July's Almost Over?

How did that happen? Here's a recap!

We saw Wall•E in June, which we all loved. (We won't discuss Kung Fu Panda—save your time and money!) E-man made a Lego cousin for Wall•E--complete with moveable arms and a turning head.

There's been a whole lot of outside play with trucks and scooters. No scooter pics since I don't usually take the camera out on playdates and follow-the-garbage-truck Mondays, but this is just one truck setup.
T-bone marched in the 4th of July parade for the third year—next year E-man will join him!

After the parade, there was the 1st-ever town picnic with yummy food and bounce houses. Truxtons, Tower Pizza, lemonade. And bouncing. What more could anyone want?

What's a trip to the aquarium without listening to a full set (or 2 or 3) by Pacific Percussion?
E-man was super excited for the 45-minute Long Beach Harbor cruise we took. His first time on a real boat (the Newport Ferry is fun and all, but not quite so exciting). The highlight had to be the sea lions.

I can't believe school starts in just over a month!
I have even managed to get some projects done!

I Frogged It!

I can't believe I am so happy to announce that. After months of having this thing hanging over my head, I frogged my bamboo sweater (see how they used her hair to hide the pattern...thanks a bunch). I had almost finished the back when I discovered the geometric pattern was not symmetrical on the garment. I though I'd messed up, but no, the designer says it wasn't designed to be. Ugh.

This is the last picture I took, it was over twice this size when I frogged:

So, now I have 5 skeins of Moda Dea Bamboo Wool and no pattern. I love the yarn though, it doesn't make me itch!

On a happier note, I did finish this super-cute baby girl's dress from the last issue of Crochet Today:

The flower is from another pattern, but this was quick, easy, and is super cute. Too bad I don't know any baby girls. It will be going to the fair and then charity. But if I know you and you have a baby girl in the next couple years, you may be seeing something similar!

Yummy Desserts and a Small Project

Well, there were no drink tickets last night, but instead lots of yummy desserts! Mmmmm fruit tarts.

Today was a day of laundry, laundry, vacuuming, and laundry. Pete took T-bone swimming at the Y, and later played some football and soccer with E-man. Don took us to Truxton's for dinner, which was delicious as always--though both boys were not nearly as well behaved as they were the last time we had dinner there (uh, 3 weeks ago).

Meanwhile, I managed to find enough time to do a small crochet project. I got some D rings and plastic rhinestones at Joanns yesterday, and today made this dog collar.

 

This is for our neighbor Sonja's new doggie. Heidi is a cute little 6 pounder (Maltese? I don't know dog breeds) and won't get a whole lot bigger. I just hope this collar fits. It fits Tioga, who is one chubby 13 pound cat, so I have hope!

Rat-a-Cake-y & Building Bird Feeders

Last night we went to T-bone's cub scout pack Blue & Gold Banquet. Which meant that Friday night dad and T-bone baked a cake and then Saturday day they decorated it (which involved waaaay too much red food coloring). This year's theme was Chinese New Year, so T-bone drew a great rat for the year of the rat--the cake design was all him, as was much of the decorating. E-man found much of the evening exhausting (other than when the magician turned 4 birds into 1 rabbit, and the noodles and pot stickers got a thumbs up too!), and still hasn't recovered from not getting the giant Hot Wheels basket in the silent auction. Especially since T-bone won a Climb Mt Everest game as a door prize. No, we haven't tried playing yet!

E-man had a better Saturday last weekend. Both boys went with dad to the Lowe's Build N Grow to make bird/squirrel feeders. T-bone did his all by himself--all reading, finding pieces, hammering, everything. E-man happily hammered away with daddy. We gave these feeders over to the squirrels, who will be chubbier than ever now. This guy approves.

Where was I? Manning Miss Julie's 2nd grade class during another OCS open house. Which means I spent two hours talking (which my sore throat did NOT appreciate!) while simultaneously keeping toddlers brought to the no kids event from feeding the class's forced bulbs to the bunny. And I crocheted 4 afghan units!

E-man's Sweater is DONE!

Yup, That's a happy boy. Happy because his sweater is done, and washed, and with the cuffs rolled up, fits! And it will fit next year, too. In spite of my gauge issues caused by substituting a cheaper and machine dryable yarn (still a DK wool superwash though), it all worked out in the end. Does that mean I know what I'm doing? 

Now I need to start T-bone's. First I need to figure out what size to do. He wants it yesterday...

Illusion crochet square

So I joined a book club group on Ravelry. I sometimes miss being in a book club--but I don't miss the one annoying person every book club has, I don't miss conflicts with other meetings. And within the meetings. And being as it seems I'm already out of the house 2 nights a week, I don't need another meeting. So an online discussion group is kind of cool. No meetings to attend or miss. Reading messages whenever I want. Nice. 

The fun part of this particular book group is a mini-contest at the end for the best original 8x8 knit/crochet square based on the book. Fun! And 8x8 is just one evening's work.

So I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Great book. And I spent the whole book thinking about a square. Which I completed last night and posted there today. Without too much in the way of spoilers, since so much of the book is about hiding things (Liesel's learning to read, thefts, Max), I opted for Illusion Crochet (my first attempt--it involved lots of ripping). It's in black and white, which is meant to be the accordion keys, but can also stand for black letters on white paper. Here it is:

And here's the illusion:

Ta-da! A bit lopsided due to a wee miscount, but I was done with ripping.

The next book is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Which I am not enjoying yet. The writing style is way to contrived for me. We'll see.

A crafty rainy day...and a great book

Yet another rainy day.

T-bone and I went to Michaels today to get spray paint for his Pinewood Derby car (er...truck), being that it's that time of year again. I also needed (really!) some yarn (black and white in sport weight) and thread (for a project already going, and I'm running out!). More on those in the future.

When he heard we were going, E-man demanded "One of those wood things!" I had no clue what he meant til we were there. Of course! The $1 wood craft kits. So, we chose a semitruck for E-man. Which meant T-bone had to have...a semitruck. That is them in progress above. I am painting E-mans, of course (to exactly match the box, no less), but he painted on the glue to put it together. T-bone needs no help. He is painting some logo--looks familiar, but I can't place it. And just what we need, more completed wood craft kits roaming the floors...

I also started my Ravelry book club afghan block (that's what I needed the b&w for) for the best book I have read in a loooong time. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. What a great book. I had never heard of it, it is marketed as a Young Adult novel. A wee bit more intense than Harry Potter. I'll post my square when I'm done, I've already frogged it twice. Hopefully the third time's a charm.

Crochet crochet

This is E-man's Turtle Sweater. The back is done, the front is done, 1 sleeve is done, the other sleeve is started. I might actually get this done while it's still chilly! Of course, then I get to start one for T-bone. Both are out of Knitpicks' Swish Superwash DK. E-man chose a dark and light blue (there is contrast trim), T-bone picked green and red.

This sweater is actually pretty neat, because it is done side-to-side, which gives it a fair amount of horizontal stretch. It has some variety, with a pattern of sc, flo sc, dc (which I changed to hdc to get gauge), and flo dc (hdc if you're me).

I have also made a lot of progress on the doily I'm doing to see if I can (using size 30 with a 10 hook). I have no idea what I will do with it, not being much of a doily person and all. They are pretty fun to make, though. I nice change of pace from yarn. I also finally started a long-overdue baby afghan, but I can't discuss that here. Though since I haven't announced this blog, no one is reading anyway!

Hoping to get help on the progress bars from some Ravelry genius.

Argh...progress bars (or not)

So I have spent way too much time today trying to add Ravelry progress bars to my sidebar here. Even Pete tried tonight. And we have gotten nowhere, unless you count error messages as being somewhere.

Progress bars are these cute little...bars...that show how far you are on crochet (or knit, but that's not me) projects entered in Ravelry. I've got my API. I copied the code, I pasted the code in the head, I got an error message. I searched the forums for more info. I found a patch. I found the offending code. I removed it. I pasted the patch at the end as per instructed. I got an error message.

I don't have time for this. I remember back, before kids, when I actually knew my computer inside and out. When I deleted/changed code to save corrupted files. I now realize this was a good twelve years ago. How embarrassing. Now I can't even get a section of "copy this" code to work. *sigh*

And now it's jammie time, story time, bedtime, and crochet time. I can handle these.