FO and 8 Random Things

I finished DH's slippers finally but am waiting for the batteries to charge so I can release them from the innards of the camera. So I'll add them onto the end of the post.

I was tagged by Taueret the other day for the 8 Ramdom Things about me thingy. "Here’s the deal: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

As I'm pretty random myself lately, this should be a walk in the park!

1) I ordered some Options needles from Knit Picks to try out. It's the old test them out before spending a wad of cash on new knitting needles trick. I thought I was being pretty clever considering my "stash" on Knit Picks its quite, um, well...lets just say I've got a lot to look (and work) forward to. VBG The funny thing is that the wait for the package to arrive is driving me insane. I paid for the standard shipping because I rationalized that the extra money that super fast shipping costs could be spent on another skein of yarn. Now I'm wishing I'd gotten one less ball of yarn....and super fast shipping. The suspense is killing me!

2) I better make these less wordy or I'll never get done and you will all fall asleep!

3)I really really dislike the holidays. Don't get me wrong, the time off of work and the time spent with DH is great! It's the rest of the garbage I could do without.

4) I craft best when I have more than one project going at a time.

5) I cannot be trusted with cash inside a craft store. ;) I will come home with something.

6) The next time I get my eyes checked I am going to try contact lenses again. I'm sick of glasses but cannot fathom having eye surgery.

7) I started this yesterday and the original heading was "Happy Thanksgiving!" Now it doesn't seem so apt, so I deleted it.

8) If I didn't have to work for a living, I'd probably end up a reclusive hermit.

I hereby tag Abi, Sydney, Donna, Cindy, Donyale, Elisa, Chappysmom, and Purlingswine ! Some of these are people I've tagged before, some are new victims. lol

Ok, now for the fun stuff. Dh's slippers before...

And after.....

You know...they really don't look like they shrank much, but they did. They're a pretty good fit on the hubsters feet and he loves them. I've never had something I've made for someone recieved with so much honest joy. It was truely gratifying. Puts him high on the "Make something for" list too. lol

Ketchup

Goodness! What an exhausting, but fulfilling, couple of weeks! This pic of Tucker pretty much sums it up. I'm dog tired!

I'll be mega posting* to get all caught up. Unfortunately for you, it means I'm not posting this stuff in chronological order.(Like that really matters!) Heck! I'm lucky I can spell (with the help of spell check lol.) chronological at this point!

I spent a couple of days helping my sister in law after she had some "minor" surgery this week. First let me preface this with some facts. DH and I have NO human children. I have not worked with children in 12 years. I love my SIL/BIL and they have fantastically well behaved children. All four kids are great! Seriously...I'm not being sarcastic, for once! OK! So, basically I was there to drive her home from the hospital and care for the rug rats while she was sleeping off the worst of the pain meds and anesthesia. Also, she couldn't lift the baby for 24 hrs and well...short of putting a ladder around her neck....breastfeeding was going to be a bit difficult for her if there wasn't someone to hand over the feed-ee. So I spent two days playing "suburban mom"....complete with mini-van and a "play date" (and ironically knitting, although I gotta think she has little time for crafting!). The kids were so well behaved and all was so "normal", yet I have a whole new understanding of what it means to be a parent of a multiple child home. WOW! All I can say is I have a huge amount of respect for them and the way they are raising their kids. It was a piece of cake taking care of the kids. She makes a ton of work look like a walk in the park though. ;) It was kinda fun watching the dynamics between the kids and reminded me a lot of my childhood, in a good way.

Now for a knitting story! You all know I finished Don's slippers and that I was just waiting to felt them. I promised pics after they were done too, right? OK here is goes. Here's before felting.

and here's after felting!

What? You don't see a difference in size?! WOW we must think completely alike! There is no difference because silly me knitted them out of 80% acrylic/20% wool yarn! DuM...DuM....DuM....DuM! Now, I did not do this on purpose...it was accidental. I bought this yarn at the same time I bought two other yarns that co-ordinated with it and those two have already felted up nicely. It didn't even occur to me to look at the yarn label before knitting up the slippers! I do believe that would be a minor detail I forgot. To remedy the situation, we purchased some 100% wool yarn in gray last weekend and I started another pair for him. Poor guy was really looking forward to those

slippers!

This is where we're at now in the progress department. I'm planning on working on them after I'm done with this post. (The rest of the mega posts can wait until tomorrow.)

To top that off, the same day I discovered my acrylic felting error, I was working on the heel of my first Jaywalker sock. I decided that I had weathered one knitting disaster that day with relatively no pain, so why not take on another? Yep, I tried on the Jaywalker. It was just as I thought...and what I was afraid of. It was too small. I couldn't even get it over the arch of my foot! Now this wasn't completely heartbreaking because I kind of thought that was the case. What totally disgusted me about it was the fact that I swatched something like 3 times. I was in gauge completely. What the heck was the problem?!!!! Oh! Yeah! I can't measure anything. Not even if it were to save my life! You know the old addage...."measure twice, cut once". Well in my house the reality is, "measure twice....then get hubby to measure it and tell you if you're right or not. Better yet....have him measure it to begin with and save a whole lotta time!" So anyhoo....the darling sock was completely frogged. That sucked a lot. I cast on again Sunday using the appropriate size numbers, and promptly messed it up and re-frogged it. I decided to wait until I finished one of the slippers before casting on yet again. There's some motivation for me. I really like the pattern and how the fabric of the sock looked, so I'm really looking forward to working on it again.

Ok that's it for tonight. I need to go snuggle a puppy and put my feet up. Oh yes...and knit on some slippers. ;) Goal tomorrow is to post some pics of the silk cap experience, the cats and another one or two of Tucker. See ya then!

*Mega posting= after a long break in posting, the blogger breaks up the thousands of "interesting" topics they want to dispay into multiple posts as there are way too many photographs for blogger and dial up users to handle.