I love Westminster chimes!

So the ongoing conversation went something like this ...

Flashback...15 years ago..."So Pete...I think you should give me Kevin's clock" (translates to brother that owes money).

" I can't give you Kevin's clock, it's Kevin's"

"Sooo...not really...it's yours"

Flashback...last year " Don't you think Kevin's clock would look good in my apartment?"

"No"

"Aww come on...look right over there"

" Maybe if you (insert lewd comment)"

"Eww...no! That is NOT my job!" Subject closed....not going to happen!

Flashback...two weeks ago phone rings... "Jeanne...which one of these clocks are you going to take?"

"Whadda mean which clock?"

" You want the battery or the wind up?" (completely in shock now) "

" I want the one that plays Westminster Chimes"

" They both do"

"Well I want Kevin's clock"

"But you have to pull the chain every 8 days, the other one is better for people that don't want to bother"

"Peter...I think I can handle pulling the chain...I want Kevins clock!"

"Ok, I'll bring it over tomorrow"

"Really??? Really??"

" Yeah but you gotta give it back to Kevin when I die" "SWEET!!!"

Holy Shazbat! I can't believe I have Kevin's clock in my house!!! And it chimes so darn purty!

Talk about monotony! OMG this was the mother of all boring projects! I was good for about the first 10 rows but then after that I kinda wanted to shoot myself. That yummy fairywing stuff put me to sleep a few times. And the mobius...very tricky business trying to put it on.

still, it turned out nice and the yarn was a dream! I don't see myself making another one tho, I would probably end up in a coma if I did.

Project Scoop

Pattern: Crazy Girl Mobius Wrap ( hand out from Stitches Midwest)

Yarn: Blue Heron Rayon Metallic (40 bucks a crack girls) Marshgrass Silver 550 yrds

Needles: size 7 circs

Entertainment value: mindnumbing

This little beauty has taken it's time getting here. I am pretty sure that I had to rip it out at least fifteen times before I got the braided cable right. One down and one to go. I have no intentions of starting mitt #2 until I have an entire evening ( or shift) of un-interrupted knit time.

See how Brodie gets his face into all the pictures?? He is a camera hog!

Like a butterfly

From flower to flower

Sometimes...I wonder where my head is at!

I have had this problem all my life...I see something, think it might be fun to learn, then I launch myself into yet another project. What were you thinking?? I say that to my many callers at work (under my breath of course). I blame my mother of course... she did raise me this way!

This week I thought it might be fun to make polymer beads... so I impulse shopped my little self to Michaels, buy a couple of packets and off I go. Now I used to be heavily into ceramics and pottery back in the day, so much so that I drove my mother crazy digging up the clay from the back yard, making beads and flower pots in the oven. And that worked for me...I am a little bit bohemian and of course every pot and bead I made was unique (lots of macrame hangers around the house). As an adult I find that I am striving for a uniformity that just isn't there.

THE BEAD PROJECT:

In theory they should have had a pinwheel design like this.

The reality was more like this!

And lets not forget, just another in a long series of the calamity events in my life, the bead that I dropped into my coffee cup... which I drank anyway.

I get the concept of course, but the application usually seems to be lacking...ah well...it is therapeutic at any rate.

I do try to do things myself as much as I can, I hate being dependent on someone else. Things like hanging curtains, or say blinds. In which case Mark aka He-Man ( I am not She-rah BTW) comes over and looks at my handiwork, (which I find completely acceptable by the way), points out where I went wrong, the basically pats me on the head and says "Honey, you stick to answering 911 calls, I'll take care of the man work". I think he likes me to be dependent on him. Nah... he's not really chauvinistic...riiight!

On the "I mostly know what I am doing front" I started the mobius shawl from that pretty sparkly fairy wingish yarn and am nearly finished. Can't really screw this one up, it is a no brainer.

On the other hand... This poor little cabled fingerless mitt... I have frogged 3 flippin' times! Not because I don't know what I am doing, but because I just don't pay attention.

Again...I blame my mother, she did raise me this way! If nothing else...I find my life boredom free. ( I do still plan to take that spinning class)

Yarnfest Time!

How many goodies can you fit into a shopping bag???

THIS MANY!

Today my Co-worker (Lisa - new knit convert) and I went to Stitches MidWest where we pushed are selves to the limit...along with our wallets. Lisa worked last night and I have to work tonite so we forwent the whole sleeping thing...who needs sleep anyway, to take our happy camper butts to Schaumberg to get our yarn fix. For me it is like a pilgrimage, for Lisa...it was her first time.

One of the vendors likened it to a candy store...I think of it as yarn-crack. Completely addictive!

I went with the idea of buying a new swift...yah no... that did not happen, but I did get a few patterns and some shawl kits geared for the lace challenged knitter.

I bought some shawl pins (now I have to make the shawls), a book on drop spindling...as I am determined to learn how not to drop the spindle come hell or high water...

Bought some fantastic yarn at ...erm 40 clams a crack...(see... there's that yarn crack thing again). But it is so darn pretty,and you can't really tell here, but it looks like it has been sprinkled with faery dust! In fact it is so pretty, I couldn't make myself go to sleep until I took out my ghetto rigged swift and wound one of them (the one that reminds me of faery wings).

And of course, once wound I immediately cast on for the mobius shawl pattern I got when I purchased the yarn.

As Brodie patiently waits for his momma to quit playing and go to bed!!

My -How the time flies

Seriously, I had no idea! I know I tend to lose track of time on this un-natural shift but really!

I've not been idly losing time, oh no. I decided I needed to paint my living room. And well if I paint the living room then I need to paint the stairwell...three flights of stairwell....yahh right!

What started out as a simple paint job very quickly turned into an ordeal, then a major project. "Well if you're going to do it then do it right and paint the trim" Not really planning on that. and then, "Oh you should get six panel doors for in here" yah...didn't plan on that either. Plus I planned on hiring someone to do the stairs since the ceiling is like 25 high! "Oh no we can do this!" Well we did and it looks great, minus the fact that my hand rails aren't up yet and I have quite a bit of touch up to do around my new doors/frames. Painting, yah...not so much a fan...I now need a vacation from my vacation!

Brodie spends a lot of time doing this...

and he is looking at this little guy, who seems to like to graze right next to my deck!

I got this far on my jacket, ready to start the body on sleeve #two when I realized I was making something I will never wear, it is two big and....

Oops! It has a big boo boo on part #1 right at the begining of the body where I missed several stitches and had a big hole.

So I ripped out sleeve #2 and stashed the whole damn thing back into the closet.

Impluse knitting!

I made this hat and scarf in a twisted drop stitch pattern. In the time honored fashion of winging it without a written pattern.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.