All in Good Time

The girls gave me a lilac tree on my first mother's day in our house, and each year the leaves are powder-y by mid-summer. This is probably hard to vision but you're going to have to trust me on this one -much like when I described my co-worker opening a plastic container from the fridge this morning to find a garden salad so old that it 'splashed' all over her! I think the tree may be diseased, but it keeps coming back in the spring all anew. This year I ran out to the tree to snip off as many flowers as I could so that I could place them all over the house. Ooh, I just made a mental note to never use 'lay' or 'lie' ever again when plainly I could use 'rest' and 'place' instead. The past and present tenses of each verb confuse me, and precious time is wasted looking it up in my grammar bible. We'll just never speak of them again. Deal? I present to you - pictures of my lilacs. Can't you just smell them???

N

Ingenuity

This is what you do when you are six years old and you find yourself without supervision. Why not whip up some water balloons? Problem is you can't tie a knot to save your life. Ah, but you have two ponytails, a bread tag and a chip clip. Perfect.

N

Two Points for Me

Lace Ribbon Scarf: Black Lamb 50% silk, 50% superwash merino wool, sage

Woodland Shawl: Louet Gems Fingering 100% superwash merino wool, teal

It's taken nearly two years to knit that dang shawl and not 'cause it was hard. I'm not quite sure what to say in my defence. The ply was really twisty and fiddly, and the lovely teal was the same colour as my needles, so seeing the stitches was a pain in the butt. I could have very well switched the needles, but for some odd reason they seemed to be a freakish size - not quite a 4 mm and definitely bigger than a 3.5 mm. Is there such a thing as a 3.75 mm needle? It was a challenge. I had to do this one in daylight without much distraction until I was really comfortable with the pattern.

Now the lace ribbon scarf was another story. It was my second time around this pattern, so once I got through a few rows, I had it down pat. I knit this super fast for Mother's Day for my mum in a sage green that matches her dining room. It's a fun and intuitive knit. I knit it while talking and listening to other conversations. I may have even popped it out a Podcamp London session on podcasting (the presentation was way over my head, and I was stuck beside the wall in the front with no chance of slipping out unnoticed).

I anticipated the blocking of these two dainties to be more fiddlier. It was easy peasy lemon squeezy! I've not enjoyed such a dreaded task in a long time. And before you dare ask about the Hemlock, I'm waiting for the right moment. Ugh.

N

Newfie hockey

What do you get when you put together a wine bottle, some hockey tape and a bunch of wire hangers? No, not a take on Newfie ice hockey (please forgive me if I've offended any New Foundlanders, I'm from New Brunswick, so I'm practically one of you guys), but a cheap person's yarn swift. A couple weeks back I mentioned that I had ordered a yarn ball winder on line and was impatiently awaiting its delivery. Well, it arrived on Saturday morning and I immediately had to see how it worked. So in my haste and in my frugalness I put together this contraption. I found the tutorial here and after a few modifications (added an extra hanger and used hockey tape instead of duct tape because my husband is not that handy but can play a mean game 'o hockey when he wants to) I got it to work, more or less.

Top view of the crude contraption (please ignore our dangerous mess of electrical cords)

Let's just say that my yarn swift aint so swift but I was able to set it on the floor, feed the yarn with my right hand and crank the ball winder with my left hand. It was still way faster than winding by hand and resulted in these lovely little cakes. Sweet!

#gdldn

My first Geek Dinner London Meetup:

"Crap. I forgot my internet card."
"Hey, check it out! This chick's laptop is SO old that she's got an internet card!!"
"Just unplug the lights."
"Great. You just pissed off all the geeks."
"Do we have to pay extra for lights?"
"I love balkan-style yogurt!"
"Just unplug the laptop."
"Crap. Those were the lights for the whole bar."
"Just wait for your eyes to adjust."
"You should twitter that."
"I could take a better picture if there was more light."
"Give me your camera. I want to take a picture of the outlet."
"How do you adjust the aperture on this thing?"
"Sorry I cut off your head."
"Watch out. I have teeth."
"No one is talking to us."
"We're not talking to anyone either."
"I know that guy over there."
"Go say hi. I dare you."
"No."
"He looked at me."
"That's it. Go say hi."
"It wasn't a look of recognition."
"What time is it?"
"9 o'clock"
"Do you want us to escort you out?"
"Let me unplug your power cord and plug the lights back in."
"Last call! Do it again and yell out 'last call'"
"Let's beat this joint."
"We did good. We made a friend."
"Pull the car around."
"I'm nervous about exiting the parking lot."
"Next time, I'll drive."
"You'd think she'd have a harder time turning left."
"That was a raccoon."
"Send me that picture of the outlet asap."

I did end up downloading Picasa when I got home, and I finished our new banner. Let me know if you'd rather have the magnolia picture, T. I don't know how long I can keep a picture of El's butt up there before she gets hostile. Not sure why she would be upset to be honest. It's a cute rear end.

Later,
N

The Strawberry Stain is Fading

Knitting at the moment is TOP SECRET, so I feel a little lost for words.

Hmm . . . what's new? Well, I was almost sick, meaning I could feel the onset of something, but I managed to take enough advil and cold medicine that I don't really remember much from the last few days. We did our taxes just under the wire. It feels good to have that done. What else? We cleaned the front hall and threw out probably a dozen pairs of winter boots. How does anyone get more than one year out of boots? The girls really put them through the wringer, not to mention their feet are growing at an insane pace. I am hoping that El's feet freeze where they are 'cause the kid's feet are bigger than mine already. She's at a whopping size 9! I was really looking forward to sharing shoes with her - think of all the shoes that I could justify buying! I swear she skipped over size 8. Seriously. I blinked and missed it. So yeah, the closet has been purged of winter gear, and stuffed with umbrellas and rain boots for the wet days and flip flops for the dry days. One can always hope for more of those.

Now I'm just boring y'all.

Let's look forward! I'm excited about the Mother's Day shun piker next weekend. We have a caravan of family joining us on that little jaunt. Flowers for the planters will need to be acquired. I will be recruiting for yard-sale-ing partners. In fact, there's a few village-wide sales that I am anticipating. I have to choose one more book in order to qualify for free shipping from Amazon. Any ideas? I have plenty of ideas, but I think I am over-analyzing this one. There's air in the bike tires now, so I can hop on the bike at a moment's notice and depending on accompanying nice weather. The peony bushes are popping up. This excites me to no end. The birds are hollering in the backyard which can only mean the squirrels have ransacked the bird feeder once again. We're living in exciting times.

Oh and last week I took the bestest picture I've ever taken. It's so real, it's unreal.

Maybe it's just me.

N

Monday Mail

Don't you love getting packages in the mail? I know I do, especially when they have good stuff like this inside...I stumbled upon some Cascade Eco wool on sale as I was poking around on the internet at work (gasp!). At $10.50 a skein, I just couldn't help myself. These will hopefully become Owl sweaters once I've gotten a few projects out of my queue. The wool is so soft and springy and I cannot wait to wind it up in my new ball winder, which I also bought online at work during a moment of weakness. That hasn't arrived yet so for now the winding and the Owl knitting can wait.

The weather was lovely over the weekend, which brought on my hay fever. I have tried every drug there is on the market (and off the market?) and have settled on Nettle tea and local honey. This stuff really works my friends. Go to your local herb store (the bongs in the window and incense smell will tell you that you're in the right place) and get some Nettle leaves, steep, add some local, organic honey and you've got yourself a tasty and effective allergy remedy. You should check with your doctor first though, to see if you can have any herbal remedy. Anyway, speaking of tasty things, I made this Whole Lemon tart over the weekend. The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, a trusted source for interesting and new recipes to try. The tart was bright and lemony and sparkled like a jewel. It was even better the next day chilled with a dollop of cream. Oh yes, I loves me some cream!