Hot Knits, with Wombat

What does one do when it's too hot and sweaty to knit?
Well, if you're me, you try anyway. But there are always distractions.

Distraction #1:

Dillon. With friend.

If you want some chuckles, try explaining to a Norteamericanito what a wombat is. First of all, it sounds like a made-up word.

Secondly, I don't know all the words to "One Woolly Wombat." I don't even know where my copy is!

But the boys thought he was cute. Not quite sure they believed me (It's a big mouse!" ) but they were kind and pretended to.

Deryk thought he was cute, too.
Wombat meets knitting.

Paris scarf, say hello to wombat.

Wombat, say hello to Paris Scarf.`

I wonder if wombats eat Sea Silk? He's certainly giving it the once=over.

The sharp-eyed among you will notice that I have, in fact, found the swift. Yay! I have not, however, found the ball winder. If pressed, I can definitely wind a ball of yarn by hand, with the help of the swift. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` There is some wonky formatting on this page, which is directly attributable to this:
large cat butt on keyboard. Seriously, he did something that has made the page all weird. That's why I am posting the wide-body shot. Serves you right, cat! Mess with my blog post...

Wombat is retiring for the night. (The reason Wombat came out of hiding is that the boys don't seem to understand that the small bear is the cat's toy, and therefore highly unsanitary for small boys to huggle.

Wombats, on the other hand, are cuddly!)

Hot 'lympics

After a long hot day, I am finally collapsed watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. I'm too tired (and hot) to knit, so I'm going to shut down the computer and just relax.

I know you've been waiting breathlessly for this announcement!

By the way, the opening day of Dizzy Blonde's Etsy shop was highly successful. I believe she has sold out the first run! Way to go, La!

Hot Tip, Hot Shots

Here's your Hot Tip for the day: tomorrow will be the Grand Opening of La's Dizzy Blonde Yarn Shop on Etsy! (This is Laura, the "La" half of JenLa. The dizzy blonde is her adorable Trixie, who is the most energetic little bundle of blonde fur you could ever find.)


You can get a sneak preview of the colorways on this blog page. Warning: I got a severe craving for every one of these colorways, even the colors I don't normally gravitate to. Laura's base yarn is yummy smushy, too.

And she didn't pay me to say it. In fact, I have to line up with the rest of you at 8:08 am (PDT) tomorrow, 8/8/08. I think that's an auspicious time for the store opening!
It's also my dad's 91st birthday, so here's a happy birthday shoutout to Chick! (My parents have always been Grandpa Chick and Grandma Mickey, or Mick and Chick, to my kids. ) I hope he'll be having a good one, and I really truly wish I could be there to wish him happy birthday in person.

Okay, here's a couple of hot shots of our hotshot boys, in case you were starting to think this was going to be all-Audrey-all-the-time. Just because I'm with her 3 days a week, doesn't mean I love her "best" or "more." She's just my favoritest youngest granddaughter, that's all.

And Nate is my favorite youngest grandson, and with those dimples and big brown eyes and happy disposition, how could he not be?

Then, of course, there's my favoritest Grandcarrot. He's turned into a very handsome and good-natured little boy, which of course we knew he would be, but it's always nice to be able to say "I told you so." He is a good big brother, doesn't get upset if he has to wait his turn cause the baby needs something.

Okay, off the Memere soapbox now. I'm going to go hit "refresh" on Laura's Etsy shop, just in case she goes "live" a little early. Well, at least, after I dig out the swift and ball winder. Olympics start tomorrow, and the Ravelympics kick off at 5 am PDT.

No, I will NOT be up and casting on then. Sorry! I need my beauty sleep!

PS: the photos of the two boys are D4's. I snitched them cause they are so cute!

Hot n' Tired

A little summer sky to share today, with a taste of the clouds we've been seeing.

Last night at quilting was pretty busy, so much so in fact that I didn't even have time to get out the camera. Which was a shame, because there were some great projects in p rogress. Hopefully they'll come back next week and I can take some pics!

Today was a mixture of frustration and good things. The bad thing was that, as I was heading out the door to get my lab work done, I stopped to look for my orders. Good thing.


They were nowhere to be found! I've looked all over, and nope, no sign of them. Tomorrow I'll look again, and if they are still missing, I'll call and ask the dr's office to write them out for me again.

Then I went to PT. Again, it's rather frustrating that the ankle is healing so slowly and that it still gives me a lot of trouble when I stand or walk on it. It even swells up when I sit in a chair--and it's not always convenient to sit with my leg wayyyy up there!

At least, today was a knitting day. It was fun to see some friends and get a little knitting time in!

Just a day left till the Olympics start. I have joined the Ravelympics to give me an extra incentive to wrestle some of my WIPs into shape. That way, I can move on to new projects!

This tub o' yarn is one of my finds from all the upheavals. It's Paton's Look At Me, in two colorways--10 balls of each. I am thinking that they would make nice little sweaters--but then, I seem to have a number of cute little sweaters under way!

I guess this means that I need to finish taking inventory before I succumb to t he lure of more new yarn. However, the enabler is at it again! Let's just say, I already want at least one of everything she's got there. And Lotus Yarns' Melanie is dyeing again, and... and...

Would someone please help me wrangle ET and take away her credit cards? At least till all the boxes are emptied and all the yarn is inventoried and accounted for?

Thank you!

Hot Find

Going through some of the boxes in the back room has been very educational. This little sweater turned up in a box of sweaters, but it was the only hand-made one in the group.

It's a cream-colored fisherman-style cardigan with a zipper--which I put in all by hand, thank you very much--from a pattern which was in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. I remember working on this while sitting in the pediatrician's waiting room. Among other places!

You probably can't tell, but in addition to a thousand or so bobbles, it's also got a LOT of double seed stitch. In fact, the entire hood is double seed.

I'm going to pass it along to D3 for the Grandcarrot. I think it's nicely unisex and hopefully the zipper will hold up. If it doesn't, well, they have much nicer zippers out there, and it would certainly be easy enough to replace it! (It's a metal zipper, and the color has worn off which is why it looks a little grey in the picture. In real life it's not so noticeable.)

And, it's acrylic, so it will wash and dry very easily. It's just come out of the washer and dryer!


Gratuitious cute baby shot. She has been a busy little bee lately. Loves her toys. Mamma put the toy basket in front of the DVR to try to keep her away from the dangerous stuff--well, she's really the danger!--and it's worked. In this photo, she'd gotten the liner out of the basket as well as all the toys. Bad memere put the liner back in (with a double bowknot for a few extra seconds of security) and most of the toys, which she promptly took out. Again.

She can amuse herself for an hour or more, though, just checking out the possibilities of all her toys. She also loves books--they are delicious!

Hot Fur

Since it's been too warm and humid to do much of anything today, other than PT and a few hours of Missy A, I'm sharing some of the cuter cat photos I took recently.

First, Simon on the dresser. The mirror is reflecting some of the boxes in the closet (guest room, which is where I'm still sleeping) which are mostly Christmas decorations and framed artwork. We haven't put any of the art back on the walls yet--just enjoying the bare-bones look of plain walls, plain dark woodwork, bare windows. I think I've been reading too many of the Craftsman/A&C style magazines!

However, it is a very attractive look, and I'm finding that this house really does fit that era. Well, it should, since that's when it was built, duh, just call me Mrs. Obvious!

Anyway, the cats have been hanging out and trying to keep cool along with the humans.
Hi-Hi has found that the less energy you expend, the cooler and more comfortable you can stay.

After all, he has quite a job just carting around all that fur, not to mention keeping it well-groomed and in peak condition. He does do an admirable job!

So that's today's dispatch. Hot and humid, high allergy day, cute cat pics to distract from the lack of knitting (or other substantive) content. I did manage to get a couple of rows done on the Sweet Pea sweater, but it looks substantially the same as it did the last time. If I can manage a little mojo during Nashville Star tonight, I should be able to get the sleeves done and maybe even start sewing it up. It's going to be relatively quick to finish: pick up stitches around the front and the neck, knit 4 rows of yellow and 4 rows of pink, bind off.

At least that's the plan!

Hot Pink!

Cheating on the title? I don't think so! Here's my crape myrtle, in full bloom, and this is one HOT pink blossom!

Today was my friend G's birthday, and she's been so busy lately that she had forgotten all about it till I called her last Tuesday to check on her after the earthquake! So we made plans to get together for her birthday, and today was the day. I took her up to the new quilt shop, since I knew she'd not been there and would probably not drive up there on her own. This has become a bit of a tradition with us anyway: I take her shopping on her birthday, let her pick out something she loves, and that's her present.

Then we went to dinner at one of her favorite places, Avanti Cafe in Pasadena. A quick stop by the ol' homestead so she could catch up on the renovations, and that was that! A good day out, fun and celebration.

For your edification, here's our new baby:

Isn't it cute?

And D4 left the "quick start" operating instructions attached, so I don't mess it up!

It is sitting on the runner that matches the dining room rug. I love the new rugs! And funny thing, they look soooo much better freshly vacuumed!

Tonight is the finale of Design Star, which is one of my favorite shows, and I'm going to miss it when it's gone. One of the things I love about the show is that, unlike most reality competition shows, the people on this one are genuinely nice. Case in point: last week, the two finalists had to re-do three rooms each for families that had suffered a lot of damage from Katrina, and were still struggling with empty houses. The two designers got help from the previous two who'd been sent home; when Matt got to pick first, he chose the woman, because he felt his "competition" would benefit from the skills of the carpenter guy! Now really, how great is that? Would have been so easy for him to sabotage her by choosing the carpenter first! No matter who wins, I think they are both winners in my book!