A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

We had a great time at the antique stores on Saturday . . . it was a fun day out with a couple of stores, a picnic lunch and a quick trip to REI on the way home. You wouldn’t believe how well the little guy behaved, in two antique stores full of breakables and without enough room to turn so I could reach something and he couldn’t without putting him into the stuff behind us. He was a little angel!
Here is a photo of my best find on the trip.

It is a Needlework dictionary published in 1972 which is a reprint of a dictionary form 1882! How neat is that? I haven’t had a chance to do more than glance through it but I suspect it might be useful when trying to use the Weldon’s Practical series as they sometimes use terms or yarn descriptions that are not in current use and this is from around the same time period. Pretty neat, huh?

Made a little progress on the sock, but no new photo at the moment . . . gotta run . . . a little someone wants lunch!

Road trip

The little guy and I are driving DH to work in a little bit so we can keep the car today! We are headed up to the North Shore to go to a couple of Antique stores with my mom. I’ve been trying to find a time to get there for a while now so today we are going to just do it.

I’ve got my list of things to look for. Buttons, Linens, any type of old fiber tools and of course knitting books, the older the better! I’m even bringing a copy of Pennington and Taylor’s “Spinning Wheels” with me in the car . . . just in case

Well, the boys are looking for breakfast and that means I need to go make some. Have a great weekend! and Happy Father’s Day tomorrow!

Here is the sock I’ve been working on.

As you can see in the photo, the yarn is Knit Picks “Sock Garden” and the color is Hydrangea, which I really do like. Last night I finished the cuff while we watched part of the 2nd Season of “The 4400″ which I got from Netflicks. I’m trying to get caught up before they get too far into season 3 as this is pretty much my only summer TV addiction so far . . . okay maybe that and “The Closer” so a Sunday night show and a Monday night show the rest of the week its DVDs for me!

Anyway, back to the sock. I’m doing one of the ribbed socks from Vintage socks with this yarn, should be an interesting combo, old pattern & contemporary yarn style. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. My gauge was different than what she had in the book so I have 80 stitches instead of 60 though I’m still using the size 1 needles. It seems weird to have 80 stitches for a sock for me. I usually do “plain” socks at 48 stitches on a size 2 needle and they fit just fine . . . but when I cast on the 60 stitches for this it just looked far too small . . . I’m hoping this works out okay . . . . we’ll see. If they are too big I think I know someone who could wear them anyway . . . . maybe.

And just so you don’t think I do anything other than housework and the baby . . . here is a picture of my garden this year.

It isn’t much, but it is mine. I’ve got about a 3 ft. deep strip, maybe 20 feet in length along the back fence where I have some flowers, cooking herbs, lavender and now 2 rose bushes along with a few tomato plants, eggplant and even some peas. Just a bit of everything. I added to it a lot this year, doubled the depth of it and have added a lot of perrennials so next year it should be really great! I love having the cooking herbs right there where I can just pick a little of this or that when we are cooking, very handy. In the photo above are lavender, rosemary, spicy globe basil and scotch spearmint. All yummy.

Well, we’ve got the kiddie pool filled and warming up and after his nap we are headed for a walk and then a swim and perhaps the sandbox until lunch time . . . busy day ahead!

He fell asleep without me!

I’m copying this over from the baby’s blog, so if you read both, skip this part . . .

Yesterday I went out for several hours. I tried to get the little guy to take a nap before I left, but he flat out refused. My mother had come over to watch him so I could go to a hair appointment and he didn’t want to miss a minute of play time with her . . . I had my hair apt., picked up “A” after a dentist apt (1/2 day of school for Flag Day) and then hit the grocery store for a few things before coming home. About 4 hours total.

I haven’t often left him for that long . . . but with my mom and Papa’ home I figured he was in good hands. When I got home he was actually asleep! He has never, ever fallen asleep when I’ve been gone before like that . . . its a first! And it means I don’t have to worry quite so much about whether he’ll take his naps without me here to nurse him down for them!

My leash just got a little bit longer!!!!!

Knitting content:

I wound up choosing some of the Knit Picks sock yarn . . . I don’t remember which one it is but its a pretty pink and purple combo, very girly. I was going to do one of the patterns from the Vintage socks - a ribbed sock from the beginning of the book . . . unfortunately the gauge isn’t right. I cast on the 60 stitches it calls for while I was waiting for my hair apt. to start and after a couple of rounds of ribbing I stopped to actually look at what I was doing and realized there was no way it would actually fit me! Oh well.

I then frogged and recast on with 80 stitches and I’m going to do my own version of a ribbed leg. I only wound up getting a couple rounds of the ribbing done while I was out but it was nice to have a project in my hands again. If I can I’m going to work on it just a little later today.

General babbling:

The hair apt worked out well . . . got some nice summer highlights . . . now I look more like I spend the days at the beach DH likes the new look, esp the way the hairdresser dried my hair out all nice and straight. Trouble with that is the odds of me getting enough time to actually do the same thing myself are pretty darn slim (not to mention, I suck at that sort of thing!) so it may be the last time he sees it like that until the next apt! Ah, well . . .

The party plans are coming along. MIL decided to finish baking the eggplant to get it ready for the Parm (will be frozen for a while first, which is how she always does it) and I’m working on some of the detailed cleaning stuff . . . like I think tonight the oven is getting sprayed to soak overnight. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? And next time DH has a day off I’m going to need him to take the AC out of the windows so I can clean the windows . . . he threw them in when we had a warm day with out any warning or chance to clean first!!!!!! Men just don’t think of those things do they?

Well, the little guy will be up from his nap soon so I’d better run

added a few minutes later:

While I was sitting here waiting for this post to go through on blogger I started hearing a banging noise . . . which I assumed was coming from upstairs . . MIL working on something. I got up and when near the door to the stairs and found it wasn’t coming from that direction. I went to our back door and looked out to see if Arrow was doing something. He was sleeping peacefully in the hallway, no banging. Then I started into the baby’s room to go through to our room and check on him, thinking he’s still sleeping in the bed and that this banging is going to wake him . . . .

here is what I found:

Not only did he not tell me he was a way (he ususally calls me as soon as he wakes up) but he got off the bed (like we taught him) without killing himself and made it all the way into his own room and the toys!

I have a feeling this is one of those firsts that is going to come back and bite me! Know what I mean?

I need to start a knitting project!

Can you imagine? I’ve only got about 20 that are at various stages of completion in my tub out in the barn . . . however, each of them would require concentration and focus to figure out just where I was in the project and what needed to be done to finish it.

My current project, the Pacific Northwest Shawl, is not a travel project. Not by any stretch. I haven’t been keeping a portable project the past few months partly because I don’t go out all that much and partly because when we do go out I’m juggling the baby.

However, tomorrow my Mom is coming to watch the little guy so I can go and have my hair done. At this point in time, for me, this is a big treat. May not seem like much to some of you but I bet there are those out there who remember what its like to have going to get your hair done, sans bambino, a real treat. And since I’m going to be at the hairdresser’s for probably 2 hours or so and since after that I’ll be picking Pixie Dust up (turns out she has to go to the dentist after school and before I get her) there appears there could very well be some waiting involved.

I’m thinking a pair of socks. I was thinking I’d make some for the baby, but he has plenty of socks that fit at the moment and with the weather finally getting really warm it isn’t like he is even going to where socks all that much in the near future. And who knows what size he’ll be by the time the weather cools off again; I wouldn’t even want to try to guess that. My feet however, have been the same size for a very long time now and are great candidates for a pair of summer knitted socks . . . now I just have to venture into the stash and find just the right yarn . . .

Do I want to do a patterned stitch? Cables? or just plain knit quick socks? Should I use a solid, a multi or even one of my own yarns? Thing is I want to decide tonight so I can get them cast on and started now. I’d like to have them be mindless knitting to relax with for my mini “vacation” tomorrow. I’m going to treat my 2 hours out as if it were a whole spa weekend!

That gives me a great idea! I’m going to go dig the little foot spa thingy out of the closet and give myself a pedicure tonight while I start my knitting and watch the Season 2 disks of “the 4400″. I’m trying to get caught up now that season 3 is on . . . thank goodness for Netflicks or this would be a very boring summer

Off to it. Any bets on how far I get before the baby wakes up?