Knitting On...
Kid #2 asked me, "When you have a chance..." to make a hat for a 3-year old girl. One of his friends has a couple of kids, and I guess I'm asked to make a hat for the youngest one. I have a pattern and I need to see what I have in stash. And I need to see if I have the needles. Why is it that it's always "I don't have those needles" even though your pile of needles is quite huge?We shall see if I have the stuff needed. I'm looking at the "Emergency One Day Hat" from Ravelry (Celia's Basket). Of course, it'll take me more than one day - I'm not a fast knitter even in the best of circumstances.
The priority at this point is the mitts, as they are for a birthday in November. Then I can squeeze in the hats, but I'm also working on "prayer squares" for church (more on that in a sec...).
I've finished one mitt. I've got the other one to go. It's using the Stone Tulips to match the shawl, and I did end up crocheting them, as I promised. Much faster, but boy-o-boy, crocheting with sock yarn is fiddly. I'm still faster in this method, but the small size of the yarn did slow me down a bit more than I thought it would.
These are kind of blocky. But then, I'm one of those with larger hands and smaller wrists. I like the way the yarn flowed with the pattern; there wasn't a ton of pooling, and it's just enough to keep wrists and hands warm. It won't work on a frigid day, but then again, that's why one wears gloves or mittens.
As I indicated, that first row or two are quite a challenge, and they curl like crazy. You think they're never going to straighten out, but eventually, you get it. After about row 8, you're doing just fine. There's a right and wrong, at least to my eyes. And what I seem to have trouble with, at this gauge and weight of yarn, is the tension. I'm usually the "tension queen" thanks to Granny's teaching. But this is a pain in the fingers. The first few rows are also a little tight, and I'm making a conscious effort to loosen up as I go.
The mitts worked out to be 5.25" from the first chain, and that hits me right at the base of the knuckles. That's about right, and the length is below that bony part of your wrist (can't think of the name...maybe the Pisiform bone? That one that sticks out along the outer edge. Anyway, the mitts go below that bone.
I wish they looked less square, but I think they'll be fine. I need to work on an actual pattern, one of these days.
The Prayer Squares are a concoction of our priest. She used them in another parish. Instead of a whole prayer shawl, which takes some time to knit, she likes these as little "talismans" of prayer. She's going to be installed at our church and she's asked about the Prayer Shawl group doing these. I figured I had enough worsted weight scraps, so I started a few. That's when Kid #2 saw the purple sparkly yarn and asked about the hat. The kid may not get a purple sparkly hat, but if needed I guess I can go buy another hank of that if I don't find something else suitable in the stash.
Anyway, I think I could do these in other yarn weights; I have bulky left, and somewhere, lots of Lion Brand chunky.
I can do these squares over lunch, even sneaking in a walk before eating (which I want to do now that the weather is cooperating).
But we'll see; the committee putting together her installation is meeting soon, so we can figure it all out.
The Blue Bathroom...
So this was the bathroom in our church office, which is really a house. From the 50's we think, but we're not sure. There's a ton of work to do with the place, but we did do some emergency repairs to the bathroom, since we're working in there. And the priest and I hated the bathroom. 
So now, we like the toilet, a nice water-saving kind with two buttons to flush... for, um, you know - whichever one you need. The white vanity was a replacement of the old one which was brown. The wallpaper is right out of Laura Ashley. The tile, remarkably, is in great shape. But that harvest gold?? Yikes. The priest put up a really cute tapestry of a turtle, and we got to chatting about what to do with the wallpaper.
She said, "Paint it." Of course, normally, you'd tear it off. This house is old enough to have plaster walls. We don't know what's under the wallpaper, whether we'd have to steam/score it and what it would look like after the scoring device got done.
Do you repair the damage to the wall and then paint it? Well, we decided to just paint it, using the leftover paint we used in the reception area.I suppose you could call it "sapphire" blue. I prefer TARDIS blue, of course. Or "Cubbie Blue." Which it has been called, sometimes with a sneer, by those other baseball fans.
She did most of the work (that's her, right there in the picture); I managed to drip paint on the floor, and I ended up reaching the high parts, since neither of us thought to get a real ladder. Hubby will paint the ceiling for us. That leaves the kitchen/dinette area and the hallway. The hallway will be white, since it's short and kind of dark. The kitchen/dinette will use up the rest of the blues from the reception area, with light blue, kind of a porcelain blue (you can see it sort of in the Random Picture below). And maybe using the TARDIS blue again as an accent wall.
It's fun to paint the place; we're transforming it from an area where our church "stored stuff" to something that's warm and cozy and welcoming to people.
New Diffuser...
I actually think I have more diffusers than I need. I just opened up my Lantern diffuser. It replaces my Dessert Mist, which will be coming home from the office soon, since they have their own kit now. And I have the Rainstone, which I've been coveting for a while. I probably should have stopped with the diffusers, since we have a small house! I might bring another one to the church office; in the kitchen, maybe. We'll see.Anyway: Lantern in the front room. Dewdrop in the kitchen. Rainstone in one bedroom. Dessert Mist will be in the office,once I get the table cleared off; I'd like to put it by the bookshelves, but I have to go where the outlets are. Home diffuser in the larger bathroom. And a couple of spares for demonstrations.
I like this one; it's metal and glass, so it's pretty hefty. It's got a couple different settings, and on the "low" setting, it runs for about 8 hours. The lights can be white, candle flicker, and rotating through a bunch of colors. You can also pick just one. I like to rotate them.
Interestingly enough, I usually use distilled water, but the Rainstone says to use tap or mineral water. That might be a good test of our water! Anyway, I'll let you know how I like the Rainstone in a later post.
We've been lucky enough to sleep with the windows open, so I see no sense in diffusing to the back yard! I'll enjoy sleeping in the cooler weather, as long as the skunks stay away! Nothing like being awakened in the wee hours having to race around closing windows before the entire house reeks. I love my essential oils, but a layer of skunk usually wrecks any attempt to sleep or breathe.
Random Picture...
This was a stencil that Kid #2 made for me. I love the saying. Especially in these times. That blue paint is the one that we may use in the kitchen. Anyway, this is hanging in the church office. I look at it a lot to remind myself, especially now, when it looks like we're headed into an abyss from which our country may never recover.
We need to vote. We need to register as many people as we can. And we need to make sure people can get to the polls.
When we say, "vote as if your life depends on it," unfortunately, now-a-days? We mean it.
What with the allegations against the SCOTUS nominee looking more and more dreadful, and with Congress willingly enabling the village idiot, one has to wonder what's going to happen to us.
Really, I've been reading so many heart-wrenching posts on Facebook from friends I know - I mean KNOW, in real life. People are having to relive things they shouldn't have to. People are mentally wounded because of all of this bubbling up.
The only power we really have (so far) is at the polls. It's all we have to cling to now. Let's make it work in November.
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