Knitwith Homespun

Done coverup 1.  I know you may find this hard to believe, but Bella is almost a year younger than Catrina.  She is the youngest and the tallest in her entire class.  Moving on.  Catina’s coverup is done.  You can see from this shot the jogless stripes (haha) on the edge.  The girls love the slit up the side of this coverup.  Bella’s is going to be a challenge because the sizes are so different.  She also wants hers to have only one tank strap looking more “caveman”.  Bella’s will have orange at the bottom moving into yellow at the top.  After blocking, I had to shorten the straps a bit for Catrina cause she is much shorter than I had measured.  This will eventually work out alright because as she gets taller, we can just take the straps down and she can still wear it. I think the eyelets at the bottom turned out just like I wanted them.  Catrina loves it!

Postscript from the other day:

For those of you who read my previous rant and plea for advice here is an update.  Bella and I met with the Girl Scout troop leader and it went very well.  The leader had spoken with the girls and the girls assured Dawn that noone had said or would say something like that about Bella.  The girl who said it voluntarily confessed to saying it and the other girls chimed in that it wasn’t true.  Dawn explained this to Bella.  Dawn went on the ask the other girls what Bella could do to make better friends in the troop.  The troop made a few suggestions for Bella to hear and Dawn told Bella what those were and they were good ideas.  We took them to heart and will apply them where necessary.  Overall, I think it was a good meeting with her and Bella was pleased with the outcome.  The bottom line is this troop has been together since kindergarten and Bella just joined this year.  This was part of the problem since they don’t know her as well.  I think everything is going to go well from here on out as the girls have promised to make a better effort with her.  Alls well that ends well.  Keep your fingers crossed.

This is Bella and Catrina.  They are BFFs (I think).  I don’t get it but this is them last Friday at the park after school.  They played together and had a blast.  They love to dress up together because Bella has a bunch of dressy dresses that we have bought at thrift stores and relatives have bought for her because she is such a princess.  Therefore, Catrina likes to come over and wear these things.  One of the things that they like to wear is Bella’s coverup from a couple of years ago.  They like it because it’s strapless and cool.  I told them I would make them a coverup for their summer season that matched.  This is my project for this blog.

I told them it would have a slit up the side.  They loved this idea.  The rest is my idea.  I would design Catrina’s as a tank dress and Bella wants hers to be a caveman dress with the tank strap over on one side.  Here is my project so far.  I will be writing this pattern up and we will see if there is any interest.  I might sell this one for a buck or two.

There is some minor shaping at the waist.  I am having trouble trying to figure out the tank straps in a circular knit but everything else is going well.  I love the eyelets at the bottom and the rounded shape of the slit.  The gradation of colors will play into the pair of dresses.  Bella’s will be orange at the bottom and graduate to yellow at the top.  The slit in this dress is about 6 inches but for these girls, it’s from the knee almost to the hip.  They are very excited about that.  Any other ideas you all have to help me out with this would be greatly appreciated.

Contest link: http://www.divaknitting.com/blog/2009/05/15/4-year-blogiversary-must-be-time-for-a-contest

Yesterday, as you all know, was Mother’s Day.  Since Bella was born, I love mother’s day more than any other time.  She always gets me a card or a present or something nice.  But this year, she totally outdid herself.  This year wins all years for now and in the future.  As a mom, you want your kids to be safe, happy, healthy, and wonderful.  However, as kids, they don’t really know how you do it or what you are doing.  Bella is 8.  I can’t believe at this young age, she gets it.  This card is amazing and I will keep in forever and ever.  Thank you Isabella, for the best Mother’s Day present and card I can ever get.  This is truly amazing and wonderful!

Kitty.  This is Kitty.  I have talked about her before.  She spends her LIFE on the bed she sits on in this picture.  I took this picture this morning for the purposes of this post because this post deserves a new picture of this cat.  Why?  Because this is a interesting story.  I hope I can do it justice.

Kitty and I have spent a lot of time together this week.  I have been sick for several days.  I would say since Monday (and it’s Saturday today), I have spent half of my life in bed with Kitty watching TV and sleeping.  I suspected that Kitty enjoyed this time with me.  She likes for us to pet her when we are in bed.  She puts her head in our hand.  She loves us, right?

Kitty has to be close to 20 years old.  When we got her, the vet told us she was 5-6 years old and that was in 1997.  She looks good, no?

This is our hallway.  Along the left side of this hallway are several doors.  I explain this to tell you how long this hallway is.  First, is my yarn and fiber room.  Next is the linen closet, followed by Isabella’s bedroom, then her bathroom, then another linen closet where we keep the blankets for the guests and the door all the way at the end is the guest bedroom.  We have a four bedroom house and a very very long hallway.  This hallway is 30 feet long.  I have often joked about bowling down this hall.

The carpet is trashed in this hallway so we bought this runner that you see here.  We will replace all the carpet but not until Lucy (our dog) leaves us because that would be a waste of money.  She has a leaky bladder and she is 14 years old.  The runner creates an interesting noise for those that walk on it.  The dog makes a unique noise, the people are quiet, and the cat only makes noise on this runner in very particular circumstances.  This is where our story begins (thank God the background is done).

I woke up this morning at 6:55am.  I heard a noise.  It sounded like a herd of animals running in the hallway.  Before I could listen to figure it out, something landed on my bed, whacked my leg under the covers and was gone.  Then I heard the herd of animals again running down the hall.  The noise was coming back towards me.  Brace myself, here it comes, Kitty lands on my bed, whacks me on the leg and takes off down the hall again.  So from what I can determine, she did this three times.  Once while I was sleeping but this first time must have woken me up a bit, the second time when I was able to hear what was coming, and the last time when I was fully awake and aware of these brutal attacks.

Is she irritated with me spending so much time in HER bed?  Is she playing with me because we bonded this week?  We may never know the answers to these burning questions.  We only know I survived these brutal assaults and I can tell the story.  I think that top picture has a little attitude, don’t you think?