Month: February 2006

SockapalOOOza update

Sarah SockapalOOOza

ls_sock_leg.jpg

This is the beginning of my sockapalOOOza socks. The yarn is Regia Cotton Surf Color #5411, and I’m using a free pattern from sockbug called Lacy Scallops. I’m beyond pleased with how the pattern is working with the colors of the yarn, especially with the picot edging on top! It’s also going pretty quickly: this picture (from yesterday) shows 5 of the 6 repeats needed for the leg of the sock, and since then I’ve finished the last repeat. I’ll definitely be able to finish these well in advance of the deadline. The funny thing is, patterns more complicated than stockinette stitch seem to go so much faster – I think I need the extra motivation of an interesting pattern for something to hold my attention long enough to make progress. And the best part of these socks is that there’s absolutely no ribbing to get bogged down in!

Sunday Night Already?!?

Sarah General

Where did the weekend go? Seriously, I have no idea where the past 48 hours went. I feel like I accomplished absolutely nothing at all, although there is some progress on my knitting, most of the laundry is done, and there are groceries in the house, so I guess I must have done something. I just wish I’d found time to vacuum.

Part of the problem is that Carrie is sick with a runny nose and cough, and is a bit clingier than usual. Denis is feeling a bit under the weather too, although he doesn’t seem to be any clingier than usual. ;) When Carrie is sick we can’t go do all of her activities. (Plenty of kids show up to these things sick, but I’d personally feel really guilty if it were my kid that makes everyone else sick.) And let’s face it, occupying a whiny, clingy toddler all day is a lot less fun than going to playgroups and story hour. It’s going to be a long week unless she wakes up all better in the morning.

Plus I just really hate going into the week feeling unprepared, especially when I have rehearsals every evening. It’s going to be a very long week.

Olympic Knitting

Sarah Knitting

I’m pretty sure every other knitting blogger out there has joined the Knitting Olympics. Knowing that I was going to get my yarn for FLAK right about now and that the rehearsal schedule for Sound of Music was going to get more intense kept me from jumping in with all of them.

But the Olympics are definitely good for knitting – I already have 4 out of 6 repeats done on the leg of the first of my sockapalOOOza socks! Tomorrow I think I can get those last two repeats done, and maybe even start the saddles for FLAK.

Oh, and Carrie has a new little cousin who was born earlier today, and he’s going to need a sweater…so I’d better pick out a pattern and see if there’s anything appropriate in the stash to knit it with. Not that it would be the end of the world if I had to go yarn shopping, of course…

Moon Bunny

Sarah Carolyn

Carrie has started naming her books. I know of at least 5 books that she has names for: The Going To Bed Book is “toothbrush” because the animals all “brush and brush and brush their teeth”, Spot’s First Easter is “duck” because there’s a little yellow chick on the front, The Belly Button Book is Carrie’s made-up sign for “belly button”, Peekaboo Puppy is peekaboo with her hands followed by the sign for “dog”, and Bedtime Bunny is “moon bunny”. I think there might be others but I’ve only recently noticed the trend so I haven’t kept track of which signs she makes for all the books yet. She’s very demanding about which books she wants to hear at nap and bedtime, so those are the ones I’ve seen the names of most often.

She’s also starting to verbalize a lot more, but a lot of her words all sound alike because she leaves off the end – so “ball”, “bear”, “blocks” and “book” all sound pretty much the same, as do “chair” and “shoe”. Luckily she signs to clarify things if I can’t figure it out from context.

Based on the amount of pseudo-talking she does now, I’m pretty sure the house is going to be anything but quiet for the next several years!

1000th Post

Sarah General

Yesterday I was so sick. I had one of those headaches where you feel like if you turn your head too quickly your brain just sort of sloshes around in your skull, and it was making me really nauseous. I’ve never had a hangover before, but if I had to guess what it feels like that would be it.

I felt like the worst mother ever, too. Carrie kept throwing books in my lap and I’d read them and she’d sign “again”, and I’d read them again, and then finally my head hurt so much she signed “book again mommy” and even followed it up with “please” and I had to say “no more books, watch T.V. instead.” (At least it was Blue’s Clues and Signing Time, and not Oprah or whatever is normally on TV in the middle of the day.)

And then I had a rehearsal for the musical and I drank a 20-oz. caffeinated bottle of soda out of desperation when the ibuprofin didn’t help. It worked, but I was up until after 1 – that was the most caffeine I’ve had in one day in over two years. Luckily Carrie slept in until 9. Unluckily, that means my sleep schedule is now completely off and I’m not tired enough to go to bed.

Sigh.

Superbowl XL

Sarah General

We went to a Superbowl party tonight, but left at halftime so we could get Carrie to bed. Obviously, I missed a lot of the commercials, but of the ones I saw my favorite is definitely the streaker sheep Budweiser commercial. There was a prize for most unique appetizer at the party, and I won with this:

igloo.jpg

The igloo is made out of a cream cheese and feta blend, and there’s a layer of pesto hidden inside. The penguins are made out of olives, cream cheese and carrots. They were a lot more fiddly than I expected they would be, mainly because it’s really hard to squeeze cold cream cheese through a decorating tip! I found the idea and recipe in the 2006 Wilton Idea Book.
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Carrie had fun wandering around and generally acting cute. She rooted for the Bills, of course. It always amazes me when she just sort of fits in around people. As long as strangers don’t rush right up to her and try to pull her out of my arms, she warms up to them really quickly, and had a lot of fun being picked up and tickled by everyone. All this despite it being close to bedtime. Somehow we lucked out and ended up with a really easy-going child!

FLAK

Sarah FLAK

FLAK_swatch_closeup_TN.jpgMy swatch for FLAK is finished and blocked, and I’m really happy with how it came out. I decided to swatch the cables it originally called for before trying to substitute any of them, and I like how they came out so much I’m not going to bother switching anything. The cable I didn’t think I’d like so much is the set of three horseshoe cables in the middle of the swatch. That’s never been a favorite of mine, but I’ve never actually done it in 100% wool before and I think that makes a big difference in how they look.

I’m going to figure out all the measurements required for the sweater and decide how much yarn to order tonight! (And I’m going to make a final decision on the color. I do love the avocado green and will most likely use it but I figure I may as well peruse the color card a little more first.) By the end of next week I ought to have my yarn and will be able to get started on the saddles. Yippee!

Here’s the project page with the picture of the full swatch on it.

No Toes?!?

Sarah General

Well, I was going to post about how I finished my swatch for FLAK, except that it’s blocking right now and I haven’t taken a picture of it yet. So, when I stumbled on this fun little thing over at chrisknits, I figured why not?

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Sarahsthreads!

  1. The risk of being struck by sarahsthreads is one occurence every 9,300 years.
  2. In the Spanish edition of Cluedo, sarahsthreads is the victim.
  3. There are 336 dimples on sarahsthreads!
  4. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than sarahsthreads.
  5. Without its lining of sarahsthreads, your stomach would digest itself!
  6. The sarahsthreads-fighting market in the Philippines is huge – several thousand sarahsthreads-fights take place there every day!
  7. Sarahsthreads will often glow under UV light.
  8. Sarahsthreads is the only king without a moustache on the standard pack of cards.
  9. Two grams of sarahsthreads provide enough energy to power a television for over twenty-three hours.
  10. Sarahsthreads does not have toes!
I am interested in – do tell me about

I wish I’d known about the toes thing before I started knitting socks…

Six Weeks of Winter

Sarah General

The groundhog predicted six “more” weeks of winter. But we haven’t really had any weeks of winter at all yet. I mean, by now we should be socked in with snow. I think Denis has used the snowblower once this winter, and only because it was the first time there was even enough snow to consider it. Since then, if we even get enough snow to cover the driveway it’s melted away the next day. Today it got up to 50°F, and the sun was warm, and the grass was green, and there were birds chirping away – hello, people, it’s not supposed to do that until April at the earliest!

It’s all because I bought Carrie the cutest snowsuit ever at the consignment shop. The only reason it’s snowed at all is because the boots I bought her are too big and fall off when she tries to walk in them, so she’s only partially prepared for winter weather.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining…exactly. But I do believe in payback, as this column from our local paper talks about, and I was so looking forward to a nice spring and a summer where we could use our pool. If we don’t get some cruddy winter weather soon, we can kiss spring and summer goodbye!

February Cross-Stitch

Sarah Cross Stitch

I skipped right over November, December and January so I could have one done in time! And let me tell you, I was really tired of looking at the October cross-stitch by the time last night rolled around. But this one turned out cute, I think, and I have the next few months done through June.

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