Monday, August 08, 2005

Everyone Survived

The birthday party for my granddaughter went off without a hitch yesterday — more or less. However, I don't seem to be able to post any pictures today. What gives, Blogger? I want to show off the one-year-old birthday girl (tomorrow's the real day actually) and the nifty knotted necklace and matching earrings that my baby sister who's up from her home in Mexico made me. (So I got a prezzie too!) Maybe tomorrow adding pictures will be more cooperative. Or I may have to resort to the Hello software. Ick.

I'm glad it's over though. I'm not like the infamous Martha Whats-er-name. Can't throw a party for 25 at the drop of an invitation. I find it stressful to try to take everyone into consideration. What will I serve? Will I have enough of everything to satisfy all? Does anyone have diet restrictions or allergies (besides me!)? Will everyone behave themselves and not drink too much so they're safe driving home? Will the lineup for the one bathroom get too long? That kind of thing. Stressful, I tell you.

On to the next thing. Silly me — I couldn't just finish one of my UFOs before I started something else. Uh-uh. Gotta get in on a knit-along started by Iris Schreier, list-mom over at the multidirectional Yahoogroup. She's the queen of directional short-row knitting, author of two books, and owner of ArtYarns handpainted yarns and patterns to go with them. Iris offered everyone a free pattern if they introduced themselves on the list. The thing that got me was the offer of another free pattern for those who took part in the KAL of the first pattern. All I had to do was add my yarn & needles & gauge to a group database and post the picture somewhere for all to see when it's done. Easy-peasy. I have this perfect skein of yarn that I spun from some dye-painted roving I made after one of my dye classes just to use up the excess dye. It's in wonderful shades of browns, subtle reds, a bit of muted blues, and a touch of screaming magenta and it looks fabulous knitted into the Multidirectional Triangle Scarf. I don't really need another scarf but hey, this yarn was itching to be this particular scarf. Forgive me. I'm weak!

So after I knitted about a foot on the MTS, I felt guilty and concentrated on putting some half-fingers on my Hooray For Me gloves. I got a thumb and a pointer finger on each glove now but it took a rediculously long time, much of which consisted of picking up stitches, figuring out which colour bits of my self-patterning yarn to use, and darning in loose ends. Not a lot of actual knitting. Only 6 more half-fingers to go.

Other News
Thom took some of the doors off my kitchen cupboards to start stripping the paint off them. It took him 2 hours to do one door so with 12 more plus 3 drawer fronts, this process is going to take quite a bit of time. Plus there's sanding, filling, undercoating, removing the quarter-round, pulling up the flooring, sanding, having the flooring installed, painting the whole room, re-lining the shelves, and hopefully refinishing the rusting sink's surface somehow. Unfortunately, the sink is not replaceable, due to both it's old-fashioned shape and size, and also to the fact that it's tiled in with vintage irreplaceable tiles. I guess the kitchen reno is on in earnest! I'll be living with a disaster for months to come.

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