We’re still waiting for the roof to dry out enough so that we can repair the leak above the bathroom, and get to work remodeling the bathroom. This weather needs to start cooperating with my plans– I find it totally unacceptable that it insists on drizzling right over our house.

One bright side is that this gives Matt and I more time to argue over materials, colors and fixtures. I am trying to convince him to let me clean up the old tub (which is quite good and usable) and shower doors and sell them, so that I can put the money towards a nice old clawfoot tub and hardware.

He doesn’t think that cleaning it up would be worth the effort because it’s so old and ordinary, and that in order to sell it we’d have to refinish it. I looked it over (yesterday, when I was taking a bath) and I can’t see any wear or scratches so I’m not quite sure what he means. I think he thinks that I am not going to have the patience to sell it.

Admittedly we have wildly different tastes when it comes to materials and colors.

We’re like that song; he’s a little bit country and I’m a little bit rock n’ roll punk rock.

Cutest nightmare fuel ever.

Candy + Sushi = candy sushi.

I’ve wanted to do this since spotting this Make: How to.

I made the rice crispy treat base, but everything else was a group effort with the kids right down to the roe eggs and oddly placed jelly & marshmallow frogs on the board. Lexi even added her own chopsticks next to the ‘ginger.’

Clean up was a breeze (it mostly involved the phrase “Eat the extras and put the wrappers in the garbage”– there were no complaints.)

Once I decide on a tried and true thing it’s very hard for me to change brands, or even styles within a brand. I debated for days, then weeks, and then timidly added harmony interchangable needles and cables to my shopping cart. I must have read the description at least a hundred times before completing the order (that’s the thing with monomania, it is an OCD and not a terribly fun one at that.) I ordered a set of size 4 and a set of size 6, along with 24″ and 32″ cables.

They are beautiful. The joins to the cable are smooth and the tips are perfectly pointylicous.

Lexi’s baby doll provided the perfect opportunity to try out the size 4 needles. The green and white sweater was done on size 0 bamboo needles, yarn is 2-ply Falkland sock yarn that I spun up last year or the year before last. The purple and blue yarn is 2 ply merino sportweight that I dyed and spun around the same nonspecific time frame. I knit that one using my new needles, I love my new needles.

Love love love!

Let’s start with what can be seen from the doorway. There’s the sewing machine. Mom and I might not agree on much, but we do agree that an older machine is a precious workhorse that will never fail. Usually there’s a box of something on the chair and not much covering the surface of the sewing table, for some reason the situation was reversed this day.

Then there’s the other sewing desk. I think there’s another sewing machine in there. And usually it has a serger sitting on the top.

Oh yes. There’s the serger. It’s like Where’s Waldo but with craft supplies. Can you see the interfacing? Spot the ribbon? Which one?

Now at this point you might wonder if Mom actually uses all her craft supplies or does she just grow the stash? In truth, she’s a pretty dedicated crafter and during the slow times in her business she busies herself whittling down the stash and creating some really delightful stuff.

Josey is also being very nice to me. I was treated to muffins earlier in the week, and found that the dishes had been washed. The crowning achievement was a room that stayed clean(ish) all week. That was nice.

Why all the niceness? I have no idea, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Nothing is missing or broken, the house hasn’t burnt down and all their school work is done– they are just being spontaneously nice. I’m just going to appreciate it.

It’s the last week of my Business 105 course, all my courses are accelerated, so this week instead of the usual two assignments I have three. And it’s the Thursday before a weekend craft show, so of course I have three assignments in different stages of incompletion. I have until Saturday to turn them in, but I’d rather not push it until the eleventh hour.

I’ll be staying at my Mom’s over the weekend (since she’s also going to be at the craft fair.) I’m going to try to remember to bring the camera with me so I can document what we affectionately refer to as “Beanie Baby Hell” for your amusement. I’ve tried in the past to describe the 9 layers of Beanie Baby Hell to people but words fall short of the actual experience, inevitably people think I am exaggerating.

And if it doesn’t place my life in direct peril (it might) I’ll also snap some pics of the craft room of death. That room, as tempting and delightful as it’s contents might be, has tried to take lives in the past, including my own– maybe it actually has claimed lives and we just don’t know it yet, because the bodies are so cleverly concealed by bolts of fabric and boxes of notions like a plush cask of Monticello.
My theory is that the craft room operates much the same as a pitcher plant, promising the sweet nectar of endless crafting and leading it’s victims to inevitable destruction. What sinister secrets it hides behind a facade of innocent polar fleece and bolts of broadcloth have yet to be revealed.

Enough procrastinating for me. I’m off to finish my schoolwork so I can go outside and play.

Thinking I was really clever I measured, sewed and cut the button holes. Assembled said buttons from coordinating scraps and fixed them to the front of the frock.

Lexi seemed to have forgotten all about the coveted frog buttons and wore the frock around the house, happily twirling and twisting the long hemmed skirt of it, testing it for tricycle safety and showing it off to her brother and father.

Then my husband informed me that she’d taken off the dress and left it in my sewing area. Now there’s only one reason anyone leaves anything in the sewing area and thats for mending.

I picked up the dress wondering if one of the seams had given way, or if indeed the hemline was not exactly tricycle proofed.

No.

It’s missing a button.

“Lexi, what happened to the button?”

“I cut it off.”

“Why?”

“It was wet.”

“How did it get wet?”

“There was spit on it.”

“How did it get spit on it?”

“I spit on it.”

“You spit on it and cut it off your dress?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to fix it.”

“Oh, you need a button!” Lexi produces the card of frog buttons.

Now at this point I have to give her credit for being persistent if nothing else and for planning ahead to create some kind of (demented as it may be) cover story. I could have asked her why she spit on the button in the first place, but I figure that’s probably self evident as she seems to hate all buttons excluding the frog buttons.

And wait.

And do a little more waiting.

I finished another frock for Lexi, all but the buttons. I don’t exactly know why some of her dresses are “dresses” and some are “frocks” but she differentiates the two and this one is a “frock.” The mind of a four year old is a mysterious thing. I have buttons for it somewhere but we’re having creative differences. I want to sew modest matching blue-gray plastic buttons onto the dress and she wants bright green frog buttons.

Usually I’ll go along with her requests, this time– no. The bright green frog buttons are slated for use on another dress (frock?) that I’m going to make using pink printed fabric that features bright green frogs. The cuteness quotient of the next dress (or frock) will be off the scale with those buttons and I am *not* using the frog buttons before that dress (or frock) is made.

This has resulted in the disappearance of the blue-gray buttons.

Well played Lexi. Well played.

In a house full of gameboys, comics, books, and movies that my child chooses knitting. Sweet.

And speaking of games. Darling husband decided that I should have a Nintendo DS lite, and Pokémon Pearl to go along with it. So my free time is currently being consumed traveling through the Sinnoh region filling my pokédex and battling team Galaxy. I just beat the 8th gym leader and I’m leveling up before challenging the elites.

If you have no idea what that means, you’re probably a mature adult. However, I am not a mature adult. Case in point, mature adults are not tempted to declare “Mortal Kombat!” when they see a really good sale on yarn. Or shout out “Merino! I choose you!” when shopping for sock yarn.

You have to admit some yarns do sound like Pokémon names. Koigu? It could be a yarn or it could be a water type Pokémon that oozes silk. You just never know, it’s not limited to yarn, knitting needles too. Addi Turbos could possibly be a hold item to boost speed in battle and help you escape from wild Pokémon.

Curriculum will include a lab, two field trips to actual yarn stores as well as skill placement examinations and gift wrapping. Your significant other will learn purse holding, basic listening skills and will be able to appreciate the difference between periwinkle and lavender.

My husband bought me a yarn swift. This officially makes Matt the best husband EVER.

Gotta’ love a man that understands a serious yarn habit. It helps that he was so generous as to only put 21 candles on my birthday cake yesterday.