Award!

Monika from Smokin Hot needles nominated me for this award. I feel all gooey inside now! She, who unlike me, was able to collect some trophies for skiing. Although, I found skiing to be REALLY fun, was never able to win any trophies for it. I did however learn how to do cartwheels. Believe me..the bunny hills dangers are quite deceiving!

My 5 nominees for this award are going to

Val

Kirsten

Batty

Jacque

Hattie

On another note, I've got a great opportunity to work with another designer for Plymouth yarns. I'm excited to be working with Mary Beth Temple. Some of you may know her from the designs she's done in Vogue and Knit Simple. She's also written a book titled The Secret Language of Knitters that you might be interested in. I'm excited and nervous to be working with her. Excited because this is a great knitting opportunity for me...nervous because I'm going to be so aware of my knits, purls and yarn overs since I'm working with an expert. :D Anyways..off to the drawing board!

One hit wonders

Well, recently I went through my stash collection and found all of these U.F.O.s stash discreetly around my craft supplies. I mean, I pulled them out of the oddest of places. An old shoe box in the corner of my closet. A box of craft supplies on my shelf. All of these are without mates. Sad and alone. I guess I needed something quick and easy to knit that ended up looking like something in order to get the creative juices flowing.

A jester bootie from interweave knits free pattern Old World Booties. I got so disgusted with the icord strings getting tangled that I just sat it aside and didn't finish it's mate. Yeah, I should have worked through it, but what can I say. By the time I got the courage again, my sons feet grew to be the size of a miniature elephant's. Although, I have to say, it was an easy knit and worked up so fast.



This is a hand warmer from interweave knits Fall 2005. I had made a pair of these before this one, but when I finished this one, I realized I didn't have enough yarn to even finish it.


Ah yes, and a mitten. Can't forget that. This is where the yarn went from the wrist warmer above. So instead of knitting a wrist warmer, I should have knit another mitten.


A Hedera Sock. The pattern was simple, easy and very pleasurable, but the yarn? Holy Cow!!! Ok, I had gotten this sweater from good will in order to take it apart for yarn. I wanted to try recycling yarn to see how it worked out. The sweater was somewhat felted and was extremely itchy. What made me think that this would make good sock yarn?! It's itchy, too warm, and all around uncomfortable. Why I knit it, I'll never know. But, I DO know that semi felted yarn from sweaters is terrible sock yarn. :D


Although...it is very pretty. :D


Finally...a glove. I wasn't too thrilled about making a glove. Maybe it was the fingers that drove me nuts. Constantly cutting and joining yarn to make phalanges got to be too tedious. Or it could be the fact that when I knit this thing it was the end of June last year while stuck in a traffic jam for an hour while pregnant and every time I pick up it's mate I instinctively think of it.


So...I figured I'm going to do something productive with one hit wonders. I'm going to do this!


It's a subscription offer from interweave knits. I kept this from a while ago and pinned it to my cork board in the kitchen to remind me to make it. I love it! I can make as many different mitten as I want and sew/glue them to the wreath to make a decoration for my door. The package, I can just use an empty box, wrap it in a brown paper bag and tie rafia around it. Now, to come up with an idea for the above. :)

I was also tagged by Val for this awesome blog button! It kinda reminds me of Gem and the Holograms.

A new Hat

Sorry about the short hiatus. I actually meant to make a new post and reply to emails yesterday but I got stuck with a darn cold. How do you catch a cold in 90 degree weather?! So, I just spent most of yesterday laying on the couch like a lump and then sleeping the rest of the evening. Luckily I feel a little better today :D.

Aww...isn't he just cute? You know how I was afraid that the mothers in the grocery store would give me the evil eye? In all actuality I got so many compliments for the "cool mohawk". Even my doctor loved it. The only questions I really got about it was, "how did you get him to sit still?" Women would come up to me in the store and literally just swoon "Awwww..the mohawk is just cute!!" My son loved the attention to say the least. I think some mothers were planning on giving their baby a new do.


But, when sporting a macho mohawk isn't really all that cute and I need to hide it, Kirsten sent me this awesome hat! Doesn't he look just darling in it? I love it, it's so colorful. Oogie liked it, see him posing..I think he's going to be a model. Or a geek (he's already learned how to turn off the surround sound.).


It's also pretty stretchy, as you can see. Which is great since it'll be able to grow with him. He really liked chewing on it.

My husband even got to pose with him. Isn't that a nice beard, it's imported all the way from Canada. :)


I also got tagged from Jacque and Cara. Which is great, I'm glad people want to know about me.
So here goes, 7 things unknown about me...

1. My childhood heroine was Wonder Woman. I used to beg my mother to cut out stars from tag board and then I would tape them to my forehead and wrists. My jump rope was my lasso of truth. I use to run around in our garden "apprehending criminals" ..which in all actuality were just pear trees and raspberry bushes.

2. I had to trick my mother into teaching me how to knit. She taught me once when I was 8, but I forgot soon after that, since then she hadn't wanted to pick up the needles. In order to "convince" my mother into teaching me how to knit I had to make her want to. I tried for a couple years mind you. Finally, I took her into the yarn shop in town and she got to see all the fabulous wool and the gorgeous Norwegian sweater patterns. She bought two skeins of yarn and a pair of needles. That night she taught me how to knit. :D

3. I love babies, but I couldn't stand being pregnant. I don't know how some women get the "glow". Me? I was happy about having a baby, but the pregnancy side effects drove me nuts. I got every single symptom you could get. Morning sickness, hormone fluxes, bloody nose (did you know you got a bloody nose..neither did I), frothy foamy mouth, excessive food cravings. Believe me, if there was a symptom I got it. I was not the picture of beauty, I was more like Jabba the Hut. :D

4. I wore my P.J.s to school all the time when I was younger. While the cheerleaders would get all beautified and plaster coats of what looked like polyurethane on their hair, I would just make sure I had enough time to shower and comb my hair. I loved lounge pants (I still do) and I figured I would rather wear something comfy and be happy than constrict myself into something that barely fit for the sake of beauty.

5. I've had my cat for 10 almost 11 years. I actually owned his mother and she got pregnant and had a litter of 4 kittens. He was actually my least favorite of the bunch. He drove me nuts, all he did was meow for food constantly and eat. He was such a little porker that even his mother couldn't carry him in her mouth, he actually dragged on the ground between her legs as she strained to pull him back to the nest. He actually became my best friend growing up, although he's still a whiny chunk and I have no idea what I'd do without him.

6. I could be anywhere in the United States and there will be someone who knows my mother or someone from my mother's side of the family. This still is amazing to me. I remember I was doing flu shots with her at a Walgreens, (I did administration..not the shot giving) and there was an elderly man who struck up a conversation with us. It actually went something like this.."Yah, ya know, my brother Sven from Cochrane was up yesterday." "Sven from Cochrane? Is that Ulla's son??" "Ya, you betcha" "Oh! I know Sven! I'm Alton's daughter!" "Uff da! How's Alton doing. He's ok ya?" "Ya, you betcha" How this happens I have no idea.

7. My family's idea of a good time is making the all time coveted lefse. (which is good) And then eating ludefisk...(which is not.) Amazingly there's a divide in my family. The traditional people who eat ludefisk on their lefse, and the black sheep who just eat it with butter and sugar. The ludefisk eaters are "ellite" and look down on the sugar spreaders as defilers of the holy lefse. In order to be accepted into this collective Uff da consciousness you had to make the right of passage...making lefse and then eat it with ludefisk.

Am I a terrible Mother?

A little off the knitted path...

Well, yesterday was an interesting day. As I was preparing to give my 7 month old son a bath, I had decided it was high time that he got a hair trim. His hair was getting long and shaggy, not too much mind you, but just enough to be bothersome to any mother I'd say. I never used to mind it on other children, but seeing hair hanging over the ears now drives me nuts.

So..

As he sat there waiting for his bath to be drawn (he's small enough to sit in the sink in the bathroom..which is great since my back hurts when I have to kneel on the floor and stretch over to wash a bouncy child's hair) I amused him with a rubber ducky toy while I got out my husbands beard trimmer. I love this thing. With blocks on it's great from trimming short hair and beards, without the blocks it's perfect for shaving my legs :D. (Yes, I'm lazy.)

So, while I had him occupied for 5 minutes I grabbed the Norelco and gave him a quick shave down the side of his head. And what happens??? I quickly realized that I forgot to put on the blocks!!!! I was horrified as I stared at this HUGE bald spot on the side of my baby's head. I was so shocked...I looked like I had just hit a cat with my car..(I know this cause I saw my reflection in the mirror)..except with a Norelco buzzing in my hand.

My son? He wasn't even aware of what just happened, if he was I'm sure he'd NEVER let me come close to his hair ever again.

What could I do? There's no fixing this, seriously, how can you creatively hide a huge bald spot on the side of a cute little baby's head?! Well, I thought about shaving his whole head, but I thought, "He might actually look a little sickly with an extremely bald head." I mean..bald..like no cute little peach fuzz or anything. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I improvised.



My husband loves it...of course.

I wonder what the doctor is going to say when I go on Monday.

7 things unknown about me

Val from My Little Piece of the Net tagged me with this simple request.

You must reveal 7 unknown things about yourself.

Wow. Ok, apparently Val has no idea how insanely hard it is for me to actually talk about myself. I usually just sit there dumbfounded and say the most obvious and idiotic things like.."I'm a girl." " I like to draw." I'm not exaggerating either. You should have seen me on my first day of college. So here goes.

#1. (Ok 5 minutes has passed and still nothing.) Oh, here's one, I am a pro at multitasking. I can balance a baby and do laundry at the same time, I can draw, cook and listen to my daughter all at once...but I can't do ANYTHING when I listen to music. This is usually why I hardly ever listen to it. The moment I start listening to music I actually start shutting down and drifting off into Teresaland, (and yes, it is nice there.) The only time I listen to it is when I'm in the car and can't do anything besides listen to it.

#2. I've only ever had my hair cut professionally once in my life, (meaning I only paid for it once). The last time I actually had my hair "cut" was by my mother. I was 5 months pregnant with my daughter and my mother gives me a bob hair cut with uber short bangs. However cute that is on some people..it didn't look cute on me. That'll teach me to not skimp on good hair cuts. That was the last time I had it cut...now it's so long I find hair everywhere..even on the ceiling!

#3. I was never afraid of spiders until 2004. I caught a spider bigger than the size of my palm in my house with a mason jar. It was hideous. It was a Nursery Web spider, (prepare yourself it's really gross.) and it snuck in through a crack in the door and slowly lowered itself down. I caught it in the jar and looked right in it's eyes. Ever since I've been petrified of spiders.

#4. I have a brother I never met. Actually he's a half brother and by the time I was born he was already like 24, so he's around 46-48 years old. I tried to contact him once but chickened out, and when his wife called back to talk to me, I pretended I was the babysitter!!! I'm such a chicken. I was so nervous I didn't know what to do. I've thought about talking to him again but I not sure what I would say.

#5. I really really want a dog. I know, why is this such big a deal. Well, no one really knows I want a dog since I've always been a "cat person". But lately I've really been wanting a dog. I'm in love with Corgis for some reason. Maybe because I took a "what's your dog" test and the first few choices were different breeds of Corgis. Or maybe because they're so gosh darn cute!

#6. I read 3 romance novels in one day. I know, I know, I can hear you say "wow you have no life." or "what, are you that desperate?!" No..pfft. I'm just a helpless romantic that loves a good love story...and I'm also a fast reader. Believe me, I still cleaned the house and did the dishes that day. My family is full of fast readers. My great aunt read 5 books a week, and my mom usually reads 3 on average.

#7. And finally. I can't sell myself as an artist. I can draw, but when it comes to stepping in the rat race with all the other artists I chicken out ( wow that's becoming a pattern huh? :D) It's the, competing against other artists and waking up and drinking a cup full of empty promises of getting paid that turns me off. Thus the "starving artist" thing. I would love to sell my art and share it with people, but when it comes to selling my stuff I can't say anything good about it.

Wow..that was cleansing. ;) So there you go. 7 things unknown about me.