Erica’s Blog

[NOTE:  Edited after original posting.]

So, which pattern do ya’ll think would be a better use of my Kathmandu Hand-Picked:

• Marina (likely to win simply b/c she was designed by Zib)
• Oceane (suggested by someone else in the Knittyboard)

Honestly, I have so much of the stuff (7 x 80 or 90 yards) that I could probably make BOTH!

I’m official!  Yarn Harlot has me listed as an athlete for the Knitting Olympics. Woot!  Go, Team!

As if I needed it, I joined yet ANOTHER knitalong, What’s Your Skein?, a.k.a. the skeinalong.    I figure this will force me to use that Katia Ingenua.

 A year and a half ago, I held my son in my arms as he died.  We’ll always remember.  We’ll never forget.  The pain changes, but losing a child isn’t something you ever “get over”.  Please check out his site.

Special smoochies to you today, Baby Paul….

We interrupt the regularly-scheduled Self-Portrait Tuesday to bring you a photo homage to hubby in celebration of his 39th birthday today.  Let’s all flood him with “Happy Birthday” wishes on his blog!

Did some swatching over the weekend for Noodles’ sweater.  The chenille that Jeannette wanted me to use was pretty fragile, so I tried it doubled - too fat (though I loved the look and felt more confident that it wasn’t going to break that way).  I tried it on various needles, but couldn’t get the gauge right.  Next step = finish the interminable multi-directional “larvae” spring scarf and try the size 7’s.

  It suddenly hit me on Saturday that Becky & Georgia’s bday party was only a week away, and I hadn’t started their presents yet.  Uh, oh.  Guess they won’t each be getting a scaled-down Danica!  Behold Becky’s neckwarmer in progress.  OK, it was originally supposed to be a scarf, but I made it too wide, so it didn’t come out long enough.  SOooo, now it’s a neckwarmer.  I’m going to seam it later today.  This is actually good b/c Becky’s pretty active, like Thing Two, so a dangly scarf wouldn’t be the best idea.  YES, it’s half Fun Fur (the rest is Caron’s Simply Soft Brites in Watermelon), but the kid’s turning five.  Five-year-olds LIKE this stuff.

 This is Georgia’s scarf in progress.  It’s a basic 1×1 rib.  YES, it’s also half Fun Fur, half Simply Soft Brites.  Again, eight-year-old girls LIKE this stuff.  They’re not yarn snobs.  Well, OK, maybe Girlfriend and Kiddo are, but not these particular girls. 

Training for The Knitting Olympics starts today or tomorrow.  Gotta wind my Shadow into balls and do some (gasp!) swatching.  I’m trying not to take it personally that I haven’t been listed among the athletes yet.  She’s had such an overwhelming response that she’s had to enlist help to get everyone listed on the site.  I’ll be on there eventually….I hope.

     Dontcha just lurve all them buttons?

For those of you just watching, JenLa have some others, too:

I asked Thing Two what she wanted me to knit for her for her birthday (St. Patty’s Day), but she didn’t want anything for herself - just for her cats.  I foresee a cat bed made from the rug yarn I got from The Yarn Fairy a while back, perhaps a cat blanket made from that awful free brown Disco stuff I got in the mail.  Maybe I’ll combine it with some black Fun Fur.  Eeeuuuwww!

  Now that I’ve given it to her, I can post pics of Hobbes’ scarf.  Not the greatest, most creative, Knitty-esque pose, but it was a hasty “Oh!  I need to get a picture of you in the scarf!” shot as they were getting ready to leave.

  Here’s the detail.  Can you see the heart?  She’s kind of stretching it out so it shows better.  A non-fuzzy yarn would have been more appropriate for this but:

1. She likes blue, and this was blue.
2. I neeeeeeed to use up the Paton’s Divine before Doomsday…..

Pattern is the Heart scarf from Knitty’s 2004 Breast Cancer Awareness print issue.  This is especially appropriate as in 2004, Hobbes did the Breast Cancer walk b/c her mom Jean had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  In 2005, she did the walk b/c Jean had recently died.

Happy birthday, Hobbes!  Hope your hearts keep you warm there in Half Moon Bay!

Yesterday was Hobbes’ 41st birthday, so today Hobbes, Ron & Ian, Jules, Bakari & Baby Kai all came over for a brunch feast.  (Thanks AGAIN Uncle Mike for those sausages!  We ate the last two packets of them today.)

  Hubby’s been having fun playing with the camera, learning how to use the manual settings, etc.  He had the camera just a couple of inches away from Baby Kai’s face when he took these pictures.

  The happy family:  Bakari, Jules & Baby Kai. 

I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this or not, but we killed the Roomba. Yupp.  It’s dead, Jim.  Well, maybe only mostly dead.  Apparently, if you have animals you’re supposed to clean it out after every third use.  Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA!  Anyhow, hubby joined a bunch of Roomba owner Yahoo groups to get input on repairs and generally to commiserate.  It’s hreally tough b/c iRobot doesn’t sell spare parts, though the Roombas cost so much money.  (Can you say, “Customer NO service?”)  From everything people say, the best bet is to get your Roomba at Sears and pay the extra $30 for the extended warranty.  When it dies (and it will), you just take it back and they give you a new one.

  Meet our new Roomba.  He’s charging right now on Thing Two’s dresser.  Hubby decided to get a new one at Sears w/the warranty, etc., etc.  He still wants to fix the original one so we have a spare.  I suppose I could also run them in different parts of the house at the same time if I wanted to (when we’re OUT; the noise would send me through the roof!).  Whatever we do with that one once it’s fixed, I’m just glad to have one again.  Now I guess I can let the Roomba do the vaccuuming and use my “cleaning energy” (only have so much with the bad back) to clean the floors.

Hubby got a $500 bonus from work this week for taking extra time (went in on Saturday night) to fix a big, emergency problem that saved the company big bucks.  Go hubby!  I guess that’s going to pay for the new Roomba (and probably some golf for hubby). 

Hubby saves the day yet AGAIN!  The computer has been driving us crazy lately.  It would just spontaneously shut itself off for no apparent reason.  We thought it was overheating, we wondered if it was a power issue (not such great wiring in our 62-year-old house).  It had become really noisy and was driving hubby crazy.  Crazy.

I, of course, wasn’t terribly motivated to take it to CompUSA to get them to look at it, even though it was still well under warranty.

Sure, it’s my computer and all, but if I’ve got free time, I’m not likely to do something like that.  Besides, if I got over there to that part of Towne Center, I’d end up at Starbucks, or, more expensively, Marshalls or the nail salon.  Better I should just stay out of there.

Well, yesterday, hubby had had enough.  Mr. Electronics Technician unplugged it, grabbed some tools, and opened it up on the dining room table.  I should have taken pictures.  It was soooo gross!  Let’s just say it was more than a little bit dusty inside.  Using a combination of the vaccuum cleaner, tweezers, and cotton swabs, he got it all cleaned out. 

Hear that?  That nothing?  Today’s silently-running computer brought to you by the letters AJH and the number 39 (well, OK, not exactly 39 till Tuesday, more like 38 and 361/365ths).  Thanks, Mr. Wonderful!

Hey, maybe now I’ll actually be able to comment on Dani’s blog w/o my computer dying on me!

All that’s left on ladder yarn scarf #2 for Thing One’s teacher is the fringe.  I meant to have it done today, but I haven’t picked it up at all yet.  I’ll finish it tonight.  May have to frog the scarf back a bit to have enough yarn for fringe, though.  I kinda made this one longer than I meant to.  Oops.

Next up is getting started on the zippered hoodie for Noodles.

Then, “training” for my stole, Olympia.  I may actually…egads!…swatch the different patterns to figure out what side needles I need.  I suspect that the $$ from scarf #2 for Mrs. R will go toward a pair of Addis for this project.

Oh, and another one of Thing Two’s cats, Figaro, is having a birthday tomorrow morning, and she’s asked for a hat for him.  I think I can crank out something with some cheapy-do yarn (can you say “stashbuster”?). 

Gave away a bunch of Red Heart to Thing Two’s teacher, Miss Claudia, today.  Trying to whittle down the stash a bit (I know, I know, I know), at least to get down to a minimum of cheapy-do stuff so I can bulk up on “the good stuff”.  I asked her if she ever needed yarn for their craft projects, and she said she often used “hair colors” — black, brown, red, yellow — so I gave her five skeins of Red Heart today. 

 I do hereby declare myself a member of the US Lace Knit Team for the Knitting Olympics.

Training will start very soon; I need to make sure that this plan of mine is going to work, need to figure out what needles to use, etc.  I think I shall call my stole “Olympia”.