Thursday, May 17, 2007

Beware - knitting content ahead...

Why, yes, I do still knit, and I have the sticks to prove it...
Celtic Swan needles
Beautiful bronze sticks, handcrafted by Molly at Celtic Swan, which were my birthday gift to myself, and which I am chomping at the bit to use on my next socks, the April Kit from Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock club:
Next in the queue
Sorry for the flash effect - this is a much better representation of the truly edible colours in this wool/silk blend:yummy!

But first, I must finish the twins' socks, which are due this Saturday... hmm, sounds like a test or paper or something, doesn't it? Not like the relaxing, satisfying activity we all know knitting to be...
They should be done tomorrow, and I did do the second pair while we were away last week:
Pair #3 for the twins
Project: My own generic sock pattern, size 7, for the twins
Yarn: KnitPicks "Bare", dyed with orange KoolAid and received in a yarn swap some months ago
Started: May 5, 2007
Finished: May 14, 2007

These are the red and blue Bemidjis, knit for Artisan Knitworks and mailed the week before I left, all cuddled up on the couch:
Bemidjis cuddling on the couch

Hmm, funny how you don't necessarily see the chaos surrounding you until someone comes to visit unexpectedly, or you take a picture of some of it and get an objective look - remind me not to take pictures anywhere else in my house...

Today's project has been to wash and scrape our old plant pots, so that the boys can paint them in their own personally selected colours, and then fill them with their own personally selected flowers - so tired and old looking, huh?
Paint Us All!!Paint me!

They were here when we moved in, must be older than dirt, but for now, they do the job just fine - and WAIT till you see the colours the kids picked - this will be one glow-in-the-dark kind of garden...

speaking of the kids, Ben had a project a couple of weeks ago wherein he had to build a real structure out of common household items. He chose the Skydome in Toronto:
sky2_dome_1

and opted to make it out of... are you ready?... marshmallows.

BEHOLD! Edible Skydome:
Ben's SkydomeSkydome in Marshmallowsclose-up

You have to picture, us, sitting around our table, stringing endless amounts of mini-marshmallows ( couldn't use the BIG ones, oh, no) on toothpicks, stranding them together, and then glue-gunning them (and they actually didn't melt like I thought they would). We had a tough time coming up with the dome part, but I had a flash of inspiration at the grocery store and asked if I could buy one of the plastic tops they use on vegetable trays. No, apparently they don't have a code for those and can't sell them. Could they give me one? What, am I NUTS? GIVE something away? For FREE???? So, I paid $15 for a veggie tray, the contents of which I then jammed down the throats of my kids and their friends who were lucky enough to be visiting that day, and we had a dome.

Which was too small.

Saran wrap does, in fact, have a million uses, and I would gladly offer a testimonial to that fact.

All in all, a fun project, and so damn creative - however, it will be a long, LONG time before I can eat another marshmallow.

and now I will leave you with the latest addition to my fridge:
new on the fridge

Am I the only one who finds this pee-in-my-pants funny? My girlfriend and I made asses of ourselves in the cardshop with our uncontrollable laughing, but apart from her, no one else really gets it...

sigh

Meme tomorrow, Scarlett, I promise...

3 comments:

Miss Scarlett said...

Oh man! I love that ladies stuff. You have given me a new idea...I will post mine too. Maybe start a little something?
I think it is hilarious!

Edible Skydome - that is great. The projects these kids have to do - sheesh. I do not remember doing anything like that. Ummm we recently went through the same thing with a party platter - couldn't buy it, wouldn't give it, had to order a platter of food no one needed just to get the stupid plastic thingy. Bizarre isn't it? Anyways, nice job with all those mm's - looks like a lot of patience was required!

Love those sweaters - great cuddly photo of them. And uh-yeah, I get a little crop crazy when I see the chaos in my pics - it is something how you can block it out isn't it?

How did you get the yarn so speckley dyeing with Kool Aid?? That is great.

Love your new needles too - they look so luxe.

Ang said...

What a wonderful post. I know what you mean about not noticing the chaos until you photograph it! Most of my pics get cropped to the limit.

Love those jumpers and socks and yarn and the needles look gorgeous.

And your sons project looks wonderful, I can't believe they made you pay for a piece of plastic...no, actually I can!

I hope you don't mind, I have tagged you for a "7 random things" thingy.

deirdre said...

Thanks so much for your kind comments!

Michelle, I think maybe we should see if we can start a trend of photographing funny cards, things that we have around us to make us laugh - apart from our pets or children, of course, because that already goes without saying -

and now I need to find out how to crop my pictures - never even occurred to me, but that would be even better than hiding stuff under the bed... any pointers?