A Few Blessings In Disguise
One evening it rained really, really hard here. It was late enough in the evening that we'd already opened the house to cool it off after a 95° F day, and the office window was wide open. There's a desk right under that window and every paper on that side of the desk was pretty much a complete loss. I was very sad to see an entire pad of rice paper completely soaked through and pretty much a dead loss. There were other things, like one of Jet's drawings, a few other scraps I'd been saving for scrapbooking and stuff like that.
The blessing was that I'd had two of my calligraphy brushes out, and I've had a hard time getting them really soaked enough to loosen up from tip to base. They were sitting in the rain puddle and had gently, completely, and thoroughly softened up. Yay!! So that was cool.
This evening, we went to the local instantiation of The Texas Roadhouse and had a good dinner there. Jet brought along six pieces of Lego he'd been intrigued with. Just six tiny pieces that he could get to make a "snap" sound and he enjoyed them a lot. Problem was that he left them there when we left. We went back after we'd done a bit of grocery shopping and Jet realized he'd left them there. So he and John went in and found that, sure enough, the cleanup crew hadn't noticed the bitty pieces and probably threw them away with the rest of our trash. Instead, they gave Jet a HUGE Hot Wheels "monster truck" (in Jet terms) out of their lost and found bin. Hee. So Jet is now happily rolling over all the rest of his Legos and his cars with the new monster truck.
This morning I finally finished John's Sun/Moon sweater. I'd gone through the harrowing experience of trying to secure and then cut through the cloth for both arm holes and the neck (which I'll be detailing in a post to advanced_knit), and then the simple, steady work to get the sleeves set in and finish the very simple I-cord neckband. I was pretty worried, though, as we'd tried it on John a few times and nearly all indications were that it might be too small for him in the body and, on top of that, the sleeves seemed too short. Grr... But the book and EZ's videos said that changes of a few inches are no problem when one blocks pure, wet wool. So I took it on faith and finished the thing.
Then I measured John obsessively, and then dumped the last six month's work into the tub and gave it a quick wash and several thorough rinses and then a spin in the washing machine to get most of the water out. And when I laid it out and pulled the body out WIDE and the sleeves out LONG and then measured it, it was too big!! Hoorah!! Hee.
So I pulled the body a little bit longer, but kept the width I wanted. I widened the sleeves until they were the ideal length for John's shoulder to wrist, and whew... it's now "done". I'll likely put it on John for real pictures when it's done drying. The sleeve reads "I think of you..." which I meant to allude to the Cole Porter song "Night and Day"; but is generic enough no one will likely notice or realize why I put it on a sun and moon sweater. *grin*
The blessing was that I'd had two of my calligraphy brushes out, and I've had a hard time getting them really soaked enough to loosen up from tip to base. They were sitting in the rain puddle and had gently, completely, and thoroughly softened up. Yay!! So that was cool.
This evening, we went to the local instantiation of The Texas Roadhouse and had a good dinner there. Jet brought along six pieces of Lego he'd been intrigued with. Just six tiny pieces that he could get to make a "snap" sound and he enjoyed them a lot. Problem was that he left them there when we left. We went back after we'd done a bit of grocery shopping and Jet realized he'd left them there. So he and John went in and found that, sure enough, the cleanup crew hadn't noticed the bitty pieces and probably threw them away with the rest of our trash. Instead, they gave Jet a HUGE Hot Wheels "monster truck" (in Jet terms) out of their lost and found bin. Hee. So Jet is now happily rolling over all the rest of his Legos and his cars with the new monster truck.
This morning I finally finished John's Sun/Moon sweater. I'd gone through the harrowing experience of trying to secure and then cut through the cloth for both arm holes and the neck (which I'll be detailing in a post to advanced_knit), and then the simple, steady work to get the sleeves set in and finish the very simple I-cord neckband. I was pretty worried, though, as we'd tried it on John a few times and nearly all indications were that it might be too small for him in the body and, on top of that, the sleeves seemed too short. Grr... But the book and EZ's videos said that changes of a few inches are no problem when one blocks pure, wet wool. So I took it on faith and finished the thing.
Then I measured John obsessively, and then dumped the last six month's work into the tub and gave it a quick wash and several thorough rinses and then a spin in the washing machine to get most of the water out. And when I laid it out and pulled the body out WIDE and the sleeves out LONG and then measured it, it was too big!! Hoorah!! Hee.
So I pulled the body a little bit longer, but kept the width I wanted. I widened the sleeves until they were the ideal length for John's shoulder to wrist, and whew... it's now "done". I'll likely put it on John for real pictures when it's done drying. The sleeve reads "I think of you..." which I meant to allude to the Cole Porter song "Night and Day"; but is generic enough no one will likely notice or realize why I put it on a sun and moon sweater. *grin*