spiky hat

Sometime in the fall Stefan and I were at Purlescence and he picked out two colors of Cascade Cotton Club, a cotton/acrylic blend that I think is very similar to my beloved All Seasons Cotton. In fact the blue/grey he picked out is almost the same color as my Manon. His request for the yarn was a "spiky" hat. The red was supposed to be the spikes. I looked around on Ravelry for a while, trying to find just the right hat and finally settled on Chullosauro (Ravelry link to my project – sorry I have been neglecting to add these). I think it fits the bill, don't you?

spiky

It is supposed to be a chullo hat, with ear flaps, but I didn't have enough of the blue yarn. Also, the pattern didn't have the spikes in it so I improvised a bit. I think it's okay but not great. Maybe the designer will get back to me on Ravelry and tell me how she made hers.

This second picture is a bit out of focus but captures Stefan's smile so perfectly that I had to upload it too.

stegosaurus hat

I know I"m biased, but isn't he a cutie?

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legwarmers, butterfly, return of the chaos

Mom's legwarmers were delivered on Christmas. I was a little nervous about how well they'll stay up. We'll see how it goes!

mom’s legwarmers

I finally got a photograph of the snail outside his home. He's dirty now because he was taken to the park one day.

niels’ snail

I then made a butterfly in a strawberry for Stefan. Again, too stinkin' cute for words.

peeking butterfly

Finally, my house has descended into chaos again. We got a new TV and all the components had to be pulled out so the new stuff could be put together but nothing works immediately, of course, so everything is spread around the house. Also, the boys went and slept at my parents' house and brought back bags and bags of stuff with them. I don't get how the smallest people require the most stuff. Actually, I do get it but it gets frustrating.

I'm hoping that a) all the new electronics will play nicely with each other tomorrow (once we get the right cable) and we can start sorting out what needs to go and where it can go.

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elder god for the younger son

I got out my copy of Creepy Cute Crochet to look for instructions on how to make the general body shape I wanted for the Mystery Animal. Stefan had other ideas, though. Stefan said he wanted "the green guy", otherwise known as Cthulhu. Luckily, he's a lot more friendly looking in a small crochet version.

stefan and cthulhu

cthulhu’s wings

Obviously, he needs eyes. I didn't have the right sized safety eyes so I figured I'd find something after he was finished. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble embroidering them on. I might take a page from Janice's book and get some felt.

The part that amuses me about all of this is that Cthulu (yes, without the second H) was Erik's screen name on the MUD where we met so I feel connected to that name. Stefan still calls this "that green guy" though, which is super cute. Also, he doesn't seem at all bothered by That Green Guy's lack of eyes.

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reinventing the clap

Stefan, Niels and I were at Books Inc today and they had a couple of baskets by the register filled with giant microbes. They were picking them up and admiring them and pointing out that the chicken pox one is kind of cute, and looks a bit like a chicken. Then Niels picks up one and says, "what's this? It says 'her-ups'?" That's herpes, folks. They also had HIV and The Clap. There was also staph and strep and stomachache and others but somehow, we kept ending up with the, ahem, social diseases. In fact, I practically had to pry the clap out of Stefan's hands so he would leave it there. I actually said, "Put that back, we are not bringing the Clap home." I crack myself up.

clap

Anyway, you can see why he liked it. It's kind of cute. It also bears a resemblance to the way the mystery animal on Zoboomafoo often appears. He had decided it was the mystery animal, and that's why he wanted it. So, I'm thinking that I could reproduce a mystery animal. All I need to do is crochet a body and head piece without adding arms and legs, right? I just need some safety eyes and cuddely, fuzzy yarn.

zoboo mystery animal

I can so do this.

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oops

This morning I went and helped to set up the Textiles portion of the kids' art show at City Hall. We hung two of the quilts from the banister and I think it looks really cool.

The other two hung on the panels with the other various projects that we did. That worked out well, I think, because the two on the panels are the ones with more quilting on them, which would be hard to see if they were up high.

I love the way we hang up the dyed silk circles. It's like stained glass.

silk dyeing

This afternoon I went over to Purlescence to get something and I must have had sewing on the brain because I came home with a sewing book.

Sew What! Bags: 18 Pattern-Free Projects You Can Customize to Fit Your Needs

Lexie Barnes

Then I made this:

I made a bag

Which Stefan liked.

Stefan claimed it

Then I went to JoAnn and bought some more fabric to make one for Niels' friend who is having a birthday this weekend as well as a reversible tote for myself. I guess I'm officially sewing stuff now. We'll see if it sticks this time or if I send the sewing machine back to Mom and forget about it until next fall.

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birthday pictures

Mom came through with some pictures of Stefan's birthday party. He's not looking at the camera, but such is life.

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yarn swapping and sweater finishing

Purlescence had a yarn swap today and I made out like a bandit.

I also brought home one skein of yarn that I had to pay for: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious silk in the sapphire colorway. I've been lusting after this yarn for a while and I have plan for it, so home it came. This photo doesn't do it justice, believe me.

IMG_0634.JPG

I had all the yarn out on the floor in the office (an advantage of cleaning up the office is that I can use the floor, even if it's just for poorly lit photo shoots). Stefan decided that all the yarn spread out looked like a garden and started arranging it and stuffing some of the balls into shoes. The ones he was stuffing into shoes are actually sock yarn. Smart kid, eh?

stefan arranged a garden of yarn, in his words

The last thing I brought home was two grocery bags full of sparkly, fluffy, shiny yarns for the kids in the Textiles class to use for weaving. Kids love sparkly, fluffy, shiny yarn for weaving. We found last time that the ribbon yarn works particularly well because it lays flat and makes the project faster and the stuff we had was variegated which gives the piece more interest for the kids. I think they'll love the stuff I got.

While I was waiting for the end of the swap (to collect the stuff for school) I finished sewing the hem of Niels' sweater. It's all finished except for the i-cord tie. I am not going to make the i-cord tie, though. I am going to go to JoAnn and buy some sort of cord for the tie. I don't see a point in knitting four feet of i-cord so that one foot of it shows. Also, it seems likely, as Anabel pointed out, that Niels will decide he needs a rope for something and pull it out. At least if I have store bought cord, I can go buy another. PIctures of the sweater will come later, after it has blocked and the recipient has recovered from his current flu-y illness and is in a sweater modelling mood.

I don't know how many yards of yarn I took over because some of it was old yarn from my grandmother and I didn't know how many yards it was. Not counting that yarn, and including a fluffy yarn I'm donating to the weaving projects, 2274 yards of yarn left my house today. Unfortunately, 3417 yards came in. That's a net gain of 1147 yards. I did put a few more balls of yarn into Niels' sweater but I thought my stash total would go up. I figured out why it dropped so much between my last two calculations: Ravelry changed the way they count your yarn so that if you put something in a project it subtracts it from the total in your stash. Even so, my total has dropped again and I'm not sure how. I now have 43867.3 yards or 24.93 of yarn that's down another 6 miles and over my goal for the year. That seems wrong somehow. I must be missing something. I'll figure it out eventually, I suppose. I'm still going to aim for using up 5 more miles of yarn this year, because I think I can! I already used up almost a mile in Niels' sweater.

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finished shedir

I finished my Shedir a couple of days ago. I really liked this pattern and this yarn (Calmer). Niels and Stefan wanted to model it too.

I started another chemo cap but I'm not crazy about how it's going. I think I might change it.

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poffertjes and peas, not together

After 10 years of being involved with a Dutchman I finally made poffertjes from a recipe instead of a mix! I had been intimidated by using yeast, for some silly reason, but it was totally worth it. The texture was amazing and they were quite popular with everyone. Of course, the fact that you melt butter over them and sprinkle them with powdered sugar makes them very popular in and of itself.

In the past week I've made the first two soups from a recent episode of Good Food. I'm glad I made the potato and green garlic one first because while it was good, it can not compare to the chilled pea bisque.

chilled pea soup with dungeness crab

I don't think I had the full 2 cups of peas because Stefan was "helping" me shell the peas. At first he was really helping but then it ended with him shoveling the shelled peas into his mouth and saying, "My helping!" It was cute, though, to make up for the lack of peas in the finished product. The only other changes I made were not to use the mint, because I didn't have it, and I used jasmine rice, which isn't a change, since they don't specify what type of rice to use. It was the only white rice I had and I didn't think brown rice would work very well. Anyway, this soup is amazing. I think it's the texture that really does it. Because you strain the pureed pea/rice mixture it comes out the most amazing silky texture. I will definitely be making it again!

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the simple things in life

There are thousands of dollars worth of toys in this house, I think, and yet, what is Stefan playing with? The pile of yarn scraps left from me weaving in the ends of Oblique. (See, I mentioned Oblique, that's what makes this a knitting post.) First they were snakes, "dis big nake, dis baby nake," and then they were riding in a truck.

stefan loves yarn

Another wonderful simple thing in life: what I am calling cheaters risotto. I cooked some rice in the rice cooker last night with extra water ot make it nice and soft and bland in case Stefan wanted to eat. He didn't, so I had all this very soft rice in the fridge. I decided to heat some up for my lunch and added a bit of salt and fontina cheese (and pepper, after I took this photo). Can you say yum? I can!

simple but yummy food

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