How was YOUR morning?

Today we discover that sometimes, when you think you know what the children are doing – you really don’t. By the way: a box of infant oatmeal flakes spreads a lot farther than the size would suggest. It creates kind of a sawdust effect, too – you know, just in case you’re ever doing a play that needs sawdust and you can’t use it for some reason. Very similar.
We also discover that if, after sweeping up piles of oatmeal, you leave the hungry kids alone in the kitchen ‘just for a minute,’ to try and finish what the oatmeal episode interrupted, the older one will acquire a package of hot dog buns off of the counter and feed himself and his baby brother. Aww. It’s nice to know that if they were street children, Max would take care of Charlie. Sigh.

I’ve been working hard this week, people! Not on any knitting or crocheting, but I’ve been pursuing the previously mentioned (and long-procrastinated) cockeyed-scheme! It’s nearing a point of unveiling. I should be able to show it off soon. But it’s not so great to blog about. Um. Oh yeah, pictures!

I went to Joann’s on Monday for their Memorial Day sale: they had their remnants for 75% off (and once they’re put in the remnants bin, they’re already marked 50% off: so it was more like 87.5% off of the original price). I saw the lovely fabric pictured above – it’s about a yard and a half of lovely thick upholstery/brocade type fabric that usually sells for 40 (!) dollars a yard (!!!). I bought it for $7.50. I picked it up not because I love it (although it’s very pretty) but because I knew Greg would love it. How did I know? Because it’s a variation on the very fabric that makes up our bespread, and our bedroom curtains, and the shower curtain in the master bath (which he picked).
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but Greg and I appear to have a difference of opinion in terms of decorating colors. I like green. And brown. I find them soothing and earthy; comfortable. With Greg (since he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it) he kind of pops all over the place based on what he sees in stores and other people’s houses, but when pressed he invariably says, “What about red?” (This is even funnier because he doesn’t realize he picks red every time.) Now, I read up on random things: color is one of them. They’ve done studies on the way that color impacts mood. I read in one (although I can’t seem to find it right now) that red raises the blood pressure, speeds respiration, and increases the heartrate. Oh, here’s a snippet: “Sitting for long periods of time in a room this color will likely breakdown any peace and harmony you are striving to create in your home.” Hah. Green, on the other hand, “is considered the most restful color for the eye.” Also, “in a …living room, it encourages unwinding but has enough warmth to promote comfort and togetherness. [It] has a calming effect when used as a main color for decorating. It is believed to relieve stress by helping people relax.” That’s more like it! To be fair, Greg is more of an active, adrenaline-charged person, so I can see why red appeals to him. We’re kind of opposites in that. So to make a long story…longer…our living room still has white walls. Brown couches, olive green drapes, and we’re probably going to paint the walls some tan or muted green. (Yes, he did suggest red for the walls.) Greg feels that this is an extremely booooooring color scheme, so I suggested bringing small red elements into the room to ‘balance’ it. Like his ratty burgundy recliner that he swears is the most comfortable chair in the world. Just as an example.
But back to the upholstery! My original intention was to create a cover for our increasingly disreputable-looking ‘computer chair,’ which is actually just one of our old dining chairs, a metal-and-vinyl abomination that is only improved by a cracking, peeling vinyl seat and foam dribbling out. Really, though, I think we’ll just buy a new chair. Yeah. So I’ll probably make some throw pillows for the sofa. It looks really awesome with them, and (as I predicted) Greg loved it.
I also bought a ball of Joann’s Belleza Tesoro in Pink with my 40% off coupon. Hey, I had to buy something with it, and at $6 a ball normally, that stuff is hecka expensive!

A Little Bit of Knitting

Well, the baby afghan is stalled momentarily with charting issues. In the meantime, here’s a little bit of knitting I’ve done. I used most of the Main Line I had left from my cloche (did I mention that this yarn is really pleasant to work with?) – which was about 13 yards – to make a lace headband. I couldn’t find a lace motif that was narrow enough, so I made my own simple design. It’s basically just eyelets: two yarn-overs per row with enough knit stitches to hold them together. See?

I finger blocked it to open them up. As you can perhaps tell, though, I didn’t do a really thorough job. I need to pick up some t-pins my next trip to Joann’s (along with some other things) and do a better job blocking. I’ve never really blocked much, and certainly not lace. It’s cute, though!

Free pattern here!

Crocheting Away

So much to talk about today! Let’s see…where to start…

Well. We moved into a new church ward last fall – after Charlie was born, so I didn’t know this – but apparently it’s the tradition in our current congregation to give an afghan to every new baby who is born. They had someone I’ve only heard referred to as “The Afghan Lady,” who supplied them with baby afghans and lapghans for the elderly and such. Something has apparently happened to The Afghan Lady (I don’t know what). Perhaps she’s moved, perhaps she’s died: they didn’t tell me and I haven’t asked. (:lol: It sounds kind of bad when I say it like that – I just think it hasn’t come up!) However, they found out that I crochet (back when I volunteered to do some humanitarian crafting) and asked if I could help out with the baby afghans. There’s quite a call for them – apparently over the last year there have been 15 babies born into our ward. Wow! They’ve assured me that there will be other people working on them as well.
Anyway, they supply the yarn, and the nice sister in charge of it asked me what I wanted. She told me that The Afghan Lady always used ‘the red heart yarn,’ and would I like that, because it would work up quicker, right? I assured her that it wouldn’t take that much longer to use the baby yarn, which I thought would be nicer – and comes in baby colors, too! So this Sunday she gave me two shopping bags of Bernat Softee Baby in various colors – which I like. Still, I think that I think I need to reassure her on the speed factor, which could explain this:

Click the pic if you’d like to see it closer: please excuse the tangle of yarn balls. I’m not carrying the threads, because I hate to see them peeking through. Yeah, I’ve done all that since Sunday night. Think I can get the first one done by Sunday morning? Perhaps. She said that they don’t have any left in the closet for boys, and there are several women expecting boys (including one of my friends!), so I thought I’d start with ones that can be used for the little guys, but aren’t plain to the point of boring.

In other news, I’ve decided (in a fit of spontaneity) to prepare and submit a design I was waffling about for Interweave Crochet‘s – weeeeell, crud. I just looked it up to see which issue I would be submitting for, and I missed the deadline for Spring 2008. (It was yesterday – I thought it was the 28th.) You know what, though, that’s fine. It takes the ‘rush’ out of it. I’m pretty sure by now that they decided against my submission for Winter ’07 (although I haven’t heard yet). Which is okay, because sometime after I submitted it, I had a little chat with myself about my designs. I’d been trying – or wanting, anyway – to do what everybody else is doing. To make sweaters and shirts and shawls and whatnot. And that’s not really what I do. I mean, I do it, but the designs that I love the most, and that other people think are awesome, are the toys, and stuff like that. And I do them really well. And I like them. You know? So I decided that it was better to do what I do well, that I like to do, that other people like, instead of straining and trying to do something that’s not really me, that other people already do, and do beautifully. I don’t blame them for not publishing my wristwarmers (yeah: I submitted wristwarmers. You never know.) but that’s cool, because this next design I’m going to submit will ROCK!

In other news, I carried a stack of Red Heart Super Saver down the stairs balanced against my chin and it gave me a rash that took 10 minutes to go away. Am I getting too delicate to be cheap anymore? Crud. Crud crud crud.

I’m still gonna work with it.