hot flash

Started spring cleaning the whole house about a week ago. I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't seen the top of my dresser in several years. But it's all good now. The entire upstairs has been vacuumed, dusted, and purged. We'll probably shampoo the carpets this year but that'll have to wait until the weather is warmer.

And you know with a big clean, it often looks bad before it gets better. I try to get things cleared up before hubby gets home from work but the yarn keeps piling up in the living room because I've pulled it out of every nook and cranny from upstairs. I think I have a yarn explosion on my hands.

I'll get downstairs done next week and then I don't have to think about it for another 10 years or so ;)

I managed to get a little spinning done. It's so bright that it hurts my eyes but I love it anyways.


It's 100g of NZ corriedale and approx. 143 yds. It's spun on an Ashford Turkish drop spindle. I think there's enough for a pair of fingerless mitts. While plying the singles, one single kept breaking on me. Everything was getting all twisty and when I tried to untwist the single, it broke. Wah! I have to develop a better system for plying large batches of singles that keeps everything under control.

I am armed

There is a rodent in our house. After posting yesterday, I heard a scrabbling noise and when I looked up, I saw the soffit insulation M.O.V.E. I yelled and banged on the wall and it ran away and I'm assuming, out of the house. What is scary is that this rodent can potentially get into the rest of the house so we're keeping the doors shut to this area and I've removed all the food (a bag of gummy bears). I'm trying to decide whether to clear out my yarn and fabric (good nesting materials). Anyways, I am armed with my largest cow bell. It seemed to deter last year's roof rat. I am expecting the rodent specialists tomorrow. They will evict whatever's up there and screen off all access points (again).

miscellany Monday

I've been knitting up a storm but since it's super duper top secret, I can't show it to you until it reaches the birthday girl. No teasers either because she'll be able to guess what I'm making her.

Isn't this a wonderful sight?


After a full month of hand washing dishes, my dishwasher is fully functional (sounds dirty doesn't it?) Hubby put it all back together on Sat while I was at work but he was too chicken to turn it on. So I flipped the breaker and hit the rinse button Sun morning. It did fine rinsing but sounded horrible when it drained. I did a quick search online and it turns out that another part was broken, too. We didn't look at the diagram when we took it apart so we didn't know. But when hubby put it together using the diagram, he should've figured out that "#13 upper discharge assembly" is a single piece. In his defense, he was sick and probably high on cold medication. So I picked up the part this morning and hubby popped it in and voila! It works - no leaks! Hopefully, the dishwasher will last another 10 years. Fingers crossed!


We had a special visitor this weekend. CraftyCupcake came up for a quick visit. Gladys and I met up with her and Janice for Chinese food. Don't we look like triplets? She made us those lovely gold medals. And she let me pet her Wollmeise Molly sweater (the yarn base is no longer available which makes this garment extra special).

So hubby has the snifoos... I've been sleeping in the guest bed the last 2 nights. He's been sleeping propped up to help his sinuses drain. I popped into Costco yesterday to get more cold meds and stock up on 3ply tissues with lotion.


Ricky sez, "My nose is wet. Can I have a tissue?"

anatomy of a dishwasher

I was planning a knitting post (with a free pattern) but the weather stinks (grey & drizzly) for picture taking so that'll just have to wait for another day. I'll just talk about something a little more interesting (yeah, right) like my dishwasher. I am amazed at how a dishwasher can go from working to sounding like it's going to cough up cutlery in less than 10 seconds. The dishwasher sounded a little rough at the beginning of the cycle but by the time it was draining, I really thought something large was being ground up. We turned the breaker off, unloaded, and washed the dishes by hand and saved the disassembly for this morning.

It takes 45 mins to disconnect two hoses, mop up the ensuing flood, disconnect the electrical, and figure out how the clamp thingy disengages so that you can yank the pump & motor out leaving the inside of your dishwasher looking pretty empty.


At this point, I should mention that we had already made a trip to the parts store for a new gasket. All that black stuff is yuck leaking out the bottom of the dishwasher via the elderly (10 yo) gasket. I am actually grateful that it broke when it did because I would've been cursing if I'd put the whole thing back together to have it die the following week necessitating another disassembly. It's a tight squeeze under there and my arms are scratched & bleeding.

Call us crazy - we took the whole pump apart (if you're squeamish, don't look).


Don't ask me how it all goes back together. Thank goodness, there are pictures on the interwebs.


And here's the busted part:


It's the upper impeller (the important part that shoves the water out the spray arm) and it shouldn't be in two pieces. It's Sunday and the parts store is closed so I'll be washing dishes by hand tonite and probably tomorrow. Oh joy :(

it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a waterfall???

Sunday afternoon, I was driving past my house (after a quickie yarn acquisition trip) and there was water pouring out of our gutter and flowing down the side of the fireplace. Hmmm, not good. I parked and rushed inside to tell hubby to grab his rain gear and get his butt outside. We got the ladder out, etc. Sure enough, the gutters were clogged up. When he unclogged the last bit, water started rushing down the downspout and then the drain tile clogged up. So water was now geysering out the top of the downspout (and raining down on poor me along with the pouring rain). It was too wet to clear out the drain tile so after a quick trip to the hardware store, hubby wielded the hacksaw to insert a diversion at the base of the downspout. The second he cut into it, water started spraying me in the leg. At this point, I couldn't have been any wetter. We got it cut off, screwed the new bits in, and watched the diverted water flood part of my front lawn. Sigh... I ended up hacking off two feet so that the water dumps into my flower bed. BTW, my Gore-Tex coat failed to keep me dry.

This was the reason for my shopping trip:


My LYS got some new sock yarn: sweetgeorgia Tough Love Sock. Squeee! Isn't it gorgeous?

Let's get to some knitting. I have a FO to show you (I actually have more than one but the other two have to wait until they've been gifted).


Pattern: Candle Flame Cowl by Julia Allen (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Berroco Peruvia Colors; col 7210; 1 skein (174 yds; 100g)
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Made the unlined version. Very fast knit! Love, love this yarn. I need to block and rephotograph it.

And I had to immediately cast on for another one because I desperately need to catch up on my Christmas knitting.


The sun was nice enough to come out for 10 mins so that I could take these photographs. Of course, Ricky was nowhere to be found to model the cowls for me. Maybe he's getting smart...

my new baby

Yesterday afternoon, I picked up my new baby.


It's a 2005 Subaru Impreza and it's replacing my first baby, the Honda. Yep. After 16 years together, I'm selling my Honda. It's been a good little car and I'm sad to see it go. But I really need something that handles the snow better.

There will be an adjustment period while I get used to the Subaru. Twice, I forgot to close the windows before I turned the engine off. Pesky power windows! I parked in the sun yesterday and when I got in the car, I opened the window instead of turning the a/c on. The gas pedal is very firm while the brake pedal is mushy. I'm not used to the difference. The Subaru isn't too much taller than the Honda but my legs no longer reach the ground when I swing them out. I have to skootch out a little before I can stand up. And the gas is on the opposite side of what I'm used to. It's gonna take a few fill ups before I remember to pull up on the passenger side.

Thanks for all your sympathy and suggestions for the Anemoi mittens. No, I can't leave it and knit the second one to match because that is the second mitten. Besides, the recipient is a knitter and she'd see the boo boo right away. So I ripped and the mitten is almost to the shaping. I have developed a pain in my arm (possibly Guitar Hero related) and it hurts when I knit (and when I play GH) so I haven't been knitting the last few days. Just as well since family are in town for Thanksgiving and the whole car thing has taken up a lot of my time.

Well, I should go and eat lunch. There's a pile of soil on the driveway (we won't mention how long it's been there) that I need to move so that hubby doesn't have to park his poor Jeep on the street. My muscles are going to be sore tonite!

new toys

I am blogging from my new toy (and my new 'office') - a brand spanking new desktop computer. The laptop has been relegated to the 'almost scrap heap' and my bootable HD in hubby's desktop will soon be reformatted (must make a backup before he does that). The CPU is pretty cool - it's got a big removable filter screen so that I can clean it when it gets filled up with fabric lint cuz it has to share space with my quilting corner. The area has been redesigned (aka cleaned up) but I still need to find a place for the scanner and the printer which is on back order. I get my own widescreen monitor and you should see the fancy monitor arm (costs more than the monitor!).


I can push the monitor out of the way when I need the space to sew/quilt and still be able to watch a movie or maybe a video tutorial. It pulls way out so that I can even see it while ironing. With 3 horizontal pivot points, 2 vertical, plus tilt & swivel, it's very versatile.


I can adjust it with the flick of my hand and it's very stable. It's a slick piece of hardware. I believe hubby is very jealous of my monitor arm.

Sorry but there's no knitting content today. I worked 3 days this week plus we had dinner guests on Thurs. Every spare moment has been spent getting my new toy up and running. Hopefully, I'll have some knitting to show you next time.


Ricky would like some sympathy for his boo boo (click on pic for a close up). He came up to me a few days ago with blood smeared on his face. On closer inspection, there is a good sized hole and I believe he walked into Phoebe's claw. I'm sure he started it.


Phoebe says, "Take that, Ricky!"

ETA: CarrieK (I can't find an email address for you) - I read these 4 books: "Cat in a Flamingo Fedora" and "Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit" both by Carole Nelson Douglas plus "Cat on the Edge" and "Cat Breaking Free" both by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. They are murder mysteries where a cat (Midnight Louie and Joe Grey/Dulcie respectively) solves/helps solve the crime. They're very fun to read.

so lost...

Assorted columbines from my garden this morning: Black Barlow (top row, 2 rightmost), Nora Barlow (bottom left corner), McKana's Giant (bottom row center), all others are unknown.

I'm referring to my knitting mojo. Nothing interests me - not socks, not lace, nothing. This is bad because my stash isn't getting smaller by itself.

I'll distract you with some quilting. Here is another group project:


Almost 3 years ago, our quilting group did a block swap. The theme was houses. Some of us took that literally and others (like myself) were a little more liberal with the idea. I told myself last month that if I had to move the stack of house blocks again, I really needed to sit down and put the quilt together. So that's what I did Sat & Sun. It still needs quilting but at least, I don't have to move the stack of blocks again. BTW, the border/sashing fabric are little white ducks on a blue background cuz we call ourselves QHuackers.

The lovely weather has me wanting to spruce up the joint. We installed the bookcase in the living room last week and then I decided to retire my almost 20 yo dishes. I knew that I didn't want the full sets - just dinner plates, side plates, and bowls. We eventually settled on something from Ikea (love that place!). Of course, I need all new dining table linens to match and I'm going to make them myself (any excuse to go fabric shopping ;). You really need to click on the image to see the subtle print on some of the fabrics.


I hope that's enough fabric for 10 placemats and two table runners (one short and one long). I can't decide which fabric to use for the borders - the batik on the far left or the small print on the far right.

reorg

Who knew that a simple bookcase would turn the living room inside out? When we bought the new TV stand, we also purchased a matching bookcase to go with it. Hubby had this week off so we dismantled the old bookcase and while the furniture was out, I had the brilliant idea to rearrange a few things. After 2 days, the only thing that hasn't moved is the TV/stand & the big sofa. Everything else in the living room is switched around. Not totally sure that I'm done but I think it's an improvement.

I am still working on Vicki's socks. I've made a few mods to the original pattern that I hope are improvements. I've just finished the heel turn. I hate p2togtbl's.

I finished the first Lorna's Laces sock.


I don't know why but I'm completely enchanted with the solid heel & toe.

I've also been working on the Lace Ribbon Scarf.


I started this ages ago and put it down but when I don't feel like working on a sock, this is getting some attention.

Ricky sez, "Look into my eyes... I want to go for walkies NOW!!!"


He has been such a pest. It was raining Tues & Wed and he wanted to go outside so badly. Ricky would walk up to the back door, roll around, and paw at the edge. I finally gave in and put the harness on him. We walked out onto the back stoop, he hopped down to the lower step, got his paws wet, and stopped. He finally clued in that it was raining. We stayed outside for 5 mins while he tried to find somewhere dry to walk then I picked him up and took him inside. After I unclipped him from his harness, he wandered off to snooze - content that I'd done his bidding.

a washcloth a day will keep the cooties at bay

We didn't buy a rug. It's not that we couldn't agree on one. They didn't come in the right size for the table. We'll keep shopping.

We did buy 2 chairs for the living room.


When we first moved in, we bought a new sofa and a matching armchair and ottoman for one side of the living room. The other side looked really empty so I bought some wicker chairs from Ikea as a temporary solution. Seven years later, we've finally found replacements. I don't know how it looks on your monitor but in real life, the chairs are a bit greener and less gold (the flash always adds yellow). That table in the middle needs a darker stain to match the new chairs.

Phoebe likes the new chairs. The seats are a lot bigger so she can spread out a bit more. She can also see the birdies a lot better because the arms are lower.

On Sunday, hubby went up to Squamish to stomp around the race course in preparation for his big bike race next month. I went to a quilt show and looked at all the pretty quilts. Here is a link to the pictures I took.

I bought some fabric - cats, ducks, and a pretty piece of batik. I also bought some Wonderfil invisible polyester thread to try. It's supposed to work like invisible nylon but without all the drawbacks.

The weather has been nice so I've been outside - refinishing/weatherproofing furniture and gardening. The wicker chairs were sprayed with lacquer so that they can sit on the covered front porch (furniture-less for 7 years). I oiled a table that will become a workbench/potting table. And the hedge from hell got whacked back with my electric trimmer (oy - my hands hurt).

My current knitting looks like this:


Our little quilting group is organizing a backyard quilt show in Aug. We'll have a small boutique selling various items. I'm making some inexpensive washcloths to fill in the lower end of the price spectrum.

I've got 3 finished and only 30 or so to go.


Our quilt show is called "Out on a Limb" so I'm trying to stick to that theme - flowers, leaves, squirrels, etc. I'm also making some quilting ones - sewing machine and a 6 pointed star. I think quilters will like those. Of course, I'm knitting plain cloths with the ombre yarn.

out with the old and in with the older

A fellow quilter is moving to a smaller house and she has to sell all of her big antique furniture. We bought her weighs-a-ton oak table and chairs. A before and after shot:



The table comes with a crank and 2 leaves and it can comfortably seat 10 people (which is great because hubby's family totals 11). We are going rug shopping tomorrow to see if we can find something nice to go under it. Or do you think it looks fine the way it is? I think there's too much of a contrast between it and the floor (the table and chairs are darker in real life). I'll also be shopping around for a 6th chair.

We offered to give her our table and chairs (solid oak as well and you can take the leaf out and turn it into a small round table) because that's what she needs for her smaller place and she accepted. A win-win situation for everyone.

I do miss having a pedestal table. I'm short and I like to prop my feet on the base. And I'm not used to having table legs. Getting out of my chair, I whacked my knee on the table leg yesterday night.

So Ricky being the cat that he is, had to check out the new furniture. I've seen him visit 4 out of the 5 chairs and he decided that the one armchair was his favourite. He had his post supper snooze on it.



I love the first picture of his big belly hanging down while he squeezes under the table skirt.

Lest you think that this knitting blog has gone downhill, here is a progress picture of my Juno Regina stole:


I have finished the first skein of yarn and I've joined the second skein. The scarf measures approx. 36" long in its crumpled state.

I went a leetle overboard in the yarn buying department. I ordered 5 cones of linen from Colourmart this week (there's still some left). I have a hemp pattern that's been kicking around for awhile and 4 cones would've been enough but I ordered an extra just in case.

I am contemplating buying a loom for knitting socks. I found this mentioned on a blog last week. It's not too expensive (each one is custom made) but you must order one for each sock diameter and knitting gauge. I am tempted to order one in hubby's size so that he can knit his own Noro socks. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

my new toy

My new washing machine arrived. And I am enjoying it.


Oh wait - that gives you the wrong idea.

Here is my new toy:


And one of the best features - the door opens all the way.


Makes it sooo much easier to put in/pull out large quilts.

So the repair guy came and made a few adjustments to the door. He thinks it's the thicker seal that's causing the door to close stiffly. I just have to lean on it so that it clicks shut. He gave me a few tips - stick to warm/hot washes as the cold water can cause the seal to shrink, and it was a good idea that I didn't buy a higher end Bosch because the water heater tends to leak. He also mentioned that my Bosch should last about 10 years.

I've already washed my first load of laundry and I couldn't be happier to have clean clothes. It took 65 mins to wash a pretty large batch of clothes (so large that I had to split it into two dryer loads) so that's not too bad.

Penny, my Monkey swap pal got her package yesterday. Go take a look at the video of her cat, Solara playing with the catnip toy that I made.

You're probably wondering where I got the "washing machine babe" image from - my new ironing board cover. It pictures two other highly unlikely laundry scenarios:


I bet a guy drew these pictures.

a little home improvement and a little yarn

First up - a "before" picture of our back steps:


Narrow, covered in outdoor carpet which I could never sweep clean, sloping, squishy when it got wet, hard to sweep out the leaves underneath it, and rotting.

May I present our new back steps:


Cedar (aka rot resistant), fragrant, easy to sweep off, non-squishy when wet, top step is wide enough to hold many bags of groceries, it's level (!!!!), moveable for easy leaf removal, and will give us many years of stomping pleasure. Yay! Thanks to hubby for a great construction job.

I stopped by my lys to pick up my prize (from their first anniversary celebration). It contained two skeins of (no longer available) Sweet Georgia superwash sock yarn in the colour Framboises.



And 2 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca.


I'm such a lucky knitter! Thanks Three Bags Full!

Afterwards, I went over to Grete's for some lunch, tea, and knitting. Knit nite has been cancelled for the month of August so we're in a bit of withdrawal. It starts up again next Wed but we couldn't wait. So I headed over with a box of goodies from a chinese bakery and Grete's daughter (also a knitter) joined us and brought some homemade cream puffs. Double yum! I showed off my prize yarn, we looked at each other's knitting, and I tried not to steal any of Grete's yarn (I wasn't frisked on the way out). I brought some knitting with me but I didn't get much done because I was too busy eating! LOL! It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

sniff sniff

Hubby's got a cold and I think I may be catching it. I'm sneezing an awful lot the last day or 2. It could also be seasonal allergies. I never used to have them but I was particularly sneezy this spring. I must be getting old.

So we didn't go to the PNE on Sunday because hubby was feeling poorly. We hung around the house and did stuff. I cast on a second chestnut sock for Trish and I started a Monkey sock for my pal.



The chestnut sock is actually ready for the heel turn and the heel flap is finished for the Monkey sock.

I ordered sock yarn from Trish for my Monkey pal. So all that's left is to order a sock pattern and all my Monkey shopping is done. Yay!

And Trish asked me to give her a copy of the pattern that I'm using for her socks. Apparently, she's getting requests for it. So I'll be typing it up this week and testing the heel/toe instructions while I knit the chestnut sock. It'll be a free pattern so I'll post a link to it in the sidebar when it's ready.

Tomorrow is our 9th wedding anniversary so I went shopping yesterday. Traditional gifts for a 9th anniversary is pottery or willow. Believe it or not, I did find some willow furniture but it didn't fit into my car so I couldn't buy it. So I got hubby some "pottery". I won't spoil the surprise - just in case he reads this (he says he doesn't read this blog but you never know). I hope he likes it. We're going out for supper tomorrow night but we haven't decided where. It really depends on how he's feeling. Poor baby.

I finished sealing our new back steps yesterday. It's still drying. When hubby gets home from work, he'll help me move it into place. It is such an improvement over the old steps. I can't wait!