Domestic Goddess

I've been doing some cleaning around the house, but I've also been going through those weird bouts of agoraphobia. It's weird not having Will here during the week and having to drop-off/pick-up at football workouts. Sure he's been gone for a week or two at a time, but this is going to be all summer long.

I'm sure this will all change once I start the summer job on Thursday too.

I'm making progress on my Cascade Lizard Ridge blanket. I have eleven blocks done and I think I'll do a 4x5 blanket, so I'm over half way done now. I'll probably end up with lots of leftover Cascade 220 also. Which can be useful. I've been doing volunteer editor work with the two Eva Wiechmann books - Pursenalities and Pursenality Plus. So I'm developing a hankering for making another bag.

I have gone back to my 'Chic Shopping Bag' and made it usable. The i-cord handles didn't really work for it so I bought some leather ones from Jo-Ann's that work. I also used some of the red I bought for the CLR to do 'x' stitches up the corners, took some plastic canvas I had and some leftover brown felt to make a sturdier bottom. I'm tempted to get more and make some side supports for the ends so the bag will 'stand up' more. I just need to sew on the button and do a cord for it and could consider it 'done enough' to retake a picture and have it show up on the project page for it. I took it with me to Insomnia last week for Insomnia Group Knitting Thursday. It worked out great for hauling all my Cascade 220 for the CLR.

I'm still trying to do repeats on the Falling Water scarf. I've slipped on the one chart a day thing though so behind. These two are the projects I'm currently working on but they're both 'big' in that they are time consuming to complete. Then again I've just been doing quickie projects for a while so this is good for me.

The Knit Picks Cart is around $50 and my three books are on wait list until July 3. As soon as I get the green light on those, I can hopefully make the whole purchase, though there really is no rush on the books. The sale goes through the end of August.

All these bright colors has me hankering to pull out some fat quarters I have stashed for quilt blocks and make a couple new quilt covers for our bed. I'd use the old quilts that are starting to come apart (bought them from Meier & Frank for $25 a piece eight years ago - cheaply made) as filler, so they would almost be duvet covers, I guess? I'd do simple blocks that just do a cool color change across the landscape of the quilt. That's the style Brandon has said he prefers and I'm not really looking to do fancy piecework squares right now.

In other domestic news other than cleaning, I've been trying to do more things from scratch. Like potato salad. Lots of that because it's relatively easy to make and has satisfying results. Also goes along with the summer cooking on the BBQ of chicken, hamburgers, steaks and hot dogs.

We finally made it down to the Woodburn Factory Outlet Stores. Brandon was able to find pants (they only had 3 pairs of jeans in the whole store) to replace his jeans for work, and several nice work shirts at Columbia Outfitters. I found some tops and a nightgown at Lane Bryant as well as several new bras and underwear at the Leggs, Hanes, Bali store. Will who was the one who really wanted to go shopping at the Aeropostale store also scored with four shirts, two shorts and two jeans as well as a zipper t-shirt sweater. He's happy now.

Will surprised me with the thought of enlisting in the Air Force on the way down. That was a bit of a shocker. Not sure where it is all coming from, but I did spend a few minutes chatting online with someone from the Air Force last night. Still not thrilled with the idea but if it's what he ultimately wants to do, the Air Force is better than any other branch of the service right now. I'd of course try to make sure that he didn't end up doing something he hated. There's an enlisted position that he could go into that would help towards a nursing degree later and they do have a good schooling program if he could get into it. Of course the better option is just to go to school and then go in as an officer. We'll do more talking about all this, this upcoming weekend.

I'm off to make some homemade chili and cornbread for dinner...

Karma? Knitting & Yarn

So yesterday morning I save a baby blue bird. Yesterday afternoon, I was a participant in a Darwinism. On the way to go shopping at Winco I had a squirrel run out in front of the car. It would have been totally fine, if it hadn't stopped and panicked and turned back the way it came, stalled and then I don't know. I just kind of heard a little 'crunch' and looked back to see the body in the road way. Sigh. I guess something was meant to die and some weird karma said I had to be involved in it.

This afternoon I was able to get over to Insomnia to meet up with some other ladies in the Hillsboro area. Arica, Cindy and Alyssa were there all knitting when I arrived. Baby Cori sucking on her fist quietly went to sleep and didn't wake up until we were getting ready to leave. I brought along my Bobby Blue Falling Water Scarf to work on. I have been working on my Cascade Lizard Ridge but thought I should give myself a break and really didn't want to drag the HUGE bag of yarn cakes in with me.

I was able to concentrate and still contribute to the conversation but my knitting was definitely slow as I got back into the swing of lace. I finished a block tonight and started another one and then put it aside to spend more time on the scarf.

I did some more looking at the Knit Pick Sampler yarns I have and matched up a few with some socks. So stretching out the stash to queue compatibility. My Knit Pick shopping cart had increased and decreased. I took out some fixed circular needles because really do I want to learn out to knit two socks at one time on one circular needle? Not really. The patterns do look nice but I'd much rather make progress one sock at a time then fiddle around with the magic loop and trying to keep two skeins of yarn from making a knotted mess. I had a few books that are on my wish list and still have it hovering around $50. I think I have a gift certificate coming from Judy that will cover this. Crosses fingers....

I finally got the yarn dropped off from the swap at WWKIP at the Hillsboro Senior Center. I had a nice older gentleman, Jim, talk my ear off for forty-five minutes. Started out with asking about yarn that I might have for making chemo caps, he knits. Moved on to do I know how to cable knit? Yes, would I be willing to finish an afghan that was started by a lady who died before she finished it? Um, okay? It of course doesn't have a pattern to go along with it. I think it's also acrylic, I haven't looked closely at the yarn yet. I also have to figure out what cable she was using. There's enough yarn to complete the afghan. Jim also does wash clothes and keeps the pattern in his wallet. He talked my ear off about the joys of working for Trimet and thought that I would make an excellent driver for them. I'm broad in the beam and that says bus driver?

After making sure that I took some of their free bread, dropped off by Trader Joe's and giving me a bouquet of flowers, we headed our separate ways.

I now have an afghan to finish some how. Oh boy. :-)