Making Some Stuff

Three months, huh? I’m really on top of things.

I don’t want to get into a long list of what we did, or where we went, or any other crap like that because really, who cares. People want pictures, not spouting off about senseless crap. Well my friends, I can hardly deliver on the picture front either. You would think that my sorry ass would have some super awesome pictures from my super awesome new Nikon cool pix camera that my mom got us for Christmas. That would make sense. Did I take a lot of pictures? Yes. Do I have the motivation to download them to the computer? No. This may have to do with the fact that Steve just HAD to have a Mac Mini, and this is where all the pictures are kept, but it is constantly not hooked up because he uses his work laptop all the time, so it is a pain in the patootie to hook everything up, and his response is that if we had iPhones I could take pictures and upload them to Blogger. Problem solved. He forgets to mention the part about the remaining 10 months on our Verizon contract, that I don’t want to spend $400 on phones, and that AT&T sucks.

Good thing I have my trusty regular phone to take pictures with. So here are a couple of things to share. People are still popping out the kids. I made this owl vest for Seth at work. His wife had a baby boy last week. The vest was for a 1 yr old, but I tried to size it down to a newborn. Not sure how big they are so not sure if this will fit. It is cute though…..even if it fits for about 3 minutes.

The next creation is carrots! I did not knit these. I can not believe that after just throwing some seeds in haphazardly, we actually have carrots. You are supposed to put them in rows and thin them and stuff, but I am considering the first time we plant anything the experimental phase (I don’t want to read up on how to plant or care for said plant). Yes, the experts are right. They should be in rows and thinned to get a greater yield. Go figure. But we still got about 12 carrots this year, plus the runts that Rey gets to eat. In your face Master Gardeners! I roasted these last night but we are not going to eat them until today. All those carrots cooked down to almost nothing. Hopefully they taste good.

Thanksgiving, a few days late

This past weekend was pretty relaxing. It is pretty rare that we have days off and can stay at home. This weeknd was a mix of friends, football, and knitting. We had some friends, and friends of friends over on Thanksgiving. We all split up the Turkey Day duties, so it was actaully very manageable. One of my duties was to make the celebratory Thanksgiving Mobile of Death. I fashioned this out of felt and fabric glue. I also busted out my mad embroidery skills. Making an appearance were a bloody cleaver, a dead turkey, a decapitated turkey, a dead onion, a dead sweet potato, a dead loaf of bread, and rounding out the stuffing trio, a dead celery. Steve was a little fearful for his life during the construction of this masterpiece, but the cuteness took the edge off a bit.



We also had some veterinary fun. We should have seen it coming. Whenever I get a bonus from work, an animal goes down. This time it was Rey. We were playing soccer last Sunday and he cracked and twisted his dew claw 180 degrees. On Wednesday Steve took him to the vet, and $200 later, we have a bandaged foot with a very, very stumpy dew claw. To prevent chewing and licking of the bandaids, Rey needs to wear a sock. This is bad because now I want to knit him socks and he will get beat up at the park. Anyway, Exhibit A and B are said evidence of sock covered dew claw.


Other craftiness has taken place, but I will only show a couple of things for now. In September (on my b-day, actually) our neighbors Jeannie and Matt had a baby. They got this lovely parting gift from us. I think that they are Christine's Booties and a hat from Itty Bitty Hats. The yarn is Cascade suoerwash and Louet Gems.


Then we got invited to a U of A basketball games by our friends, Kate and Jeff, who have little preemie Henry. Henry is doing quite well and has grown out of his hat. I got some of the Lout Gems in blue and made him his own little elf hat.

And finally, the baby borats. They have been in the US for about 2 months, and my slow ass finally finished thier toys. Of course, I have not sent them yet. I suck. Anyway, I present a cordoroy brontosaurous from my new (and free thanks to a Bookman's thing that is compllicated...just know it was free) Sew a Dinosaur book. Notice the Neutrogena lip protector for scale. Also, a little bunny from a free pattern form Wee Wonderrfuls, I think.


I'm outie!

Austin Part 2 and other musings

Better late than never.

So, as part of “Austin Part 2,” here are some of the things that I got in my former cit-tay. Fabric and yarn. Are you surprised? I also got a shirt from Parts and Labor, but I forgot to take a picture.



The fabric and the Amy Butler Weekender Bag pattern are from Craft-o-rama. Craft-o-rama is south of South Congress, down by St. Ed’s. It is a cute store with a small selection of fabric. All of it is good though. They have classes and sewing machines set up that you can rent to use in house by the hour. The flowery fabric is Amy Butler. The other one is by the guy who rips off Amy Butler, but I can’t remember his name. They are produced by the same company.

We also went to Hill County Weavers. I was completely overwhelmed, and not just because it is the first time that I have been in a decent yarn shop in a while. The prices have gone up a ton in the past two years. My friends were saying that it really has been in the last few months. Really frustrating. Anyway, between confusion and principal, I only came out with three skeins of yarn. One for me, one to make my mom something with since she always gets gypped on the knitting end, and one to make baby things for my neighbor who is due in October.

Speaking of Austin, while I was there I missed the one year birthday party of my coworker/friend Kevin’s daughter Maddie. So, being the retard that I am, I decided to make her a present.




Pattern: Dinosaur by Jennifer Thurston
Yarn: Leftover Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere from the Pea Pod sweater (yay!)
Needles: Size 5 circular, but it is knitted flat and seamed
Time: Started 8/25 finished 8/26
Thoughts: LOVED this pattern. It is so cute that I want to make one for myself. TO make it a dinosaur for a girl, I added a skirt from scraps of cotton yarn I had. The skirt took longer than the dino. I, of course, was thrilled this morning to give this to Kevin. He, of course, was gracious but didn’t seem so thrilled. CRAP.

Speaking of Jurassic, we also tackled the weeds in the yard this weekend. That took FOREVER, but things are looking up. Also bought a couple of ponytail palms for some pots in the front of the house. Things are shaping up. Now all we need is for our new window to finally come in. Drats.

In other knitting news, I have made some cute things for the baby shower that is taking place this weekend. I will have to wait to share until Sunday night. I also am thinking of going to the local Stitch and Bitch tomorrow. A couple of weeks ago Steve and I (well, more me dragging Steve with) went to the local café where they meet to scope them out first. Bad, I know, but I wanted to make sure that the people at least looked normal before I started investing time and guilt into another group. Everything checked out, but we were at a distance.

Worky, worky busy bee

Again, so busy that I can't even function by the end of the day. In fact, this whole post might not make any sense. I have had to do work yesterday and today so that I can take Friday off to go home for a few days. It sucks ass that I only have 2 weeks vacation. I need to move to Europe. Not only would I get more vacation and free health care, but I can be as crabby as I want and it would be cool because I was European.

Anyway, in between crabbiness, we made our way up to Mt. Lemmon on the 4th. We thought it would be cooler up there, and although it was, it was still 90 degrees. We took about a 1/2 mile "hike" and Rey was done for. He laid in the parking lot with his travel bowl of water between his front paws and wouldn't move. On the whole ride home he had his upper half of his body wedged between the front seats with his face about 5 inches from the air conditioning vents. Poor guy.

Because it was so hot, we just ended up eating lunch and taking a nap. At least the breeze was still cool.

Our view during the nap:

Me and my boy:


Oh, and this week I got a bunch of yarn to begin the 1,0000,00000,0,00,0,0,0,0,0 baby things I have to make in the next month or two. This is yarn enough for three of them.