Monday

Already to a bad start this morning.

At 8 am, I got ticketed for not making a full stop at a stop sign. Bloody hell. Considering Gus always says to me: "Enough with the full stops!", (he's an impatient driver) I was very surprised when I got pulled over this morning. And to boot, I had the kids in the car. And buddy didn't even pull me over right away either. I saw him behind me at the next lights, but he didn't have his flashers on. We both turned left at the lights and I almost went through the next intersection when he put his cherries on and the cruiser made that strange duck sound. To be honest, I didn't think it was for me. But it was. Stupid. I decided to pull into the right lane and then he did too, which made me realize it was me he wanted. Why did it take him so long to pull me over? Was he debating with his pal beside him if it actually was a full stop or not? For this reason alone (and the $110 fine plus points), I'm taking this to court. He also saw I had two kids in the car but still took his sweet time filling out the ticket in his cruiser (and checking if I was some sort of criminal I bet). Bloody hell.

De-stashing....dangerous?

As evidenced by Lucas' poor little rug-burned face below, it seems to be the case.


My friend Sherri (aka Stashaholic) came by a couple of weeks ago to help me out with the daunting task of de-stashing some of my already largely accumulated stash. Reason for de-stashing? We have to move again as our landlord is selling the house we live in (another story for another day). So, I figured that since the Toronto Hookups Annual Stash sale was coming up, I'd sell whatever I may never use.

The before picture:

Lots of yarn sales, thrift store trips and friendly donations later, this is what I had. Notice the 3-drawer storage unit, the piles on the coffee table, couch and in front of the end table at the top left corner. There was a ton. All this from buying stash since only 2003. Not bad, eh? Sherri actually commented to DH that she was very impressed with me considering I’m a "beginner" in building my “resource centre”. She claims she's helped develop my resource centre and to be honest she's right. In order to sort through all that yarn, an obstacle course was created in my living room. And what a beauty it was. Poor Lucas had a heck of a time to keep from tripping and falling....and actually did so a couple of times. Oh, did I mention that DH conveniently thought it would be a good time to go out for a coffee with the "boyz" and left me & Sherri to tend to the two kids in addition to the stash? Well, what do you think that spells for a 5 y.o. and 20 month old? Boredom, curiosity and trouble, of course! In order to keep Demetri occupied, we gave him the job of frogging a never to be completed crocheted UFO which he did with pleasure. We also gave Lucas a little ball of cotton so he wouldn't feel left out. Demetri then played with all the yarn he had unraveled and another ball like a little cat. Well then, didn't my creative older fellow decide to weave a tangled web of yarn through the spindles and banisters of the stairs, the handle of the front and the chairs in the dining room? And didn't my little Lucas decide to climb up the stairs only to get tangled in the web Demetri had so carefully created? Sherri and I had no idea of Lucas' little adventure until we heard the thump(s), screams & crying emanating almost simultaneously from the stairs. The poor little guy must have tripped over the yarn and went down head-first, his legs then getting caught in the spindles of the stairs. He ended up with rug-burns between his eyes and on his nose. And as if to add insult to injury (literally), he boinked himself in the same spot between his eyes on the corner of the coffee table within the next half-hour. Sherri said it right....who knew de-stashing was such a danger!

As for the fruits of our efforts? Here they are:

The pile on the couch was the stuff to go, aka the “sell” pile. I filled two half garbage bags with it all. I must admit, Sherri was tough on me. I felt like it was an episode of "Neat".....she would give me the "I don't believe you're keeping this" look and I'd be trying to justify my reasons for keeping it/them. I especially found it touching when Sherri would tell me something had to go and wouldn't give me a chance to say yea or nay. Once it landed in the sell pile, it was there to stay in her view. But she also had her proud moments when I opted for the sell pile without any encouragement from her. She had a good laugh with the 4 unused skeins of Phentex slipper yarn we found at the bottom of one of the bins. I completely fell on the defensive and explained that it was one of my first yarn purchases and really had no idea what I was getting into. (....and I must note the stuff didn't sell at the stash sale either.) To boot, I was actually a good girl and only "took back" around 3 skeins of yarn. I managed to make around $45 at the stash sale last Saturday which I must admit was pretty good. Kudos to Sherri and her little packaging/marketing tactics. They really helped. What didn't sell I either partially donated to the Toronto Hookups Guild, I will donate to the knitting guild (Regal Order of Crocheters and Knitters “ROCK”) or will try to sell whatever I can on Yahoo Canada Auctions or something of the sort.

Oh, and thanks again Sherri for some of these pictures! They're great!

Quick WIP update

On the hooks:

Skully for Demetri
Yarn: Patons Astra (charcoal) Patons Canadiana (blue)
-first 5 rows in charcoal and then pattern in alternating blue and charcoal
-all that's left to do is weave in ends

Matching scarf for above skully
Yarn: same as skully
-first rows done in alternating charcoal & blue using same pattern, then grey body in dc, then same pattern as first rows to finish
-I just have to add the fringe and will post pic

Stashaholic's Brain Dead Afghan for a baby who's already two months old!
Yarn: Baby Co-ordinates (blue)
-I've already done around 25 rows or so, but the darned yarn keeps on knotting (I don't have a yarn winder) so I'm constantly playing with it trying to unknot and continue
-felt the need to give up for a while and picked up skully and scarf set for Demetri


On the needles:

Chevron Scarf from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson
Yarn: Bernat Satin
-had to completely frog this after doing around 25-30 rows as realized the needles I chose were too small....there was all this puckering
-I'm determined to make this for myself, so will pick this up again after finishing a knitted hat for DH (see below)


Other stuff :

I've joined the Knitting Olympics!
Project committed to complete: London Beanie for DH.
Here's another link/pic: http://www.headhuggers.org/patterns/kpatt16.htm
Yarn: unsure yet. Will pick from stash.