Working on knitting

I finally managed to get a longer span of time to work on the ripple piece on my loom. I think I have mentioned (if not here then in groups), that I have had a problem with a gap in a section of the ripple. The gap has to do with the hills sections of the ripple where the K1f&b or K1b&f is done. I had to work to solve this problem. Now as I am knitting I still see this gap but not that the piece is longer this gap no longer exists. The stitches are setting themselves and the gap closes. I am using a large gauged loom with two strands of worsted weight yarn, with six colors. Oh is it pretty. I am just doing a small piece and there is a lot of shrinkage to the piece but it will still be large enough for a small size of baby ghan.

I just need a few more days (but that tends to be up to the whims of my family and job, LOL) to get this piece done and figure out the best cast off for this ghan. I have a sample piece that I did and when I cast it off it lost the ripple effect for the cast off row. At first I thought I would keep it as an example but decided to frog several rows and get it back on the loom to play with the cast off. I want the ripple effect to show over both ends of the piece, not just one.

Then I have also played with two, no three ways to make this ghan. Each creates a slightly different type of look and texture to the piece and each is very nice. I just haven't decided which I like best. I still have another method of doing this to try before I move on to a couple of other afghan patterns I want to play with.

It is just too bad that I have to stop to do things like housework, laundry, dinners (I don't do them all that is a shared family thing, with the hubby doing most of that, yummy meals, LOL he's an ex-cook). Then work tends to take up most of my time, during the day. That too is a bummer, but work keeps the funds coming in to purchase the crafting material. So I guess I cannot have everything. ROFLOL

We had some beautiful weather yesterday and I stayed out most of the day, besides the running to do dinner and some laundry. Oh there was the sweeping early and putting things away, like the just cleaned dishes (sis did the washing of them).

I did have the two grands that are brothers all afternoon, but one was watching a Harry Potter DVD, and the other went back and forth from house to outside with me. After the movie both boys came outside to help PaPa with his above the ground pond building. They took little rocks and place them at various places. A chore making for grandma and papa as they had to be removed after the boys left. Some, ah, accidentally fell in the water, yea, accidentally. LOL You know though it was so much fun watching them decorate with the rocks. Papa said the missed the pile of agates he had sitting to the side. They would have made much prettier addition (and easier to see on pick up time) then the plain old rocks they were using.

We did tell the boys not to put the rocks in the water as that changes the water level. The youngest did it several times again and his brother told him he was not suppose to put the rocks in the water. The youngest looked at his brother and calmly said, I am allowed. ROFLOL Where he got that idea we will never know but it was one of those laugh till you drop with the way he said it and the serious look on his face.

That youngest is usually quite the mover, yesterday was no different, but he display something new to us. I was drinking some water and swallowed wrong. That caused me to cough a little. Carter looked and me and said "What's wrong with you grandma". I couldn't figure out what he was talking about and told him nothing was wrong, but he insisted that I tell him what was wrong with me. So I asked him why he thought something was wrong. He said, "I heard you cough". I have never seen this child as serious as he was right then. He had such a worried little look on his face. I am thinking that we are beginning to see the result of the loss of his baby brother and we will have to watch him to make sure he does OK. Up to now he has had little reaction to the loss except that he tells us that Noah comes to play with him. He always goes to his room to show Noah his new things.

Well off to get ready for work. I hope you all have a wonderful day and that your just over weekend was as wonderful as mine was.

Afghan

I am still working on the ripple afghan on a single rake loom. It seems to be coming along ok now but I need the piece longer to check a problem with it. Between the first and second K1b&f stitches there is a gap that forms. The larger the gauge of the loom the worse the gap seems to be. I have a piece on a regular gauged loom and now on a 5/8" gauged loom.

On the regular gauged loom there doesn't seem to be any gap occurring but there is a slight one one the 5/8" one. From the piece I removed from the large 3/4" gauged loom I could see the gap starting to disappear so I am hoping this will happen on the other slightly smaller gauged loom. If it doesn't then this pattern will only be for the smaller gauged looms. Bummer for that if that is the choice.

I am also still working on the third part of the Knitting Primer review. It is going to come out later today. Then I can get all three parts put together. I will set up a pdf file so that people new to loom knitting can have access to it. I will post it to a few groups and on my blog here.

Other then that I have had some fairly quiet days. Last Friday was my 27 anniversary, but all we did for that was a birthday party for my grandson Payton. He turned 7 years old on Thursday the 19. He was a "most excellent" anniversary present seven years ago. This was his first party where kids from school were invited and it was a great party. It was the one day where the rain stopped, and it warmed up so the kids got to play outside. They had a great time. We got such a kick out of watching them with the pinata that I got for the party. Children are so much fun.

My MIL sent me some yarn for my anniversary. I got some more Lion Brand Boucile and she sent a large skein of Sensations Rainbow Boucile. This is amazing. On my last shopping trip where I bought a ton of yarn, I managed to get one skein of this very same yarn in this exact same color. I had wanted two of them but only one was in stock. I figured that later maybe they would have more, but wonders do happen, my MIL didn't know I wanted this yarn, and she sent the perfect one. Now I have that second skein.

The hubby just got old money. He is building above the ground water ponds and he is putting that money to good use already. He bought some more water plants for them. He has two of the ponds running right now. One is made to form a little babbling brook and is so peaceful sounding. The other is huge containers with pipes that flow the water from one container to another, then the water gets pumped back up to start over. Once the plants start to grow in and around these it will be such a great place to sit. He even had a great big redwood stump given to him and it is a sitting place now. He is working to make this look natural. The lady who had the redwood cut down is going to give him a few more stumps for the yard.

Crane Birds

I don't know exactly why or where it came from but we have a Crane hanging around. It is so huge. I walked out front this morning and it was sitting on a floating object in the fish tank. How it was doing that I am not sure, but my eyes saw it and it saw me and took off.

I had to go check to make sure that it didn't manage to steal a fish or two. Nope so far it hasn't. Now we are going to have to find a way to prevent it from getting to the fish. So far the trees over the tank have stopped it, but now it is not working. It has found a way.

These fish are way too expensive and we have put far too much money into their care to allow some dumb bird that shouldn't even be here to eat them. Hey, the river is just a short hop by wing away from here. Why is it bothering our little tank.

Well, off to make sure it hasn't come back. Darn thing anyway, we have some newer tiny koi that haven't even had much of a chance at life yet. I picked them out special for the hubby last summer and don't want to see this overgrown bird get them.

Cranes are not normal around here. It needs to go home. ROFLOL

Lazy or somewhat

I didn't get much work done on projects yesterday. I managed to get maybe 10 rows of the baby ghan worked on. My daughters young man went north to his dads house where they are converting an old horse trailer to a working trailer for his farrier business. So my daughter came her with the baby for the day.

Oh man, is this boy testing his wings and is he learning to fly. Right now he doesn't really talk in sentences but he has the words to do so. He just prefers one word at a time to say what he wants or signs. He smacks his lips for food and points (does this a lot he is a big eater), and does sipping noises for wanting a drink. If you say a word he repeats, all of the words you do for him. He is learning fast and I expect soon he will show up one day and talk me to deafness.

Testing his wings comes into play with he wants to do all the big boy stuff. He is a daredevil and is into everything. Now you have to understand, I am not one to kid proof a house, instead I house proof the kid. Of course there are general things like keeping meds up high away from little hands, the knives put where hands cannot reach, and the cabinet with cleaning product locked up away from little hands, but other then the really dangerous I don't do different with the grands then I did with daycare or my own kids. They learn what they can touch and what is not for babies.

So he explores. He knows the "not for babies" line and obeys it. At least for a time. The testing of wings has him trying, then leaving after the "not for babies" then coming back again. You know we all have to explore, and we all have to learn what we can and cannot have. So it is with the little ones. Yes this takes up more of my time but in the long run I have less to deal with then I would otherwise, because they learn that if it is not for them they must leave it be. I have had little trouble with that over the long years of motherhood and my friends found they did not have to house proof for my children. Just tell them they cannot touch and they left it alone. Mom has a long memory of not listening and you are subject to being held accountable for your actions, even at 18 months old.

We had a beautiful day outside. The expected rain did not come and we had no clouds in the sky. It was warm and comfortable. So outside for the afternoon. Most of the yard back and front was still too wet for play but the driveway was find. We brought with us the two little lawnmower toys, a CAT (not the animal kind but the toy kind that copies a construction vehicle), and then we found the brush for the carport and the washing brush for cars. Oh and the ride on toy. Oh what fun that one is. It makes noise and if you bounce on it, it moves all by itself.

Papa was home and we were lucky he got to stick around and play. He was on call but all the calls he got came early in the morning so in the afternoon he had grandson time. There was checking out the fishes and helping papa clean the tree junk that falls in with the winds blowing out of the tank. He, the grandson, thought he was such a big boy helping papa do that.

Mom has taught him timeout. We are not big on spankings. If you hit me all I want to do is possibly hit you back, it will not make me agree with you, just angry. So a swat is saved for a very serious action. Time outs work great for some kids. My kids sure helped me learn some very creative things to do for punishments that didn't involve placing hands on them. They now all tell me the worst punishment was making them listen to me lecture them. How boring and time consuming that was. They could have been off doing something better. So the little one has learned about time out. When you are even talking about time out and his learning it his hands go to the front or back and he shows you he is doing nothing wrong. I had to laugh at that.

My children have passed on or adopted some of my creative techniques for punishments. If you cannot keep your hands to yourself, then you can sit and hold hands till you learn how. You can walk through the stores holding hands. Isn't that sweet people say. Well, not in the minds of the kids. It is a horrible punishment. Cannot stop making gestures at each other then you can sit on your hands to make them mind. He/she's looking at me. Then sit face to face, no closing eyes, and get a really good look.

Oh the school thing not doing homework and failing classes. The couch is a very nice place to sit till everything is caught up, no reading books, no video games, no TV, no phone calls, no nothing. The only thing important in your life is school work. Sure does bring on straight A's quickly.

So not much in crafting but a fun day watching what the littlest in the family is learning. Oh where does he put all that food. He munches constantly, a sandwich here, soup there, a cracker, another sandwich, a bowl of cereal, wow so much food for such a little guy.

Darn forgot my video camera again.

GrandChildren

My goal in life was always working towards having children and thus grandchildren. All in the effort so I could be the grandmother that other kids had but I never did. My grandmothers were OK, but one was very strict being of the old school that thought children should be seen, but rarely and never heard. The other grandmother being one who picked her favorites and the rest were just a byproduct that she sometimes had to deal with and roughly at that.

So now I have my children and I even picked up extras along the way. I was pretty good about picking up strays, but they are good strays. Rather I should say they picked up me and I choose to keep them. The more the better as they too picked up partners that got added to the mix. Don't take me wrong about that word "stray". It is really a good word. They strayed into my heart and there they stay. See a good stray.

Now I am at a point where all my children be they directly from me or one of my "strays" have given me grands. Not many mind you, there definitely could be more and someday will be, but enough that I get to be that grandma. I spoil but don't. I am strict but not. I overdo at times then don't. Ah but that's a part of being a grandma. You must mind but lets have that fun along the way.

I have worked along with parents to help these little ones learn the art of sharing. Isn't that a wonderful thing. Well it should be, but is not always. My grands have learned to share way more then I ever expected. Recently one shared with me his very bad cold, and now another has shared his flu. Isn't being a grandma wonderful. I love it but maybe I helped to teach sharing way too well.

Anyway, just thoughts for the moment.