Ok, ok, I'm almost done talking about it

I know you're sick and tired of hearing about my cousin's baby and how excited I am to send her a bunch of handmade swag for the little guy (oh, didn't I tell you? he has an outtie, apparently! no, he's not born yet, but I guess they checked with the ultrasound thingy and that's the final word.).

But I was packing all the stuff into the box to send it off and I just felt that *something* was missing.  I can't really explain it, except to say that when she opens it up, I want her to really understand how much I love her.  Like, the stuff I made is cute, but it's not totally perfect.  Like, I want it to really reach out and grab her.  Like I wanna make her cry.  Yeah, I want her to bawl when she cracks open the box.  She's pregnant.  It shouldn't be too hard, right?

Does that make me a bad person?  Yes, it does.  I can live with that.

So I got to thinking: what could I add to the (enormous, let's face it) pile of stuff that's coming her way that would make her cry?  It took me a while, but I think I figured it out.

A drawing of her parents' farm (where she grew up and we were her neighbours).  The one her parents had to sell almost 15 years ago.

That'll do it.  Hell, I could barely even keep my own eyes dry while I was drawing it.

I complained that this winter was lame and the Universe heard me.

We got slammed by a nasty storm last Sunday.  Wicked nasty.  Like hurricane-y winds and freezing rain nasty.

Naturally, it caused a 24-hour long power outage - which is actually kind of par for the course in these parts.  We're in a rural area and we get hit with atrocious Weather all the time.  It doesn't really phase us anymore (since we got our wood stove).

Only.... I'm a dummy and didn't fill the bathtub with water on Saturday night.  Nor did I finish the laundry.

So we spent the day on Sunday melting snow on the wood stove so that we could flush the toilet (in case you're an urbanite and aren't familiar with the realities of a rural existence, allow me to illustrate: country living + power outage = no water) and give the dogs something to drink.  And figuring out what to eat without opening the fridge for any reason (I cheated and got out some eggs and made french toast on the wood stove...yum!).  And trying to stay clean and trying to figure out what to wear on Monday, as there was no bathing and no clean laundry.

I've decided that I can do without power outages, thank you very much.

But, on the bright side, I did lots of knitting (and reading, but mostly knitting).  It's the perfect excuse to spend 7 hours straight with needles and yarn.  You can't work up a sweat knitting.  So that reduces the chances that you'll need to bathe.  Can't very well do any chores when you have no running water or electricity to run the washing machine or vacuum cleaner, can you?

Meet Sleeve 2 of my new Seamless Hybrid cardigan/jacket thingy.  I'm designing it as I go.  'Cause I'm a rebel like dat.  Word.

(Sleeve 1 is just as awesome, I promise.)

The dogs have no concept of electricity, so they were happy just to sit in front of wrapped around the wood stove which I kept going full blast all day.  Notice how madame crosses her legs as she lounges by the hearth.  How demure.  Too bad we know better.

Dress Rehearsal

I'm (im)patiently waiting for KnitPicks to receive some colours in Palette so I can order it and finish start my Caller Herrin.  To date, I've done three different swatches and I'm still not 100% convinced that I have the right colour combo.   So for now, I've contented myself with practicing my technique.  Sort of like a dress rehearsal.  And sort of not.

Enter: Entomology Mitts

Verdict: meh.

As you can see, I didn't make it all the way to the final act.  I didn't see any reason to.  The floats in this pattern are pretty darn long (which I could have figured out before trying to tackle it, had I had half a brain).  Unfortunately, my abilities are still not up to snuff, so the floats make this entire thing pucker six ways from Sunday.

Still, who doesn't love a beetle?

Anyway, back to the grind for me.

Dust, begone

I have two Labrador Retrievers.  Who consider it their duty to shed.  A duty which they take very seriously.  No, really.  It's everywhere (even in places I can't mention in polite society).

Something had to be done.

I had an old pair of wool pants that had pretty much kicked the bucket and had been hanging on to them for a while in the hopes that I could salvage some of the fabric.

I cut the legs off (they had worn out in the *ahem* crotch area), and trimmed them into nice, square-angled rectangles.  Then I lined them up at the hems and sewed up the sides and at the top.

I topstitched all the way around and then pleated the top (and topstitched the pleats in place) in two spots near the middle.  Then I added two narrow straps and velcro:

...and made myself a sewing machine cover.

And then, because my old pincushion died (and more importantly, because sewing with this gray-and-coral combo is a slippery slope - consider yourselves warned), I made myself a new one.

It goes on around the whatchamacallit (the vertical part of the machine - you know what I mean, right?) and the little elastic/toggle combo keeps it snug.

Only, I discovered that I had no batting to stuff it with, so I spent 20 minutes tearing the house apart trying to find something suitable and guess what!  Yarn.  That's what I used.  And guess what!  It's the best little pincushion I've ever had.  Who knew?

(Sorry for the lack of step-by-step instructions.  I didn't think that any of this would actually work, so I neglected to take any photos or even measure anything.  Because I'm a bad person.  But I'll make it up to - if there's enough interest, I'll do up a pattern for both items, k?)

Baby Gifting Update

You'll recall that my cousin is having a baby.

I've taken all your suggestions, whittled them down to the achievable (for now) and came up with this package to send her (she's due in March):


1) Bibs (free pattern here):

2) Itty bitty legwarmers (I invented this pattern - I tried to make them funky and gender-neutral-ish, but I only had these colours in my stash):

3) Some little terry cloth rags for stuffing in a diaper bag (just in case, you know)(these were a little freebie - I made them out of the leftover terry from the bibs...even if they never get used, I won't care):

4) Nursing Covers (free pattern here):

Uh, hi.  Take a closer look at the gorgeous fabric I found (and I insist that you swoon, 'cause it wasn't cheap):

And I thought I didn't have enough fabric leftover but surprise! I do, so she's getting a market bag made from these two fabrics, too:

(That's my project for this weekend.)

When she pops and we all find out whether it's a boy or a girl (I'm voting for either one, 'cause as long as all its parts are accounted for, I really don't care whether the little one has an innie or an outie), I'm going to plan for a zip-up-in-the-back hoodie (that idea still astounds me!) and a meathead hat and some other fun stuff.  Not that I'll be knitting stuff all in pink if it's a girl or anything, but you know what I mean.

Faff

This is apropos of nothing, but I just had to share it. 

I was lurking on YouTube and stumbled upon an animated music video that was kind of cute and touching.  Of course, it wasn't so touching that I'd shed a tear, but it was sweet anyway.

I scrolled down to the comments section (I know, I was just asking for trouble) and saw a comment that made me laugh really really hard out loud:

"Damn ninjas chopping onions in my room again."

Classic.

Whoopdee doo

It's not immediately clear what is going with the weather, but - unrelenting rain, notwithstanding -  I'm pretty sure it's winter.

I took all of our usual gear out of storage a couple of months ago (and actually weeded out the duds - and got rid of old handknits)(!).  The problem is, we don't have a storage solution for it.  I am short, so a high-up shelf is no good.  My husband is very tall, so a low-down solution doesn't work.

(He also has what we have dubbed "man eyes" - that's the inability to properly see the contents of the fridge and other hard-to-reach places.  It is caused not by the loss of sight, but rather laziness.  I have observed that this particular affliction tends to affect men as opposed to women.)

So, what to do?  I don't have any room, it can't be low, it can't be high.  It has to be close to the door, otherwise it won't get used.

Also, it had to be buildable (we don't have an Ikea - not unless we want to drive 15 hours to the nearest one).

My solution:

That's right: slap up some metal standards and brackets, paint some 1x6 trim and slap them in there.  Phew, that's high design, right there.

Lame, I know.  But what can I say?  It's working.