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Mama, wife, knitter, blogger, spinner, wannabe something or other. That's enough, right?

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Year SIX: Self-Imposed Year of Projects - Update #17

Happy Sunday :) Happy Earth Day (which was yesterday but, you know, I didn't blog yesterday so...). Happy happy joy joy.

Anyway, let's get going.

Finished Objects (FOs):
1. Pussy Hat: started January 10, 2017; finished January 16, 2017
2. Hermione's Everyday Socks (v2): started November 14, 2016; finished January 28, 2017
3. Frene Creek Farm Corriedale (spinning): started October 12, 2016; finished January 16, 2017
4. Pikachu Hat: started February 3, 2017; finished February 10, 2017
5. Trusty (v2): started December 22, 2016; finished February 24, 2017
6. Pussy Hat: started February 13, 2017; finished February 27, 2017
7. Pussy Hat: started March 2, 2017; finished March 8, 2017
8. Pussy Hat: started March 9, 2017; finished March 21, 2017
9. Pussy Hat: started March 21, 2017; finished March 30, 2017
10. FlockSock Yarn #1: started April 5, 2017; finished April 5, 2017
11. FlockSock Yarn #2: started April 5, 2017; finished April 5, 2017
12. #initiateknitdesign challenge from ArohaKnits: started April 3, 2017; finished April 11, 2017
13. Knit Picks Bare Palette Fingering: started April 9, 2017; finished April 9, 2017
14. Malabrigo Rios: started April 9, 2017; finished April 9, 2017
15. Nashua Creative Focus Superwash: started April 9, 2017; finished April 9, 2017

Nothing new was finished this week.....not that I'm surprised.



Works-in-Progress (WIPs):

1. Wink: started January 5, 2015
2. Oh, She IS a Bad Nut: started August 11, 2016
3. Fall in San Francisco (prototype 3): started October 4, 2016
4. Smooth Operator Socks: started October 13, 2016
5. Stormageddon's Vest: started October 17, 2016
6. Morvarch Aardvark: started January 1, 2017
7. Messed Up Moss: started January 4, 2017
8. Stomping Grounds collection: started February 26, 2017 (no project page)
9. Hat Design: started March 20, 2017
10. BMFA Handpainted Roving: started March 23, 2017
11. Vanilla Socks: started March 30, 2017
12. Pussy Hat: started April 13, 2017

Let's start at the beginning (or, rather, the beginning of things I actually worked on):

Stormageddon's Vest. This is on time out. I tried it on his head and, of course, the single crochet was too tight to go over his head. So, I ripped out the single crochet (which involved plenty of cursing) and it's been on time out ever since to think about what it's done.

BMFA Handpainted Roving. Since this past Friday was Maker Faire at Little Man's school, I got a teensy amount of spinning done (and several kids added a bit as well). I had hoped to have more done but the kids were so interested in my wheel that they wanted to try it rather than watch...and I let them. More on that in a bit.

Vanilla Socks.


I started the second sock...and that's as far as I got.

Pussy Hat: I'm in stockinette hell. I finished up the ribbing, switched needles, and I'm now working in stockinette. Woo.



17 UFOs in 2017
1. Wink: started January 5, 2015
2. Oh, She IS a Bad Nut: started August 11, 2016
3. Fall in San Francisco (prototype 3): started October 4, 2016
4. Frene Creek Farm Corriedale (spinning): started October 12, 2016; finished January 16, 2017 **DONE**
5. Smooth Operator Socks: started October 13, 2016
6. Stormageddon's Vest: started October 17, 2016
7. Hermione's Everyday Socks (v2): started November 14, 2016; finished January 28, 2017 **DONE**
8. Trusty (v2): started December 22, 2016 **DONE**
9. Design: Susan's Hat
10. Design: Little Man's Baby Blanket
11. Design: Paradiddle Socks (aka Little Drummer Girl)
12. Design: Pacific Waves Hat
13. Design: Fall in San Francisco Hat
14. Stash Inventory (photos, in Rav database) **DONE**
15. Dystopian Novel
16. Doctor Who blanket (1)
17. Doctor Who blanket (2)



And in my "OMGLSGWTFBBQ" lists...

Secret Sock Club Bags - Pick a bag at random; do pattern with yarn
1. Scotch & Soda Scarf (using Briar Rose Fibers Wistful, leftover from my Icarus Shawl)
2. Jabberwonky (using KP Felici in Abracadabra)
3. If You Know Where To Go (using KP Felici in Green Veggies)
4. Baby Surprise Jacket (using....htNEVELE something something)

These are the only ones that are currently set up. I have plans to make a few more but we'll see how things go. With all the WIPs and such I have going, this may not be a good idea at this point. Or maybe I'll pull things from the lists below and put them into bags. I don't know.


Stranded Knitting
1. University of Wisconsin Ski Hat (kit)
2. University of Wisconsin Christmas Stocking (kit)
3. University of Wisconsin Button Beanie (kit)
4. Xanadu Snowflake Cowl
5. Unknown Christmas Stocking for Little Man (see also: Designs)
6. Unknown Christmas Stocking for Stormageddon (see also: Designs)
7. Unknown Christmas Stocking for Husband (see also: Designs)


Children's Items:
1. Stuffed toy for Miss C (SIL's foster child)
2. Stuffed toy for Mr. K (SIL's foster child)
3. Stuffed toy for Miss E (SIL's adopted daughter)
4. Stuffed toy for TAZ (brother's daughter)
5. Undetermined hat for Little Man
6. Undetermined hat for Stormageddon
7. Mittens for Little Man
8. Mittens for Stormageddon


Items for ME (selfish knitting FTW!):
1. Park Slope (fingering, specifically Mountain Colors Crazy Foot)
2. Worsted weight house socks (worsted, of course - maybe something like Lumberjack)
3. Classic Silk Mayfaire Camisole (Miss Babs Northumbria with modifications)
4. Evangeline (worsted; solid or semi-solid)
5. Lichen (Aran or Sport/DK; solid or semi-solid)
6. Moyen Age (fingering; one of my Vice Yarns? Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20?)
7. Ginny's Cardigan (DK; solid or semi-solid)
8. Drip Drip Drop (sock; solid or semi-solid)
9. Celtic Myths (worsted; solid)
10. Jag in Garter Stitch (DK; 2 colors)
11. Cobh (fingering; 2 colors)
12. Offhand Lace (bulky; solid or semi-solid)
13. Whitman (DK; any color)
14. Flax (worsted; any color - Misti Alpaca Harry Potter-esque one?)
15. Hoar Frost (Wollmeise that's wound in the bag)


Christmas/Charity Bin:
1. 198 Yds of Heaven (worsted; solid)
2. Comfort Food (Aran; solid)
3. Tombreck (worsted; solid or semi-solid)
4. Premie Spiral Hat (DK; any color)
5. Pumpkins & a Pattern (any weight, any color - gauge doesn't matter)


Designs:
1. Susan's Hat *started* - need new prototype & write pattern
2. Little Man's Baby Blanket *started* - write pattern
3. Paradiddle Socks - need prototype & write pattern
4. Pacific Waves Hat *started* - need another prototype & write pattern
5. Fall in San Francisco *started* - need another prototype & write pattern
6. Stormageddon's Baby Blanket - need prototype & write pattern
7. Cabled pullover (grey look-alike sweater) - need sketch, grading, swatch, prototype, & write pattern
8. Christmas stocking for Little Man - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
9. Christmas stocking for Stormageddon - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
10. Christmas stocking for Husband - need charts, prototype, & write pattern (maybe)
11. Stomping Grounds collection (everything: charts, prototypes, swatches, etc.) *started*


Spinning:
1. Miss Babs BFL
2. Sandy's Palette Merino/Silk (1)
3. Sandy's Palette Merino/Silk (2)
4. Faerie Mountain Fibers Crazy Batt
5. Wash & start processing Alpaca fleece from Lambtown
6. Wash & start processing Merino fleece from Lambtown


Other:
1. Stitch markers
2. Make sure my vintage patterns are in Ravelry (Workbasket magazines, leaflets, etc.)




This week was an up down all around kind of week. It's why this post didn't go up at midnight, as is customary for me. Too much happening makes Renee a tired somethingsomething.

Anyway, last Sunday was Easter. We had friends over for food and candy and all of that. It was raining so we didn't do the outside egg hunt...which was fine with me. We did dye the eggs with all the kids. We also did a science experiment that was rather impromptu. When we get our orders from Amazon Fresh, we get dry ice packets with our freezer items. Do you know what happens when you put dry ice into a bowl of Kool-aid? Well, the dry ice melts and makes carbon dioxide...which makes a fizzy Kool-aid. Also, really cold. We had to have words about not touching the dry ice because it would give them an ice burn. Unfortunately, none of the kids liked the carbonated Kool-aid. Oh well, more for me.

By the time Wednesday rolled around, Little Man had a fever. It was a low-grade fever (just over 100F) but he had to miss a(nother) day of school. Because he's missed so much school this year, I'm going to get a truancy letter from the district. However, about 7 of the days he's missed have been documented medical (hospitalization, faxed notes from the doctor, etc.) so the school isn't so uppity about them. He had to be fever-free for 24 hours before he could go back to school. I sent him back the next day. In the meantime, he was perfectly fine, other than the fever he had when he woke up. We took Husband to work, I checked Little Man's fever when we got home (it was gone), so we went about doing all the things we needed to do. We went to Costco, the grocery store, and then we took a trip down to Mountain View/Palo Alto to go to the Walmart down there. We get our diapers for Stormageddon from Walmart (cheapest price-per-diaper and they work the best, honestly). Sometimes, we order them. Other times we take the trip down there. In this case, we took the trip down there.


There's a McDonald's in the Walmart and the boys hadn't had lunch. So...lunch at McDonald's.

On Thursday, I sent Little Man back to school. I stopped in the office to talk about what I needed to do as far as the letter that I'll be getting (I haven't gotten it yet) and they said the letter is automatic from the district but they had the documentation in the office. The only problem is that if he misses too much, there's a possibility that he could be removed from his Montessori school and put into a regular elementary school.....and I don't want him anywhere near the school he's supposed to go to. Lowest rated in the district? No, thanks, I'll fight for him to be where he is. I don't think we're going to get to that point though.

Unfortunately, I was also informed that another mom had tattled on me to the office on Thursday morning, basically having a fit about how he wasn't supposed to be at school unless he was fever-free for 24 hours by that point (he had been) so I'm not very happy about that. A simple question to me would have elicited, "he's been fever-free for 24 hours," and that would have been the end of it. But nope, let's go tattle to the office. High school drama behavior. Whatever.

Friday, the school had their Earth Day celebrations. It started with a "walking bus" to school from one of the parks. This was counterproductive for us because we already walk from the opposite direction and in order for us to participate, we would have had to walk the 1.3 miles to the park, then the .6 miles from the park to the school...rather than just walking the .7 miles to school. Or we could have driven to the park, walked to school, walked back to the park, and drove home....which, again, seems counterproductive. Not everyone participates so I didn't feel bad about it. After that, they had Friday Morning Gathering, which happens every Friday but Little Man's class was performing so Stormageddon and I stayed to watch.


They made shirts to wear. Little Man's was oceanless on Wednesday because he was home sick so one of the other moms filled in his ocean for him. I still need to figure out how to wash it. I can't imagine that they would make something that couldn't be washed...but dumber things have happened.

Friday afternoon while Stormageddon and I were on our way to school to pick up Little Man, we came across a snail. I thought it was just the shell at first but it turns out that the snail was still inside. The shell had some damage and he was working to repair it. I thought an impromptu science lesson would be good for the kids. So, I took the snail to school. A few of the kids were fascinated, including Little Man. And then, on our way out, Little Man found another snail so we plucked him from the wood chips and brought him home, too. They were swirling around each other quite a bit, so it was fine.


This is the first snail. If you look on the bottom, you see that whiteish section on the shell is where it was broken and being repaired.


This is the second one. He was a bit feistier than the first one. He kept trying to get out of the cup. But, we got them home and they both found a new home by our rose bush.

Friday night, as I mentioned somewhere above, was Maker Faire at Little Man's school. We had something like 20 different makers at the event, including me. I know there were rockets, an electricity thing (using a battery, some copper tape, and a binder clip with a little light that flashes different colors), someone brought in a raspberry pi with classic Nintendo games, one of the other kinder families had a station to make stuffed animals...and I had my wheel. It was a 90 minute event and for about 80 of those minutes, I had a line of kids that wanted a go on Viktor, my Majacraft Pioneer wheel. I brought the wheel, my unprocessed merino fleece, my unprocessed alpaca fleece, my current spinning project (the BMFA roving), a future spinning project (a ball of dyed, processed merino from Mielke Fibers), and another future spinning project (undyed, natural, processed BFL from Frene Creek Fibers), the full bobbin of the current spinning project, a couple books and a couple empty bobbins. The kids had tons of fun. Some of them even got a handle on the spinning portion. After some frustrations in the beginning, we stopped the fiber portion and just got a handle on working the treadle. Also, the chair I had was an adult-sized chair and some of the kids were tiny and the chair kept sliding backwards. Other than that, it was fabulous. I was so busy that I didn't get to take any photos. Oh well.

Yesterday, Husband took Stormageddon along with him on a Porsche Club drive with a friend of ours (we don't own the Porsche; he does) so I had a date with Little Man. If you were living under a rock in the US, there were hundreds (if not thousands) of Marches for Science across the country. We went to the one in San Francisco. There were six or so speakers, thousands of people (estimates were over 20K), and it was a relatively decent day.

We started out our day with doughnuts....because doughnuts, of course.


After that, we took the drive into the city, parked the car near the Bay Bridge, and walked to the Ferry Building. We took photos along the way, of course. I particularly like this one because you get an idea of just how massive the piece is. We've driven by it many times and we know it's huge...but with Little Man in front of if, you can see just how huge....and he's not even right up against it.


The day started out overcast. The sun did come out for a bit while we were listening to the speakers but then it went away again.


This was the main reason Little Man wanted to go. That is Adam Savage of Mythbusters. He lives in San Francisco and he was one of the keynote speakers. After this, he hopped in a car and went to San Jose for the Silicon Valley ComiCon (where he was dressed in his Totoro costume).

Here are some other shots that I took during the speeches and at the beginning of the march up Market Street.




And this was probably my favorite sign:


By the time we started moving toward Market Street for the march, Little Man was losing it. He was tired, hot, crabby....and the crowd was not moving. So, we called it quits. I know, I know....we had intended to go the whole hog but just couldn't.

Unsurprisingly, this happened on the way home:


Yuuuuuup. He fell asleep in the car. He hardly ever does that. I woke him up to have a late lunch at Heidi's Pies and then we headed home.

It was a loooooong day.


Anyway, I hope you've had a lovely weekend so far. I might be back later this week. Who knows. So many random things happening around here...

1 comment:

  1. Sorry the vest gave you a fit. I didn't know snails could repair their own shells. Yay for ppl stickin' up for science. I loved how the Exploratorium had big representation.

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