Tiff Crochets

For those of you celebrating America’s independence today, Happy 4th of July!!

We’re off to a barbeque at a friend’s house, then will enjoy trying to catch as many fireworks shows in our area as possible, and there are quite a few!  The benefits of living in the “mid-cities” area between Dallas and Ft. Worth!

Here’s my favorite photos from a 4th of July many years ago (okay, about four years to be exact).

Andy and Maddie spent Father’s Day playing on the Wii, while I was able to sneak off to finish picking up a few items for dinner tonight. I cooked a citrus-glazed pork tenderloin, parmesan risotto and green beans for the dad in the house. Maddie helped out by setting the table and then cleaning off the table after dinner. Laura is gallivanting around Montana at the moment and has not called yet for her daily check-in. She is enjoying her two weeks of one-on-one time with her grandma.

I finished picking up the last few items for my tawashi swap at Ravelry today and found a never-before-seen (by me) magazine. Have you seen Living Crafts ? It was full of many craft options that are budget-conscious and rather eco-friendly.

I’m starting to work on a new handbag tonight while the Wii play continues (it’s their day - non-stop Zelda and tennis would drive me mad). I’m making Jennifer Fletcher’s Meadow Handbag . I’m looking forward to seeing more patterns, both crochet and sewing-related on her site Fable Handmade Goods in the future. I tried to use something from my stash, but all of my good yarn is set aside for projects-in-progress, so I picked up the new Vanna’s Choice Baby in Berrylicious while at Michaels today. I wanted to go with a green because it seems to be my new favorite color, but went with the pink after finding a perfect set of wooden buttons in the clearance aisle. I think I have the handles already, but if not, I’ll head to Hobby Lobby tomorrow before driving to Houston for the week.

The dishes are done, the kitchen semi-clean before the pecan pie gets taken out of the fridge, the family is beating their virtual opponents at tennis, and I am going to sneak off to take a bath (hot temps in Houston mean lots of swimming to be done!) while all is quiet.

I ran to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up the two necessary items that we cannot live without (or wait until payday tomorrow before buying) - milk and Diet Coke. The milk is so that the girls will not freak in the morning, hyperventilating over a bowl of dry Honey Bunches of Oats when they discover their dad drank the last of the milk the night before (every other day - he must STOP.IT!). The Diet Coke is supposed to stop the late night milk chugging, but does not. Anyway, back to my point! Immediately when I walked in, I was blinded by my favorite sign of late spring - strawberries under $2 a pint/carton/whatever-they-come-in. Strawberries are my biggest fruit weakness. I could eat the entire container in a day, but force myself to share (unlike Andy with the MILK!). I picked up Cool Whip Free (an attempt to be good with that creamy goodness) and a box of Angel Food Cake mix. I’ve always wanted to make angel food cake on my own so this was the first step towards attempting it. Look at our lovely shortcake goodness!

I used dark brown sugar on the strawberries instead of granulated sugar. I’m trying to switch over to the “dark” side. It’s supposed to be healthier and you definitely do not have to use as much to sweeten things.

I’ve also spent this Sunday afternoon starting on a Brownie hat for myself. I’m using Cascade Luna in a lovely green. I’ve been in love with greens this spring. My newest purse is green. My crochet bag is green (and brown and white). The last three shirts I bought were green. I would have bought a green Ravelry shirt but I was trying to control my green urges. Here’s my progress so far -

I should truly be finished by now because the total crochet time for me on this hat is about an hour. Instead, I wandered into the kitchen to make angel food cake, then hot dogs for the girls, then cut up the strawberries, washed a load of dishes, talked to Andy’s mom and my dad on the phone, engage in the neverending battle to keep my Google Reader feeds under 200, and now it’s hours later. Which reminds me! I will sit down to watch The Hours once the girls go to bed since it’s due back at the library tomorrow and I can finish my hat then.

Tomorrow and Tuesday I’m doing to try to finish the Little Acorn bag for both Laura and Maddie as a end of school present. They have both worked hard this year and have done so well in school that I am so proud of them.

Have a wonderful week!

My mother-in-law told my husband a funny joke when he called her on Mother’s Day.  What do President Bush and Senator Clinton have in common?

Neither one has an exit strategy.

My husband, oh wise one who avoids all current events unless they directly involve his line of work, did not get this joke and I had to explain it to him.  Before November, please let there be an election day for dummies that I can share with him.  (Disclaimer: He works for the government.  He practices law.  He should keep up to date on things other than Lance Berkman having a .393 batting average.)

We had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend.  The girls and I drove to my grandparents’ house in the country where we had beautiful weather and the joy of catching the end of bluebonnet season.  Laura discovered the joy in picking dewberries fresh off the vine.

Maddie enjoyed walking along the road, chasing butterflies.  I think I managed to catch her mid-skip.

My grandmother made homemade ice cream and dewberry cobbler, while my mother brought a Honeybaked ham.  Instructions were lost in translation and I forgot to bring the materials to make sopapilla cheesecake.  Who needs cheesecake when you have homemade ice cream??  It’s very hard to work on crochet projects with such beauty around, particularly when it was cool enough Saturday night to have a fire and roast marshmallows and hot dogs.  I did do another tawashi, but it needs finished.  I started a few rows on a shawl, but left my stitch markers at home, so I’ll restart it soon, hopefully.

Every morning around 7:30 am, should you drive by my house, you would hear screams of torture and pain, although if you were to watch, there was no torture and no pain inflicted upon the victim.  Maddie does not like mixing her hair and her hair brush.  Thus, we went for a haircut Saturday morning.  She loves her new look, almost as I love the sighs of content and noticeably lack of tangles in the morning.

Introduction (Look at the length of this post! You need section titles!)

Just as a side note before I begin because my brain never stays on one topic for too long. It’s noon and I’m feeling green from not eating! What am I doing instead of eating? Let’s show you a screen shot of what’s on my “screen plate”.

As of 12:09 pm, CST, I have four tabs open in Firefox. That may change at any time, should I suddenly receive note of a new mail message or be struck by a whim to search for Lord of the Rings fanfic (related to watching Doom the other night when bored, following links to IMDB and YouTube, and other general nonsense related to the strange progression of my brain). First, I have Ravelry open, which typically remains open any time that I am sitting at the computer. Today, I acted on a whim to remove myself from a few groups that I’ve never posted in, not really interested in at this time, or just felt a whim to remove myself from. Now, I’m browsing groups sorted by number of members for new groups to join. It’s an addiction. There are 177 pages of groups. This could take me awhile.

Second, I have open a tab for my Google Reader subscriptions. I love handy dandy “next..” bookmarklet. I was a loyal Bloglines subscriber since I first heard of RSS feeds and the like, but I love my bookmarklet more, so it’s with Google Reader I stay. Should Bloglines ever gain such a handy bookmarklet, I may return. Right now, I think I’m on one of Kari’s posts.

In the third tab, we have instructions from Lily on how to make their String Bag. I planned on starting it this afternoon while browsing through Ravelry and my feeds, but had to deal with the distraction of feeling the need to post to my own blog. I will probably start this after lunch, posting, and finishing up item number five (not on a tab!).

In the fourth tab, we have this window in which I’m posting to my wonderful Wordpress blog. I’ve come to love WP 2.5. Anyone else feel the same way? Thanks to the upgrade, I’ve finally discovered how to incorporate the Wordpress stats plugin to work for my non-wordpress.com blog. Whew. Feeling like a techie while I know whole-heartedly that I am not a tech in any sense of the word.

And finally, I will briefly mention the fifth thing I am currently working on. You will learn more about this in the true post that will begin below my amazingly long tangent. Influenced by the Crochet Biffer Shrug (Rav link), and this knit version (Rav link), I made the Swiffer Cardi last night and am working on the pattern in Word at the moment. Please see my note at the end of this post if you would like to test this pattern for me before I upload it to Ravelry.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming after I eat lunch. If you are so inclined and suddenly think I’m nutty (if you’ve ever met me, you know that I am very inclined to be this nutty and wordy if given the time and opportunity to be myself), you can blame this pre-post entirely on a small bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (with almonds!), one cup of coffee with some kind of hazelnut sugary syrup, and a large glass of sugar-laced iced tea.

Ah, one tasty Lean Cuisine, one load of laundry, one load of dishes, and 40 minutes later….

Continue Reading »

I feel like the week should be over, but we’re barely halfway through. Both of the girls had their class field trips this week, and I went on both. For Laura, we went downtown to the Ft. Worth Stockyards, which I always enjoy. Maddie’s class went to the zoo, another personal favorite in our new city. I’ll post photos at the end of our trips.

On Sunday, we went to the Texas Rangers game for Girl Scout Day. All of the Girl Scouts and their families could walk around the field during the pre-game ceremonies. The stadium looked empty, but I think there were a lot of us on the field to make up for the lack of people sitting in the stands. It was exciting to see so many girls, large and small, dressed up in their uniforms and enjoying being with the friends at the game.  We had to leave early to drop off my mom at the airport after a weekend visit and the Rangers eventually lost the game in the 10th inning.  I loved getting to see the new Cowboys stadium going up next door. It’s going to be huge and very beautiful once finished.

I do have photos from the DFW Fiber Fest, but I will save them for the next time. I am in a horrible slump with my crocheting. I have all of this beautiful yarn and no idea what to make with it. I will find a new project that I cannot live without soon!

The girls and I were in the library this afternoon for our weekly visit when I heard sirens in the distance.  Having grown up in Houston near the refineries, a siren to me means that there was an unexpected release of a chemical from one of the plants.  A siren in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area signifies severe weather and sometimes, if the weather is just right, a tornado.  I knew that we were under a tornado watch thanks to hearing the latest weather on the radio before entering the library, so I calmly returned to browsing our library’s amazing DVD collection.  A few minutes later, all of the library employees were gathered around the TV set watching the radar.  I was doing my best to stay calm to finish our library trip without stampeding for the door with freaked out little girls, but no, everyone had to start talking about tornadoes, which made the girls start talking about tornadoes.  After I reminded them that we would be just fine and would head home in five minutes, they returned to hanging out in the children’s section.

We all finished picking up our weekly goodies, checked out, and made it home almost a minute before the rain hit.  It was nasty.  The weather in Houston can be nasty, but this was nasty.  Then, after about five minutes, the rain ended.  Andy arrived home from work about 30 minutes later and said he had sunny skies the entire drive.  Boob.  So not fair.

I am so awesome!  The dishwasher was clogged yesterday and after a quick Google search, I found out how to fix it.  I didn’t attempt anything until today because I couldn’t find our allen wrenches, but after a few cranks, I completely cleared the clog.  Ha!  Andy came home and laughed at my celebrations, saying that I could do all of the handyman fixes now.  He thinks he’s funny.  I am not handy.  This was a wonderful fluke.

Maddie has lost both of her front teeth in the past week.  There goes her speech therapy for the rest of the school year.  Her therapist is going to have to be creative for the next two months.

I finished a quick shrug for Laura’s Molly doll last night.  I’m going to write up a quick pattern and post it on here and Ravelry.  Here are a few photos, along with photos of Maddie’s empty spaces.

Hi!  I’m alive!  Things were so out of control hectic during February in this household that I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see March arrive safely and on time (some times it does seem to arrive late, so thus, “on time”).  If only March would also behave and not bring a freak snow storm immediately following a nice, warm 80 degree day all will be well.

I’ve started a few new projects that I’ll try to take photos of tomorrow during daylight hours.  For now, I have pictures of an amazing complete rainbow that appeared after a storm about a month ago.  Bare with me, there are three photos so you can see the complete thing.

More pictures of the sky!  The girls and I sat outside watching the total lunar eclipse a few weeks ago.  This is the best photo that I managed to take over two hours.

I bought a few skeins of new yarns at my LYS last week and can’t wait to find my yarn winder so that I can play with it.  Until then, the yarn gets to play in one of the new baskets I grabbed at Target in their world marketplace 75% clearance aisle.  I picked up two skeins of Cascade Yarns Luna and one skein of  Bristol Yarn Gallery Lyndon Hill.  I think both will be used to make summer hats for the girls.

Is anyone else out there watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles?  I hope that it is picked up by Fox for a second season.  I loved the use of Johnny Cash in the big action scene.  I made Andy watch it with me this afternoon.  He’s mad that I watched the season without him, but we can never come to an agreement on a time to watch TV together, so I usually watch alone.  I was finally able to view Garret Dillahunt as someone other than creepy Francis Wolcott and accept that Brian Austin Green does not live perpetually in the 91210 ZIP code right as the season came to an end.

Person Francis Wolcott

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This post is a post-in-progress. I want to show off Laura’s hat, completed many months ago, modeled by me here, along with Maddie’s hat yet-to-be published, but I also wanted to show off the first stage of a felted bowl that I’m making for my stepmother. The problem is that the felted bowl, stage one, is sitting in front of me, almost, but not quite finished. I’m listening to Marly’s latest podcast, typing a few lines, and then crocheting a row on the bowl.

I published Laura’s Brownie hat on Crochet me, but if you are on Ravelry, you can also download it in pdf form here.

Just because she has a cute smile in this one, here’s another view.

This is my third version.  I made the first out of Lion Brand Wool Ease on a whim, not thinking about writing anything down.  The second one I made with notes, also out of Wool Ease, and subsequently gave it to my sister where I think Laura’s hat is currently residing also.  Either there or the Cheesecake Factory after an afternoon of ice skating.  This third one, I could not resist trying out the Bernat Cashmere Natural Blends, thus the pattern is officially in this yarn.  I need to write down the instructions for the fingering weight version, which Maddie wears, then hides from me when I get out paper and pencil.

Granny Square Felted Bowl phase one is complete.  I was distracted by a little girl who thinks that naming every sight word “here” is funny.  We have sight word flash cards, which we practice with daily.  Today, while letting her Barbie fairies play AC/DC on her Hello Kitty Fender, every answer is, “Here!” followed by a snicker before the “fairy” (high pitched Maddie voice) starts humming “Back in Black” again while strumming something vaguely familiar.

I’m off to cut out nine pink boots for the kindergarten rodeo for Friday, then start to work on a secret project. Thank goodness for mother-in-law’s buying you fancy left-handed scissors.  Yeehaw!

I made a little slide show on Photobucket of a few of our pictures from Montana so as not to overwhelm the post with photos. If you want descriptions, just leave comments saying stuff like, “Tiffany? What the heck is that little brown blur in the snow?”

While in Montana, my awesome sister-in-law gave me a gift certificate to Stix, located in Bozeman, Montana. It was intended as a “get out of stuffed house free” card for the two of us, who both knit and crochet. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as planned, so I went with my mother-in-law, aunt-in-law, and the girls. This probably turned out to be a good thing because if I had gone into the store with her, I think I would have begged to stay for hours. I was in heaven the instant I walked through the door. The store is in the basement just off the main drag through town so it’s not easy to spot, but being in the basement must be a blessing because of all of the space they have at their fingertips. See? It’s a cute little entrance though:

They even have a play room for kids. It’s just off the book section and has a small selection of toys to keep kids entertained while you play. I have thought about boxing up some of the girls’ old toys and shipping it to the store to add to the room, just because if they are going to be donated, the idea of donating to a room where kids can play while their moms or dads play with yarn sounds like the perfect choice.

I wanted to work on something small and knitted, so I picked up a few balls of Trendsetter Dune yarn and a set of size 10 dpns to make myself a set of fuzzy fingerless mittens. Now that they’re finished, I’ll probably never, ever, ever wear them, but they’re still going into my jacket pocket for those days that I’m out and feel a little spunky.

Speaking of fingerless mitts, I finished Bron’s Victorian Shell Mitts (Ravelry link - Victorian Mitts) last night while watching 3:10 to Yuma. What a great movie! I’m working on a review to post, just because my mind is brimming with things I want to say about it, but it’s the historian in me that wants to analyze it and not the movie watcher, so look out for that soon.

Back to the mitts! I used Vanna’s Choice from Lion Brand, which is kind of scratchy at the moment so I’ll drop them in the wash to soften them up.