myself one out of Get Away from KnitPicks. I really like the jeans colorway! Any thought from y'all?

Oh, I guess you would like a picture huh? Here is one Bossy took of me wearing it.

And here is a more accurate picture of the color. Don't mind the kitty head.

Along with all this, I have also started sewing some summer clothes for the kiddos. The top one is for Bossy. The middle is Princesses second choice, they didn't have any left of her first choice in her size. I'll have to try again when the patterns go on sale. The third pattern there, peaking out at the bottom, is for a couple of purses I'm making the girls that will match their Spring dresses. Too cute!

Please pray from the busy days at Dustbunny burrow to be over with soon! I don't know how much more I can take.

Wow! What a month!

2006-04-25T08:53:00.000-04:00

Has it really been 20 days since I last posted on here? I certainly doesn't seem like it at all!

As some of you already know, I went out to MO to see my DH's grandmother. We found out we "had" to go in the middle of March when my MIL told us that she didn't think grandma would make it to summer. So we rushed around and spent waaayyy more money then we had to for this quickie trip. Come to find out, grandma has a good 20 years left on herAll that running around, worry, and money wasted! Worst part is that we were only able to spend 3 days with her over spring break but if we waited till summer (when we originally planned to go) we would have had an entire week. Thanks mom!

I did get the girls dresses done in time, but forgot to take pictures. Here are a couple with Princess's dress almost done. The ribbon around her neck became a belt. Doesn't she look soooo happy in the first pic?

We so lots of things along the way, but the girls favorite was this:

Taken in KY at one of the rest stops. Such a sweet family to let the girls take a picture!

While in MO we took a run over to Merrimac Caverns The girls had fun, well one of them did. Bossy wasn't too sure about how dark it was. The tour guide didn't turn on any lights until absolutely, positively necessary. I don't think she was all that scared though, there were a couple of times we were given the option to go back and she didn't take them up on it!

Anyway, the big claim for Merrimac is that it used to be a hideout for Jessie James. Cool huh? Have I told y'all yet that my great-grandmother met him once and swapped a horse for him? She wrote about it in her journal, positively gushing over this handsome and charming man
Here's some pics. No, the log cabin is not the hideout, it is just some old moon shiner's hut that washed down the river. You know, the people of MO are a little strange. They preserve a moon shiners hut inside a cavern and are proud that they have the only Foucault Pendulum that doesn't work.

One down, one to go!

2006-04-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

Congratulate me! I got one of the dress's done. Would you like pictures? Of course you would!

Here is Bossy running away from me. I told her to pose in the front yard and this is what she did!
Does this look like the front yard to you?Or this?
Finally I got her in the right place and asked her to pose pretty. This is what I got!

Yeah, and my hubby wonders why I'm exhausted by the end of the day.

50 lashes with a wet noodle

2006-03-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

I've been a very bad blogger. It's been way too long since my last post.

I want to thank everyone who reminded me that I'm not a rude person even when accused of it. It's not the first time I've been accused of it, and I'm sure it won't be the last. There is just that one particular personality type that hates me on general principles. I don't understand it, but after all these years I've learned to accept it. I've reached the point now where I find it funny - especially when the excuses used are sooo outrageous! And trust there have been some dozies.

But enough with that! This Blog is about my crafts dag nab it so crafts you will get. I finished the Barbie wedding dress I was designing. Here is my rather sad attempt at at an art shot. Please Note: This was taken on the first day of spring and yes that is snow and yes I do live in VA what of it? What did you expect? 80 and sunny? That was wintertime don't ya know?

Here is a better picture of the back and front. I'm still working on the veil, the final details are a killer for that.

I'm taking a short break from the knitting world and attempting this for my oldest .

This is what I have so far:

Yep just the hoop skirt and the crown, neither which is made as the pattern says too I detest half-double crochets so I used singles and winged it. I didn't think the wire was strong enough to stand up to playful kids so I starched the skirt instead. And last but not least, my oldest drew the crown she wanted so I winged that one too. I may even scrap the hoop skirt all together and use what I made as just something to sew the tulle too. I found these doll stands and I'm thinking they may work oh so much better. What do you think?

I'm also working on the kiddos Easter dresses. Here is the material they picked:

And this is the pattern is here. Princess has the blue material and is going for the one on the bottom left. Bossy on the other hand chose the flower fabric and is going for the one on the bottom right. They both decided to add sleeves to their look! Now all I need to do is get it done in time for Easter.

Rudeness

2006-03-12T18:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I found out something, there are people out there who think I'm rude. Yes, one person in particular has written to all her friends that I was very rude to her. What's funny paraphrasing the person who told me this "I've met her (me), I can't even imagine her thinking of being rude ". I admit, it has made me question myself wondering how in the world she came up with this conclusion.

The only thing I can think of is that she made a suggestion to me and I didn't "follow through" with the suggestion by doing it. I've never understood this attitude, what goes though a person's brain when they think every suggestion they make should be treated as a edict from above? I mean if one of my knitting buds suggested I use a certain yarn for a project, does that mean I have to use that yarn and only that yarn? (sneaky how I worked knitting content into this huh?) No it doesn't! According to Dictionary.com a suggestion is "a proposal offered for acceptance or rejection". It is good manners to listen to the suggestion, but that doesn't automatically result on my implementing it.

Ahhh I feel better now now for the real knitting content. I finished the Faux Mink ensemble. Here is the picture Princess took

Video Sharing at DropShots.comNot exactly the most clear of pictures, huh? So I tried to take one myself. I had help of course!

Video Sharing at DropShots.com

Lots of help!

Video Sharing at DropShots.com
But I finally got a good picture.

Video Sharing at DropShots.com
I was also inspired by a wedding dress in a shop window I passed by. So far so good, just need to work on getting the train a little longer. I'm also thinking of doing a second one with the lace work reversed. I did it this way for more of a bustle effect but I'm curious how it would look as more of a fishtail look.

Video Sharing at DropShots.com

GRRRRR!!!!!

2006-03-11T11:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, you remember in my last post I put that I reached the point for the bust shaping? You know, what you do right before the armhole - and when you are nearly done with the front piece? Well look at my sidebar. Notice something? Yep, I went backwards! My lovely children, or their father, or even possibly the cats decided to "play" with my knitting. Not only did they get rid of the crib sheet I had for keeping track of where I was (a horrible offense on its own), NO they also had to TAKE THENEEDLES OUT! Not only causing the front to partially unravel, but leaving me with no freaking clue where I am in the pattern!

Oh yes, I tried unraveling farther to some of the recognizable points in the pattern (like the increases for the side shaping) but I couldn't get the stitch count to even out. IE there was more stitches on one side of the front panel then there were on the other. I ended up unraveling the entire front to try again.

Try again I did, and failed! Cast on the correct number of stitches, did the 4 rows of garter stitch, started the pattern and had and extra 6 stitches WTF! I am obviously to upset over this problem to correct it today. Put the thing away, maybe next week I can pick it back up again. In the meantime,

It's official, I grab the silver!

2006-03-01T08:22:00.000-05:00

I won a silver medal! Yeah According to the 2006 Knitting Winter Olympics Blog anyone who made it at least 1/2 way through wins the silver. I did that! Let's cheer "Silver! Silver! You make me all a quiver!" OK so I'm not a poet, can y'all do any better?

It's a good thing they made this ruling, because I still haven't finished my sweater (which BTW will be perfect for the upcoming gorgeous weekend!) Nope, not me, instead I succumbed to the siren call of Barbie clothes. This is the start to the Faux Mink Ensemble from the Knits for Barbie book. I did substitute embroidery floss for the Cashmere she calls for - it works great, is readily available, and best of all not $5 a card . Here's the almost completed outfit. Needs to be sewn up, snaps added, and some flowers embroidered along the edges of the tube top and skirt. It's going to be very cute when done.

I did work some on my Marshmallow sweater. Gotten past the waistline and working on the bust increases. That is one thing I love about this pattern, its got bust shaping! That's very important to us full figure typesHere's a pic:

I can hardly wait till shes done. Yeah, yeah I know, if I didn't succumb to Barbie I'd be a lot closer. Well I have only one thing to say about that

The quest for gold

2006-02-27T10:22:00.000-05:00

I didn't finish my sweater, although I tried my best for most of the competition. Unfortunately my darling family saw fit to give me this really nasty stomach virus. You know you can't knit well when you have to run to the bathroom every few hours. This is as far as I got:

That's a completed back, one sleeve, and the complete bottom edging on the front. I say I qualify for the Bronze - what do y'all think. Do I get a Silver if I complete it within the next 5 days (the number of days this virus had me down)?

Even though I didn't get the Gold, I'm really pleased with my effort. I kept to one project and didn't even once think about putting it away for something else!This is a major accomplishment all by itself. Add to that, I really love how this sweater is coming out and you got one happy Olympian, and really isn't that what this whole competition was all about anyway?

EEEKKK! I'm way behind

2006-02-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

I'm so far behind. I knew I would be but the reality of it still bites! Steadily working on the sweater isn't working, I'm going to have to go into overdrive this weekend to catch back up. Yuck! Anyway here's a pic of my pitiful progress so far.
Beautifully modeled by P2 (in honor of Melanie's recent stuff on my cat posts). You can tell she's thrilled to be used in this manner. Speaking of Princesses - my DD brought this home with her! She's a real chip off the old block

6 inches and counting

2006-02-12T12:39:00.000-05:00

I've only made a little progress on my entry in the Knitting Olympics. I cast on my 151 stitches right at 2:00 PM.

Got through the 4 border rows and tried to start the lace & cable pattern. Unfortunately I need to learn how to count (yes me, the math wiz) Instead of 151, I cast on 163 so I frogged it and tried again. I swore I cast on 151 this time, even counted it 3 times! Nope, I cast on only 147 Dang! Frogged it and tried again. This time instead of counting the actual stitches, I put stitch markers between each pattern repeat. Success!!!!

Here's a pic of my progress so far (all 6 inches of it)

Ain't she pretty? I love the traveling vine lace pattern and the cable between really sets it off. (BTW please ignore the stains on the footstool, I got ~~little monsters~~ kids remember?)

Speaking of kids, they had a blast this morning playing in the snow! Yep, we finally got our first snowfall of the year. Most everyone here in dustbunny haven said "It's about time!" but I say "YUCK!!!!"
Besides tricking their mommy into coming outside only to get pelted with 3 snowballs , the kids built these snowmen.

Before you ask, I have no idea why Princess's has three horns. She couldn't explain that herself.

In the Nick of time

2006-02-10T06:55:00.000-05:00

Yeah, Finished! I got Princess's Girl Power sweater finished just in the nick of time. She loves it!! Here's a pic

Cute huh? Don't forget - the Knitting Olympics starts at 2:00 today (no matter what time zone you are in) I'll be casting on for Marshmallow. I'm seriously regretting the decision to try to make a sweater with size 4's in just 16 days. Wish me luck (I'll need all I can get!)

Over the cold but ...

2006-02-07T16:23:00.000-05:00

I'm finally over that stupid cold, but the house ... well ... frankly its scary. Go look at this cartoon and substitute House for room and you get a basic idea of what I'm up against. Why is that my family cannot pitch in and help when I need them too? No, instead my DH decides to help by washing and drying the clothes (yes, just washing and drying - folding and putting away seems to be beyond his capability) The girls tried to help by cooking. That is really scary - an eight year old and a 4 year old cooking with only their daddy to teach them the finer points of cleaning up the mess. Needless to say, I'm really tired.

While I was sick, I made the girls a couple of new Barbie outfits. Here's a pic.

You can't really tell from the pic, but the pink one has a really pretty cable running up the center of the dress (yes this is the one I made for Princess). The other is just a basic top and skirt - just as "ordered" by Bossy.

I also worked a little more on the flowers for Girl Power. Both sleeves and the two fronts are done. All that's left is the back, sewing it up, and the fringe trim. Can I get it done before Friday and the start of the KO? I hope so!

Happy birthday to me {blech!}

2006-02-02T08:23:00.000-05:00

I hate birthdays! Hate, hate, hate! First off, it's not fun to have your birthday on a Holiday. Although groundhog's day is really minor as far a holiday's goes, I got a lot of flack when I was a kid. Like I really had any control over when I was born. I didn't tell my mom to go out and shovel snow after a blizzard when she was 9 months along.

This is not a new attitude. At the ripe old age of 18, I started to hate them. Of course being that young it was for an entirely different reason - just a few years before the state rose the drinking age from 18 to 19. It happened again when I was 19 - they rose it to 21. grrrrr!

Anyway, to get my mind off of the doom and gloom I'm going to post pictures.
Here is Rascal posing with the latest of the Barbie outfits I made. You can tell he's thrilled to be used as a Male model.

Here is Girl Power all knit up and ready for the flowers. See I started them? Here's a close up

It was Princess's idea for using the Fun Fur. The flowers are coming out cute with it. I have to say, I love my knitting buddies! I sent an email out asking for bits and pieces of fun fur for the flowers and I got this!

So much Fun Fur! And given to me with huge smiles too. Kind of like they wanted to get rid of it and never see it again.

That's it for the picture fest. I need to go rest now. Yep, I'm sick on my birthday - again. Yet another birthday traditions I could due without.

I've been tagged again

2006-01-25T14:59:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged again. Thank you soooooo much Mary.

* Four jobs you have had in your life:

Waitress
Jewelry Clerk
Accounting Manager
Systems Analyst

* Four movies you could watch over and over:

none, I have a very low threshold for boredom and am always craving new stuff

* Four places you have lived:

Byron, NY
Blacksburg, VA
Fredericksburg, VA
Richmond, VA

* Four TV shows you love to watch: in no particular order

Lost
Grey's Anatomy
Survivor
Dancing with the Stars

* Four places you have been on vacation

Orlando
Myrtle Beach
Ocean City, MD
New Orleans

* Four websites you visit daily: only 4?

RichmondMommies.com
Most all of my blog roll
Comics.com
Dear Abby

* Four places you'd rather be right now:

In Bed, asleep
On the beach (asleep under an umbrella)
On the couch, asleep (hmm I seem to see a trend)
In a nice comfy lounge chair by a pool, asleep. (yep a definite trend)

* Four bloggers you are tagging:

Unlike certain other bloggers (cough, Mary, cough) I am not going to tag just anyone. I tag y'all! If you read this then consider yourself tagged

Shameless plug for me :-)

2006-01-24T07:47:00.000-05:00

I'm famous! Do y'all remember the post I made about my pets? I entered that into the sixth carnival of knitting and guess what? I got quoted! Wahoo! Read it here.

Sad day at the Dustbunnies Haven

2006-01-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

My PC's power supply finally bit the big one this morning. The poor thing has been dieing for a while now so luckily the new one is on the way - but in the meantime I'm stuck on my DH's PC. That means no pictures for a while. Yes I could hook my camera to his PC, but all of his USB ports are in the back and frankly I'm to lazy to try and get to them.

Look over to the sidebar. Notice something new? Yep, I have a brand spanking new category for FO's! The Dr. Who scarf is just the first of hopefully many more. I'm thinking of making it a flickr album. I'll have to see how ambitious I am once I get my PC fixed.

I've been working pretty steadily on Princess's sweater (now nicknamed Girl Power). The back is done and waiting patiently on a stitch holder for the fronts (I love the three needle bind off for shoulders!) The fronts have been started and are about a quarter of the way to the arm holes. Princess came up with a great idea for the embroidery and fringe. She wants it done in fun fur. I'm thinking that will be very cute!

♫ ♪ All I want to do is block the Who ♫ ♪

2006-01-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

Yep, you read that right ... The knitting portion of the Dr. Who scarf is finally done! Yeah!!!! I did have to get creative to block it though. My first thought was the dinning room table, but that was waaayyyy to short. My next thought was the long hallway, but see my previous posts about Dora. So I got creative and did this:

I wrapped it around and around our footstool. And then to protect it I covered it with an ugly table cloth:

Seems to be working. Now I wrapped it around 3 1/2 times and each side is 17 inches so the scarf should come out being just under 20 feet (not including the fringe) Is DH excited? I'll let you be the judge

So what's my next project? Well princess gave me her famous smile

and talked me into making her this:

Can I finish it before the Knitting Olympics? I think so. It is actually a very simple pattern, I should have then knitting portion done, but I'm not sure of the embroidered flowers.

Speaking of the Knitting Olympics, thanks to all your help I've decided to go for the Marshmallow sweater. Since Stephanie is allowing us to make a swatch, I'll do that at SNB Tuesday to see if I can compete while there. Wish me luck!

Citius, Alitius Fortius!

2006-01-18T17:11:00.000-05:00

Thank you Suzanne for telling me about this fun event. Stephanie (AKA the yarn harlot) is setting up a Knitting Olympics and I've decided to join in on the fun. I just need some help deciding on what project to make.

Choice number 1 is the Catch-a-wave wrap from th 7/05 issue of creative knitting. It's a simple not so little wrap that has a zigzag pattern to it. Pros: Should definitely be able to finish this in 16 days and I can use yarn from my stash for the colorful ridges. Cons: Simple (possibly tedious and boring) stitch and not a huge challenge to complete in time.

Choice #2 is Marshmallow from the 6/05 issue of Knitting. This sweater was the whole reason I bought this issue. Pros: will be a challenge to complete; I already have the yarn I want to use; and it will be done just in time for our spring weather. Cons: It's and experienced design so I don't know if I'll be able to knit on it at SNB.

Choice #3 the world map sweater from Spring/summer of 1991. I've coveted this sweater since '91 but have 1 excuse after another for not making it. Pros: I want to make it and it fits the Olympic spirit. Cons: I have no freaking clue if I even have a hope of finishing it within the 16 day time frame.

And finally choice #4 is the Nasty Dog Dragon Scarf from scarf style. I've loved this scarf since Monica first shared her wonderful book. Pros: I need a scarf that is just mine and I can use some of the leftover Dr. Who yarn for the color work. Cons: I'm not sure how much I would actually wear it.

So those are my choices. What are your thoughts? Do I go for the huge challenge of the World sweater or do I go for something easier? Should I make something I will probably wear a lot (like Marshmallow) or go for something I've been wanting to make for a while? Decisions, decisions.

Knitting with your pets

2006-01-13T07:26:00.000-05:00

Lets explore the various types of "help" I get while knitting, shall we?

First up is my oldest cat- Rascal. At the ripe old age of 13 he feels that his mommy cannot manage to knit without him. He's my supervisor, sitting next to me and watching every move I make with the needles. Never hesitating to correct my technique with a brief swat at them or a tug at the yarn. What a guy!

Dora on the other hand is all about the yarn, especially the Wool of the Andes yarn from Knipicks. Oh sure, she looks sweet and innocent here but what you don't know is that she's just waiting until I get a little looser grip on the skein. Before you can say boo - she grabs in and drags it to her basket for a thorough beating. She's the reason I have to tape the unused skeins in a box.

P2 is my good kitty. She likes to lie next to me a purr while I knit. She won't even pounce the yarn if I dangle it in front of her. She reserves her "help" for when I'm working on the PC.

Submitted to: The Carnival Of Knitting

Winter?

2006-01-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is January, Right? Then why did it get to almost 70 today? I don't get it. I took the girls to the park and Princess had a great time breaking in her new camera.

She is so happy with it that she gave her old crappy camera to Bossy. Here is a picture of me through a 4YO eyes. Don't I look great!

In other news, I've now completed 2/3rd of the Dr. Who Scarf. Do you want to see a picture? OK

Oops those appear to be the slippers I made over the weekend. Let's try again, shall we?

Nope, That's not it either. That's the Barbie dress I made this weekend. Third times the charm right?

Wrong! I sense a theme going on here. That's a Barbie vest I made this weekend with the yam Amanda gave me. Hmmm let me rustle around here .... I feel something here ... Yep this is it

Cat included for scale (and for the fact that she is glued to it whenever I take the yarn out of the box.)

Happy New Year!

2006-01-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a happy new year! Except for the lingering sadness caused by the murders and the miners, New Years went without a hitch over here at Chez Bunnies. This was the first time in years that nobody was able to stay up to see the ball fall on TV. I was too sick, DH had to go to work early in the morning, and the girls had the desire but the bodies didn't cooperate (they fell asleep on the couch before 9:30). Party Animals we're not!

I've been steadily working on the Dr. Who scarf. Here is DH modeling my work so far (58% done). Remember this is unblocked, based on how his brother's scarves preformed, I should be able to block this out to 1 1/2 to 2 times this length.

I got lots of great stuff for Christmas this year. My knitting related items are:

A Boye NeedleMaster set. I've already used this for the 2 projects I competed for my last post. A Knitting pattern a day calendar (fun stuff in there along with the fluff). A subscription to Family Circle Easy Knitting. Last but not least a great yarn tote that holds lots of my yarn stash (not all, but quite a bit!)

Christmas is over ... Time for the colds (achoo)

2005-12-31T09:52:00.000-05:00

Somehow I caught myself a cold at Christmas. Merry Christmas to me . Luckily it was a pretty quick cold and DH was home to take care of the kiddos.

Wednesday we went to the new Yankee Candle Store out in Williamsburg. Wow - That's a candle store!

No, that's not a mall, it is the candle store - full of candles and other knickknacks just for us candle freaks. Here are some of the pictures I took inside.

After spending half the day there, we went off to Colonial Williamsburg to walk around for a bit. The girls loved it and wanted to go into every building they had. They weren't able to , since I wasn't about to shell out the $$ for a full day ticket if we were only going to be there half a day. But it did give us ideas on where to go this summer.

I got 3 FO's accomplished during my bed rest. This hat came from my new 2006 Knitting Calendar (gotta love my DH!). It is for the newly adopted son of one of DH's co-workers. Here is Bossy modeling it for you - the hat has to be almost fully stretched out to fit her. She also ~~insisted on wearing~~ is proudly displaying her "new" scarf. It is actually the one I made for her sister last year but she claimed it first for this year.

The other 2 are a hat and scarf set I made for my step-MIL. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but she went out of state so we are having the celebration sometime next year. Neither of the kiddos wanted to model it, so Princess Bear offered up her services.

I'm hoping everyone of you has a great New Year!

Year in Review

2005-12-24T16:26:00.001-05:00

I read this in Lyndsey's Blog and loved the idea! So here is my Year in Review with the first line in the first post of each month. I'm starting with March since that is when I started this thing.

March 2005: Oh no! I just found we missed the Chocolate festival! I didn't know ... They really need to advertise that even better - we missed it last year too.

April 2005: Alright, I'm an idiot.

May 2005: I finished a lot of projects after my mom left. Now that I have finally gotten my house back in order, I now have the time to post the pics ... so let the picture fest begin!

June 2005: DH and Bossy were sitting down for breakfast this morning and got into a very deep conversation about birthdays. Well as deep as a 4 YO can get. I only caught a snippet, but here's what I heard.

July 2005: I don't have a awful lot of energy, but I wanted to write a quick post about our vacation (before this old brain forgets most of the details)

August 2005: It's a good thing I already finished my coffee before reading the comments on this Roger Vs. The Bright Orange Semi-Gods. or I would have coffee everywhere!

September 2005: Well the summer is now officially over in dustbunny haven, Princess starts 2nd grade today. (How in the world did she get that old so quickly? It took me forever to get that old, or least it felt like it!)

October 2005: Y'all remember way back when ... OK 6 days ago ... when I posted that I was going to promise not to make anything until the Christmas presents were done? Well I lied

November 2005: DH took the girls trick or treating on Halloween and I got to stay home and hand out candy. Boy oh boy was that a great deal! I don't know why, but we got zero trick-or-treaters this year instead of the hundreds we usually get. You know what that means - LEFTOVERS! Yumm!

December 2005: We have power Contrary to what I believed (evil spirits possessing my home) the problem lies with Verizon.

I had forgotten how many FO's I did this year. WOW! But then that's why I wanted to do this Blog, to track what I actually accomplish rather than being depressed by all of the projects I start, then put down, and don't pick up again.

Free to good home :-)

2005-12-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

I wish, oh how I wish, that there was a machine like what I saw on Kim Possible. In the episode, Drakken went to a super-villains conference and had a demonstration of a evil-sucking machine. Can you imagine the possibilities of having one of those and tweaking it enough to suck the badness out of kids? My girls soooo need it now ... way way too much pre-Christmas excitement. Not quite this bad, but really really close!

The girls were good all morning yesterday so I felt safe about taking them to one of the mall play areas. WRONG! I don't know who I took there, but they weren't my children. We got home in time to get a call from mom. I offered to ~~ship them up ASAP~~ allow them to visit ... but she hesitated ... heard the ~~bedlam~~ sweet voices of her grandchildren ... and then said no. No? This from the women who complains about not having enough time with them? {sigh} I guess I'm stuck with them.

I have not accomplished a lot on the knitting front, being so busy chasing after the kiddos. Luckily I'm almost finished with the Christmas gifts. Just need to finish stitching the binding on the Crimes of Fashion scarf. Do y'all want to have final pictures modeled by the ~~hellions~~ kiddos? Or would you rather wait and see if I can get the recipients to model them for me? Oh, and for the record ... The Dr. Who scarf will not be done for Christmas.

I'm doing nuttin' but knitting

2005-12-21T09:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I made great strides in my knitting - I got almost 10% more the the Dr. Who scarf done!

Of course I wasn't able to get much more accomplished. You know, minor things like laundry, vacumning, finishing the Christmas cookies that I started Sunday, and mailing off my Christmas present to my Sis. I guess that means minimal knitting for me today so I can catch back up. I hate it when I get behind, it takes so freaking long to catch back up!

For your viewing pleasure I thought I would share my video of the girls "helping" me clean the living room. They "worked" so hard at it that I wanted to save a copy for posterity and share it with y'all. Aren't you "jealous" of how "helpful" my girls are?

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To here the song I "borrowed my title from - click here

I've been a bad girl

2005-12-19T08:20:00.000-05:00

You know that post I made about working an hour a day on the Dr. Who Scarf? While I broke it this weekend. Let's see ... if I add up all of the time I even thought about working on it ... hmmm ... I think I may have 1 minute for the whole weekend. That 1 minute would have been the amount of time that it took to fish my wallet out of the knitting bag.

Saturday I worked on my niece's gift. I decided to rip the convertible mitten that I made and just make a plan mitten since I was not sure if it would fit her. I got one done and figured I would get the other done Sunday. Instead of knitting the scarf, we went to a new (for us) restaurant. For any of y'all with families, Cheeburger Cheeburger is a great place to go. DH got his picture on the wall by eating their one-pounder. Of course he now says "If the girls hadn't wanted it so bad I wouldn't have done it". Yeah right! He was the one who ordered it in the first place and he was the one who told the girls they could be in the picture with him. So if y'all ever get to the Cheeburger Cheeburger here, take a look at the wall and see if you can find them (hint: they are on the wall opposite the bar)

Sunday I had good intentions. I was going to make Christmas cookies in the morning, knit all afternoon, and go to a cookie swap in the evening. That was the plan, unfortunately plans change. I ended up helping Princess and Bossy clean up their rooms since they claimed they had no clothes. Actually it was a true claim for Princess who hid all of her dirty clothes in the toy box instead of the hamper. Now I ask you, Is it that much harder to put your clothes in the hamper than in the toy box? I mean really, how silly can one girl get?

So that was my morning, come afternoon I still had the cookies to make. Got the cut-outs dough made and in the fridge and started the eggnog cookies. That's when I discovered that the pecans I thought I bought were actually walnuts and were used in the coffeecake DH made. So Off to the store. I made a "quick" stop" to get gas and milk from Costco (cheapest in town) before heading over to Kroger to get the pecans.

Get home and get the cookies almost done when I saw that we didn't have enough nutmeg. So again, another quick trip to the store. This time I thought I would be clever and avoid the Kroger crowd by getting the nutmeg at the dollar store. Guess what? They were all out of nutmeg! Go to Kroger and they were out of ground nutmeg! What in the world are all these people doing with all of that Nutmeg? Luckily there was another Kroger pretty close that did have Nutmeg.

Get home again and make the cookies. By now it is 5:00 ... time to start dinner. Notice something missing in this day? Yep, NO Knitting accomplished what so ever! I think I'm in withdrawal!

I sure hope today will be better.

Breaking news!

2005-12-15T07:44:00.000-05:00

Yep, y'all have read that right ... I've now officially gotten 1/3 of the Dr. Who scarf completed! It's unblocked length is currently 3 feet so I expect this sucker to be 9 feet (or more depending on how I block it). That's almost twice as long as the average 60 inch scarf for those of you having a hard time visualizing this ~~monstrosity~~ labor of love.

In other news ... I've been steadily working on Christmas presents (still!) and I have a few more to show off.

This one here was earmarked for one of my RichmondMommies moderators but Princess claimed it for her teacher.

These two are also completed and ready to be sent out!

And since this post doesn't have nearly enough pictures ... Here's the kiddos in one of their rare moments of entertaining themselves. (why oh why does that always involve more mess for me to clean up?) Here they are making some snowflakes for the tree.

Early start on resolutions

2005-12-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

I know I'm really really early, but I wanted to get a head start on my new years resolutions. In 2006 I promise to:

1. Work at least 1 hour per day on the Dr. Who Scarf until it is done. And I bet y'all thought I wouldn't have any knitting content - shame on you

2. In honor of BIL#2's wedding in August ... I promise to try and lose enough weight to look good at the wedding. Here's the plan (with help from My Virtual Model.com )

3. Last but not least - I promise to knit myself something fabulous for accomplishing those two goals.

Wish me luck!

Caught in the act!

2005-12-07T09:39:00.000-05:00

Last night I set up a trap. You see, I bought a new rug for our entryway and it never seems to be where I put it. So I set up a little trap figuring I could catch the culprit(s) - I fully expected the kittens to be the evil-doers. Here is a before pic of what the rug should look like:

Nice, simple rug right? Well I set my camera down with the self timer on. Went into the living room and came back after the flash. This is what I got:

Not exactly what I expected. Here I am blaming the kittens and it was the big dude the whole time!

I have more pics for y'all. These are the Barbie outfits I've finished in the past couple of days. I was going to use Bossy's photos but I thought y'all might actually like to see the outfits rather than a big blur (she doesn't hold the camera still yet)

I also wanted to share my Christmas tree forest. DH and Princess made these while I was at SNB last night. Very cute!

I loved reading Diana's and Mary's snow stories for my last post. Too funny! I don't remember any rituals to get school closing - but I do remember that few closings because the busses wouldn't start (someone unplugged them sometime during the night - NO it wasn't me - No really, it wasn't me honest!)

I also remember DH's first view of the snow they could get in Upstate NY during the blizzard of '93. "It's not snow ... It's glaciation!" he said. Granted it was a record breaking 30-something inches in 24-hours - but glaciation? I think not. He really got a shock when we headed back to school and got stuck in WVA. He thought we would outrun it - NOT! We can laugh now but it wasn't fun at the time.

Don't Panic

2005-12-05T11:09:00.000-05:00

NEWS BULLETIN: Apparently that four-letter word stuff has arrived here at Chez Bunnies and general panic has started to set in . Princess had one ear glued to the radio just hoping for those fateful words "school is closed" She had one brief moment of hope in hearing her school was opening late - but she was wrong, it was the school west of us .

Bossy is giving me updates every 5 minutes on the strength and accumulation visible from all of the windows. If only I could convince her that she needs to put on her coat every time she heads outside.

Dh had to call and rub it in that it was there. He actually enjoys the stuff - go figure!

At first the kittens couldn't figure out what that white stuff was and attacked it as it hit the window (very cute). Then that stuff got heavier and heaver and now the are just running back and forth between all of the windows. It's almost as if they think the sky is falling or something (and I thought I was bad!)

There is no knitting updates for this post - I haven't picked up those needles all weekend. Instead I worked on a few Christmassy dresses for the girl's Barbies. Bossy is taking the pictures outside while I write this. Aren't you glad your not one of her dolls? BRRRRR!

Celebrate good times ♪♫♪ come on!

2005-12-01T08:05:00.001-05:00

We have power Contrary to what I believed (evil spirits possessing my home) the problem lies with Verizon. Sometimes I swear this lousy company is out to get us for some reason (we have issues!) Apparently when they reran the telephone lines over the summer, they put a junction box right on top of our power line and nicked it. The last freeze/thaw cycle we had moved the lines just enough to cause our problems. It's temporarily fixed now, with the permanent fix to be done soon. I'm hoping they will do it on a Sat or Sun and charge it all back to Verizon (overtime and all) for doing such a stupid thing. (again,we have issues with Verizon)

To celebrate - I'm posting pics of my DH modeling the latest scarf I've completed (for BIL#3's girlfriend)

and here's a close-up to see the colors. I love how it turned out and want to keep it for myself!

And not to be left out - here's Bossy with her new Barbie clothes. I've had them knit up for a while now, but just now got them finished.

Anyone know a good electrician ?

2005-11-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

I am having some very strange problems over here at Chez Dustbunny. I think my house is possessed .

It all started yesterday with the downstairs lights growing dimmer and dimmer. Then it spread to the Fridge (on a completely different circuit) and then to the freezer (on third circuit) Pretty soon I had no power to half the circuits in the house . Then I took a shower and boom the power returned.

This morning I'm having similar problems. I turned on the coffee maker and the lights started to dim. . Sooo ... Anyone know a good electrician (or voodoo priestess! ) who can come a purge my home of the evil spirits who are robbing me of power?

♫♪♫ People Are Strange ♪♫♪

2005-11-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

I know I'm weird, but I enjoy taking those online tests to find out how different I really am. I thought I'd share some of them with y'all.

How Weird Are You?

You Are 70% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?

But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

Personality Type

I discovered that only 5% of the population are like me because my personality type is:

Extraverted - see I told ya!
intuitive - I just know things. Now how do I convince DH that fact?
Thinking - I love to analyze - some would say overanalyze (DH)
Perceiving - I like to take in new information. DH would say "Can't you just make a decision already?".

You can read about it here or listen to an audio file here if you want to know more. I'm in good company; Thomas Edison, Weird Al Yankovick, Alexander the Great and even "Q" (from Star Trek--The Next Generation) were all ENTP. See what you are here

What kind of sheep are you?

{tongue firmly in cheek} Are you sitting down? I mean I don't want the shock of it all to harm you in any way! Apparently I march to my own drummer

You are a -
Neutral Sheep!
Congrats - you do what you like! You make your own rules, not follow the flock!

Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna
Shocking ain't it? Of course I kinda figured that out already :-) Mom read somewhere that Aquarians are born 20 years too early and says "Yep, that sounds about right".

After thanksgiving update

2005-11-25T12:03:00.000-05:00

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone, but luckily left lots and lots of leftovers for us! For those few of you who may be interested, our dinner consisted of a Good Eats Roast Turkey, Arnold Herb seasoned Stuffing, Mashed Taters, Biscuits (hey we're southern what can I say!), Pumpkin Bread, and MIL's green bean casserole (I've been told that I can't make it "right" even though I use the same recipe on the back of the can). Desert consisted of Banana Pudding (Again Southern folks!), Apple Pudding Pie, and Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake (great flavor but strange texture).

I've accomplished quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. Here is a couple of Barbie outfits that I crocheted using patterns from ABCentral. I love them since they are super quick and easy but still cute (IE Worsted weight yarn and size E hook)

Here is the start to my niece's gift. I made the hat and had just enough funfur left over to do a cuff for a pair of convertible mittens (1 done, 1 to go)

The Wednesday before last I went on a MNO and painted this at one of the local ceramics studios, I was a whole lot of fun and quite a change from working with yarn.

To the delight of my DH - I started the Dr. Who Scarf last Wednesday with the Richmond Knitting group. After working for 2 days I've accomplished a whopping 7½% of the 1,040 rows of the pattern, I'm hoping I'll get it done in my lifetime.

I'll leave you with proof that the kitties can get along (no matter what Rascal keeps trying to tell me)

AAAKKK I've been tagged!

2005-11-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

I've been working on this poor little Blog for almost a year now and have been good (or very lucky) about avoiding being tagged. While I always enjoy reading them ... I kinda feel sorry for the poor ~~suckers~~ victims. Well no more - thanks to Melissa, I've been ~~victimized~~ given the opportunity to participate in meme.

So here it goes - 20 things about me:

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Upstate NY.

My High school was so small that even though I graduated in the top 10, I did not make it into the top 10% of the class.

I tend to refer to snow as "that four letter word"

Although I am now a SAHM, our original plan was for DH to stay home with the kids (and write) while I brought home the bacon. Unfortunately the universe had other plans.

The first thing I knit was something for my baby cousin (I was 8 or 9 at the time). It was supposed to be booties but a) Mom didn't teach me how to inc or dec and b) I don't remember ever finishing.

My next project was a sweater for myself when I was in high school. Yes, I've never let a little thing like not knowing how stop me After that, I don't remeber when I made what.

I have a huge stash of yarn. Most if it came from auctions and from relatives who no longer knit.

I started making things for Barbie when I was in college. My first few items went to the local woman's shelter, then I had my niece to make stuff for. Now I make things for my own DD's.

I meet my DH in college and he followed me home one day. I haven't been able to get rid of him since ;-)

My DH died at birth and then again at 18 months. OK this isn't about me, but it's an interesting factoid anyway!

Halfway done now

I had a scholarship made just for me. IE I "somehow" missed the deadline to apply for the Regent's scholarship but since my ACT score was so high my guidance counselor was able to talk the board of Regents into giving me one anyway.

Christmas just isn't Christmas without the Grinch!

I actually like to knit with acrylic.

My sister is only 50 weeks older than I am but we are as different as night & day. She looks like Mom, I look like Dad. I love crafts and can't do sports - She loves sports and can't do crafts. I excel at math - she excels at English. You get the picture.

I wrote my first computer program in when I was 10 (in 1976 - and no that is not a typo.) We had a PET computer with a whopping 8K of memory and a tape drive. Dad taught me BASIC on it (since he was a programmer)

AAAKKK!!!! I'll be turning 40 next year! Now I qualify for the "old people's insurance". You know the one - "Just a dollar a day blah blah blah" GAG

OK getting really really hard now

I actually enjoy watching cartoons with my children.

Knitting is my passion right now, but I also sew, crochet, and many other crafty type things.

Just 2 left!

Spring is my favorite season.

I am an extremely shy extrovert (yes that does sound like an oxymoron doesn't it?) In High School I got votes for both "quietest" and "most talkative".

Yeah! I'm done. Hope this will tide y'all over until I get around to taking pics of my FO's and WIP's.

At least I'm not the only one.

2005-11-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

At least I'm not the only one in this household being tormented by the younger crowd. Poor Rascal was sleeping quite peacefully on my lap when he was rudely awakened by that interlopper!.

Progress Report and Misc. Stuff

2005-11-07T07:48:00.000-05:00

So, I thought I would give y'all a progress report Let's see, I've finished knitting all three Christmas scarves. But I do need to add the fleece back to the crime of fashion scarf. I'm just waiting until November 10th to buy it (when it goes on sale at Joann's for 50% off). I still have one more Christmas gift to make, a hat for my niece, but I want it to match the scarf my mom is making for her. I know what yarn she used, Fun Fur, but I don't know what color way. Whenever I ask her about it, I get the same old song and dance I get when I ask for the Carrot Pudding recipe. You know the one:

Me: "Can you tell me ...?"
Mom: "Don't you know? I know I told you."
Me. "No, I've asked many times but you haven't told me."
Mom: "Oh, OK ... I'll have to find it and let you know next time you call."
Me: "{silent grrrrrrr}"

Now repeat that same sequence the next time, and the time after that, ad infinitum.

I did pick up my needles and made this:Princess has claimed this as her own so I'll be making another one (opposite color way) for Bossy.

Now for some insights into my world.

I call this "Why I don't Iron":
This was after setting up the ironing board then going back to get the iron. You can see the pattern pieces I was going to press under Rascal.

I call this masterpiece "These scissors can only cut paper? ... Yeah right."
With wonderful moments like these is it any wonder I'm going completely insane?

Awww that sounds so sweet

2005-11-06T19:04:00.000-05:00

So do'all think this is me? Because I certainly don't (OK I'll admit to the mood swings but I hate Mauve!) and kiddos defiantely don't. In fact Princess burst out laughing.

Your Birthdate: February 2

You're so intuitive, it's like you have a sixth, seventh, and eighth sense.

You connect with others freely and easily - and you tend to have many best friends.

Warm and caring, it's hard for you to close your heart to anyone.

Affection is like air for you - you need to give and receive it to survive.

Your strength: Your universal compassion

Your weakness: Your unpredictable mood swings

Your power color: Mauve

Your power symbol: Butterfly

Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Halloween goodies

2005-11-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

DH took the girls trick or treating on halloween and I got tostay home and hand out candy. Boy oh boy was that a great deal! I don't know why, but we got zero trick-or-treaters this year instead of the hundreds we usually get. You know what that means - LEFTOVERS! Yumm!

Here is Princess's pic:

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and here is Bossy's:

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Why the heck am I up?

2005-10-22T00:23:00.000-04:00

I've been really busy busy over here at Chez Bunnies. In fact I'm completely worn out. So why am I up?!? It's 12:30 on the freaking morning and I've been up since 4:00 AM ... so again Why am I up? I tried to get to sleep, really I did, I even fell asleep for a couple of seconds there on the couch. Then my lovely DH woke me up and sent me to bed where my eyes flew open and my mind started racing and now I'm up! I hate it when that happens.

Oh well, it's good news for y'all ... I got pictures! (Hopefully my family is not reading this since they are of their Christmas presents) Here we go:

Here is my only finished masterpiece: The Manly scarf done in shades of orange for BIL#3

I had lots of "help"while making it.

I'm in the process of making Crimes of Fashion for BIL #2. Since I am using a worsted weight yarn, I am using #3 needles instead of #4 but it is still slightly wider than Marnie's. I like it though since it is also coming out nice and warm.

For my my future SIL, I'm almost done with Guilia on the Adiafil site. Here's the scarf, with a pretty accurate color...

and here is a close up of the crochet edging. Anyone know why a picture of a brown scarf taken on a lime green blanket would come out purple? Oh well, can't wait to see what it looks like after being blocked.

I haven't cast on for DH's Dr. Who scarf so it looks just the same as before (except wrapped up tightly in a tapped up box since that is the only way I can keep the yarn safe from the monsters) I'm hoping that there will be some leftovers for the sleeves on this - Dallas Short Jacket on the Adiafil site.

Well it is now 1:30AM and I am finally yawning. I think I'll got back to bed and stare at the ceiling again. Night all!

Please help me!

2005-10-19T13:17:00.000-04:00

Bossy was being ... well ... I guess you could say she was being herself. Fortunately I had my camera so y'all get to share in my misery. BTW sorry for the video being so dark.

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Y'all not planning this for me are you?

2005-10-14T09:59:00.000-04:00

Go here to see -Six Chix comic

Which scarf should I make?
	Branching Out - from Knitty
	Fairy godmother scarf
	Field of Flowers

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