Felted Tote

I just finished this Felted Tote from my favorite book, One Skein.

(No one is allowed to say anything about the fact that this was not on my UFO list...I started and finished it while effectively ignoring my other projects. Now the baby shower is only a week away, though, so the blanket NEEDS to be finished).

Since it's felted, that means you knit it bigger than normal and then shrink it (intentionally).

So, it started out like this:

It's laying on our ottoman, which means that it started off about 23 inches tall. It shrinks a lot. You can especially tell in the stripe pattern.
Here it is once it's shrunk, on the same ottoman it used to cover:

And here it is standing up, except the handles look dippy in the picture. Alas. I am not an exceptionally skilled knitting photographer.

Pretty cool, hmm?

Compost Bin

We've been composting for the past year or so, but we didn't have a proper receptacle for the composting. And now that we have wonderful stuff from last year that we can use in our gardens this year, we needed two compartments for new compost and ready-to-use compost. So, after the AC guy left at 8:00 a.m. yesterday, we got to work. It's amazing what you can accomplish by noon when you get started at 8:00!

We also cleared out another bit of space (on the left) for additional vegetables in our garden:

Did we mention that the rest of the tree got taken down? A man we refer to as "the crazy guy with the chainsaw scar on his cheek" climbed up that thing and then proceeded to take it down BY HIMSELF.
We helped our neighbors construct the replacement swingset this afternoon...the boys were very happy swinging away tonight.

AC Tease

Our appointment to have the new furnace and central air installed was for this morning. Yesterday morning the installer called and said that the units hadn't arrived yet and we'd have to cancel. I told him to call if they arrived, because we wouldn't be making any other plans. So lo and behold, around 6:00 last night he called to say it had arrived, and to expect them between 7:00-8:00 this morning. That meant that we got our sorry selves out of bed BEFORE 7:00 A.M. on a SATURDAY. They arrived at 7:30, but had bad news once they looked around...our current duct system is too small for the 2 ton unit. However, the Sears guy who sold us the system should have known that, so we're hoping that Sears will pay for it (the installer hinted that they should, and have paid for others in the past). KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!

The sun is out!

Hoorah! Here is a combined garden/knitting picture:



Our gardens are perking up with today's sunshine...some of the plants looked abused after the torrential rains.

If only the poison ivy would get abused and die!

UFOs

That stands for UnFinished Objects in the knitting world, and I've crossed the line from OneProjectAtATime land into the land of UFOs.

Here's what I've got started right now:

1. Baby blanket to wrap shower gift (that one has been ripped out 3 times to get the right dimensions)
2. Green Striped socks. My first pair of adult-sized socks! I have one done and the second is on the needles, but I have been distracted by my Happy Hooker book.
3. Eyelet wrap for Graceful Stitches. This is a volunteer project and I hate how it's turning out...I need to bring it in to see if I should continue with this pattern or not.
4. Crochet Scarf

I think there's more, but memory is being selective....I have so many things I want to start, but I should really finish those things, hmm?

dry

I don't want to jinx anything by saying that we've been dry during all of this flooding, but so far so good....it's pretty crazy how many schools have had flooding and that they're closing school for floods. We feel very fortunate that we're ok, but worried about our neighbors to the north.

P.S. 8 days straight of rain makes small children CRAZY AT SCHOOL.

over-punctuating

I just looked at the list of previous posts and realized that I have a tendency toward over-punctuating, specifically over-exclamation-pointing.

Then again, if it isn't exciting and worthy of an exclamation point, why even blog about it?

I just got a new book called The Happy Hooker. He He He. It's a crochet book...get it? Hooker? It's by my favorite Stitch and B*tch knitting lady. I've been playing with different crochet stitches. Nothing worthy of a photo, though. Hopefully soon.

I also just finished My Life in France by Julia Child. I loved it! I didn't have much (any) knowledge about Julia Child besides her funny voice, but I loved the description of France, the food, and her very interesting life. Also notable are the photographs her very artistic husband took while they were there...they're interspersed among the text and add a lot of insight into France after the War. I'm pretty impressed that I got it within a month of release through my LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY. (yes, I love libraries)

Now I'm reading Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. I'll let you know what I think about that one....