Month: August 2009

UFOs

I’ve been going through my unfinished objects bag and trying to finish up some things. It’s amazing what ends up in there:

  1. I have a pair of mittens that is all but finished, merely needing a thumb on one and the cuff on the other. They’ve been in there for almost a year despite this.
  2. I started a snowman a couple of years ago to put out around Christmas-time, then lost the pattern for a year. After I found the pattern I did maybe two rows and that one’s been sitting in there for almost a year as well.
  3. There are a couple of vests that I was doing to build up a work wardrobe. There’s no real reason I stopped working on them, I just did. There’s also a hoodie that I stopped working on because I needed a new ball of yarn. I have all of the yarn for it, and I know exactly where it is. I think that one’s been in there so long because I stole the needles from it to make a hat.
  4. There’s a pile of socks in there that need darning. They were made before I learned the importance of knitting tight soles, so I’m contemplating cutting them up to use as stuffing anyway, since the entire ball of the foot and heel are worn.
  5. There was a pair of cabled socks in there, but I started those 3 years ago and can’t get gauge so they’ve been frogged to start again.

I’m kind of pleased that there aren’t that many things in that bag. I thought there would be more. Still, I’d better hurry and finish the mittens at least, before the cold weather sneaks up on us and I’m freezing.


All the pretty colours

I made a bunch of dishcloths last month since the cotton yarn was on sale for cheap and we were in desperate need of some cloths for the kitchen. I basically grabbed a ball each of the colours I liked, and then mixed and matched until I was out of yarn.

Dishcloth

There are eight of them in total and I look forward to using them for a very long time. You can see all of the combinations on my Flickr under the dishcloths tag.


Gardening is work

I’ve been trying to bring in the garden harvest this year so that Dean’s mom won’t have to when she gets back from Portugal. It’s making me really grumpy. Except for the tomatoes (which aren’t ready yet) there’s dill, Portuguese kale, and chard* collard greens in the garden. All of these get made into Green Soup all year long. The dill and kale are small, but there’s lots of it. It takes hours to sort through it all and get all the stems cut off. Then I have to wash everything, chop it up really small (think shredded lettuce) and put it in bags for the freezer. Not particularly hard work, just a lot of it. It feels like there’s a never-ending pile of greens to get through still.

I did find a cute little snail going through all the cut plants. I was taking them out of one sink and putting them in the other to wash. I wasn’t really watching my hands; after all the hours I was on autopilot. So I was a little freaked when I grabbed a plant and felt something slimy. I dropped it, then took a look. I found this guy:

Snail

I brought it—kale and all—downstairs where the camera was, but it was awake and searching for an escape at this point. So it fell off its kale branch and onto some paper I had on the floor. Poor thing. That’s twice it was dropped in the space of 5 minutes. It seemed happy enough, crawling around looking for its kale. After it had climbed back on, I carried it outside and put it back in the garden. I may as well let it munch on the stems that I’ve left in there.

*I was having chard for dinner and mixed up what I was cooking with what I was chopping. My bad.


Transportation Woes

This morning I decided to try driving Dean’s car around the residential areas some just to see if I could handle being on the road with the thing. Going without stalling was a breeze. Apparently I’ve got that down. Shifting is okay, but I could be faster which would be smoother on the car. All in all the driving part was fine. A few hiccups getting going on some left turns but I didn’t stall.

I went around the area quite a few times with no problems. I’m sure the mail lady was wondering why the heck I went by her a dozen times on the same road.

The real issue came when I had to get the car back in the garage. I stalled 3 times, only moving a few inches each time, before I could get the car going enough to get in there. It was incredibly frustrating.

Parking it was easy too. I’m straight, and lined up with the other car and there’s room on all sides. So, I think it was a success. I just need more practice and some courage to not be afraid of main roads.

ETA: I tried to take my bike to the mall after, and the brakes are loud and not really working, the thing to switch gears in the front is too low and rubs up against highest setting, and my chain broke after only a couple of minutes. I ended up walking it home and taking the bus.