She's Alive!

Dear Dog Loving Crazy Lady,

You're alive! Fabulous to hear from you dahling, although I suppose this means you have not become suddenly disgustingly rich? No comment from you on the cookies though... I told you - I think the husband could be persuaded, he mentioned something about you bring the dinner, he'll bring the dessert? I cannot wait to see Opie's hole documented for all prosperity. A side note to the mass of readers we are so quickly gathering up - I told you she existed! I told you! You didn't believe me, but now you see.



So as promised - here are the pictures of the finished pillows I made for my beautiful grandparents. I had thought they would like them for traveling, however, it seems they are better suited for TV watching - which is great, as long as they work for something! Grandma's is the light grey/pink one, and Grandpa's is the brown/green one. The pattern is from KnitPicks, as I said very easy - although after the felting the little buggers took forever to dry! So long that I had to take them to Arizona with me and finish them up there. Which ended up being a blessing in disguise because Grandma wanted hers to be a little less stuffed.



In other news, I was reading another blog and there is a charity knit called the Red Scarf Project and I think we should sign up. We have to have the scarves done and mailed by Halloween, but we should use our knitting powers for good once and a while. So let me know if you're down and maybe we can do a little yarn shopping Sunday?

Also I saw this challenge called the one-hundred push-ups challenge, so I think we should do that too. You see this way, perhaps my arms will be beautiful and ready for the cruise in November.

So my dear, it's on to some work today, can't wait to hear from you again! And to see those fabulous fashion shots of Opie.

Au revoir,

PoD

Peak a Boo

Sweet Deary Cassandra:

Aloha! Thanks for the fabulous work on our blog – I give it 4 paws up for its excellentness.

Ah yes, the Home Depot trip - it was thwarted! What (!?)– you say. Simple enough really. When I looked out our kitchen window to perform a regular dog check, I found that Opie had dug himself a nice hole in all that wonderful dirt – just deep enough mind you, so that he could lay his head down and be even with the rest of the lawn. And the position of the hole…well let’s just say every time I look out the window, Opie is sitting in his hole and gazing straight into the window…feels sometimes like he is gazing right into my soul.

Needless to say, he was DIRTY and I said as much to my dear husband. Home Depot would have to wait until after bath time.

Poor Opie, he hates bath time. Alas, I’m refusing to return to Home Depot until I can properly document Opie in his hole and post it unto bloggy land. So that you and all our dear readers (ahem, the hordes of them that exist) understand what I’m dealing with here at the McKinney homestead.

I turned one whole year older this past weekend – in a non celebratory manner…sans the streamers, cards and balloons. I never thought I’d get so old that I didn’t celebrate my own birthday. Wait, my sister put two cream puff pastries together and held them together with a left over sparkler from 4th of July – does this count? My brother was there – and he didn’t even eat his pastries! (well, I didn’t either but Opie and/or Emmett loved them!)

I’m so glad you had a chance to visit your grandparents to celebrate his birthday! (At least one of us was yukking it up) – and I hear it’s our year too…08-08-08 so watch out sister, shits gonna start hitting the fan McKinney style! Did they enjoy their pillows – so beautifully crafted for them by their #1 granddaughter? I thought they were spicy myself. Yup – SPICY ~ and you can’t edit that out either. Meh.

I’ve been trying to off load my porch cat to my brother. I hear he lives with a cat lover and I think that’s just what Cat needs. Someone who’ll be thrilled with her incessant yowling – say things like, “Isn’t my cat cute!” instead of “SHUT UP Cat!”

Don’t get me wrong, she’s got the life, she hangs out on the porch all day, plays with the newly seeded grass in the front lawn so that bald patches spring up everywhere, hides in the neighbor’s bushes and scares the crap out of him when he walks down his steps in the morning – but the yowling. Why all the noise for so long and right at the screen door. Is this for attention? Because I’m half tempted to let her in and let her defend herself against the dogs for the opportunity to stroll around the house for a nano second before deciding she prefers to be outside.

But I’m not bitter. Really.

Back to Sac

Dear Worst Blogging Partner in the Whole World (aka Jean-Marie),

I am back home again, and was simultaneously saddened to leave my grandparents and thrilled to be home to see the husband again. Perhaps if I ever hear from you again I will hear about how your birthday went - did you know that the number eight is super lucky in China? So since your birthday was on 080808 and you're Chinese - I expect to hear that you have won the lottery, left some of it to me, and are galavanting around the world (hence your lack of communication). The pillows were finished and pictures taken, but alas I have none to show you today because the nifty device (also known as chord) that connects the camera to my computer is not with me now. Tomorrow maybe.

For lunch today (this does have more of a point than simply what I ate for lunch) I went to a cafe, and for the first time in a long time ordered an iced chai. What with the caloric intake of milk and a Mexico trip fast approaching I've been avoiding them. And upon my first sip thought to myself, "That's RIGHT!! I LOVE CHAI!" It was a wonderfully fabulous surprise, though it shouldn't have been, which made it better. Obviously.

I just saw this meme on another blog and thought - ooh what fun. I like this one and am passing it on. Maybe it will spur a post from my elusive friend.

The instructions:

1) Go to Wikipedia.
2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.
3) List three events that happened on your birthday
4) List two important birthdays and one death
5) One holiday or observance (if any)


February 28th

Three events:
1. 1854 - The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. Ironic and amusing given my unwavering liberal values.
2. 1883 - The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts. Fantastic because it led the way for Bette Midler, whose songs I don't love, but who's shows are the most entertaining ever. Ever.
3. 1991 - The first gulf war ends. I can only hope this second one follows suit shortly. I won't even wait until my birthday this time.

Two Important Birthdays
1. 1895 - Marcel Pagnol (who I don't actually know anything about, but he sounds cool and will be warranting some google searches)
2. 1906 - Bugsy Siegel

Important Death
1. 1916 - Henry James

Holiday
1. Kalevala Day - The Day of Finnish Culture (Hmm. Might need to make my birthday a vacation day from work, seeing as it's a holiday and all.)

Sincerely,
PoD

P.S.: A small note to the one person who has stumbled across this blog today - There really is a Jean-Marie, she really did agree to post on this blog, she even suggested she has the draft of a post going. However, this blog will most likely be 90% Cassandra, 10% JM, seeing as she overcommits her time all the time, and won't have more than a few seconds to spare for us.

Making a Blocking Board: It's a family affair

Dearest Jean-Marie (who has yet to respond to my Monday morning greeting),

As you know I leave for Arizona tomorrow! I'm trying to get the Isabella top done, the pillows for my grandparents done, and I need to do laundry, pack and I was going to try and straighten my hair for the trip - think I'll manage? I think perhaps I will, but only if I give up most of my sleep tonight! So, first on the list was felting and blocking the pieces for the pillows I'm making. I dragged my husband into craftland last night and we put together two fabulous blocking boards for yours truly. I do (as I suspected) have more than extra - I have enough board to give you some to make your own small boards, plus a large piece I was thinking of covering that we could share for large pieces (stoles, shawls, etc.)

First - the husband cut the boards for me...



Then I covered the boards in felt - none of the instructions I found online said to do this, but the gingham fabric is so thin, I really wanted something between the board and the fabric.



You'll notice I have a helper... isn't she sweet - the inner workings of these home-made blocking boards are lined with the fur of my darling Mia... with love. As a side note, I was noticing how most of the knitting blogs I read have cats, and everyone seems to assume that just because you knit you have to have a cat - therefore Mia and Merlin will be starring in as many of these posts as possible. Just so everyone knows some of us are dog lovers! As you know, all tools in our house are bigger and heavier than the average tool - and so, my homosote boards are covered on the back side by plywood so that the staple gun I used to attach the felt and fabric didn't push staples all the way through the board to the otherside. These boards are fantastic and I love them... observe Mia and Merlin modeling them for us...



So, I hurriedly finished knitting up the backside of Grandpa's pillow last night and crashed - thrilled with my new boards and ready to felt the pillows... which I did this morning. Very early. Too early. What the hell am I doing awake early. I had to run the agitate cycle THREE times in order to get the amount of felting I wanted. But! Those pillows are knitted, felted, blocked and currently at home drying. Wahoo!

This is Grandpa's pillow, Grandma's is light grey with a pink diamond. There is some stitching that goes in a cross to add the argyle detail, which is going to look so cute! I'm thrilled with these pillows - can't wait to show you the finished product! The top picture is of the pieces before felting, the bottom is felted and blocked. I realize my edges are a bit scraggly but I figure they're pillows... it won't matter once the pieces are sewn together. I bought environmentally friendly stuffing too - which you know makes me happy!

Good Morning!

Dear Jean-Marie,

So here we are... beginning our blog - it seems like only yesterday we had outdated myspace accounts. They grow up so fast! (tear) This blog promises to be lots of fun - I can't wait to see what develops. Over the weekend an argyle pillow developed out of the prettiest wool yarn - my grandma is going to love it. I've also purchased all of the supplies to build my own blocking board, of which I have plenty of extra... I had to purchase a whole sheet of the homosote and only need about half. So, I suppose you'll inherit some of the supplies needed to build your own board. I'm almost done with the shirt I begun a few weeks ago - one front panel left and then voila! I cannot wait to show you... I need to remember to take photographs so that these posts become more colorful. I love reading the ones that provide photos with their posts.

How did Home Depot go? Did you manage to corral your husband away from the costly items? And as a result did you garden yesterday?

Ciao,

Cassandra