Making it through the week

This has been a long, tedious week. Thank goodness it's finally Friday! What's that you say? It's only Wednesday?? Impossible! Last weekend was months ago, it's got to be Friday by now!

I've made some decent progress on the jackalope. As you can see in the photo, the body/head piece is finished, and I just need to knit the paw pad of the first hind leg for that bit to be done. I've also knit the back sections of the ears although they are not in the picture. I was a little worried that the two-tone wouldn't look good (a necessity due to not having as much light grey as the pattern requires), so I must say I am happily surprised and quite pleased with the result. I've already gone through my eyes & picked out a pale orange-y color pair that stands out nicely against the dark grey without standing out *too* much. Oh, I should have set one of the eyes on the head for the pictures. . . next time I guess.

Going over to Lizard's this weekend. Ralph is having a D & D game on Sunday, or rather *was* having one. The game is still on, only the location has been moved to someone else's house for a change. This works out well--I still get a knitting day, but I don't have to vacuum before I head out to Lizard's :-) I'm going to show her how to do a provisional cast-on & short-row toe for toe-up socks. She has this gorgeous black & red sock yarn for the project.

Speaking of lizards, I saw the most adorable baby lizard yesterday. Tiny little thing; the body was about the length of a stick of Trident. Even if I had had the camera with me (don't say it!) I don't think I could have gotten a good shot of him, he was so small. He darted under the car when I got too close, and I took a very thorough look underneath to make sure he wasn't in any danger of getting run over when I drove off. He must have been very frightened because he had run completely out of sight.

Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19) is on a Saturday this year, so I am planning a pirate party to celebrate. Have a few ideas for food, and will be ordering some pirate-y decorations & invites soon. Been thinking about having some sort of a treasure hunt but not sure exactly what to do for that yet. I don't want it to be like an Easter egg hunt. Definitely want to have a treasure map involved. Anyway, the idea is bubbling in the back of my head and hopefully I'll come up with something fun.

Expensive Saturday

Man. Feels like all we did yesterday was spend money. First off, I was on Ravelry voting on the yarns in the "Dye for Glory" competition, and found two skeins so gorgeous that I had to order them. (Or rather, pre-order them since they won't be available until after Sock Summit 2009, so sometime in September for delivery). I lost my glasses last weekend & have been making do with an old pair of prescription sunglasses which meant getting new ones was a priority for the day. Stopped for breakfast on the way to Lenscrafters. Had new progressive lenses put into an old pair of frames, then got new frames & lenses for a current pair of prescription sunglasses. While they were being made up, we bought a bottle of cold water & some cookies at a kiosk in the mall. On the way home we stopped at a garage sale, where we snagged a really nice coffee table and the red chair in today's picture. We've been wanting a chair for the red room for some time now, and as this was in good condition as well as being quite comfy we snagged it. Plus, at $20 it seemed more reasonable than the $1,199 couch we had looked at previously. We ended the day by deciding it was too hot to cook and ordering pizza, hot wings & cinna-stix for dinner.

No real plans for today. Ralph is getting over a case of shingles & is supposed to stay out of the sun as much as possible (he ignored that order at first, and ended up making the shingles worse despite the medications he was taking). Everything we can think of that we want to do entails being outdoors (archery, going to the arboretum, taking a walk) and therefore gets crossed off the list. I suspect we'll just putter around the house, brainsuck, computer games for him & knitting for me. I've got a couple WIPs right now so really I'm quite content with that game plan.

I thought this was funny :-)

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Octopus #2

The second octopus is finished. I left out the pipe cleaners on this one, and I think he's pretty darn cute. Gonna be hard to part with him come Christmastime.

Working on a jackalope now. I don't have quite enough of the light grey yarn, so I'm giving him dark grey points. Hopefully that will suffice to keep from running out of the lighter color before he's finished. So far I have knit the butt, back, neck & head. Next I need to pick up stitches for the hind legs. This project is probably the largest one in the book, at least 8 or 10" long. Certainly not what I would call amigurumi, but what the heck.

Been seeing a car on the freeway every day this week. The license plate is YARN 1. I can't help but wonder: knitter? Crocheter? Yarn store owner? Weaver? Rug hooker? I got a good look at the driver today but didn't recognize him at all.


The tomato plant is producing like crazy. I'm glad we only have one; we'd never keep up with the crop if there were more of them.

Fast week, slow week

This has been a fast week, in that the time went by quickly. It's also been a slow week, in that other than work I really haven't done much. I did knit a squid, but that's about it. Today will be archery for Ralph, knitting for me, then off to see "Harry Potter" if we can get tickets. The Cinemark is showing it in three theaters so I think our chances are good.




Today's pictures: the finished squid; piglets at the Fair; and the flying horse sand sculpture, also from the Fair.

OC Faire 2009

We had a marvelous day at the Fair today. We took the motorcycle there which is a double-score: 'cycles park for free, PLUS the parking area for them is about 20 feet from the main entrance. Enjoyed the garden exhibits as always, and saw some cute li'l piglets that were only two days old.

One of the exhibits this year is "Al's Brain," a wonderful display about the human brain with some fun optical illusions, interesting facts about famous "brainiacs" (did you know that Marie Curie was both the first woman to win a Nobel prize, and the first person to win one in two different categories?), and ending with a short 3-D movie about the brain, starring Weird Al Yankovic. We really enjoyed that a lot.


This year there were several sand sculptures rather than just the one at the main entrance. Some were still in process; I've included a close-up shot of my favorite one: a horse flying a prop plane. It was really well done, with "swirly" marks on the propeller as though it were really spinning. I asked a worker on one of the ones in process what they were making, and she said they weren't allowed to tell. We passed by it later in the day & I was able to figure out what it was even though they had only done one very small portion of the sculpture. I asked the same person, "If I guess right, will you tell me?" She thought about it for a minute then came closer. I told her my guess and she grinned & gave me a thumbs up, so that *technically* she didn't tell.


We decided not to pack a lunch after all, although we did bring some bottled waters. I think I managed to find the only nutritious meal in the entire fairgrounds: a grilled chicken sandwich with barbecue sauce, lettuce, and two thick slices of tomato on it. (Mind you, we also had junk food; more on that below.) Afterward we went to the home crafts exhibit (always a favorite of mine) and admired the knitting & quilts. I also enjoyed looking at a collection of spaghetti poodle "mother and puppies" sets. One of them (posted) reminded me of the one that Mom used to have, which I think Lizard might now own.

At about that point, we needed to sit & rest our poor feet so we watched the tail end of the cheesecake judging. I'm really glad we did, because after the winners were announced & slices taken away for display, the rest of the cheesecakes were sliced up & distributed to the people watching. Ralph & I tried three different ones: the second place winner which was a sambuco cheesecake that was quite tasty; the best of show winner which was a chocolate-raspberry one; and one that didn't win any prizes but tasted wonderful nonetheless. I think the main reason that one didn't get a prize was that it wasn't as pretty as the others. Ralph liked that one the best of the three. I've posted a picture of the chocolate-raspberry best of show winner.



As always, I enjoyed the decorated cake entries as well. I've posted pictures of my two favorites: the "Think Big" cake decorated to look like a slice of cake (love the look on the fondant girl!) and one of the winners in the youth division. Hard to believe that the wood spirit cake was done by someone in the 13-15 year old range. You'd never see that one on Cake Wrecks, that's for sure.



We also watched a group of square dancers (The "Boys 'n' Berries" which meet in Buena Park near Knott's Berry Farm; for those among the Teeming Millions who may not know this, Knott's used to be an actual working berry farm, and the founder William Knott developed the boysenberry) which was a lot of fun. When they called for volunteers to come up & learn a dance Ralph and I practically ran onto the stage. I really enjoyed myself there; it's been a long time since I've been in a dance group, and square dancing isn't all that different from the Elizabethan dancing I used to do. Ralph & I picked up fliers & are seriously considering joining up when the beginner classes start in September.
All in all, we were at the Fair for about 7 hours, a very long but enjoyable day indeed. I'm really glad that we went today before the weather gets brutally hot. I don't think I've ever had more fun at the fair.

Rat Dog in Process

It's funny how I can be so excited about a project when I first start it, but if I'm not 100% enamored of it in process it just gets shunted aside. I'm afraid the husky dog (or "rat dog" as I've taken to calling it) might end up as a never-ending WIP, just like the orangutan. There are just the two legs to go & it would be finished, however it's been in this state for a week now with me having no desire whatsoever to work on it. Instead, I've been working on The Last Fish Hat and making great progress on it. Just have one fin & the eyes to go.

So, with the hat nearly finished, and the rat dog with just two legs to go, and the poor orangutan sitting there one hand & one ear shy of complete, and a stuffed bunny that I've just barely started, of course I cast on a new project last night. I'm making the kraken, yet another creature from the "Amigurumi Knits" book. Funny thing, now that I've made projects from that book, the stuffed toys in my "World of Knitted Toys" and "Debbie Bliss Toy Knits" books seem crude and primitive in comparison. The projects in those are shaped solely with increases and decreases; they don't have the short rows that turn flat knitting into curved pieces. Plus, the legs & ears are attached by sewing/seaming, whereas in the amigurumi book they are knit onto the project by picking up stitches & then working them. This, I feel, gives a much smoother, more "attached" look. Like they are a part of the creature and not something added on.


Today Ralph & I are going to the Orange County Fair, which started yesterday. I am not sure if we will be packing a lunch or not. It's fun to buy food there, of course, but on the other hand it's cheaper & more nutritious to pack something. What with the food available there--deep-fried cupcakes, chocolate covered bacon, Krispy Kreme chicken sandwiches (fried chicken patty encased in a jelly donut) and cheesecake-on-a-stick--I could pack Crisco and sugar & still have a healthier lunch. I'm looking forward to the knitted stuff, of course, and Ralph is hoping they will have ponds on display this year. They had them about 4 years ago but not since. We shall see.

Just a quick post

Had a nice holiday. Went & saw "Transformers" at the Imax with MH2 & PH2, then they came back to our place for an impromptu BBQ. They stopped at their place first & got some steak and "Star Trek Scene It?" while we provided hot dogs, salad, chips & dip, and rocky road so-called iced cream. We stayed up until almost 11:00 shouting out answers to the Star Trek game. Modestly, I must point out that I *rocked* at that game--at least on the Classic Trek questions. I rather sucked at the Voyager & DS9 ones.

And that's about it. Gonna go eat dinner now.

It's a three-day weekend!

According to my "widget," there are only 175 days until Christmas. E-gads! I still have considerable gift-knitting to do. Just hope I can get it all done in time. You would think that, having started the gift-knitting in December, time wouldn't have been an issue. Of course, it would help if I didn't make stuff for me, or make things that are *supposed* to be gifts but that I like too much to give away.

We've been dealing with a major ant invasion. They are coming in at two different places: the closet in the red room, and in the kitchen right where the doorway meets up with the cabinets. I had to throw away over a dozen cupcakes yesterday. They were in a covered container so I don't know how the little buggers got in there. We also have to keep moving the cats' food dish as the closet-ants keep heading for that. Seems like any time the weather gets hot, the ants start coming in. Ant spray doesn't help much (and we don't want to use it near food, either ours or the pets'), so I'll have to pick up some bait traps next time I go to the store.

Tomorrow is the last day of my "don't eat out for a week" discipline. I have been very good; even though I was invited to go out for lunch by two different people on two different days, I stuck to my guns & ate my packed lunch instead. I haven't even so much as picked up a coffee from Starbucks. Tomorrow is going to be the toughest day, I think, as we are going to the movies with friends which means I'll want popcorn, plus I'm sure everyone else will want to eat out afterward. Also, Ralph will be going to another friend's place in the evening for fireworks (I, by choice, will be staying home & keeping the dogs from freaking out too much) which means it'll just be me for dinner at home & the temptation to grab a burger will be strong. I am making corned beef & cabbage for dinner tonight, and am hoping that the leftovers will keep me from heading for a fast food joint tomorrow. Wish me luck!