Eye Of Partridge

Can you see the pattern on the heel flaps, up top? That's eye-of-partridge and I like it WAY better than your other standard heel stitch, k1 sl1. I think it looks really cool but I have to stop pretty much right there, because I haven't been able to knit long enough at one time to remember where I am in the 3-row pattern. I am petrified that I'll do a pretty good job all along and then at the end of the heel flap I'll do the same front-side row twice or three times in a row and it will look stupid but I'll be too lazy to take it out and fix it. So I'm just going to go ahead and stop right there, at "almost long enough".

Surprise Flowers

My friend Sharon stopped by last Thursday with these. She was just going around to people delivering flowers. Thanks Sharon! You're so thoughtful! I put them in my teapot I got on ebay but didn't insure, so of course the handle broke in the box en route. I think I did a dang good glue-fix job.

This May Become Peach Jam

I've had these dried peaches for 9 or 10 months but discovered that they don't taste good just to eat, like dried apricots. Mmm, dried apricots. So a week ago maybe I get the idea to rehydrate them and make jam. So this morning I'm doing it. Hopefully this works...

Also, when I put them on to boil the bad taste-smell went away and they started smelling like awesome boiling peaches like when you make peach jam, so yee-haw.

Little Appliqued Duck

We needed quilt tops for a church activity. I had a whole bolt of this blue plaid fabric so I pulled off a baby-quilt-tops worth but then it needed something else. Real quick I drew up the chicken, following the pattern we used in March for another activity, but enlarging it freehand. Pretty proud of myself there. So with the Pfaff (thanks for the loan, Mom!) I machine appliqued it on and I think it turned out pretty ok. Can you see it? I also did a tiny circular buttonhole for the eye. This was a few weeks ago, like maybe almost a month ago.

WHOOOO-EEEE!

A couple things have happened since the last stuff. First of all, I went back and got my real spicy Baconator and it was SO MUCH BETTER. Spicy and delicious with a little jalapeno crunch. Ooh, that's making me want to eat one right now.

So another thing is that I turned up with a bun in the oven. There were a couple super-scary things about this, though. I had a doctor's appointment the morning after I took the home test and she called me back with all this scary blood-work stuff about not enough progesterone and go get this prescription and the numbers are all bad and you have a blood disease, probably. Plus anemia. Well, I went back the following Monday for a re-test and of course, no offense to doctors for worrying and being up-in-the-night about stuff, but everything came back fine. But then I still had to have an ultrasound and she was all quizzing me whether I had any back or abdominal pain. So next morning on the internet (a blessing and a curse) it turns out low progesterone plus back or abdominal pain means the baby's not in the right place, like you could lose an ovary or worse. So I was super-worried all week until the ultrasound Thursday, which I had to drive through a freak-terrible-snow-storm to get to. I was all worried about the baby and then I had to drive through this stinkin' terrible weather and I was just relieved to get there alive. And (one more time, of course) the ultrasound showed little beany-baby, right in there where she belongs, with her little beating heart doing just what it should. So no worries, eh!?

And that was my daughter Juliana's birthday. So the next day I had 6 or 8 little 5 year olds over for a one-hour casual birthday-themed party. I was scheduled to go out with the ladies that night, but with all the stress and party stuff and all, I just welched out of that and went to BED!!

Then I'm going to top all that off with a visit from my church leader, asking me if I'll work with the 12 and 13 year old girls in the Young Women's organization. DANG IT!!!! Bless their hearts, but I didn't like 12 and 13 year old girls when I WAS a 12 or 13 year old girl. So this will be my chance to learn to love them and all. Already this week I have three meetings...

My Current Socks

Here's a pair of socks I made and finished a little while ago, like last month at this time maybe. The ones with the purple and orange and green stripes. They're made out of Cascade "Fixation" yarn, which is stretchy. That was actually fun to work with except that I made them both at the same time using the Magic Loop technique, and I didn't tie off the yarn in between stripes. I carried it along the edge, so I had six dang strings dangling out of the needles at all times. That pretty stunk. But anyway, I also just did a short-row heel, instead of a heel-flap, and it's ok. It's not fantastic. I just wanted to make socks that are like regular socks: stretchy and with that diagonal line at the heel. So I did it.

Then the other picture is my most recent sock project. I just cast on for it last week, maybe thursday or Friday, but using the original yarn I bought when I took the Magic Loop socks class at the local yarn store. I had made a sock with the class, but it was terrible. The gauge was all floppy and loose and we hadn't made a ribbing around the top originally, so I went back and added one which would have been fine if there was a way to cast off and make it just as stretchy as a K1, P1 rib, which there's NOT, no matter what they say. I know because I scoured the inter-flipping-net to find that very cast-off and THOUGHT I'd come up with something but after I did it, as loosely as I could possibly cast off, the stinkin' thing STILL didn't fit over my heel, to try it on. So Up That!!! I went ahead and ripped the whole thing out and used the yarn to cast on for this pair of socks and the yarn's already split neatly in half! So yeah! And check that cool K6, P1 rib pattern I added all the way around. Can you see it in the picture? Anyway, I made some super-similar to this for my sister Laurel (see my first post) but with a K7, P1 rib and I wanted it just a little more frequent in this pair that I'm making for myself out of very similar yarn. It's super quick to make them at the same time, and as you can see, not very messy with just TWO yarns coming off the work. They really don't get tangled. I highly recommend this method.

Spicy Baconator

I admit to being totally taken in by the commercials for this item. Every time I see another commercial, I want to eat one more and more, the spicier the better. Today on our way home from the Museum, I went the extra mile (or really, the extra couple miles) in search of a Wendy's so I could covertly get myself a Spicy Baconator without the kids badgering me for lunch (because we had already eaten at the museum) or making Seth jealous (he's working like 12 or 13 hour days to finish out tax season). So, but we couldn't FIND a Wendy's. We got to the end of the line, where I knew there was nothing out beyond us but the open prairie, so we turned around. And wouldn't ya just know it: there was a stinkin' Wendy's hidden behind a bank. On the right-hand side of the road, too, which is a big deal to me. So we made it home with our food stuff (I felt compassion on the children and got them some fries) and I bit into my spiciest, loveliest, baconiest hamburger-thing and...NO SPICY. I ate through the whole dang thing hoping to come to something zesty or hottable, and I came up with NOTHING. I called them up and "Brian" was all, come on in and we'll make you up a fresh hot one. So since my "baby's sleeping" it'll have to be an hour or so before I can make it back up there and this one BETTER BE SPICY!!! Because I really want it to be fabulous and delicious.