Fishy Dishy to Keep My Mind Off of Sick Fishy... =o(

Well Nemo isn't doing too good today. I noticed that his tank had a *very* bad case of algae growth. I changed half of his water last night and put on the air pump. He can't stand the movement in the water, but it needs the circulation right now. He doesn't seem to be swimming right, and I think his face is whiter than usual. It's pretty silvery, so I'm going to try and not worry about that right now. At least his back is 100% healed up, and he absolutely loves the bell cave I bought him to use instead of the one that scraped his back to begin with. He still comes to greet me whenever he sees me, so that's a good sign too. The other two fish are doing quite well. Dory is going nuts swimming laps {as usual!}, and Nus still plays hide-and-seek with everybody. He will come out and look at me sometimes, and he won't always wait until I've put the lid back on his aquarium before he comes out from his plant to eat the food I've given him!

I started a granny's fave cloth on Monday out of some really cool {and BRIGHT!!!} cotton I had picked up in the spring. This particular colour is a vari of lime green, electric blue and yellow. Sure cheers up a dreary job! I finished off that cloth earlier today and decided to make a fishy dishy out of it too... in honour of Nemo.

I finished the second sock for Rebecca on Sunday and cast on the stitches to finally make me a pair. Unfortunately, I kept procrastinating and I didn't get the toes grafted in time for the girls to wear their new socks for the first day of school today. That's okay, because I went out with my friends on Monday night to play pool, and Derek and I went out last night to play pool and had a blast.

Our latest additions!!!

Sheesh... what kind of fishy mom am I anyway? I haven't posted pics of my bettas, better known as Siamese fighting fish, yet! Anyway... here goes!
This one is Dory, our first betta. He likes his little tank and swims laps incessantly! He also doesn't like Derek very much, as he tends to "show" whenever Derek looks at him! He is actually the freindliest of our fish, and the kids just love him. It's sooo sweet to see Lissa go running into our room and call "fishy, fishy, door-wee, door-wee".
This one is Nemo. He is also pretty active... to the point that he's gone and scraped his back up pretty badly. He was swimming in and out of his cave, and got his back pretty good. I got Nemo when Derek decided that he had to have a fish... since I was having so much fun with Dory! Thank heavens for Buy One, Get One deals at the fish store! All Nemo cost us was the tank... the toys... the food... hmmm... not quite so free after all! *LOL*
Next there's Nus... he's Derek's fish. He lives up to his name {Nus means wolf} by being a loner and and very wary of everyone. He's starting to get used to me, and will even come out of his plant to eat when I'm standing there!
Dory is the only one of the three that will eat flaked food, and none of them will eat the pellets. We finally got the other two eating bloodworms, and of course Dory goes nuts for those too! While out hunting for some complete food that they all liked, I found a really neat fish store that breeds bettas. Some of the colours they had there were simply stunning, as well as ones with fringed tails. I can see a Marlin and a Bruce coming home soon! *ROFL*

I've gone socky!!!

Well in my endeavours to cut back/ quit smoking, I've been going outside to have a smoke instead of sitting here at the pooter chain-smoking all the time. I bring my sock out with me and I'm getting about 5 or more rows done on it each time! For the second sock of the second pair, I've got about 15 more rows until I start the toe shaping, so with luck, I'll have that done and I'll be able to graft both socks tomorrow when I get home from work and take some pics then. These ones are Jackie's and I did them up with Bernat Sox in Hot Tamale. One ball makes one pair, and these are my first ones ever!!!

It's Derek's payday today and I have a *ton* of running around to do. I'm hoping to hit a different WM {or three!!} to see what yarn they have on clearance. I'd love to get my hands on some more of the RH Casual Cot'n. That's what I made my top out of and I have a few other things I'd like to make out of it. And of course, I can always use more sock yarn! *LOL* The regular price at WM is about $3.24 and it should all be on clearance for $2 a ball. That should keep me socking for quite a while {I'm *not* going to mention the {at least} a dozen balls of it I have in the craft room ATM *teehee*}.

OH WOW!!! While going to grab the link for the pattern for these socks, I found a new pattern on the Bernat site for ones done in worsted weight... YAY!!!! It looks like the pattern is multi-sized, so that means socks for everyone... ohboyohboyohboy!

Hmmm... wonder what we did to upset her?

Geesh... it's been MONTHS since I've been here! But I guess a lot of that has to do with my state of mind lately. There's been a lot going on, and I've been going through a pretty major slump design-wise. I've been mostly knitting lately, and I've got the bug for patterns that combine both knitting *and* crochet. The top I found on the Coats site sure worked up beautifully! All I need to do is finish up the lace edging on one sleeve and sew it up. Then I've got a new going out top for my Monday night adventures!!!

Anyhoo... I designed a camera sock this week. I'm quite impressed with myself and want to keep up with the designing and getting stuff done and all that! You can find it here. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Oh well, I'm *supposed* to be sleeping {or at least resting} right now since I called in sick to work with more chest pains... out!! out!! with me and I'll get some sprucing up done on the Bistro site and on here tomorrow and over the weekend I hope. I've seen sooo many cool blogs lately, and I want a cool one too! *whine*

Laters!!!

Quack, quack, quack!!!

Well the pattern for the ducky dishy is posted! I finished my feather and fans cloth last night, but I didn't read the pattern properly and it's too short! LOL!!! That's okay, if I would have made it the size called for in the pattern, it would have been big enough to be a dish towel, rather than just a dish cloth. I got some of my shawl worked on last night while watching "The Incredibles", and got a few rows of the ribbing on my sweater done today. Well... off to peruse my newest acquisitions -- March DC, April MC, and Women's Life Country Afghans 2005.

Another fishy in "dah wah-dah"!

Well I finally finished the fishy dishy I had on my needles since last week when Brian and I were doing all the file transfers. I've started a feather and fans dishcloth. The pattern calls for 5.00 mm needles, but I had 4.00 mm or 5.50 mm here at my desk. I decided to use the 5.5o mm. The pattern is going quite well, but it's hard trying to keep 58 stitches on my super shorty needles! I just finished my 9th row, and the pattern is starting to appear. The pounder of cotton I'm using is Bernat's Marble Print. It sure is a cute one IMO. The ball is finally starting to look deflated, so probably some time in the next week I'll have it all used up.

I didn't work on the Boa scarves at all today since I was concentrating on finishing the fishy dishy. I won't be able to work on them now for nearly 2 weeks since the kids are home for spring break next week. That's okay... I'll be able to finish off my current ball of cotton yarn.

While out shopping tonight I found some royal blue and some yellow yarn for the Everton ghan. I'm pretty sure I have some of the yellow in my stash, but I'll have to wait a couple of weeks before I can pick up the pounder of royal that was there. Hopefully by then, work will have gotten some RHSS in so I can get some samples of that too. Since April has 3 of the kids birthdays, and the beginning of June is our anniversary as well as Derek's b-day, I'm hoping I can get the yarn purchased in mid-June. Rebecca's birthday is then too, but I think I can squeeze in the yarn too. Especially since I start back on five days a week in two weeks, there should be no reason we can't afford it then. That will give me well over 6 months to complete it.

So much yarn... so little time!

Well like I don't have enough to do already! My best male friend is getting married next year, and I've finally figgered out what I'm going to make them for a wedding present. It's gonna be a big project and take some time to design as well as make. I also have to send out some samples of yarn to the UK for colour approval! It's gonna be a graphed afghan of the Everton Football club, so colour *is* critical. It's gonna be a surprise for his partner! Little does Brian know, but I'm gonna be talking to his partner to make another gift that's a complete surprise to him! *teehee*

I'm still working on finishing up little projects here, trying to clear out some partial balls of yarn. I got a really cute afghan pattern last night that will make a neat looking scrappy, so that will take care of some of the acrylic I've got laying around. I'm also trying to finish up the Boa scarves that were supposed to be Christmas gifts. Hmmm... maybe I should have called this post "So many UFOs, so little time!" *ROFL* Oh, and I nearly forgot... three of the kids have birthdays in April, and I'm behind on making their hope chest items.

I better get hooking!!!

I haven't posted in *HOW* long???

Wow... has it really been over a month since I posted? Sheesh! Life sure seems to have a way of catching up with me these days! I've been doing a lot of knitting though, and that's a good thing. It relaxes me. I sorta designed a dishcloth for St. Patrick's Day -- I took a chart that Lyz had found for me, and wrote it into a knitting pattern. Even though it's only a few days before Easter, I still want to do 2 Easter-themed ones... a duck and a chicken probably. I did get a new crochet design done -- a water bottle holder. I will have to figure out my new digital camera and take a picture of it {and get the pattern written up and posted to the Bistro}. I haven't decided yet whether or not to have it as a chargable pattern or not... decisions, decisions.

The fish swims!!!

Well I finished my cloth a little while ago and I'm now casting on the stitches for my Little Houses one. I'm sooo happy to have finished something... it's my first FO of 2005!

OMG!!! Has it really been a week since I posted???

I can't believe it! It's actually been a week since I've posted! Anyhoo, the fishy dishy is nearly ready to swim. I'm hoping to finish it today as I think I've only got about 8 more rows to do on it! The next cloth for Dishcloth Month will be the Little Houses cloth. I'm soooo far behind everyone else at NCB Knitting Chat right now! Then I'm going to be doing the Breast Cancer Awareness cloth. If I remember correctly, BCA month is February, so it's only fitting.

So busy knitting I forgot to post!

Well I've been so busy knitting on my dishcloth and crocheting on Derek's slippers, that I forgot all about posting to my blog! Well, that and sleep deprivation. Today is the start of my "weekend" so sometimes I sleep during the day, sometimes I do not. Today I didn't get a chance to take a nap, so I'm nearing 24 hours awake straight.
I've got about 2 inches knitted so far, and it's going pretty good. The SSKs are getting easier with each row. I found out about another dishcloth today that I thought might be fun to do as well. I'm still hunting for the slippers pattern... it's probably listed in the links section of the chat group! LOL

I actually got something accomplished!!!

Yes... BION, I got something accomplished on a work day!!! Last night before work I worked a bit on the project for the Bistro... it sure felt good to crochet before work! I've been working on it a bit this morning too, so I will have it done shortly. I also went digging and found my knitting tackle box. I've started my fishy dishy... done the casting on, and the first 4 rows of garter stitch. Now I have to go learn how to do a ssk so that I can get the body of the cloth done. Once the Bistro project is done, then I can go back and forth between Derek's slippers and the cloth. It feels soooooo good to be crocheting and knitting again! =o)

I hate weekends!

Well here it is, Sunday morning, and I haven't crocheted a stitch in two days. Working night shift every weekend *really* sucks! I need to finish an order for the Bistro today, then I can get on to working on Derek's slippers and my dishcloths. Now only if I could figure out a way to crochet or knit while sleeping. =o)
It's getting frustrating for me that I can't seem to accomplish anything at all from the time I start work Friday night till after I take a nap after work on Tuesday morning. What's going to happen once I go back to working 5 days again??? I don't need to really worry about that yet. It will be at least 3-4 months before that happens. Hopefully I can get myself motivated enough to get more finished in the meantime. The yarn aisle is starting to talk to me again, so I *have* to get some stuff done so I can buy more stash!

What to do? What to do???

Now I have a *real* problem... after weeks {months} of no inspiration, I'm being pulled in several different directions as to what I should work on. There's Derek's slippers that need to be finished {he asks me every day when he gets home from work, "are my slippers done yet?"; and there's the two colours of yarn waiting for needles to start the KAL {let's not even get into my HUGE stash of UFOs!}. So what do I do? I got more cotton pounders last night. There was a freebie sheet for a pretty Valentine's table topper done in white, pink and red; and another for a rug done in the bright neon shades. The yarn all followed me home, and now I don't know what to do with it! =o)

Gonna make some cheer-up fishies...

Well I got some bad news today, so I decided against going with the "Finding Nemo" themed dishcloths. Lilac {and similar shades of purple} is my "cheer up" colour, so that's what I went fishing for in my craft room this afternoon. I came out with two small balls of Bernat Handicrafter... one is called soft violet, and the other is called violet veil ombre. The soft violet is like a light lilac, and the ombre has the violet shade, blue denim, soft yellow and white in it. I'm hoping these will make me some cheery dishcloths. Now I just need to find where Derek put my knitting tackle box when he cleaned up so that I can get out my needles... I want to get started!

Here fishy fishy!

Well it looks like the group has agreed with me about the fishy dishy. Lyz said that the size needles used in the pattern are what you normally use for worsted weight yarn. So I get to go find a fishy colour in my stash. I wonder if I have any orange and white vari so that I can make a Nemo cloth... or maybe blue to make a Dory cloth! I will have to figure out where Derek put my small balls of cotton yarn when he cleaned up my yarn cryogenics testing lab . He put the heaters in there so I can actually get in there without suffereing from frostbite!

Gotta get inspired!

Well I haven't been doing much crocheting lately, and definitely no knitting in ages. I needed a kick in the butt to get moving again. I started on a pair of slippers for Derek, but that's not going to keep me busy {or inspired} for long. I also wanted to get my list chatting more so I put out a call for suggestions, and it appears we're going to do a knit-a-long. I'm looking forward to it since I haven't picked up my needles in so long. The pattern we're doing is the fishy dishy dishcloth, and it's got a new-to-me stitch in it... the ssk. Can't wait to get started. =o)

Guess I've jumped on the blog bandwagon!

Well I guess I've decided to join in the fun of blogs! I don't know how often I will add to this, but it should be fun! I will be posting about what I'm working on, what I'm designing, and of course about my main inspriation for new projects/designs... Alex and Lissa!