Labradorable

I've Moved!

I'm bloggin over here now, with a lovely co-blogger. Come and visit!

Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Ant

Do you remember "singing" the theme song from The Pink Pather cartoons? It always did sound like dead ant, dead ant, dead ant. . . If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here:

 

I haven't been playing with pink panthers, or killing ants. The hot weather has brought ants into the kitchen and I've been struggling with a way to get rid of them. Usually, we just use ant traps and I have to say they aren't terribly effective, especially against the tiny little black ants. But who wants to use pesticides in the kitchen?

I found a solution!!! Ants do not like the smell of vinegar, so I wipe the edges of the counters (in the areas where the ants seem to appear) with vinegar every couple of days. This not only cleans the counters but it repels ants. I have to confess, I'm one of those people who keeps a giant jug of white vinegar in the kitchen. I use it for cleaning. It's a nice, nontoxic way to get rid of some stubborn dirt and stains. Alas, I managed to run out of vinegar the other day and I was baking and the ants were back and I was getting really annoyed at having to wrangle them away from  my baking ingredients without the aid of vinegar. I got so annoyed that I resorted to the only other vinegar in the house. . . malt vinegar. The kitchen smelled a bit like a chip shop (minus the grease) but I'm happy to report that the malt vinegar worked just as well.

When not busy fighting ants, I finished the first Capitola:

It matches the sofa! It's too hot to photograph outside, so I popped the sock on and took a quick photo inside. And the sock is now covered with Loco's fur, even though I have not yet worn it. I didn't even step on the floor with the sock on my foot. But Loco was sitting next to me while I was taking the photo and apparently his fur flew off him and was immediately attracted to my sock. *sigh*

Now I have three socks without mates. . . I can knit the blue Gothic Spire sock, the other Capitola, or a mystery sock that hasn't been on the blog yet. What do you think?????

 

Check Your Eyes

You are not seeing a repeat from my last blog post, though the feet and the flip flops are both the same. Yesterday I had a mani/pedi and I have new polish on my toes. In fact, it's so new that it's not supposed to be out yet, but the salon had a couple of the colors from a new, limited edition collection of four OPI colors due out in August. They are to coincide with the Miss Universe Pageant. I love them all, but this one is just over the top pretty. It's called Swimsuit. . . Nailed It! and I definitely think I'm going to buy this once it's out and available to the public for purchase. It's very much in keeping with the Project Spectrum color of the month, so I thought I would show it off here.

My mani is also in keeping with Project Spectrum this month. This is Austin-tatious Turquoise from the OPI Texas collection. I really like it a lot. I decided to photograph my hand with an iconic shade of blue, Tiffany blue. That wasn't on the agenda yesterday. The box is from my birthday last month.

I think, as July meanders along, I am getting more and more into the whole blue thing for Project Spectrum. If nothing else, Project Spectrum makes me more keenly aware of the color(s) of the month in my daily life. My blue knitting for the month didn't work out too well, though I have to confess that I did in fact order the new needles to replace the ones the puppy ate, so I might just be knitting some blue before month's end. More on that in another post. Right now, I want to follow up on the blueberries I got at a local farm stand.

I made blueberry cake, from the recipe The Boston Globe judged to be the best. Here's the link:

Blueberry cake with streusel topping.

It is delicious!!! I made it one night last week, and DS told me that he wanted to stay up past his bedtime to wait for it to come out of the oven. (It's been so hot that I have been doing my baking later at night to avoid the heat of the day.) I told DS he had to go to bed, which he did. Then he came down and told me that he could smell the blueberry cake from his room and he couldln't sleep because it smelled so good and he wanted it so much. I sent him back to bed. After the cake came out of the oven and cooled a little bit, I went back upstairs and he was still awake, so I invited him to come down and we all enjoyed some warm out of the oven blueberry cake. It was amazing, and a nice treat for him.

We are heading to the farm stand again today but I think this time instead of blueberries we will get raspberries. BF has a yen for them, so you may well see raspberries soon. I do have a blue plate and a turquoise plate (It's Fiestaware, so there are lots of colors, though I am not a rabid collector.), so maybe you will see a raspberry treat on a blue plate in the near future.

I'm going to leave with an actual knitted item. . . this is the Dipped Infinity Scarf. I used a Twilight inspired kit from Sunshine Yarns and knit the entire thing on our trip to Puerto Rico last year. I think we were gone for five days, maybe six, and I started knitting in the gate area while waiting to fly to San Juan. I finished knitting in the plane on the way home. It was a perfect vacation project, in my book. Easy pattern to memorize. It's all sock yarn so it's not too heavy to knit in tropical weather. The only issue that I had is that I knit the scarf in the wrong direction. I believe I started with the yellow/orange side when I was supposed to start with the black/green side. Fortunately, Dani sent enough yarn to complete the knitting in either direction, though I had just enough yellow and orange yarn to finish the project, and not much more. 

 
I'm really happy with the way it turned out. And it fits with Project Spectrum, with the pretty blues in the middle of it.

Have a great weekend!

Midnight Mambo

For someone who seems to have a lot of blue in her life, I have precious little blue knitting to show. I tried to find blue squares on my sock yarn blankie to highlight and I discovered that the blankie has lots of green but little blue.  So I'm left to my own devices to find blue things to celebrate Project Spectrum. Inspired by Terry, I'm showing my blue pedicure. This is actually a photo from last summer, and the color is Midnight Mambo from Sephora by OPI. I loved that color and it might just be time for it again. Right now I have OPI Conquistadorable Color on my toes, and it's a reddish color but I'm getting tired of it. I need a mani desperately, maybe tomorrow. . .

I have been knitting. There has been progress on the Capitola Sock, the sock yarn blankie, and the Rock Island Shawl. Unfortunately, there's nothing really photoworthy. I'm hoping to really make some progress over the weekend, probably focusing on the shawl or the sock. I'm struggling to find some good knitting tv shows.  It seems like a lot of good shows recently ended their seasons -- Game of Thrones, Treme, American Chopper Jr. vs. Sr., Mob Wives, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs are all over. There are new shows to tide me over: The Closer, Leverage, White Collar, and the Tour de France. Is there anything else that's worth a look?

I've been reading a lot, too, but I've got the same monogamy problem that I have with my knitting. I have so many books started. . . but not finished. I think this weekend I will pick a book and finish it. I don't think I can finish a project in one weekend, but I will try to stick with one and make some measureable progress over the weekend.

I have no idea what we are doing this weekend. This month we started a regular weekend dog walking trip to a local sanctuary so we will likely do that and get some ice cream. We also might be going to see Mana on Sunday night, if BF can organize himself to get tickets. I don't think we will be going to see the new Harry Potter movie. Believe it or not, BF has not read any of the books or seen any of the movies. I guess that makes sense since he didn't live in this country or speak English when the first one came out, so he never got into the whole series. He probably would go to the movie with me, but I think it's just plain wrong for his first HP experience to be the last movie of them all. The Harry Potter spirit will live on here for quite some time, though, as both kids have requested that I knit them something Harry Potter related. I've ordered the yarn for one already. . . the other will come after that.

And I can't post on Thursday without a Dogs on Thursday post. Here's Pepsi, all dirty. Apparently he has discovered that if he goes in his pool and gets wet, the dirt sticks to him better. We have started calling him Torito because he tries to sneak into the house when he's wet and we go running after him with a towel and he will turn and run by us while we wave the towels like matadors. What a goofball! He's enjoying his first summer, though. Everything is new to him and he gets so excited.

He is learning, though. The first time we went on the wildlife sanctuary walk, he was huffing the whole 40+ minute walk because he was straining against the leash. Loco, who had never been there before, paced himself and enjoyed the surroundings (lots to sniff and pee on). The second time we went, Pepsi didn't pull on his leash at all. . . he learned from the first visit.

He is also training me. . . notice that I said I had worked on three projects since my last post? Well, I didn't leave my knitting out and Pepsi didn't eat it. So I have been doing well in my training, too.

I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill

 
In honor of Project Spectrum, here are some local blueberries we got today. We took the dogs for a nice long walk this afternoon, then we went to a farm stand that has an ice cream stand that serves dog sundaes. While we were there, I got some blueberries. I've had blueberries on my brain ever since The Boston Globe did a feature last week with blueberry cake and bread recipes. The only question now is which one I will try.

We've had a busy day today, and I'm sorry that I didn't take photographs. We dropped DS off at a birthday party and then went to the mall because BF "needed" some new shoes and DD actually needed new flipflops because Pepsi ate hers this week. And there might have been some chocolate purchased at the Godiva store. . . just maybe. Then we went back to pick DS up at his party.

The party surprised me. It was for a boy who was in the same first grade class as DS last year. When we dropped DS off, there was one girl from the class already there. When we picked him up, there weren't too many kids there. Both of the birthday boy's parents came to talk to me and they kept telling me that they were so glad DS was able to come and that none of the other boys in the first grade class came. When we were driving home, I asked DS how many girls in the class came and he said only the one who was there when I dropped him off at the start of the party. I'm not sure what's going on with that, only two of a class of twenty four kids came to this little boy's party. My BF said maybe it's because it's July and a lot of people are going on vacation. Maybe. . . we'll see. DS has two other parties this month, so we can see if they are well attended. I have a feeling that this one was not as well attended because the birthday boy has some issue that requires him to have an aide helping him during the day at school. I feel bad. His parents seemed so excited that DS actually came to the party. I don't know the back story here, but I'm glad DS went, too.

After the shopping, the birthday party, lunch, the dog walk, and the farm/ice cream stand, we finally landed at home for a well deserved break. The dogs are totally zonked out and the kids are happily quiet, too. So we watched a Harry Potter movie (some TV channel is playing all the movies in the run up to the release of the new one) and I knit. I've decided to put the Gothic Spire sock on hold for a little bit and start these socks, Capitola (Ravelry link) from Irishgirlieknits (also a Ravelry link). The pattern is written for sport and fingering (the one I'm using) weight yarns and I believe is currently only available as a yarn/pattern kit from Sunshine Yarns.

This sock is Sunshine Classic Sock in the Driftwood colorway. I took a photo (with flash) on a blue background for Project Spectrum, and I also took a photo without a flash (below), and I can honestly say that neither photo does justice to this colorway. Dani describes the color as "a blend of sky, slate pale, and pale chocolate over toffee." It's a blue/green/grey/brownish color.

Whatever this color is, it's really pretty, and it's a somewhat unusual color for me. I think I'm starting to embrace neutral colors other than grey. I've also just been informed by DS that his favorite colors are orange, green, and black. My BF also loves the color orange, and his son loves orange and royal blue (Boise State colors and his dream is to go there, though he has a lot of years to go before college). So, I expect that there will be more orange on this blog in the future, as well as other colors that I become more open to as time goes by. I don't think I will ever lose my preference for cool, blue-toned colors, but I will try other colors. And why not? I'm trying to get back into this blogging thing, so I can try other things, too.

And I've been a bad influence! I've got Nancy blogging again. I'm so glad to see her blogging again. I've missed her posts. Now that I have Nancy blogging again, who else can I motivate to knitblog???????

Got the Blues

See that? It was the start of a sock.

 
I put the sock in my knitting bag while I was doing some chores yesterday, and then I discovered Pepsi lying on the couch eating the sock and needles. He had pulled it out of my knitting bag and made himself comfortable on the couch. I'm out of Brittany needles in this size, thanks to him, so this project is going on hiatus until I can get that sorted out.

This was going to be the perfect Project Spectrum July project. It's blue, and it's a UFO that I could reasonably complete within the month. I actually knit the mate to this sock last year at about this time, and I got it done fairly quickly, though that was mostly because I was test knitting for Cookie's new book, knit. sock. love.  The pattern is Gothic Spire, and here's the finished sock on the now published book:

 
It's a bit stretched out, as you can see, as I tried it on lots and lots of times while I was test knitting. As this was just a test knit, I only had to knit one sock, so that's all I did. Then I misplaced the cable needle that I was using for the wraps on this sock and then I moved on to other projects and yada, yada. . . the sock stayed a singleton. As soon as Project Spectrum was announced, this sock became my primary focus for July knitting. I'm going to have to do a little refocusing, to say the least. But I will knit the second sock, I promise.

For those who are wondering, this is Tess Designer Yarn Super Sock and Baby. The colorway is not named, but it's blue with some green in it. It was a gift in a secret pal swap (Do they have those any more????) and I'd been waiting for the right project because this is somewhat, but not completely, solid, so I knew I wanted to use it in a somewhat complicated pattern. It's hard to tell from this photo, but it looks quite nice. I will try for an outdoor shot with the sock on my foot on a day when it is not quite so hot as today.

Today I certainly feel like being here:

 
All that blue, just lovely! This is from last summer's vacation to Puerto Rico. The blue sky and water were gorgeous, so I foresee more photos showing up for this month in Project Spectrum.

Before I go, I wanted to thank everyone who left me a Facebook comment about keeping on with the blog. My subscription was expiring and I wasn't sure I wanted another year of Typepad or blogging, but I'm going to give it a go. Thanks to everyone for their support.

Green Tambourine

 
It's not green, but it is a tambourine. Pepsi came running downstairs and into the family room with the tambourine in his mouth and I just had to take a photo of him. Silly puppy!

And, for those who don't remember, here's the song Green Tambourine. Honestly, I only know this song from those TV commercials for CD collections. But it's here for what it's worth.

 

Happy Thursday!!!

Going Green

I've been having a hard time getting a green post together for Project Spectrum this month. I have to admit, I've been a bit transfixed by black and gold. . . the Bruins brought home the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1972. I've been so excited, and I've been celebrating via Facebook with Terry and Sandy and other non-knitblogging friends. We watched most of the games at home, and spent hours watching the Stanley Cup parade on tv on Saturday. Hockey season is over and there's just baseball now (until the Tour de France in July!). So, in keeping with Project Spectrum and baseball, I present the Twisted Flower (by Cookie A) sock in Green Monster Serenknity Perfect Sock:

 

Complete with my mosquito bitten legs! The yarn was a gift from Karen, who chose the color specifically because she knows I'm a Yankees fan living in Red Sox Nation. (For those who don't know, the left field wall at Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, is called The Green Monster.) I love the socks. The yarn, the color, and the pattern are perfect together.

And here's the cute project bag that Monica made for me. I used it while knitting these socks and it's waiting for my next sock project. (Sorry about the dog hair in the photo, but the dogs like to snuggle with me while I'm knitting sometimes.)

 I love this bag because it's big enough for a sock or mitten project and it also fits a full size pattern and other knitting notions so that I have everything that I might need when I'm working on a project.

Although it's not predominantly green, I tend to think of this bag as being green because of the zipper and green accents.

I do have another green knitting bag, of an altogether different type of green.

I think this bag has been on the blog before. Right now it holds those red Wollmeise Chalet Socks, which are all done except for the toe of the second sock. I decided to stop knitting these socks because I really didn't like them. They are going to marinate for a little while, but I have a feeling that they will end up getting frogged. I'm just not in love with them. My bf likes the red yarn, so it's possible that these socks will end up as some other socks for him once I find a pattern that I like. But I think that will wait.

Right now I'm still working away on the Rock Island Shawl edging and the sock yarn blanket, though I see a pair of socks in the near future, so stay tuned for those. They won't be green. I decided that I'm not going to do any green knitting for Project Spectrum this month, but will instead focus on the shawl and then get some WIP's lined up for next month, when Project Spectrum is focused on blue, because I have at least two blue WIP's that I can think of off the top of my head.

Go Bruins!!!!

 

 

Better Dead Than Red?

  
This is part of a mural that Shepard Fairey put up on the side of the defunct A Street Deli in conjunction with his show at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art in early 2009. It's from his Guns and Roses series. Believe it or not, a friend and I saw him working on this one night. We went over to watch but could not think of one thing to say to the man and we were afraid of sounding stupid so we said nothing. Yeah, good grief!

Even though permission from the building's owner had been obtained, some idiots tore the mural down soon after it was completed. It was replaced by a new mural, which was similarly torn down. That mural wasn't as appropriate for Project Spectrum because, although it had red in it, there was a lot of gold in it.

I have a little more Shepard Fairey red for this post, from a red newspaper box that was at the ICA during the exhibit. I went to see the exhibit a few times and I don't remember seeing it there every time. I took the kids to one of the kids' programs the museum had in conjunction with this exhibit and they had the boxes in the lobby. One of my kids is inside the box, but, honestly, I can't tell which one. They made some art and saw the exhibit. It was exciting for them to see the infamous Obama image in its original form. I have to admit, I was surprised that it was such a large piece and I was amazed at the detail of the piece that wasn't readily apparent from most reproduced versions of it.

It turns out my kids like art. We went to the Boston MFA last spring and DS recognized the Degas dancer bronze (One of many versions, I know.) from Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Even more impressive, his little six year old self saw a Rodin sculpture of two people and recognized it as being done by the same artist who did The Thinker, as seen in the same movie. There's a Chihuly exhibit at the MFA now and I'm dying to go. I think DS will like it, but the idea of having him around so much priceless glass scares the crap out of me so he might have to stay home.

I think the Chalet sock might have to stay home, too. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that it needs to go to time out. I managed to make it to the heel flap by the end of this month of red for Project Spectrum. I don't love it. I will accept blame for the fact that I misread the instructions and didn't knit the leg long enough, but that's not why I dislike this sock so much. This is my least favorite Nancy Bush pattern. However, a bad Nancy Bush sock pattern is a lot better than most other sock patterns.

I have to lay some blame on the yarn. I am not thrilled about the red color and I do not like the feel of the Wollmeise 80/20. The yarn is hard and splitty.

Maybe it's the marriage of the yarn and pattern that makes this sock so hard to love. It hasn't brought Pudge Rodgriguez to the Red Sox as I had hoped. It doesn't have good mojo. It doesn't even have neutral mojo. This sock is bad to the bone. It irks me. It claimed one of my lovely US 1.5 rosewood needles, as you can see in the photo. Of course, I have already knitted one sock on those same needles, and it's a 5 needle pattern, so I will have to find replacement needles before I can finish the second sock of that pair. I'm trying not to buy the needles until I'm done with this sock because (a) they're hard to find and (b) if I have a set of five needles to knit that other sock, I will leave this one on these needles forever and consign it to life as a UFO.

Tomorrow is June 1st. Here's hoping to greener pastures!