This Is What I Do In My Spare Time

So I'm not done any of my projects. But I did complete about 80 rows on my shawl that I started on the 29th, so that in itself is an accomplishment. If you're impressed by knitting that is.

Now, I'd like to say that I didn't finish my knitting projects because I was quilting, or going for walks, or, well, anything productive, but truthfully, I was playing Sims. Now now, I should say that I set a limit. I ignore that limit mostly, but gosh darn it I set that timer. Then I turn it off when it goes and then I have no limit. See how well that works?

Anyways, I had to re-install Sims because there was something wrong with my latest disc and the game wasn't opening. I lost all my games but that's fine because it's nice to restart. I always start with my main two characters: Milla and Angel. Sometimes I start them off in the same house, but this time I started them off as strangers in different houses, and I decided that they had to have lives before hooking up and spending the rest of their lives together.

Now Sims comes with pre-made families that have their own back story and characters and dilemmas and such. I usually ignore these families except to steal a character from them or something. Not this time. This time I was a tad... bad. It's actually kind of awful. It really is. I'm going to Sims2 hell no doubt. But gosh, it's fun.

And at this point, I assume you are all interested in the game Sims2. If you are not, you really should have stopped reading at this point. If you came for quilting or knitting, I'm terribly sorry. I have a new quilt to show soon, I promise. If you aren't aware of Sims2, but reading thinking I'm going to go somewhere with this, it's a game where you make people and led their lives. They have to get jobs or make money somehow, and eat and they have to interact with other sims, they can have families and children, and you can kill them or make them miserable or help them accomplish their life goals and the such and some of the jobs have helicopters that pick them up, and they also have pets! It's so much fun. Not addicting at all.

Anyways, the family I picked was the Pleasant family
The back story is that the twin girls are awful, the wife, Mary Sue, ignores the husband, Daniel, and he's in love with the maid and wants woo-hoo. At this point Daniel is also in love with Angel, the character I created. He's very forlorn, Daniel is, and he wants a change. He knows something radical needs to happen for him to be happy again.
It turns out solving the husband/wife dilemma was easy. They ignored the twins and made out in the kitchen. However, that wasn't enough for Daniel. He totally cheated with the maid while Mary Sue was at work and when she came home he invited Angel over and they had woohoo. Because Mary Sue was in the house, she came running over right away. Awkward.
Angel left the room quickly and started making himself spaghetti in the kitchen.
Daniel begged for fogiveness but alas, it was too much.
Mary Sue divorced him and kicked him out of the house on the spot.
You can't see but Angel is sitting in the dining room in his underwear eating the spaghetti. I had to get Mary Sue to go over and ask him to leave and when she did ask him to leave they shook hands pleasantly.

So Daniel moved into a little house that only has a microwave and a cheap shower. He has a good job and did get a lot of money out of the move but he spent it all on this.
A drum set.
And a gnome. The two things he felt he couldn't have before.
To prove he's okay Daniel quickly rebounded with the maid and asked her to marry him. She accepted, and I'm so sad I didn't get a photo but after she accepted and left, he thinks of the engagement and starts to cry. Turns out he really didn't want to get engaged. It's all a rouse.
After moving into the loser pad, and getting a regretful engagement to the maid, he heads over to Angel's place to tell him the good news that he is no longer married (just engaged).
He claims he only married Mary Sue for the money....
but Angel is upset about that and also upset about the engagement to the maid. No matter how good of a cook she is. They argue a lot. They argue into the night...
here is Angel saying he won't go to a beach party with him...
and they argue until, for some reason, they end up in the bathroom (the toilet is broken, that's why there's a puddle on the floor, okay?), where Angel breaks it off. Mostly cause he's about to propose to Milla, the other character I created. Oh, and also because Daniel doesn't like Angel's cat.

So, Daniel got what he wanted. No kids to worry about, a drum set, he's engaged to the french maid, and he's got a gnome. No doubt he's happy now.
Except for the fact that he keeps on balling up his fists and stomping his feet and having tantrums. Besides that yeah.

In other news, the twin girls grades have improved and Mary Sue is 'seeing' the mailman. And this guy she brought home from work. And the female gardener. See! It all works out in the end.

Chilling Out

Today I played Sims2 till 3pm. It was interrupted briefly to eat my lunch which was the fresh pasta I picked up from Granville Island yesterday and once to have a bubble bath because I got jealous of my sim. Then I went out for to a fancy Chinese restaurant with my UBC friends where they serve a bean tapioca pudding for dessert with every meal. It's pretty hard being me sometimes. Pretty hard indeed.

Anyhoo, I am on a quest to finish a knit object in March. I have so many on the go and cast on a new one today but I am determined! I know March is only two more days but here goes.

Warning: bad photos ahead. I'm tired and it's nighttime and my apartment has the worst lighting ever. Ever. And I'm tired.

I am swatched and ready for my sister's arrrrgyle baby blanket. It's soooo soft. Blue Sky Alpaca cotton. This was knit stranded but the blanket will be intarsia so the other colours won't peek through, and I won't decrease on the purl side rows like I did on the swatch here.
Oh, my spring break scarf that I am not loving. Should I frog it? Yes or no? I'm not into it, I get so bored knitting it, and I know it needs a proper blocking and all to appreciate it but meh.
My dad's sweater is nearly at the sleeves. I'm not repeating the same pattern for the yoke as the bottom of the sweater. Don't know why I didn't. I just didn't. And I think I'm going to run out of the brown soon.
And the new project I started today. Ishbel in my favorite yarn ever, Vintage. I love it. I hate doing yarn overs between knit and purl stitches so I'm pfb on the wrong side rows instead of yos. It'll be fine.
And the most likely candidate for finishing in March. The last of my Mom's ankle socks in the colinette colour left over from the fingerless mitts.
I'd also like to note that I hit a very hard spot in my yarn diet. I've been so good on my yarn diet because I haven't been tempted. I'd seen all the yarn before, I didn't know what to knit out of the yarn I hadn't seen, there was no issue. Until I went to Three Bags Full with my Mom and Jubbers. There was a yarn, not even unpacked, and my oh my, how I wanted it. The temptation was awful. I made plans. I looked up sweaters and figured out how many skeins I would need. I found the perfect cardigan and doodled it on my notebook in the colourway of the yarn. I daydreamt about it.

But I did not buy it. Nosireebob. I made it. Now all I have to do is never go into a yarn store ever again. My 'get out of jail free' card is being reserved for Rhinebeck. I am a good girl. I will not falter.

Now excuse me while I go pout about the yarn by casting on two new sweaters. Who cares about the March deadline Stupid beautiful yarn. pout

Since I Can't Buy Yarn...

I've told you all about the yarn diet (rav link)right? I haven't bought yarn since January 1st, 2011. Even before that I was being ultra-good. Usually I only bought yarn while under the influence of this one here.

Now I was worried that I would just start buying up fabric like stinky cheese but thankfully this hasn't been the case. I'm actually very good at maintaining a two project workload with my quilting. A big project and a quick project. And while I do have some fabric without a home, my fabric stash isn't even close to being an issue. I'm glad for that, since quilting makes knitting look like something you could do with nary a dime to your name. Frak it's expensive.

I haven't been to Fabricana since my Aunt came to see me in... November? October maybe. Anyhoo, me bestest drove all the way from Vernon to come see me, six and a half months pregnant at that, so another visit was in order.

The first set of fabric I bought was in response to me nearly finishing my nephews 2nd birthday quilt (he turns 3 in May). This quilt has been put away for a long time because I formally messed up the border. I didn't have enough fabric to tuck into the edging and my hidden stitches were not hidden. It was awful.
oh, and I had to rip out a lot of sandwich stitching because the machine went berserk.
But after a month of glaring I finally took it out of the closet and reassessed it. I was ruthless and took my rotary cutter to the edging to achieve two things: Get rid of it and even out the edge. Afterwards I took some beautiful orange fabric (a gift from Mal's Mom at that!) and realized how perfect it was.
I totally cheated and zigzagged the edging on but I don't care. I was about reading to lose my mind and it looks great.
I have a few finishing touches but it's about 98% done. So I bought fabric for another lovely flannel quilt.
I really liked the pale yellow fabric and basically pulled the other colours from the selvedge dots. It's a pretty safe quilt but I think the recipient is going to love it. The colours are not showing up well in the photo but it's a green, blue, purple, and red to go with the yellow.
Now, I'm still working away on the shark quilt. The kitties approve thankfully.
And while a lot of the edges are not lining up, I have my moments.
I was really excited to get to the point where I finished off the sunlight fabric. I don't know now if the fabric was the best choice but it's kinda too late now. I feel it is too white and the blue that is on it is too dark. Blarg. Will I paint it? I don't know. I would have to do some research and it would be a lot of work on top of a project that is already taking me a freakish amount of time but we'll see. I'm not ruling it out.

Anyhoo, today I did some more work on it and finished row 29. When I put it together I finally felt like I could see the sharks emerging. I know it's very abstract and, well, weird, but I was pretty thrilled when I laid it out and saw the individual sharks. It's also cool that I only have SEVEN more rows to do.
Well, seven more rows, than the rest of the front, the back, and then sandwiching it, and somehow sewing that up, and then the border. Yeah. Looking forward to that a lot.

However, I'm doubly excited to finish because of my next big quilt that I bought fabric for with Jodi. It's the Moda line of fabric called Central Park(pdf). I loved it the moment I saw it.

The dark gray is going to be the whole quilt, no border, gray back, nothing on it, but the front is going have circles cut out, using Ric Rac's tutorial, in three sizes. The largest circle will have the animal print, the medium ones will have the three prints on the right, and the small circles will have the brick patterns. SO EXCITING!!! I have already washed, ironed, and folded the fabric, and started planning the project on paint. I love it already. I could puke a little from happiness when I think about having this quilt on my bed. LOOK AT THAT ELEPHANT!!!
And I made skull sugar cookies for my fellow teachers on parent-teacher interview day. They were eaten in record time.
(I made more than six, this was just a good picture)

There has been knitting

Report cards are not fun. And having to do them for two classes? Even more so. Boourns I say. Boourns.

In other news, I love my slow cooker. I just made the healthiest yummiest dinner ever. I put in some chicken, some chicken broth, tomatoes, lentils, potatoes, and yams and cooked it for four hours. Crickey.

Lala and Spike. It's been a year since I brought Lala home and Spike stopped addressing my presence. Turned out he wasn't lonely, he just had diabetes, and getting a kitten was the last thing on his list of fun things to do.
This is progress for them. Not cuddling, but at least on the same couch.

And I bought a ukulele.

In knitting news, I finished a pair of fingerless mitts.


I finally finished my Nina shawl.

I'm halfway done a scarf for my friend which I call the Lettuce scarf.
And it's slow going but I'm moving along on my dad's cardigan. It's knit in the round but then I'll steek it for button band.
Well, it's almost nine. So I'm going to bed.

It's Ten O'Clock on Friday Night and I'm Going to Bed

but to be fair, I've had two martinis (chocolate espresso) so the night isn't a total write off.*

Today was a good day all in all. It was the last day in my class. We had a good day, very busy, with gym and library and lots of projects to finish. My amazing aide helped them create a very nice card with they wrote messages to me on cut-out balls of yarn and then they decorated the card with yarn. One student drew a picture of my desk with all my shoes lined up underneath it. The staff was so generous and very thoughtful and went out a picked out a beautiful file folder container printed with William Morris. I received hugs from kids I never thought would hug me and very nice cards, along with two pounds of dark whole coffee beans and a whole flock of miniature paper cranes.

The flowers were gorgeous too.
So today at lunch I found out where I'm going on Monday. I'm headed to an Annex where I'll be teaching Grade 2/3 till the end of the school year. It's pretty freaky in that those are the two grades I've never taught but I'm really excited. It's made last week's purchases rather great in hindsight.
That is, starting from top left and going clockwise, City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Williams and Jon J Muth, The Magic Paintbrush by Joel Stewart, The Little Hummingbird by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, and Silent Music; A Story of Bahdad by James Rumford.

All four books are just skookum. My favorite bookstore was having a big sale and I had at least twenty books with me with no place to sit since all the benches had been removed for sale bins. The staff was awesome and simply moved a few things out of the way so I could sit down and go through all my books in one of the window display sections.
City dog, country frog is a very lovely story and the illustrations are very powerful. They made me laugh and, though I should state this isn't hard to do, made me cry.

Yup, just got choked up again. Moving along.

Silent Music is an important and unique story and the artwork in this book is breathtaking! The layers of prints and mediums is musical in itself.



I've read it about five times and each time I find something new to marvel at.

The Magic Paintbrush is a great story and the illustrations are wonderful, but I couldn't seem to get a good photo of any of them. They are full of motion and life.
I read The Little Hummingbird to my students today. It's a powerful short story and is so well suited to the illustrations. It's one of those stories that I can't see told without these accompanying drawings.

Very striking and moving.

Now, I go to bed. Here's to good reads and to me not getting taken over and run out of town by 7 and 8 year olds.

*just so you don't worry, some friends took me out for dinner, I'm not having those martinis here at home by myself. Though I wish I was cause those were good.