"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

3/30/16

Layette Set 9 for Knitwits

Number 9 is done.



I thought this set was going to be challenging because I wanted to use this self striping yarn very much. Finding a fleece in my stash that would go with it was a WOO HOO moment. I love the owls. I got this fabric at Hancock Fabric Warehouse from the clearance table last year. They had just one yard left for a couple bucks.




Pattern: Scallop edging from Lots of Knots blog

Yarn
: Ella Rae Amity Print
Content: 75% Wool/25% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: 205 Green

Yarn: Unknown Acrylic
Content: 100% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: White

Hook: Size H

Started: March 26, 2016
Finished: March 27, 2016


I used a little different scallop pattern for the edging which I like a lot. Probably will use it the most from now on. It doesn't take as much yarn as the shell pattern I have used before. This is an issue because I want to do the whole layette set with 400 yards of yarn. This works out great.



The cardigan.



PatternSuper Natural Stripes by Fawn Pea
Size: 6-12 months

Yarn: Ella Rae Amity Print
Content: 75% Wool/25% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: 205 Green

Yarn: Unknown Acrylic
Content: 100% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: White

Needles: Circular size 6 and 8

Started: March 2, 2016
Finished: March 7, 2016




Originally I put a red button on, but then I discovered there isn't any red in the blanket, so I changed to a teal one. I don't like it as much, but it matches the fleece fabric better.

I like the way the colors pooled. I found the sleeves especially interesting. I started in the same place of the yarns color repeat for both of them, but they still came out very different.



The hat.



Pattern: Magic Coffee Baby Hat by Tracey Kay
Size: 2-9 months

Yarn: Ella Rae Amity Print
Content: 75% Wool/25% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: 205 Green

Yarn: Unknown Acrylic
Content: 100% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: White

Needles: Circular size 6 and 7

Started: March 7, 2016
Finished: March 8, 2016


Comments: First time I've put a pom-pom on one of these hats. I like it, a lot.

The booties.



PatternSeamless Garter Tassel Booties by Karen Strauss
Size: 6 months

Yarn: Ella Rae Amity Print
Content: 75% Wool/25% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: 205 Green

Yarn: Unknown Acrylic
Content: 100% Acrylic, Worsted weight

Color: White

Needles: Circular size 6


Started: March 8, 2016
Finished: March 12, 2016

Comments: The cuffs don't match. I don't care.




Layette set 10 is begun.


3/28/16

Stressful Morning

Monday has started out as rather stressful. First of all, I woke up to an inch of new snow outside. Bleck. I took Mollie out for her morning business and she pulled all over. The scent of deer was thick in the air. I would stop as soon as she started pulling, but she'd just pull me along cuz my feet were sliding on top of the snow. Basically, it was like water skiing on the lawn. I didn't have much fun.

Running with her toy.

Later, as hubby was getting ready to head for work, I took her outside again to run in the garden area-which is now the exercise pen. Mollie loves to run. I had a physical therapy appointment this morning and I wanted to get some of her pent up energy out before I left, so we were in the pen when hubby left. She freaked out when she saw him drive away.  I kept her running and chasing her toy for a good while, until I thought she'd calmed down and moved on with life. I hooked up her leash and took her out of the pen. As soon as we stepped out she yanked hard pulling the leash right out of my hand and took off. She was looking for hubby. She ran on down the driveway and out into the street at full speed, leash bouncing behind her.

Now I was the one to freak out. Traffic was heavy, being morning rush hour, plus I had no idea if I would even find her. As far as I was concerned, she was probably gone. I had a panic attack. Fortunately, when I got to the end of the driveway I saw her just down the road. She was actually heading toward home. But when she saw me calling her, she thought she'd play a game of "keep away from mom" by running past me, rather than stopping. Meantime, cars are buzzing past at 50 mph. How she didn't get hit I will never know. After a few passes speeding by me she finally realized Mom wasn't playing and came to me. Whew!

One happy dog.

I was still shaking when I got to my therapy appointment. I am relieved, though, that she was actually coming back to the house. That is a good sign. She thinks of it as home. Also, the fact that she finally came to me is a HUGE relief. We are making progress. It's not as fast as I'd like, but it is happening. The training is having an effect. This is gonna be a really good dog in the future.

Forgive me mom?

I noticed I've got a few more grey hairs on my head.

Now for some exciting news. We have an appointment for tomorrow morning with a rep from the company who's going to build our new garage. YAY!! Finally, getting it started. The faster we can get that done, the faster we can get a fence built.

My next post will be about my latest finished layette set. Finished it last night.

Live long and prosper. \\//



3/25/16

Here's Mollie!

Just a few pics of Mollie today.



In this one she is laying on the couch with daddy, holding her ducky.



She loves the couch and has taken over from the  cats.



Aaah, this is the life.



She watches out the window for daddy to come home in the late afternoon/evening.



I'm working on her training. She knows 'back' now, which means to back away from the door, or whatever, so I can get in front of her. So that's progress. She also pretty much has stopped pulling on the leash walking in the yard. But when we go away from the yard, that's a whole 'nuther story. So it's taking some time for her to learn that one.

She's learning what go to bed means too. Last night I had no problems getting her to bed and settled down.

This morning I took her to my vet for her wellness check. Geez, what an experience! As soon as I let her out of the car she went nuts. It was all I could do to hold on to the leash. I wrestled her in where she barked her head off at the people and other dogs in the waiting area. They got us into an exam room right away so she'd quiet down. She whined the whole time until the doctor came in. She was great for the doctor and the technician. Then I had to wrestle with her to get her back out to the car again. Good grief! I was exhausted by the time I got her home.

Dog Obedience class can't get here soon enough!

Live long and prosper. \\//

3/22/16

More Luna

Today, I'm doing the post I'd planned for yesterday. More Luna. This time she's wearing an outfit I won from Liz Frost. She held a contest on her Facebook page a few weeks ago or so and I won it. She sent the outfit with my doll.



I love her slightly pointed ears. I've ordered a short black wig so she can be my Vulcan doll on occasion.



Looking for moose in the back yard.



Still looking.



She didn't see any.



Feeling disappointed.



Maybe next time Luna.



Mollie is making herself at home. She loves the couch.



The cats do not like Mollie. The boys have been hidden ever since I conned them into coming back in the house last night. I haven't seen a hair of them, though I know they're still alive cuz they're using the litter box. I hope they come out and adapt soon. Mollie wants to play with them so badly. I don't think that will ever happen. I'm hoping they just start tolerating the situation. Chenille is adapting. She hid the first day, but she'd out and letting Mollie know who's boss now.

I took Mollie for a long walk yesterday. She pulled on the leash almost the whole way. By the time we got back to the house both of my shoulders hurt quite a bit and I was exhausted. So now I'm working on training her not to do that. It's one of the harder things to teach a dog.

I've also registered for a dog obedience class for the two of us that starts the first week of April. I'm going to need some help with the not pulling.

I woke up to snow this morning. It snowed for several hours. Now it's melting just as fast as it fell.

Doug and I are doing something new tonight. We're going to the Idaho Democrat Caucus and voting. It should be an interesting evening. To be honest, I'd rather have a primary type vote like they used to do here. It would just be easier for all involved. But there are people in politics trying to make things more difficult and inconvenient for certain voters. So we will persevere.

I am taking my knitting with me to the caucus. I expect there will be a lot of sitting and waiting involved.

Live long and prosper. \\//

3/20/16

Introducing Mollie Park

I was going to post another series of pics of Luna today, but something happened yesterday that is more important to post. I got a new dog.

This is Mollie.



While on the way home from Coeur d'Alene, I decided to stop in to the Kootenai County Humane Society to see what they had in dogs and met Mollie.

Mollie is a 2 year old Catahoula Leopard dog/Australian Shepherd mix. She'd been at the shelter for about a month.

I decided to take her for a walk. She was pretty stressed out in her cage and was barking a lot. On our walk, though, she calmed down some and was quite sweet. She even gave Ruth kisses. She pulled on the leash quite a bit at first, but eventually even stopped doing that.

There was one incident that was rather bothersome. One of the employees took her in to a smaller fenced in area with a tree in the corner to show us something. Upon being taken off the leash, she immediately attacked the tree. I mean, really attacked it, biting chunks off. I'd never seen a dog do that before. They didn't know why, but speculated maybe she'd been tied to a tree for long periods of time or something. When we took her out of the enclosure, she calmed down. I walked her around and she never even batted an eye at the other trees around.

When we went back in the building she got really anxious again, so I figured she really didn't like it there. It was noisy with dogs barking and lots of people coming and going, plus it's across the road from an airport. Her paperwork said she was good with other dogs, cats, and people, which is a good thing. We were told she's very potty trained. Never once went in her cage. And though the shelter folks kept telling me she's really high strung, I decided to adopt her. I'm really glad I did.

She calmed down just as soon as we got her in the car. So much so that when we went to Petco to get her a collar and harness, we took her in the store with us. (The shelter gave us a temporary leash) She did very well in the store. I was kind of surprised how well she did. She even stood still while a sales clerk showed me how to put the harness on her.

On the way home she was extremely good in the car. After getting home I leashed her up and walked her around the yard. Not one tree bothered her. I'm wondering if she was, indeed, tied to a tree that was in the corner of a small yard some time in her young life. I guess we'll never know.

I would not call this dog high strung at all. She's a completely different girl here at home. She settled in and made herself at home and has hardly barked much. She wants desperately to play and make friends with the cats, but they are not the least bit interested. I'm hoping the boys will warm up to her in time.

She took to Sweet Hubby right away. She adores Ruth, which is great!



I took this pic with my phone when she was eating her dinner. She's just a tad taller than Cable was. The interesting eyes are from her Catahoula Leopard dog side. You'll notice she has no tail. It's been lopped off, a practice I detest.



In the evening she hopped up into my lap. After snuggling a bit, she turned around and sat on me.



I'm taking that as a good sign.

Live long and prosper. \\//

3/18/16

My Luna

It's been an interesting week. Daughter Ruth has been home for spring break. I've enjoyed having her here immensely.

One of the highlights of the week, though, was the arrival of my Luna doll by Liz Frost of Wizworx dolls all the way from Australia. Today it was a beautiful sunny day, so I did a photo session out on the deck. Ladies and Gents, I introduce to you Luna Park.



Of course, she came nude and bald. Her eyes, which are grey, were in a plastic bag in the box. I had to install them.



Initially the only wig I had in the house that would fit her was a sort of dishwater blond, which I did not like on her at all.



 I'd ordered the red wig for her last week and it arrived yesterday.



The outfit she is wearing in these pics came from Weedesigns Doll Closet on Etsy.



I like the way she's jointed. She sits very well.



Such an adorable face.



I had asked for a light sprinkling of freckles on her nose and my wish was granted. They're perfect.



I am so happy with this doll.



She has lots of personality!



Live long and prosper. \\//

3/7/16

I've Painted Something

I spent the weekend painting a piece of furniture. ('Scuse the blur. It's a phone pic.) This thing was as ugly fuggly as furniture can get.



I've had this dresser for a long time. It was bought new and unfinished. It was painted white at first, then about 25 years or so ago I painted it this now hideous mahogany color. Not sure why I did that. I was never happy with it. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was going to give this to my bff Judy when I bought her buffet which she is selling. She was kind of excited about it and talked about painting it. Well, I ended up having to change my mind on the buffet (rats!) and I'm pretty much stuck with the dresser for a little while longer. I need it cuz it's full of stuff. Stuff that would have gone in that buffet. I have no other place for the stuff.

I thought about the fact that Judy was going to paint it. I found myself wondering if I hate the color of that dresser so much, why I haven't done something about it? Why hadn't I thought of painting it before? I promptly went to the hardware store and bought what I needed to improve this dressers appearance. I even bought new knobs for it. I've always hated those stupid wooden knobs it came with.

On Friday morning I started my project. I took the knobs off the drawers and spent time sanding the whole thing and filling holes with putty in preparation for painting. I even did a little repair work. A chunk broke off one side about 12 years ago and I've been saving it all this time. Surprisingly, I remembered where I put that chunk. I glued it back on where it belongs.

I decided to paint it a semi-gloss black. I put the first coat of paint on the dresser itself later that afternoon. Then left it to dry until morning.

I got the second and third coats done Saturday afternoon. Here it is in progress.



For the first time, I used a small 4 inch roller instead of a brush. Boy, does that speed things up, and no brush marks! It took about 10 minutes to give it that first coat. Only 2 hours of drying time required between coats. I made sure to lightly sand between coats too. Sunday I painted the drawers.

Here is the finished dresser with it's fancy new hardware. Ignore the broken corner on the top left drawer. Couldn't find that chunk. Maybe one of these days I'll get sweet hubby to make a new front for it.



What an improvement!I am so happy with it. Now I'm looking at other ugly wood furniture in the house and wondering why I haven't done something about them? I see more painting in my future. However, I'm going to have to wait a bit. It seems that little bit of work has set my shoulder healing back a week. I was very sore and glad I had a physical therapy appointment this morning.

By the way, I found these two web articles about painting wood furniture very helpful:

How to Paint Furniture
The 5 Biggest Mistakes You Make When Painting Furniture

On Saturday morning sweet hubby and I went to a Home and Garden show held at the North Idaho Fairgrounds. We have 3 major items we've been saving up our money for. A new roof, a backyard fence, and a garage. I want a garage so so bad. That was the purpose of going to the show. To do research on getting a garage built. The trip was successful. We know who we want to build it, and about how much it will probably cost us. Next step, actually getting it started. I can hardly wait! I'll be calling the fellow we talked to later this week.

I knitted too. Got the body and one sleeve done on the current baby sweater.



Live long and prosper. \\//

3/3/16

Layette Set #8

Layette Set 8 is done. I am very happy with how it's turned out. The lemon yellow goes great with the light blue multi-color. I need to thank my friend Phyllis for suggesting I turn the blanket into a complete layette set with this yellow. It's a great idea. Thank you Phyllis!



I've already blogged about the blanket. Here's the jacket.



PatternSuper Natural Stripes by Fawn Pea
Size: 0-6 months

YarnRed Heart Super Saver Solids
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Lemon

Yarn: Marks & Kattens Pacific
Content: Cotton/Acrylic blend, worsted weight
Color: Light Blue

Needles: Circular size 6 and 8

Started: February 23, 2016
Finished: February 27, 2016

Comment: I have increased the needle sizes on this jacket and I'm much happier with the fabric drape and feel. It always felt just a bit too stiff with the smaller sizes. The finished size is just a tad larger. Not enough to worry about.

The hat


PatternMagic Coffee Baby Hat by Tracey Kay
Size: 6 months

YarnRed Heart Super Saver Solids
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Lemon

Yarn: Marks & Kattens Pacific
Content: Cotton/Acrylic blend, worsted weight
Color: Light Blue

Needles: Circular size 6 and 7

Started: February 28, 2016
Finished: February 29, 2016

The booties.



PatternSeamless Garter Tassel Booties by Karen Strauss
Size: 6 months

Yarn: Red Heart Super Saver Solids
Content: 100% Acrylic, worsted weight
Color: Lemon

Yarn: Marks & Kattens Pacific
Content: Cotton/Acrylic blend, worsted weight
Color: Light Blue

Needles: Circular size 6

Started: February 29, 2016
Finished: March 1, 2016

I turned both sets 7 and 8 in at the Knitwits meeting yesterday. I started Layette 9 too. Had to work on something while there. :-)  It will be interesting to see done. I'm using a self patterning yarn this time.

I've got Yarnies today. Looking forward to it. Getting together with friends to knit is so fun.

Live long and prosper. \\//

3/2/16

It's Early!

Spring is coming early to the Parkarosa this year. It's been unseasonably warm. The whole month of February was way warmer than normal. Pretty much all of our snow is gone and things are starting to bud and grow. I took these pics on Monday.

My daffodils have sprouted!



I discovered this Viola blooming in one of the flower boxes on the deck.



This one is blooming in one of the big pots on the deck.



So is this one.



These guys are volunteers that sprouted last fall. They started growing again a little over a week ago. I was quite surprised to find them this mature.

I tried knitting outside on the deck in the sunshine on Monday. It was 51F degrees out. I thought I could do it. The sun was so warm and inviting.


But the breeze that was blowing was extremely cold. It took 15 minutes for my hands to get so cold I could hardly move my fingers, so I gave up and went back in the house. I need to be a bit more patient. Soon. Soon I will be able to go back to knitting on my deck.

Live long and prosper. \\//