Knitwith Homespun

Bella has something new today. When she woke up this morning and sat down for breakfast, she looked a bit flush in the face. Immediately, I thought it was some sort of allergic reaction and called for a doctor`s appointment. I took this picture in case when I got to the doctor, her face cleared up to show them.

We had an appointment at 9:45am and got in a little earlier than that. It went pretty fast after that and as you can see, she wasn`t all that traumatized by the experience. The nurse practitioner came in and asked what the problem was. I simply pointed to her face and she said “Oh, have you heard of Fifth Disease?” Nope! She said it`s quite common and very harmless. she isn`t contagious and it doesn`t require any treatment and she can go right to school. I did my obligatory motherly research and read the Wiki about it. Another link. All is fine!

5/2/07 Update: The rash is almost entirely gone. There is only a little bit of red spots on her face and nothing yet on her arms and legs.

Here it is. The world famous Isabella Diaz singing from her Hannah Montana CD (thanks Aunt Cathy) that she wakes up to every morning. The nightgown is a hand me down from Amanda and she won`t give it up! Comments?

Well, I had to take her to the hair salon. I thought we could get away with not fixing the hair cut that she gave herself. I thought, “it will be fine. You can`t tell…it looks alright”. I was wrong. So wrong….

When you cut your bangs super duper short like she did, the rest of your hair then starts to fall unobstructed into your eyes. Your mom, then, gets annoyed and sends you to school with your hair in a ponytail so all the hair is contained in one location. Then you simply take out the pony tail and forget all neatness.

I took her to the nearest place I could find. I thought I would be able to use this opportunity to teach her a lesson. Tell her (since she wanted her hair to be long) that this would be the price she would pay for cutting her own hair. Plus, in the summer, this will be easier for me and for her. That it would be easier to brush it in the mornings for school and easier to control. Well, she loves it! Do you blame her? She looks stinkin adorable! Go figure!

I finally finished my sock! Yes, you heard right, only one sock. I am not sure I like how it turned out. It`s a big big and, as it turns out, I suck at grafting or kitchener stitch. I will practice and get better but it was quite funny with the stitches all falling off before they were supposed to and all.

OK so I started these at the cuff. Mostly because I was way too intimidated to start from the toe. The book that I am using, ” Sensational Knitted Socks” by Charlene Schurch, is great for the sock patterns but it is hard to understand the toe up cast-on. Since then, I have seen a show on socks on the show “Knitty Gritty” on DIY Network. Cookie A (awesome sock designer) demonstrates a wonderful toe-up cast-on method on that show that will actually knock your socks right off! I digress! So I cast on and knit my cuff, switched to a six stitch pattern and away I went.

Next I got to the heel flap. This was a little tricky for me on my first time, but once you figure out the needles, it`s all easy and goes quite quickly.

Picking up the heel flap stitches and gusset decreases: Again, the trickiest part is figuring out the needles and the order of them. I got some help again, from Knitty Gritty and a show on socks that happened to be on the same day I was trying to do my heel flap and picking up the gusset stitches. Also, I was able to get a BUNCH of help from my friends at Flickr with plenty of ideas and hints. Once that is done and you have it straight, you are good to go. Here, really, you are your own worst enemy. You scare yourself into thinking this is hard, when really, it`s not. I don`t like how mine turned out so much, but I am sure with practice, I will get better.

Then, the toe. Again, figuring out the needles was the worst part. Did it, finished the toe, messed up the graft and tried it on!

Yes, that`s right! It has happened. Bella found…..the scissors…..dun dun dunnnnnnn!!!!!!!!! I didn`t even notice until today! How bad of a mother does that make me? I don`t think I want to know. Here`s the deal: Last night, I told Bella to go get in the shower and she did. She tends to wash her hair and stuff and then she doesn`t brush it right away. After I told her to brush it and she sat down for dinner I noticed it looked funny. I thought it was all about how she had brushed it funny and her bangs were just brushed back into the rest of her hair. So, cleared the table and she went to bed. All was well, or so I thought.

This morning, she is getting ready for school and I tell her to come here so I could brush her hair. She comes over and I have her turn around. I brush her hair to the back and put one pony tail including the top section of her hair. She turns around and her bangs look funny. I tell her, “come closer to me” thinking I can brush her bangs right back into place. I brush and I brush and I brush. They are GONE! Help! OMG now what? Well, I can only say that the giggles will stop (from me). The supermodel shots will stop (probably not). But the bangs will grow back. Wanna see them? Click here.

While walking in Peters Canyon in Orange on Wednesday, we (me and Carol) ran into a guy who goes by the name of Peters Canyon Jack! He was wonderful and told us stories for about an hour. All his stories included names for the animals he talked about. For example, “I was walking down this trail with my friend, Coyote Cal” or “that`s Rodney Road Runner over there” pointing at the biggest Road Runner I had ever seen. I had my camera out and snapped it but missed it. Jack says he comes out to Peters Canyon very regularly and sits on the benches where he writes poetry and sings songs. We heard him singing as he came up the trail. It was very nice to talk to him and hear stories. On our way out of the canyon, about seven vultures started circling over our heads. It was quite a site, but I caught it!

Did anyone hear the tribe of screaming banshees running down the trail at Peters Canyon in Orange today? Well, if you did, it was me with my five nieces and nephews hiking. We intended to do 5.5 miles but, half way along, I made a joke to my sister-in-law, Sandi, about how we should torture the kids and make them go up a hill so we could do the Scout Trail. She thought I was serious and said ok! I was kidding first of all. Second, I thought she really wanted to so I said let`s do it. When we were at the top by where the Scout Trail starts, we talked about it and realized we had made a mistake. Then, at the bottom of the Scout Trail, the kids wanted to do the Creek Trail, which is very lovely, but added another half mile or more. The picture to the left is one that I took a few weeks back at the top of the hills at Peters Canyon.

That`s it! I will be sending up something shortly about the socks I am neverendingly working on.

I am supposed to be able to post pictures here but if I have put them on Flickr, I`m not supposed to post them somewhere else so I am going to link to them here. Let`s see how these work, shall we?

Here we go! Blogs a go-go! Anyone who knows me knows I have a lot to say. It may be boring and wordy but if you read it, that`s your problem! Ha! I have some pictures posted on Flickr where I tend to ramble on for explanations of pictures and why I took them and who they are. I also figured that I have a lot to say about a lot of things. Knitting, cooking, photography, computers….you name it, I can ramble about it. What do you all think? Comments anyone? Let`s get moving….!