Rough past few days.

  These past few days have not been nice to the humans in my house.  On Tuesday Bill got into a fight with a shipping crate, and the crate won.  Actually he got mad at someone and punched the shipping crate instead of them.
  Well, when I got home from work his knuckle was swollen and hurt to move.  So I drove him to the ER.  We got nurse Cheryl again, so that was fun.  One not so fun thing was that the iPad was missing from his room.  I could see one in the other room!
  Turns out it was just some bad bruising.  They gave him a wrap to help keep him from over using it and sent him home with a referral for a hand specialist if it is still giving him problems in a week.
  Then I woke-up yesterday and went to Safeway to get some kitty litter and lunch.  The guy who was checking me out raved about how good the microwave Little Potatoes I got.  I got the garlic parsley flavor.  I ate those and loved every bite.
  After lunch I wasn't feeling so awesome.  I first thought that it was because I ate too many potatoes.  I did eat the whole container by myself after-all.  Though as the day went on I got worse.  I thought if I picked off the moldy bits off the dessert I had the night before it would be fine.  It tasted fine.  It was not so fine.  So don't worry about the potatoes, I still highly recommend them.

  I got more knitting done on my test knit though.  I finished the right sleeve completely and I am at the increases on the left side.  The designer and I have misunderstood each other a few times, but I think we are now on the same page.  If not, I can check on things at the next release and re-suggest it.
  I'm also itching to get it done because I really want to start a Slippy Cowl.  It looks like something super fun to do.

  I also finally got my cascading leaves and vines shawl blocked.  I had a lot of fun with the other test of a pattern, so I am excited to get another going.  It helps people to have a picture to know if they want to test it or not.
  I'm also having some designer issues in my head.  I thought of a fun shawl idea, but it was so easy I figured someone else had already done it.  Then I thought about it more and thought of a variation on it.  I have been checking to see about the original on Ravelry, but so far I have not seen it.  I tried "block shawl" and found nothing.  I have been browsing through "stripe shawl" but there are over 100 pages of patterns to look at.  I'm on page 51 and so far I have not found the original idea I had.
  So now I'm wondering if I should make two patterns, one pattern, or a two-in-one pattern.  I also need to get my hands on some yarn in the weight I want before I can do any of this.  It will give me some more time to think it over.  Though I hear rumor that about 30 boxes of yarn have been donated to Knitters and Crocheters Care, so I have a feeling the perfect yarn for one or both ideas will be in there.

Tasting things.

  I don't know how my brain wondered over to it, but I randomly remembered an encounter many years ago.  My friend brought some cherry tomatoes to work and raved about how sweet they were.  Being a tomato lover I tried one.  I said that they were only okay.  She said I couldn't taste them correctly because I had a stuffy nose.
  Well, I always have a stuffy nose.  So I don't know if that was it or if it was because they were store bought and I have had them off the vine from the backyard.  It made me wonder if my sense of taste has become more independent from my nose than other people.
  Durian smells horrible (less horrible if you get frozen and defrost it), but that didn't bug me when eating it.  I shared some with a friend and he said he could not get past the smell and just be able to taste it.
  One thing I do know is that I will probably never really find out if I am missing out or not because my nose is so used to the extra moister that it freaks out some if it is gone.  I have had colds before and when I take the cold medicine that dries you out it works too well and I get a head ache.  Then I'm not in the mood to try any foods.  This is why when I get a hint of a cold I down enough vitamin C to supplement a large army.  It worked for me when my old boss gave me his bad cold right before I went to Hawaii.  I know, I had to eat lots of fruit while in Hawaii, my life was hard.

  Also, before anyone worries, I'm 99.9% sure I don't have mold growing in my nose.  Somehow at Knit-night it was brought up.  Someone had a continually stuffed up nose and kept getting worse and worse feeling.  Turns out this person, a she I believe, had black mold growing in her nasal area.  True or not, I don't know, but I do know that I have had a stuffy nose since kindergarten and I still feel fine.

  I have been pretty productive today (in my eyes).  I also noticed something.  I seem to either keep my Ravelry page up to date, or the blog.  The projects that I didn't show near the beginning on the blog had the date on the Ravelry page.  Projects that have been on the blog were not even mentioned on my Ravelry page.  This is crazy!  I need to get into the habit of updating everything at once.

Happy Star Wars Day!!

Happy Star Wars day to everyone!  I wish I had been working on something more nerdy than my Fragole Lace Shrug test knit.  I did put my Skywalker shawl in the sink to soak, so I guess that counts for something.

One of the events at work we had was to make Star Wars craft items.  One of the items was a drawstring bag.  I think I will make a few bags (not all nerdy, but who knows) to donate.  I think that would be fun.

I also ran across this interesting decrease.  Some knitters don't like how their left leaning decreased don't really look just like mirror images of their right leaning.  They both lean opposite ways, but one tends to look more stretched out and not as smooth.  The Slip-Twist-Turn Decrease has the answer to that problem.
I haven't tried it yet, but it looks really cool.

I was also thinking it might be fun to sign-up for the St. Jude PLAY LIVE event.  I love playing video games, I love doing stuff for charity.  Sounds perfect to me.  My only problem right now is that since I am doing a test knit and trying it get more made for my Etsy shop, I don't feel like I would have time to really dedicate to it.  Also, the game I really want to play right now has a higher age rating than I would be allowed to play.

You got on a what?!

I will start out by saying that I do not like roller coasters.  I only get the scared-scared feeling from them and not the trilling-scared that people who like them get.
Now here is a bunch of pictures and some stories from the trip to the amusement park we took yesterday.

 

Not only were we celebrating Emily's and Mary's birthdays, it was also Kings Dominion's birthday!

 

 

It was also the last day of their Spring Bloom Festival.  I love flowers, both real and fake.

   

I really wanted some of these for my house.  They are just so big and bright and happy.

 

This was a working clock, and it was made with so many flowers.  I couldn't get over how cool this was.

 

 

Mary really wanted a lemur.  The nerdy ones were my favorite.  She won one of those.  I was super excited for her!

 

Here the birthday girls are playing DDR.  I felt all nostalgic and wanted to pull my pads out and practice more.

 

 

They had these outside of most of the rides so you could make sure you fit into the seats.  Bill didn't fit in some of them.  This was the only one that had wheels, so we joked that this was my kind of roller-coaster.

 

 

I did get on an actual roller-coaster that I had some fun on.  It didn't have the huge drop at the beginning.  It wasn't what I was expecting though.  I was expecting it to be more like the ride I went on in Disney World where they had stuff falling at you.  This only had some fire and gun sounds near the end.

I had fun and I know the birthday girls had a ton of fun.  I had brought some stuff with me so I could work on water-bottle holders while I waited for everyone, but we did too many things and the lines weren't as long as I thought they would be.

Knitting in public is fine, but crochet?! Oh my!!

We were talking about somehow knitting outside Uniquities and my mom said it would be an impromptu Knit In Public Day. Then I pointed out that we were knitting in public since we were sitting in the eating area of Wegmans. Then Tammy pointed out that she was crocheting in public. That lead to "Crocheting in public?! Oh my!!"

 

 

Here is a picture of the brim of the hat I am working on and my treat for the afternoon.

I have also volunteered to test out a shrug/bolero pattern.  The Free Pattern Testers forum on Ravelry can be dangerous.  I know I want to try too many of the patterns I see on there.

I have definitly heard of time management.

I have no time management skills or scheduling skills at all.  I really don't.  I will work on blog posts while the sun is out and then wonder why my pictures of other things are super dark later. 

 

 I did finish the play mat though!  I finished it last Sunday night.  I made-up the pattern, but it is quite easy.  If you know how to crochet a granny square, you will be able to make this.  My segments are two single crochets with a single chain between, and two segments with two chains between at the corners.

 

 This shows the color a lot better.  There is also a US nickel for scale, I couldn't find a penny.  Everyone was super impressed by the thing.  It did take seven skeins of yarn to make this.

I also finished the knitted portion of another Skywalker done, but it has been added to the to-be-blocked pile, so no nice pictures.  I made another because the first one, that was made to gauge, felt too small.  I like this new one a lot better.

Today I got to finally teach the crochet jar cozy class.  They are growing on me.  When I made the first sample (shown above) I didn't even like the idea enough to fully read the pattern.  It wasn't supposed to look like this.

 This is the pattern and how it was supposed to look.  This is the one I made during the class.  Though the funny thing is that my student liked the accidental "variation" I did before.  Though since they were so easy and since my student was so excited to make them, I am starting to like them more.

This is the small version.  The pattern came with two sizes with two stitch patterns.  The small one fit the super cute Dairy jars the look like vintage milk bottles.

This is my dedicated student.  She brought a variegated purple yarn to work with.  A lady after my own heart.

This is her large cover.  She started making it the way the pattern said and then wanted to make it the way I had done it on the first sample I had made.  Now I have visions of making this to go over jars and then put LED candles in them for my dining room table. 

Happy Easter, but don't get too close.

Bill has been super nice and shared his germs with me.  I felt myself going downhill last night and woke-up with a super sore throat today.  I'm hopped up on Vitamin C so I'm going to keep it simple this post.
We went over to my parents' house for an Easter lunch and Mary and I went wondering around in the woods I grew up playing in.  She found a few different plants she liked and wanted to take home.  Food was good and so was hanging out.

I have been working on something for someone at the Mon knit-night who had a baby.  I thought I was making a baby blanket, but it turns out I am making a play mat.  Silly yarn wanting to be something different than I thought of.
Another Skywalker shawl is in the works too.  I'm already at the edging.  I remember the pattern taking longer, but I seem to be flying through it.  Changes at the one wavy stitch have still been made, but I made different choices than last time.  Making this has made me want to design another shawl. 
Maybe I will get one of these patterns I keep making testing and out to the public...maybe.

As I was looking for the perfect border for the shawl I have in my head I found a few other things that are pretty awesome.
  This super awesome/adorable dragon is to die for.  I love it and want to snuggle it.
  The design page by Lucy Hague is just filled with such pretty things.
  This Grape Vine Shawl also caught my eye.  There is a link to the pattern right on the page.
  The bottom most picture on this blog post caught my eye.  I was hoping it would give some insight on how to use a straight edging and turn a corner with it.  From what I can tell there is no link to the pattern.  It is really fancy looking though.

I thought I had more to say....but I can't remember it now.  So here is another link to a Back to School Style Blazer Recon by ThreadBanger that I really want to try.