Bright Idea #436

Well I had another one of my bright ideas this weekend. Yes... head for cover now!

My original bright idea was to get the yard work done on the front flower beds, but that quickly took a back seat when Derek and I forgot the landscape edging, and bought a new patio set instead! We had a wonderful barbecue Sunday afternoon, since I had Sunday evening off for Victoria Day. We bought a pretty small set, but it fits in perfectly with the scale of our deck. It ended up that one of the deck boards for the back step completely rotted out. Derek removed it and covered it up with one of the indoor/ outdoor area rugs.
After much discussion on Monday afternoon over what to do, we decided that our best and most cost-effective option was to replace the back step section of the deck. After quite a bit of figuring out how to do it, and what exactly we needed, off to Home Depot we went. We came home not quite $100 poorer, and with a bunch of wood and nails. It took the better part of the evening but we had a nice, new, and best of all SAFE back step by the time we all went inside at 9.

I talked to Wayne secretly, and we decided to go get some deck stain and surprise Derek by getting it painted before he got home from work on Tuesday. The bit of rain we got ended up giving us a bit of trouble, but Wayne got a good coat of stain on it before everyone got home from school. He put another coat of it on after supper, so it's all nicely protected until Derek levels out the boards that we needed to "fudge" in order make it work out for the best, and puts the skirting on the one side.

I painted the first board just so that I could say that I helped, but 99.9% of the job was done by him. Even though these are "in progress" pics, the finished job looks fabulous!

Now for your viewing pleasure!

The Evolution of Dance. This is 6 minutes of the funniest video that I've seen in ages. You are going to need the kleenex from laughing so hard! Make sure you have broadband since a 6 minute video on dial-up is just WRONG!! and you'll need your speakers on for this one too. It's kid-safe too BTW! Leave me a comment on how many of them you knew!

Lissa's sweater nearly done.

Here is a pic I took on Saturday to help me decide which set of buttons to use for her sweater. I've really been taking my time with the second sleeve. I got the first sleeve done in less than two days... probably a reward for being so good when I went to Ram's on Thursday to get the dpns. I've done the collar on the sweater, and woven a few ends in as well. The top button is a kitty cat, and the bottom two are a princess castle and crown. With encourangement from others, I have decided to go with the princess themed buttons.
I added this picture because the colours appeared different in the two shots I took. The pattern is from a Bernat booklet. The lilac yarn is Bernat Satin in Stardust, and the eyelash yarn is LB Fun Fur in Fiji.
This is a close-up of the buttons.

The countdown begins...

Well Derek just phoned me 20 minutes ago and he's on his way back with the kids. We're expecting him back around noon tomorrow unless he needs to stop to sleep. My guess is with those two in the truck with him, they'll annoy him awake, and he'll come straight home just so that he can go into our bedroom, and lock the door behind him!

Hello? Ram's? Do you have any Calgon in stock?

I think I need some Calgon yarn... Derek is about half-way to Alberta now to pick up two of our kids. I'm going to have an influx of teenagers here from about this time tomorrow until the end of August... Calgon, take me away!

Distracted to the point of destruction...

I don't know what's wrong with me these days... I've been in such a funk, that even Derek offering to buy me the braided breast cancer scarf kit couldn't snap me out of it, or at least briefly enough to *actually* let him buy it for me. Yes, that's right folks, I turned down the offer of the century {well at least the offer of the month or year from him}. I've admired that kit in my knitting mags for at least a year or more now, and found it at Ram's when we were there on Saturday getting the rest of the Mission Falls that I needed to finish his socks. Part of it was that it was $55, part of it was that I have several scarf kits, and scarves in mind already, and the most important part was that I just wasn't in the mood for *me* yarn.

One thing that's been bothering me some lately is the sheer number of WIPs I have. What's stupid is that I can't even promise myself that I won't cast on, or do a starting chain for any more. I started the UFO project to try and clear a few UFOs, and that made a teeny tiny dent, but I've more than made up for *that* progress by starting who knows how many more projects since. I can't even seem to focus long enough to concentrate on just one project to get it done. I want to become a more monogamous knitter/ crocheter, but I just don't seem to have the will power needed to do that.

So sick it's hilarous!!!

Thanks to a post on KH yesterday I discovered this site. There's a link to a church sign creator, as well as a warning label creator. Here's the ones I made up for Derek, Lyz and myself:

Why do I do this to myself? Episode 142

Well I've gone and done it again. I mentioned it briefly yesterday in my post, but didn't get into details... WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?!??!?

Here's the scoop: I'm doing up a new cardigan for Lissa, right? It's a really easy and really cute purl dot pattern, right? It should be really easy, and my precautions of doing a size 4 instead of a size 2 are unfounded, right? WRONG!!!

Since I'm so lazy about seaming -- my Skacel pinwheel pullover is STILL waiting for a few seams to be done -- I decided to do it up in one piece rather than separate fronts and back. Well from that decision on, this sweater has been a comedy of errors! Firstly, I neglected to deduct two stitches from the back portion, and only did one. That meant that I had to frog all the way back to the beginning after I had the first row done. Next, I didn't increase one stitch after the ribbing on the fronts, so I had to frog back three rows to redo that. Then I realized that I didn't put in the button bands, so I had to tink back and use my crochet hook to fix the stitches on each end for about 4 rows. Then, I had to readjust the dot pattern on the back, so that meant I had to frog half a row of work. The last mistake I made was neglecting to put in the buttonholes. That required frogging the border on one side back about 10 rows, and then reknitting it back up to my work using dpns... *PHEW!!!*

That was all within the first 2 inches or so of work! I'm at the 5 inch mark right now, and I'm putting it aside while I work the heel of my Cascading Leaves sock... hopefully this pattern of errors won't continue! I have to admit though, most of these errors have been caused by doing the whole body in one piece, and not fully reading the instructions for the fronts before going on. At least I had the forethought to do it up in a size 4... she will at least have a bit of a chance to wear it before she grows out of it... once I finally get it done!!!

This and that...

I've been so busy with stuff, and I still seem to be just spinning my wheels! I'm about half-way into my first sock of a pair of Cascading Leaves. It's turning out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. I will be turning the heel on them today, and then it will be smooth sailing to the end.
I started a cute dot stitch cardigan for Lissa out of some Bernat Satin, and will be putting a fur collar and cuffs on it with some LB Fun Fur Prints. The pattern for it is here, it's the pink one on the cover, and I'm doing it in lilac. I've changed the pattern to work it in one piece, and it's driving me nuts with all the silly errors I'm making because of that.
I've also got an afghan on the go. I'm doing up a ripple pattern for Derek in RH Comfort, Bernat Soft Boucle, and Bernat Harmony. It's turning out really great, and if I can stop working on other things at home long enough to make some progress on it, he might actually get it this year!!!
The last project that I'm concentrating on right now is a cute summer tote bag that I'm crocheting out of some Lustersheen I picked up... I still haven't decided if I want to do it double-stranded or not, so it might be getting frogged yet again!!!!