Knitting and Girl Scouts

I finished knitting the Cascade 220 socks.  I wasn't really using a pattern, just knitting along until the top was 7" long or so, then reducing down 12 stitches (2 sts. every six rows, six times) then knitting a bit more before making a dutch heel and finishing down the foot.  While I didn't really count rows, they match close enough to be a pair. I haven't worn them much, but I worry that they'll be itchy.  Maybe I'll find someone who wants to own them more than me.

So I started knitting up another pair of socks.  This is a super-soft marino wool yarn that isn't knitting up as soft as the yarn is, and it seems that I didn't knit a big enough heel flap.  I think I may have to back up and try again.  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of the yarn--this may turn out to be slipper socks instead.

Those are some cute kids!  We went to the Mariners game last Saturday along with a number of school families, and it also turned out to be CF Awareness month, so Cole from Cole's Champions threw out the first pitch.  I wonder how he qualified to do that?  I guess it pays to know people in important places or be awesome fundraisers.  We're terrible at fundraising.  We didn't even go to the walk this year--I went camping and Kelly went to a soccer game.  Meh.

I picked up some 6-hole weaving cards at Crown, but I'm having trouble with tension on the weave.  I talked with a couple other weavers who suggested that I need a longer distance from the anchor point to the end--this has the tension ending at that top bar, which causes some issues.  I'll have to experiment with some other options, like the 2 x 4 in the garage with the two pegs on it, which is like a miniature Oseberg loom:
I'll have to clamp it to the table and I'll have to use a bunch of twist-ties to keep the threads from tangling through the 4 yard length.  Someday I may try to make one of these, just to see if I can.

I went to take pictures of the rhodies at Omi's house, and didn't notice it at the time that the bamboo growing in the bushes have sent runners to the other side of the sidewalk, so it needs to be whacked.  Seriously whacked.  The good news is she has some renters wanting to get into the house, so Sharon needs to get serious about getting the house ready to rent--there's still a lot of stuff in the house and several repairs that need to be done.  The couple who are looking to rent are very capable, handy folks, and I get the impression that he can fix just about anything and is an experienced carpenter, so he's thinking about doing some improvements inside, like updating the staircase railing to make it easier to install baby gates (for when that time comes--they are newly married and anxious to start a family).

This weekend is going to include my first Girl Scout camping trip since 1976.  As I understand it, we will be camping in covered wagons, so this will be fun!  I know there are crafts and maybe some boating and (if it's warm enough) swimming and hiking...it should be a blast!  Especially with smores! Not sure how the sleeping arrangements will be sorted...I guess we'll find out when we get there.  I'll have to bring my new camera and take lots of pictures.  This will be the second-to-last Girl Scout adventure before the end of the school year.  After that, we have a trip to Great Wolf Lodge as our last hurrah, then I hang up my leader cap.  I guess Renee found a replacement leader for the younger Juniors, and I'm down to three girls for the bridging Cadettes, and one of them is moving to Germany for a couple years.  I told them that if they would like to renew their memberships, I would do that and be there as a mentor while they worked on badges.  We can also Skype our foreign member while she's away and she can work on badges overseas--what a trip that would be!  Can you imagine hiking in the Alpes, touring castles, experiencing new cultures....  I don't know if she'll be coming back during the summers to visit, but if she does, we can get together and do fun stuff over the summer months.

I went for a walk-run today.  It was about 2 1/2 miles, and I ran about four blocks of it.  Not bad for a fat old broad.  I hope that I can continue this trend and get myself back in shape.  Of course, round is a shape, right?

Only 7 days left of school (well, 9, but the last two days are a half-day and a couple hours for the last day, cleaning classrooms and a pep rally type thing).  Part of me is dreading the end of school--having 5 or 6 hours of the day to myself (sort of), but that part is very small.  Honestly, I'm looking forward to sleeping in and taking the kids out for adventures.  Hikes and Geocaching, swimming and *driving lessons* (big kid only), and doing a little bit of scouting activities with the little guys.

Looks Like a Stay-Cation This Weekend...

Mid-week I went over to Omi's place and took some pictures of the rhodies, which Sharon has been meaning to do for years.  They have such a short bloom time and she lives far enough away that getting down to the area during that short window is difficult for her.  The bushes are more than 50 years old, so they're enormous--bigger than the house--and the rest of the yard is really overgrown.  The "grass" is mostly "moss" now, so at least she won't have to mow very often.  A friend of mine and her new husband are looking for a house to rent, and they took a drive-by to see if they're interested, and now they'd like to see the inside.  If Sharon can get it cleaned up, she may have some renters for the place.

On Thursday, I finished the sock from the May Crown Sock Contest.  I had to rip it back to the ankle to put the heel on the correct side of the sock, working on it during TV viewing on Wednesday night.  I picked it back up Thursday morning and finished it by lunchtime.  Bekah, who was laid off a couple weeks ago, had some time to be social, so she came up and we went out for lunch.  We went and picked up the kids and made chicken for dinner.  Afterwards we went back to the school for the ice cream social and art walk.  Beautiful and delicious!

Then last night, we heard news that the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River, about halfway between here and Bellingham, collapsed after an oversize truck hit the structure.  It sounds like there was a lot of miscommunication and human error, but the good news is only two cars went into the river and no one died.  A few injuries, but nothing life threatening.  It sure puts a pinch on everyone's holiday weekend plans, though; it's the main North-South route through that area.  Everything else is not intended to carry that much traffic or is MILES out of the way. (Photo courtesy of Frank Varga, Skagit Valley Herald)

Ben is celebrating his birthday this Saturday, so I have a lot of work to do to get ready for it.  He wants a Skylanders cake, and I suspect that no one has such a thing.  I printed off a copy of a decoration that they can make an edible print to put on top.  I decided to try yet another store bakery to see if they can do a good job.  I'm 0 for 3 for the other stores.  It's amazing how BAD they are around here!

Have a great Memorial Day.  God bless our troops, past and present.

The Adventures at Omi's Continues

I was just looking at how late it is now, so this will be a super-quick update and I can put more information up tomorrow.

I'm helping Sharon clean up her mom's house again.  It's been sitting dormant for too long, so I offered to get this thing cleaned and ready for the handyman to come in and patch up the broken stuff and bring in some income for this property.  Of course, we haven't really worked out any kind of financial arrangement, but I've got some quilts that need binding put on them.

Quick tour of the house...not all of it, mind you, but the bulk of the living spaces:

The Living Room...I am standing in the dining room, which at that time had a table, a rug, a couple of drawers from the buffet (don't know how those got left behind) and a couple empty boxes.  And a giant brown house spider I named Frank.  Behind the big pile of rugs on the far end of the room is a giant box TV that I will not be able to lift.


The kitchen.  All the cupboards are empty, so it's mostly just cleaning the gluck off the dishes & utensils and wrapping them up.  Oh, and I'm throwing away the borscht on the counter.


The master bedroom.  Still a few little things in the closets, some linens, and look...another box TV.  All the furniture will be taken to the living room as a "staging area" for the movers to easily load into the truck.


The second bedroom--this used to be Sharon's once upon a time.  Disassemble bed, take out the trash, and pack up the last bits of stuff.  I would really like to burn the curtains, but we'll let Sharon decide.


The back deck needs a little work, too.


There is one more bedroom that is mostly empty--just a few cushions and a small table, but otherwise clean.  The basement I didn't even venture into and the garage is another story entirely.

Once again, I came across some fun treasures:  some ceramic jugs and these fancy candlesticks that pivot so the candle will always be upright and not drip all over the floor...theoretically.



In the meantime, our kids' bathroom is getting a facelift.  The floor was ruined and there was mold growing under the vinyl, so we had it torn up to be replaced.  And, well, it turned into a construction version of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie..."  If we're replacing the vinyl with tile, we might as well put the heating coils under it.  And if we're having to take the cabinet out, we might as well replace it with a larger cabinet, and if we're doing that, we should add an extra sink, and granite counters...and paint and lights and mirrors and fixtures.  We're not changing the tub, shower or toilet.  We stopped there.  It should be done by the weekend; the handyman will be here all day tomorrow.



Yesterday we took the Girl Scouts for a 30 minute karate lesson.  It was supposed to be an hour but between slow costume changes and traffic, it was truncated.  That was probably for the best since they were starting to get really squirrelly by then.  They really had a great time--most of them were really into it.  There was one that is *painfully* shy and had a hard time with this aggressive sport, but she stuck it out and participated, so...kudos!



Finally finished the second ankle sock in the self-striping yarn.  I tried to make them the same size, which helped by trying to start the sock at the same point in the pattern repeat--I should probably try it on to be sure. :)  I've made dozens of socks but I've never blocked one in my life.  Not sure how to do that.  I should have someone show me...maybe over a cuppa.

Day Three at Chez Children's

The first night here wasn't bad--the couch wasn't terribly uncomfortable and we weren't disturbed every few hours by staff during the night.  They snuck in, took vitals as necessary, and left us to sleep.  Last night, unfortunately, they were not nearly as quiet or subtle.

Blood draw for medicine levels at 6:30 pm was not well-received, and the scheduled blood draw at 10:30 was late.  By 11:30, the vampire hadn't returned to draw the blood, and the orderly available wasn't qualified to do the arm draw...only the finger poke.  So she came in and poked his finger and milked the blood from it to fill the small vial.  It was unpleasant, to say the least.  He was not a fan of this activity.

At 3:30 a.m., they woke me to help hold him down so they could poke him for his glucose level, which is a new procedure they started 6 months ago on CF patients.  Many of them have symptoms of diabetes, but it's not type 1 or type 2; they're islets are *working* but due to inflammation, they are often sluggish to get started and can cause diabetes-like symptoms.  I have no idea why she felt the need to wake him for this procedure, let alone wake me to assist.  They weren't very gentle, or seemingly, experienced.  Thankfully, we have a different nurse tonight.  Someone named Jenny...that's the name of a 40 year old, not a 20 year old.  The 20 year olds are named Jennica or Brittney.  There's hope.

Don't get me wrong--99% of the people I've worked with here are amazing and always polite, ask if they can get us anything, and are always willing to jump up and do the littlest things, from getting a cup of water or extra blankets for the beds.  They're really great...but it's a teaching hospital, so sometimes the learning curve is a little steeper for some people.  Patience from the patients...

The doctor on call this week is the awesome Dr. G...always a great leader, a great doctor, and a great conversationalist (and a proud card-carrying, self-proclaimed geek).  He'll go to bat for the parents and teach the young doctors when the parents ask why things were done a certain way.  Like "why did they need to do a blood draw at 11:30 at night?" The answer is that they started his medication late in the afternoon...they should have started it earlier in the day.  'Keep in mind,' he said, 'what the schedule will be like for follow-up testing later, and how it can impact the patients you treat and their families.'

I've been having some great conversations with a respiratory therapist named Elizabeth.  She's about my age and height, from Tennessee, and is just a joy to talk to.  We have a lot of the same small-town attitudes and logic (especially when it comes to the new food service rules that were enacted at the hospital), both have "high maintenance" kids, and enjoy a geeky conversation.  Her visits to work with Ben have been fun for all of us.  With her urging, I looked into--and found--the web address to write a carefully-worded letter to the food service about their decision to eliminate comfort foods and non-diet drinks for the highly-educated employees who can make their own decisions and the stressed out families who are just looking for something familiar and soothing.  I may draft another version that I can post publicly in other forums, but the web-based forum did not allow me to copy the text to paste it elsewhere.

While we have been here, I started working on quilt blocks that I goofed up about five years ago.  When we were getting ready to move South, we borrowed Mom & Dad's 29-foot RV and went to an RV park in the area where Kelly's job was located.  It gave him an easy commute to work in the mornings (reducing it from 90 minutes to 15) and allowed us an opportunity to explore the area.  While we were encamped in the confined space, I brought along my sewing machine and began assembling 1930s Triple Irish Chain blocks.  Unfortunately, I didn't pay close attention to how it was supposed to be assembled and I did it wrong.  About 20 times.  Each of the 49 patch blocks was supposed to have a white square in the center space on each edge, but I had put a colored square instead.

Now that I have a lot of sitting time and needed a UFO project that I could bring with me to work on, I thought I'd bring these and fix the bad blocks.  I have torn out the four squares per block and began replacing them with the white pieces that I had pre-cut before coming here.  Sorry the photo is so bad--the overhead light was more like a spotlight that over-exposed that nearest row and underexposed the far rows...but you get the idea.

My next project here will be a more elaborate paper-pieced Harry Potter quilt found on Sew Hooked...or Fandom in Stitches...which will eventually look something like this:

I have no doubt that it will look slightly different in the end, using different fabrics and possibly setting the blocks differently, but you get the idea.  The bottom corner block is supposed to be a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, but it's really hard to tell and every time I look at it, I have to think about what that is supposed to be.  It may be that it's just too small on this image and in person, it makes far more sense, but I may adjust that block design some.  What you can't see here at all is that the books have some of the titles on the spines... "A History of Magic", "Hogwarts: A History", "Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1", "Travels with Trolls", "Voyages with Vampires", etc.  I wish I had an embroidery machine to do all that fancy stuff, but alas...that was available on the Viking 500, not the 400.  I guess I'll have to use a Pigma pen and my very best handwriting, or draw it on and embroider by hand over the top.

Kelly is going to take the weekend shift while I get a couple days to sleep in my own bed....the bliss of the simple things in life.  Clean laundry and a comfy mattress.

This evening, Bekah came by with a pizza (charging $10 a sniff to passers-by) which we enjoyed for dinner.  Shortly afterwards, Kelly and his mom came to visit with Cammie.  She helped us eat the pizza as well as Ben's leftover salad and bacon, and Kelly and his mom went to the cafeteria for dinner.  She finished her homework while we knitted and visited.  She worked on a scarf with some yarn I had given her from the Big Pink Bin (it looks like Noro type yarn, but it's softer and at least partially synthetic--I think it may have been a cheap Fred Meyer Noro-knockoff yarn; I'm not sure of its origin).  I finished up a pair of socks I started at Heide's a few months ago.

Cammie brought all of Ben's homework and the class "pet", King Pork Chop.  Each student gets the opportunity to take him home for the weekend, and the class decided to allow him to bring him to the hospital over the Thanksgiving break.  He needs to write a few paragraphs about what they did together and add pictures to the pages.  This is one of the photos that will be going into the book once I print it out at home...if I can print it out.  The color printer has been on the blink lately.

Next up for me is to read a couple of blogs I follow, then off to bed.  G'nite!

UFOs of All Shapes & Sizes

One sock down, one to go!  

Heide gave me this sock yarn when I visited last month and after frogging it back to the toenails, I cast on a new sock.  Last night I finished the first one and cast on the second.  This has been a great purse project although I have found that I'm doing less sitting & knitting in the car and more dashing back and forth between school campuses.  I'm thinking I may have to juggle the schedule around to accommodate other after school activities.  The Anime club meets Wednesday after school which conflicts with karate.

UFO challenge:  Three quilts.

One of my online quilt friends decided to challenge us to find three UFOs and focus on only those to finish.  With those three, write down all the steps that need to be accomplished and when you have time to quilt, pick one and work on one step.  This, if nothing else, makes it easier to see the bite sizes instead of the entire elephant.

Given that I have three kids and haven't made any of them a quilt in a while, I chose these three:

For Emma, a One-Block Wonder made from a Japanese print.  These 60 degree pieces are made from cutting the fabric yardage at where the fabric repeats, stacking six layers of this repeat and then cutting into triangles.  Sewing into two sets of three, you then lay them out into a pleasing arrangement and sew the half-hexes into rows.  The fabric itself was pretty, but after cutting it into triangles, I'm not sure she'll be into it.  I'll finish the top and then decide.  It may end up being Ebay fodder or donated to the guild.  We'll see how it goes.



For Cammie, a Girl Scout strip-pieced technique where long cuts of fabric are sewn together then cut into triangles, and twisted into squares.  I have a few more one-yard cuts to be used for borders, binding, backing...whatever it tells me.  This last couple of days, I've added the cream colored bits for sashing to calm down all the colors and movement.  It makes the rest of the yellow pop!

Cammie chose the yellow for the corner stones, which still have to be cut and added to the sashing strips.  Of course, as I was cutting the necessary 60 strips, I realized I was only 90% there...6 strips short of a quilt top.  I dug around in the stash and found another fabric that was very close--just slightly more yellow, but hard to pick out in the spread of strips.  ("One of these things is not like the other....")

For Ben, a Monster quilt!  I handed out patterns more than a year ago for a friendship block and although I handed out 20, I only got 13 back.  I want to make a few more to make it 20 blocks, so I'll have to go back to the 101 Monsters You Can Draw book that I found in a discount bin at a grocery store a few years back.  From that, I had made a bunch of patterns and handed them out.  Unfortunately, I didn't get back the unused patterns, so I'll have to make them up again, and find a couple of fabrics to coordinate with it for sashing, borders and binding.  I had picked up some monster fabric during shop hop, I think...I'll have to figure out where I tucked it and see if it actually works as a border, or maybe as a backing.

Other projects:

UFO for my 12th anniversary.  I started this just before our dozen-year mark to hang on the wall of our bedroom.  We have since moved and celebrated 6 more anniversaries and I still haven't gotten it put up on the wall.  I put it on the long arm and quilted it up, so now it's ready for binding.

The Pirate Round Robin.  I ended up with three quilt tops at my house--I have no idea why I got so many of them dumped on me at once, but I finally was able to finish up two of them and have hung up the third on my "design wall" to interview fabrics.  I'm thinking about adding the blue strip and map fabric on the right.  I know what I'd like to do after that, but I'm not sure I want to technically do two borders or save that for the next quilter to do.  I think it needs some really bright checkerboard strips, like the center block.  Either that or I can ditch the map fabric and do the checkerboard instead.  I have enough bright squares cut up in my stash now that I can pull a lot of pre-cut pieces without a lot of fuss.  Math will be difficult to figure out exactly how many I'd need.

I also finished working on Sherry's beach scenes quilt, which I believe she wanted to attach together herself.  This feels like it needs something more on the right to balance it out, or perhaps some kind of activity on the water, but I have run out of time and momentum on the project.

Finally, I have several quilts waiting for quilting on the long arm.  This is for Laura, Lauri's mother in law.  Her favorite colors are green and lavender, so this is perfect for her.  I was hoping to have it done for her by tomorrow, but I need a little direction as to what thread to use and what pattern I should quilt on it.

Girl Scouts starts on Tuesday, so we'll see how that goes.  Our troop has merged with another one to increase the numbers (we have about six each), and to spread the work load out.  I'm pretty sure this will be the last year I'll run it since I've already spread myself too thin.  Which reminds me, I need to write to a couple of other people I had formerly volunteered with to let them know that I am going to politely decline helping this year.  I know I have a lot of volunteer hours to complete for two schools now.  Wish me luck.