Too. Cute. For. Words.

These are a pair of baby pants aka "watermelon pants" that I knit as a sample with my friend Rue's handpainted yarn. She is going to start selling the yarn and needed a sample of something other than socks. Her yarn is absolutely amazing - the colors are gorgeous and this yarn has a bit of tencel in it which gives it a beautiful sheen. She's going to sell the yarn as 2 half skeins, 1 of each color, tied together. So when I wound the ball the inside was pink and the outside was green. Most people would knit from both ends, striping the yarn, but all I got out of that was a tangled mess so I had to separate the 2 balls and then I flew through the knitting. The pattern is loosely based on Knitty's Cargo Pants, adjusted for the gauge of this yarn (7 stitches to the inch I think?) I hemmed the bottoms and the top to enclose a drawstring ribbon and I think they look very "tailored", as the cargo pattern claimed they would. If I was going to do them again (say, for a new little boy!) I would probably use a thicker yarn since there was a lot of knitting involved with the small gauge, but I think they came out perfect - even if my mother laughs every time she sees them!

Random Musings from McDonald's

1. People who use a handicapped parking spot who have a handicapped tag with a picture of someone who is obviously not in the car really irk me. Kind of like the people who insist on flying down the breakdown lane when traffic is stopped on the highway. I'm convinced there's a special place in hell for those people.

2. I realize that McDonald's is basically one of the only places where you expect to find somewhat obnoxious children, and can't really fault them or their parents for being there. I took advantage of this often when Marley was that age. I forget this sometimes though, when I'm looking for a quiet place to eat and read my book at lunch time.

3. It's a good think that they don't serve Shamrock shakes all year round, since I might end up as wide as I am tall.

Exhausted!

Well today was Day 1 of the Big Move. We actually haven't even closed on the house yet - the seller didn't get the license to sell in time for the bank to start the paperwork on Thursday, so our closing was postponed from Friday to Monday. I know that the people at the bank do this day in and day out, but I wonder if they realize that someone is waiting on the other end with baited breath? Couldn't they just have worked a little later on Thursday?? Oh well, I guess in this instance the bank holds the power and if we want the mortgage we just have to deal with it. Fortunately, the seller did let us start bringing stuff over this weekend (although the realtor had to keep the keys and let us in and lock up after us - even he thought it was weird). I've heard that a lot of sellers don't allow this, so I guess we were pretty lucky.

It was pretty nice to be able to bring over some of the packed boxes. Our kitchen and Toby's book room were basically all packed, but we were tripping over the boxes so it was great to get them out of the way. We made 3 trips with both of our trucks - they held a ton of boxes. Unpacking was pretty slow since most of the stuff in our pantry hasn't even been used in the past four years and was horribly dusty, so everything needs to go through the dishwasher over there. I hate this part of moving - trying to figure out where everything is going to go. Who am I kidding - I hate every part of moving! I just keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end.

All in all it was a pretty productive day, just very tiring (and I'm sure it was way worse for Toby and his dad since they're the ones who actually moved most of the boxes!) Unfortunately I think we have many more long, tiring days in our near future!!

PS - Want to know the really worst part of moving? Coming back and having to stay at the old house when all you want to do is stay at the new house!

PPS - After listening to my mom and I for a while, Marley decided she wanted a blog - how cute is that? Of course she thought she would need 2 - one to work on at Grandma's and one to work on at home. We convinced her to start with just one.

25 Things About Me

I’ve always wanted to do a “100 Random Things About Me” and I got tagged in Facebook for a 25 Things one, so I figured I’d start there and eventually finish all 100. This was actually a lot of fun to do!

1. I’m a complete and utter slob at home. I’m hoping owning our own home will change that.
2. I’m very organized at work. I’m the type of person who needs everything on her desk lined up (and I’ve been known to do it to other people’s desks as well).
3. I’m pretty compulsive about my checkbook and people who aren’t make me twitch.
4. I was told by a boss once that I pay attention to the details I think are important – not all of them. I think I fit this to a tee.
5. I have a degree in Chemistry that I’ve never used. I set my sweater on fire once in Chem lab and figured lab work probably wasn’t the best vocation for me.
6. I love crafts and making stuff – all kinds of stuff.
7. I don’t understand the point of nonproductive hobbies like video games and sports.
8. I like working for a construction company because I like to see the stuff we’ve “made” (even though it’s piping and I can’t really see it – I know it’s there).
9. I lived in the same house until I was 23. I’ve lived in 2 states and 7 apartments since then (I’m hoping buying a house changes this too!)
10. I’m scared of heights.
11. I’m also scared of open water since I saw a movie as a kid about a ship that sunk and the injured people were just set adrift for the sharks to get them. Freaked. Me. Out.
12. I’m a terrible speller and an even worse proof reader (this is not conducive to the job I have!)
13. I’m a pretty logical person and like logic-type problems (I even liked “word problems” as a kid!)
14. I’m married to and the daughter of 2 of the smartest men I know. This is at the same time very convenient and somewhat annoying.
15. I married my high school sweetheart (although we took a few years off in college before we got married).
16. I have an only child and am okay with this (although she and her father really are not).
17. I’m thinking about getting my nose pierced.
18. I like the idea of being near the ocean, but I’m not really a beach person. I’ve been to the beach a lot more since my daughter was born – she loves it.
19. I would love to live in Portsmouth, NH.
20. I don’t really like to watch documentaries or “learning” TV. I enjoy mindless entertainment much more.
21. I prefer action movies to “chick flicks”.
22. I’m pretty tall (5’ 10¼”) but people usually think I’m taller.
23. I’m horrible at keeping in touch with people and answering e-mails. If I owe you an e-mail, don’t take it personally.
24. I can be obsessive about collecting things – so I don’t let myself collect anything anymore.
25. After 13 years of marriage I’ve finally become a marginal baseball and basketball fan – but I still don’t like football.

Crafting For Those Buying A House (i.e. The Brain Dead)

Things have been a little stressful this week a Chez Moves A Lot. Aside from entering the we’re-closing-this-week-and-still-have-a-million-things-to-pack stage, I was also involved in a couple of minor auto incidents this week. Of course “minor” is a relative term, as in not really an accident per se, but still going to cost me a fortune. Needless to say, any type of crafting that takes stringing together more than two thoughts at a time is more than I can handle at the moment. I tried cross stitching a little, but it took waaaaay too much thinking and concentration. I also toyed with the idea of making some of the tulle produce bags I read about on Katy’s blog and then had to research for a while, but I figure dragging out my sewing machine might not be the best use of my limited resources at the moment (if I could even find a surface to put it on!) But at the same time, during those times I do need to just sit and not pack anymore I need something to keep my hands busy. So I’ve been making a lot of washcloths, and cat toys.

The washcloths I really like to use as facecloths, but honestly, how many can one person really need? So I had to start making them for my mom too. Unfortunately the cotton yarn really does a number on my hands, so these can only be worked on for so long.

Enter the toys. Now I have not really ever had any use for knit/crochet toys in the past. In my opinion they were basically the epitome of everything wrong with handmade. They had a million fiddly little pieces that needed to be put together, and mostly the seemed…well, kind of hokey to me. But the soon-to-be, much anticipated arrival of Baby Boy Radtke happened to coincide with a new Lion Brand catalogue I got that featured some crochet animals, so I found myself scouring the web for cute toys to make. Now believe me, there is really a lot of uggg-ly stuff out there. But I was able to find a few cute ones as well. Lion has some really cute ones on their website (who knew?) And then I found these. Too. Cute. For. Words. (Go ahead – click the link, I’ll wait. You’ll be happy you did!) The problem is, although these toys are all super cute, they’re still pretty fiddly with lots of little pieces. This didn’t stop me from buying a few patterns and a ton of colors of 2 different yarns. But even these patterns are beyond me right now. I do have a finished snail body without a shell or face – actually kind of creepy. Hopefully once things settle down, I’ll come back and finish it.

So now I’m down to cat toys. I’ve made these and Sunny the cat seems to love them:

I see a few more of these in my future, seeing as they are ridiculously easy and we have a multitude of spoiled cats in our family. My mother’s already asking where Izzy’s is. I stuffed a little catnip in for Sunny as well, so he’s pretty happy. Of course he won’t leave me alone while I’m making them, which is a little annoying.

While searching through Ravelry for some other ideas, I found the Korknisse. I know Melissa had made them before, and at the time I just didn’t really get it. I think maybe I didn’t realize there was a cork with a face on it in there? But for some reason it just made me smile, so I had to try it. It took no time at all and just cracked me up. My friend Christine and I were talking about having to have “Happy Toys” on your desk at work to make you smile, and this fit the bill perfectly. We even have a few corks at home, so I’ll be able to make a few more – and I’m sure Toby won’t mind opening a few more bottles of wine to sacrifice the corks.

So all in all, it was a pretty productive weekend, in little tiny ways. I really should be packing more, but I’m sure it will all get done. And at least Sunny will have a few new toys to play with at the new house!

Like father like daughter...

I've finally figured out the secret of getting Marley to put up with doing errands on a Saturday - lots and lots of books! I've been using this same trick on her father for years. Toby's pretty content to schlep me all around as long as he has something to read while he's waiting. Looks like Marley is following right along in his footsteps:

Sorry for the crappy picture - it's not easy taking a picture of the backseat from the front seat while you're seat belted in and waiting at a red light. And yes, my car is filled with boxes. My whole life is filled with boxes - packed boxes, empty boxes, half filled, half empty (depending on the day and my mood). I hate moving! But I sure will be glad when it's over. It will be totally worth it.

4F*

It has not been a fun week at the Gonsalves house. Marley started getting sick at my mom's on Sunday and that lasted through the night. Then I came down with whatever she had yesterday, and that lasted pretty much through this afternoon. The kind of sick where you can't even knit or cross stitch or do anything except pass out on the couch. Oh yeah, Toby also has a wicked cold and had a root canal yesterday. Sounds fun, huh? Marley did call down last night after she went to bed to offer me her bucket if I needed it (sorry, TMI probably - but isn't she sweet?) Needless to say we haven't done much on the packing/moving/getting rid of crap front. Hopefully this weekend will be better...

In better news, Mark and Janelle found out they're having a boy! It's nice to be able to say "he" and "him" now instead of "Baby Radtke". Not really sure how to deal with baby boys though...this should be interesting. I think Marley was disappointed for about half a second that she wouldn't have someone to play dress-up with, until she remembered that the little boys at daycare also like to play dress-up. Of course I had to ask what they dressed up as (and I'm sure Mark will love this)..."Princesses - with tutus and everything!"

*Does anyone else even say "4F"? My mom has all kinds of weird sayings!

Touching the Autumn Sky - 100 Hours

This is actually my oldest WIP - started on 12/23/02 (yikes!). It is by Mirabilia, and I was pertty scared of her patterns for awhile - they just seemed so intricate. But after starting this and one other (Gathering Eggs), I realized that they weren't really that difficult - just kind of big. Her shading and the way she can make the fabric in the dresses look like it's really moving is just amazing. But she also has quite a few large blocks of color in her designs which make them much easier - nothing like the constant starting and stopping in Chat Noir. I find that when I'm working on this for a while I tend to lose sight of the big picture - the colors in the shading don't really work, but as soon as I step back a little, it looks wonderful.

I almost had a complete disaster with this piece. You know how when you decide to do something, and even as you're doing it you realize it will probably lead to disaster? Well, the other night I was looking at the skin in her hands and face, which I had originally stitched "over 1". This means for every one of the "normal" stitches you see here there are actually 4 little stitches instead. I read somewhere that it made the skin look more "delicate" or some such nonsense. Well, I was never really happy with it (the shading just didn't work for me) so, in a fit of absolute lunacy, I decided to undo it. Now unstitching or frogging regular XS is a pain in the neck, but taking out those extra tiny stitches is all but impossible. Instead of picking it out, you actually have to snip it with scissors. Figure out where this is going? Yep, while snipping the floss on the first hand I accidentally snipped through the background fabric. I just kind of sat there for a minute, kind of numb, trying to figure out if I had actually done what I thought I had. Now I've done a lot of crafts, but for sheer disaster, this sort of takes the cake. I had already logged almost 100 hours on this piece - just starting over wasn't an option. AND, I had the other hand and the whole face to go - a million more potentials for disaster. But I figured at that point I had nothing else to loose, so I would keep going and see what happens. I was able to unstitch the rest with no problems and then restitched it with "normal" sized stitches. Now most people who know me realize I am a perfectionist in such things - and even I can barely tell where the problem is. It's here - to the left the backstitching around her knuckle:

See that little bit of weave that looks like it's missing it's horizontal piece? (No idea what that's called in the weaving world - Melissa? Any idea? Ask Gene...) But this picture is waaaay zoomed in. You really can't see it at all in the big scheme of things. My only fear now is that when the piece gets stretched for framing it will be kind of like a run in your nylons and just zip all the way across. So I think I'll have to discuss this at the XS store where I get it framed beforehand. I already have a sort of solution in mind - a little key charm she looks like she's holding in her hand, a la The Secret Garden - my favorite kid's book. Doesn't it look like a scene right out of the book? All in all, I'm very pleased that the disaster was mostly averted.

And I had to post this - my parent's ridiculously spoiled cat Izzy, playing Apples to Apples, Jr. with us - thank God she wasn't as competitive as my brother was!

Chat Noir - 110 Hours

I figured I should actually post one of my XS projects, since I talked about them so much a few days ago. This is Chat Noir, which has always been a favorite poster of Toby's. When I saw that Mystic Stitch had converted it to XS I knew I had to get it. Here's what the completed picture will (should?) look like. This is one of my oldest WIP's - I started it on January 1, 2003 (yeah it's been awhile!) and it may just be the death of me.

The chart is actually 9 pages of solid XS - with a total of 28,400 stitches! It's kind of "grided" into 10 x 10 stitch squares, which they suggest you complete one at a time. This does help you keep your place, but it also means in some of the busier spots (like that red halo thing around it's head) you may have some colors which are only used once in the 100 stitch square. So there's a lot of starting and stopping. It almost makes the big sections of black kind of boring in comparison. And who knew that DMC made quite so many shades of gold/yellow/tan to use in the background??

I've completed pages 1, 2 and 3 and parts of 4, 5 and 6, but I'm not yet to the halfway point. So if I've already logged 110 hours I probably have about 150 more to go. The things you will do for your husband (who, even after I've explained the whole "rotation" way of doing things, will still ask, "why aren't you working on my cat?" every time he sees me working on something else - nice!)

In house news, things seem to be moving through probate court very well and the realtor doesn't anticipate any delays. Now it's just the packing (and packing and packing and packing...) We've really only been it for a few days but I'm already sick to death of it. Living with King and Princess Packrat doesn't help either. Toby's said he's "in the mood to get rid of stuff", but I think I'll believe that when I see it. At least we're moving to a place that actually has more space to store stuff than here! I'll leave you with a picture of Sunny "helping" with the packing. What you can't see in the box is a little basket-type tray that he fit in perfectly. Some help, huh?

Fair Warning Knit Fans

So I figured it was only fair to give you a warning that things might be changing a little here at the Knit One Stitch Too blog - we might be a little light on the knitting content for a while. As most of you know, we are buying a house! This is both a super exciting and completely terrifying move. The down payment check alone almost killed me. But it will be a good thing for us in many ways. Not only will we be moving off of the ridiculously busy exit ramp we live on, we'll be getting rid of the world's most annoying landlords and we'll finally be able to hang pictures on the walls! That's right - for almost 4 years we have not been allowed to hang anything on the walls (see annoying landlords, above). My dad actually rigged up a picture and a clock with some wire from the moldings in the living room, but that was it. Oh, and we just taped stuff to Marley's walls. I figured if they wouldn't let us use nails, ruining the paint was the least we could do.

Because we will finally be able to put stuff on the walls, I decided to dig out some of my very old cross stitch WIP's. Now I know that counted cross stitch is not for everyone, and that's fine. I very much subscribe to the "whatever floats your boat" school of thought when it comes to crafting. (You want to make dead muppet scarves? You go right ahead - and don't let anyone tell you it's not really knitting). I've spent the last few years visiting in the knitting world which has been loads of fun, but I have to admit that cross stitch is my true love. There are a few reasons why this is so. Probably one of the biggest is that cross stitch DOESN'T WEAR OUT! Maybe it's because I've had 2 pairs of socks develop fatal holes in the past few months and my new super cute noro mitts are about to pill themselves into oblivion, but I just have a major problem spending all that time (and money) making something that will eventually wear out. Or not fit right. Or just not turn out the way you wanted. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. I still love my clapotis, and my mom's socks seem to be wearing well. But cross stitch? After you're done you frame it (which unfortunately can cost a fortune), hang it on the wall and baring any type of natural catastrophe you enjoy it forever. And I have to say that there's just something, well, magical about watching a picture develop on a blank piece of fabric. I remember hearing the Yarn Harlot for the first time talk about trying to figure out why people knit. It has nothing to do with the cost or time factor - buying a garment certainly works better on both of those fronts. But it's the magical art of transforming a pile of yarn into something else. And that's especially true with cross stitch I think. Also, cross stitching really lets my true analness shine. I'm a "rotation" stitcher, which means I have a whole schedule with a little notebook, and a bunch of self-imposed rules and ways of doing things. I really don't tell people about this too much, for fear of being laughed out of whatever conversation I'm in. Back in the hayday of my cross stitching (2003/2004) there were a lot of stitching bulletin boards (this was before everyone switched to blogs). Imagine my delight when I found the Rotation Stitchers Bulletin Board! Filled with people just as anal as me, some even worse! Them I could talk to death about my schedule, focus piece, blah, blah, blah. "Normal" people? Not so much.

Now there are some definite drawbacks to cross stitch as well. It's definitely not as portable. Nothing beats throwing socks or a scarf into your bag to bring somewhere to work on. It's also much messier. There's all sorts of little floss snippets all over the place. You can't watch TV as well while doing it, since you 're looking down for most of it (although watching a movie you mostly know by heart helps with this one.) But the biggest thing knitting has over cross stitch is the friends I've made. I've often said that if it wasn't for the knitting friends I've made I might not have kept up with it for as long as I have. So for mainly that reason alone (plus that whole portable thing - that's very big for me) I'll keep knitting as well, just maybe not as much. Oh, yeah, and my mom says she wants more socks.

I realize that a focus on cross stitch might not be so interesting to most of my readers (maybe 2 out of 3? The third being my mom who will read anything I write, although her eyes start to glaze over a bit with all the techni-craft talk). But since most of the bulletin boards seem to be pretty much disbanded in favor of blogs, it's the only way I have to document anything (and I love to do that, as long as I'm not too lazy to take the pictures). There might even me some knitting here and there - like a certain second sock I need to finish ASAP.

Since this is already a ridiculously long post, I figured I'd leave my first XS update till the next one. So for my mom, who is probably the only one who lasted all the way through this post, I give you this...

A couple of days ago Marley and I went to Friendly's for lunch. As I was eating my free dessert that came with my ridiculously overpriced sandwich, I noticed that the sundaes there really are shrinking. You get waaaaaaaay less icecream than you used to. The problem is they still have those crazy long spoons. Remember those? So you could reach the bottom when the sundaes where big? I wonder if they realize that the long spoons only draw more attention to the miniature sundaues now. Anyways, Marley was really enamored of the long spoon, and she said at one point that she really wished we had a camera to take a picture of it. And voila! I whipped out my super-duper teeny-tiny new for-christmas camera that I can now carry with me at all times and was able to take a picture...