Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Mommy, Look What Ashley Made!

Maddison Pasqualotto

Here she is, just a few hours old with her lovely, proud, unpregnant mother Ashley. I got to talk to her just a few minutes ago, and she sounds very happy and amazed (if a little stunned at finally having one of these... and about seeing her feet again).

I've never fallen so instantly in love with a person I've never met. It's funny: until I had a name to think of her with, I couldn't quite figure her out.

Now, I get it.

Senor Sprout

THAT'S RED HAIR PEOPLE!! MY OFFSPRING HAVE A CHANCE!!!!!!!

(Feria, much love to ya, but the real thing kicks your butt!)
Thank you, Amanda, for sharing this fine fine photo of your big bubba.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

In honor of the Bean

Here I am when I was just sprouting.





Nothing but smiles and gambling, Bean, that was me.


Monday, February 26, 2007

The Tree

The shoots are now tiny leaves. No more than a centimeter in size. So cute and fresh. And mine, all mine!! By almost killing the tree, which belonged to I-don't-know-I-guess-my-mom, I have now made it mine. I think I am starting to care about the darn thing. I know, what?!

Unfortunately, the wee leaves are photogenically evasive. When they get a bit bigger, I'll try again.

Is this saga at all interesting to any of you?

I have my doubts.

The Craft Must Go On

Thank you all for your support and condolences, both on blog and off. Brad will definitely be missed. I am sad that I didn't get much time with him now that I'm an adult... He was a wonderful uncle to kid-me, but I would have loved to sit at the adult table with him at a few more holidays. We'll be going up to San Fran two weekends from now to "celebrate". I'm looking forward to it, and I'm really not looking forward to it... it's one of those.

The craft goes on, in spite of our losses, and I am feeling very proud of my progress. Wombat got a new sweater, as he forgot to pack one when he came to stay with us this weekend. Goodbye 80ish yards of acrylicness, HELLO BITCHIN' DOG SWEATER!!!







This is the best fit I've achieved yet. Next time: Cables! Of course, once we saw him lookin' all fly in his new outfit, we each had to have our photo taken with him.









(Note to self: Smile with teeth next time)

I've also spent some time working on Jaywalker 2.2. I turned the heel today, and I am now working on the heel decreases. It should be done by this weekend, I'd imagine.

I also decided to "invent" a sock... if you can even call it that. It's basically just a stockinette stitch sock with a little bit of ankle shaping... I am seriously uncertain as to whether or not it's working... I just winged it because I wanted something easy to knit during the dance competition we watched on Saturday night. I may frog it and try again with a few more stitches so that I can make them into knee-highs (does anyone know if you can make an entire knee high sock out of one ball of Lorna's Shepherd Sock?). We'll see. Jaywalker 2.2 is taking precendence anyway... I'll worry about this one afterward.

So that's that.

I've at least temporarily abandonned the Capecho due to reports that it fits really poncho-ish and not very cropped cardigan-ish as it appears on the cover of the magazine. That won't due. I'm thinking about making the smaller size, but otherwise I'll just use the yarn for something else.

Senor's sweater front continues slowly... I'll get there, people.

****************BREAKING NEWS******************

THE BEAN IS BORN!!!!!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! She's 2 and a half hours old!! She doesn't have a name yet, and she's just a wee thing, 6lb 4oz.

Bring on the pink yarn!

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

In Loving Memory


C. Bradley Mulholland III
1941-2007

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Earthquake Weather

First some photos...
The quilt.
The quilt backing.


Pentagon #1 for Nora Gaughan's "Capecho"-- most fun thing with 5 sides ever.
The completed LEO back... 25 1/2 glorious inches of 3x5 ribbing... eesh...

And a little preview of quilt #2... who is that little monkey?


And now, to address the true subject of this post... Earthquake Weather. Some say it exists... a dry, electric heat that seems to precede big earthquakes here in Southern California. I think it is a myth, but I still wonder every time the sky gets that brownish grey tense look to it. Today is not hot, nor is there tension in the skies, but I feel another kind of earthquake coming... I feel the rough jolts of sadness on the horizon. The planets are aligning. It's not my world that I fear will soon erupt, but the lives of people I care about.
My uncle is not well. He has reached another stable plateau, but it is several steps down from the last moment of quiet status quo. Hope is in short supply, but as long as the doctors are saying "I don't know what's causing this" there is still the chance that someone may figure it out before the end of the hour... Dr. House, we need you. Someone needs to get their head around this illness before the plates shift again.
And then there is Senor's Granny. She's 92. A shadow is falling over her, and she is not strong enough to fight it very well or very long. Granddad isn't much stronger and, I fear, is likely to fall into the darkness of her shadow.
And we, the helpless family members, standing firmly on one side of the fault looking across at the people we can't protect... We can only hope for them that the grey brown clouds drift on without incident, bringing behind them peaceful days. Whether the peace be sad or happy, we can only pray now for that peace to come to those we love.
And the waiting... The waiting is the hardest part.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Man, I am BO-RING!!

Well, actually, I am fascinating, but my blog does not, at present, reflect that.


Mommy, this weekend I made a 6'x6' quilt. Yes. Pieces. Sewn together to form a whole. Fleece lining. Buttons to hold it all in place. A freakin' honest to goodness quilt. Did I take a photo of it? Of course not. I was too busy sitting, knitting, watching the Daytona 500 WRAPPED UP IN MY NEW QUILT!!!


Mommy, this weekend I also finished the back of Senor's "Leo" sweater and started the front. I know I said I was going to do a sleeve, but I changed my mind. I figured I'd get the two marathon pieces finished first. I got about 4" of the 25" total finished. That took all day. Did I take a photo of either of these? See above.


Mommy, I also started the first hexagon of the Capecho (does anyone think that makes it sound like a kind of soup?). How fun is this project? So fun that I forgot to take a photo of it.


And I refuse to give you nothing but another tree photo, so I'll show you this: A photo of Senor's "Spy Girl".


That's me. (See my new curtains? I made those last week.)

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

"MOSTLY DEAD..."

... IS ALSO SLIGHTLY ALIVE!!"




See the tiny shoots at the end of each branch? I may be cured of my resentment of the tree; it appears I may have saved it, and that feels extremely... a little less hateful than I used to feel... So, the tree will live to be killed another day.


This is good news, as my mother just gave me an orchid for Valentine's Day. She insists that it only needs to be watered once a week, just like the tree, just like the other house plants I've been trying to vanquish... Have I changed my evil ways? The new orchid sure is pretty. Of course, they're always pretty before the flowers fall off...


And there's been much knitting, but not much finishing... The second pair of Jaywalkers is underway. In fact, the entire first sock, Jaywalker 2.1, is finished though not perfect. And I'm okay with that. I'm not even going to point out its flaw(s). I am about 2.5 inches down the cuff of Jaywalker 2.2. They're a little big for me this time, but I may keep them anyway.

They are a lot less pink than this in real life... in fact, they are primarily navy blue and brown, but don't tell my camera. It is very sensitive about its shortcomings.

I am also a mere two inches away from the neck shaping on the back of Senor's sweater!!! It has become my television knitting de rigeur, and it is helping a lot! I'll get there. Then I can swatch the "Capecho" from Vogue knitting's cover. And then on to Senor's sleeve. I'll save the front for later. I just don't have the heart.

SOOOO. What are your Valentine's plans? I don't know what mine are, precisely. Here is what I know:
1. We're going somewhere we've never been but have been talking about going.
2. It's not in El Segundo.
3. Eating is not the primary activity (speaking of: I lost 3.5 lbs this past week, yay!).
4. It's in a one story building.
5. I don't need to wear anything fancy or specific for the activity.
6. We don't have to rush right out as soon as we get home from work, but we shouldn't dilly-dally...

That's all. I have my suspicions, which are almost guaranteed to be wrong because they are mine, but I'm interested to know: Where do YOU think we're going?

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Oh yeah...

The skull hat is in a rumpled pile by our front door... it's been there since I threw it when I discovered that not only did "felting" it make it bigger instead of smaller, it also make the grey yarn bleed onto the white. Wrong size AND ugly. Booo...

I'll make another with fewer stitches (the ball band misled me).

I don't know how long the little mushy, distorted, discolored pile will stay by the door... until I am over it, I guess.

Caption Contest

There's no prize, necessarily, but I'd love to see what you all think is going on in this photo. I love it, and while I was there and know what was going on, I just keep coming up with the thoughts of these two favorite critters, wondering what was REALLY going on.

Ready go.

(That's another shot of the hat I made. I didn't think I would like the Lion Brand Suede around the brim, but it does have a cool, chunky lacy feel to it.)

Monday, February 05, 2007

Tree Update and Running

Do they die a little more before they recover?


I feel a little bad for the tree.

But I can't feel that bad because I ran another 10K yesterday, and I kicked some serious booty!! I cut 5 minutes off of my time from October, I sprinted the last 0.2 miles like a madwoman, and I beat my best treadmill pace of 5mph!!! Who's a superwoman?! I did it in 1:11:12, and I beat 410 people out of 3006! Okay, so I could have placed higher, but I promise I passed about 30 people in my final sprint...

My dad and I ran together (except for the last little stretch), and it was much more fun that way! It was super hard, but I am looking forward to the next one. St. Patrick's Day, I think.

I'll post photos when I get some. The tree looks how I felt at the end, but the race people gave us free beer after, so then I felt better.

The Superbowl was just silly, wasn't it?