Happy Halloween

Hope all of you who are taking children trick-or-treating, or all those who enjoy giving candy to the little visitors at your door have a fun evening.
We'll be stopping at our next door neighbor's then going over to grandma's house. Most of the trick-or-treaters in grandma's neighborhood are four feet tall or shorter. We have a blast there.

We have not participated in trick of treat in our own neighborhood since the year I had a porch full of teenagers taller than me smoking cigarettes and asking for candy. That took all the joy out of it for us.

Frescoes

Friday was the big day when the kids finally got to take to the water colors and paint their frescoes. It took a long time for the plaster to dry compared to what I remember from four years ago when the Artist was in first grade, but I think it was worth the wait.

They were looking forward to this project for a week. The Artist had used the time to consider what she would paint. For all I know, the Engineer did too. He announced that he was going to paint his "green".I encouraged him to make a picture of something, and he opted for a self portrait.
The weekend was also filled with some outdoor play while it was still warm enough to wear the lighter jackets. The kids raked leaves into great grand piles and jumped in. The Artist also go the Engineer to cooperate this year when she tried to bury him in the leaf pile.

Summer Sweater

Moving right along, the summer sweater has alternated between giving me fits and whipping along easy as can be. When I keep careful track of which row I'm on, all is right in the knitting world. Otherwise, a lot of tinking is going on with the needles and the knitting is left to my eyebrows.

A lifeline after every twelfth row repeat has helped somewhat. Thankfully, I've never had to rip back more than a few rows on this one. I'm hoping that a steaming will remove all the horizontal lines from where the lifelines have been removed. They don't really show up on the photo, but I can see them! I have not worked a garment in reverse stockinette before. I'm still not used to it.
Here you can see the back panel is complete and the front just begun. This pattern makes me feel like I get great results with minimum difficulty. I expected it to be more complicated. That makes me even more happy with it.

Fresco update -- last week the plaster tablets did not dry thoroughly before class time, so we skipped art last week. Hopefully I'll have some paintings to show on Monday. I expect the Engineer's will end up being a big green blob like most of his paintings., but maybe he'll surprise me.

Three Projects

This post represents three projects in various stages of completeness. The first is mine. This is the piano we bought from as estate several years ago. The finish is uneven, sun damaged, and completely worn in some spots. I've recently learned about a product called Restor-a-Finish. It sounds like a magic bullet for the very problem our piano has. I'd like to try it out, but first I'd like to know if you have had any experience with this product. The last thing I'd like to do is make this piece of furniture that makes its home in my dining room look worse!

Are you wondering what the Engineer is doing? He is examining the way the hammers strike the strings. The Quipper has opened up the piano for one of his projects. He is recording some music, and has the best success with the computer's microphone right in there by the strings.

The Engineer, as always, is fascinated with the way things work. Finally, way back in April, the Artist began work on a little stuffed bunny.

Sunday evening she finally completed it, and now it has a home on Honey's (her doll's) bed. Unfortunately in this photo you cannot see the cute little i-cord tail she fashioned for the bunny.

Baseball Heartbroken

My baseball heart is broken...
...but hot stove league talk is fascinating to me and February is not too distant in the future. And I have lots to keep me busy between now and then.

Unfortunately, the first spring training game is late, not until Feb. 27th this year.

The first game of spring training has always been a school holiday for Homestead Lutheran Academy and I'll keep that tradition in 2008.

Go Rockies! This story about their organization is touching.

My Engineer asked me the score this morning. "How many points did the Boston get?"

I had to say "Eleven" as compassionately as I could.

Then the next question, "And how many did the Cleveland Indians get?"

Alas, the expression on his sweet face when I could only hold up two fingers.

He hears from us that you are not allowed to cry when you lose (or are losing) a game. He looked truly hurt, but I am proud of him for his delayed response.

Dear readers, laugh with me, he said "At least we still have football."

School Fun

The Artist's grammar book instructed her to write a poem. Here is the result:

Reading Books

I love reading books.
They capture my attention.
Some even spark up
My imagination.

Story books, picture books,
Joke books galore!
History books, coloring books,
And so much more.

I think she did pretty well.

The kids will enjoy their art classes tomorrow too. In history we are nearly finished with our study of ancient Egypt and about to begin our study of ancient Greece. Both cultures used frescoes to decorate buildings. While we will not be decorating a building, we will be making mini frescoes.

It all starts with this. Then I pour the plaster into two 6" x 9" disposable baking tins. And I'm glad I have the benefit of cleaning up with running water. Next cut a few inches of wire and knob the ends so the wire stays embedded in the plaster. Now they need to sit for a couple of days to dry. The plaster tablets will easily come out of the tins when the plaster is dry. A little wet sanding will get rid of the impressions from the bottoms of the pans. Then the kids will get to paint them with their watercolors.

The thirsty plaster absorbs a lot of water, so the paint needs to be thick or applied in layers to get a lasting color. Once the paint is dry the frescoes are ready for hanging. Four years ago, when the Artist was in first grade, we made some frescoes. I still have one hanging on the wall.

Seven Things Meme

My favorite young photographer has tagged me for a meme. Thank you, Emily! Now I can copy your idea for a post instead of having to come up with one of my own on my busiest day of the week. Yea!



Rules:

1. Link the person who has tagged you.
2. Tell seven true things about yourself.
3. Tag seven new people.
4. Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it.

Okay then,
1. Please visit my favorite young photographer
2. See below.
3. Thanks, but no thanks.
4. Right after I'm done here...


Seven Truths:

1. I am thoroughly Lutheran.
2. I like to see what I can create with knitting.
3. I'm learning how to bake really really good bread, the kind bread snobs call "artisan bread."
4. I enjoy going to the theater.
5. Ballet is my first love.
6. Ballet has been replaced with my loving husband and children and I'm happy.
7. I've climbed mountains in New York and Arizona, I've snorkeled off the Hawaiian and Ohio Key, Florida coasts. I like to travel, but I love coming home again.

Shrug

Over the weekend I completed the shrug I was working on. I ended up making some small alterations. First, I made the back drop closer to my waist than the instructions called for.

The instructions say to use an non-curling edge stitch. I selected seed stitch. Apparently, I did not use enough stitches in my edges, because they still curled as much as ordinary stockinette would have. So a second change I made was to knit a section of ribbing and attach it to the bottom edge of the shrug.

Finding a ribbing to use was fun. Just as I needed it, a book I'd requested came in to my library. I had a ball leafing through Knitting Over the Edge by Nicky Epstein. Soooooo many things to try in there! I fiddled with a couple before I found one that would suit my purpose.

Here is the finished product. It is light and warm -- exactly what I wanted. Here is a detail of the Mock Cable Eyelet ribbing style from the book. I'll be wearing my shrug a lot this winter.

Feathered Friend

We had an unexpected visitor hanging around our front porch Wednesday morning. A pigeon looked like she was trying to find some shelter there. I really don't want birds nesting on the front porch again, as it was rather messy last time that happened. So I went out to chase her from the porch.

When she chose to walk from me rather than fly I suspected something was amiss. Sure enough, she had a leg band, meaning she belonged to somebody, and that somebody would soon be wondering what happened to her. I tried to catch up to her, but her walk changed to a run and I ended up chasing her into the neighbor's garage. Oops.

Appointments kept me from doing anything more about it at the time. But I wondered if she would still be there when we got home.

Around noon we returned home, but we didn't see our feathered friend around, and the neighbor's garage door was now closed. As I was getting organized for lunch I heard a car horn beeping. My neighbor was arriving home and honking at the bird to get it out of her car's path. I went out to help. Soon, the Artist, my neighbor's two preschoolers, and we two ladies were all chasing around this poor confused flightless pigeon. She was not too crazy about closing it back into her garage.

Finally the poor dear was cornered and she turned to bravely face me as I reached for her as gently as I could. My neighbor retrieved the pet carrier I had left inside my back door, and we slipped the pigeon inside it with some water and popcorn kernels. I washed my hands for several minutes with lots of soap.
Now she would be safe from cats and other predators around while I tried to contact the owner. Oh rats! To begin that search I'll need her band information. With all that hand washing for naught, I reached back into the cage and read off the band while the Artist recorded the information for me. My first call was to the pastor who had given a talk and demonstration to our home school group last year. He took the band number and told me he would try to contact the owner's club's secretary, who would in turn call the owner.

In the interim I found my way to the corner drug store for some bird seed and found some websites that gave me some information about how to locate owners as well. For the rest of the day we took frequent breaks to go check on the pigeon. We were pleased to see she had eaten a bit. And I believe she drank some water too, or at least threw some food into the water dish.

It started to rain, so I brought the pet carrier onto the back screened porch. every time the phone rang all afternoon I thought it may be news of the bird's owner, but no luck with that. Until around eight in the evening.

When the phone rang I introduced myself to a retired police man who had released her one full week earlier and wondered what had happened to her. He came to pick up a few minutes later. He looked at her wings and guessed she had probably had an encounter with a hawk, but he thought she would heal and fly again fairly soon. You can see in the picture above her wings don't fold back over her body symmetrically, the right is a little droopy.

It turns out the owner is a friend of the pastor who helped me initially with bird-care advice and locating the owner. Small world!

Twice before he left he asked if we wanted to keep her. I politely declined as we're not ready to take on another pet just yet. And the poor thing looked so miserable cooped in the cat carrier. When I removed her and her daddy took her in his hand she settled down and looked proud as a peacock, happy to be "home".

Humble Pie

My in-laws brought some 40 apples to us the other day. I thought it would be nice to make some apple pie and apple crisp and apple pancakes and...you get the idea.

Yesterday I had a chance to make a pie. For the first time since I'd been given some silicone bake ware as a gift I was making a pie just for the family -- not for any guests. This was finally my opportunity to try out the silicone pie dish.

I've been very pleased with the silicone loaf pans and I don't use metal ones any more. I use the silicone muffin pans less often, but they are easier than their metal counterparts as well, especially in the cleanup phase.

As for the pie plates, their diameter is a little larger than my metal pans. This makes them a wee bit too big for the Pillsbury prepared pie crusts. (I hate making and I don't like eating my own pie crusts.) It was hard to make a good seal and impossible to crimp the edges.

When using silicone in the past, I have not noticed any variations in bake time compared to using metal bake ware, so I did not even consider that there may be a difference using the pie plate. I popped it in the oven, set the timer, and continued with my day. After ten minutes it was time to reduce the oven temperature and reset the timer. Everything looked good.

When the timer went off again the top was a wee bit burnt. Not badly enough that I was smelling it through the house, but badly enough that the pie didn't look so good. I picked a few blackened pieces of apple from the vents before taking this photo. Rick to the rescue...
To solve the problem of how the pie looked, I called Rick at the office to ask if he could buy some vanilla ice cream on his way home. It is amazing how ice cream can cover burnt crust blemishes!

The last straw for the silicone pie plates was the difficulty I had in removing slices of pie from the plate. I served the pie a la mode in bowls because it would not remove from the dish without falling apart. Those pie plates are likely destined for the Goodwill store.

Fall Clean Up

It was about time I did something about the sorry little plot I like to call a garden in my back yard. The plants left behind by the animals were dried to crisps and the seeds were mostly done dropping for next years parsley and dill. Most of the clean up was quick and easy. I'll turn over the soil after a few more days. I sprayed some weeds I'd battled all summer with a weed killer, so I'll give it a few days to work.

Then I looked over to the flower garden. There were some out of control weeds there too, waiting to be pulled. Got that taken care of. There were hundreds of twigs from the oaks waiting to be removed. The squirrels provide more little twigs every day. I didn't begin to clear out the acorns that have begun falling into the garden. But I did get some overgrown hosta divided and tiger lilies removed . They were becoming nuisances to their neighbors.

Then I remembered the forsythia needed to be pruned back just a little to keep away from the neighbor's garage. I wanted to be very careful about this. If new branches were cut I'd lose next year's blooms. So I crept back behind there to get a good look all around.

What should I find back there but a huge weed. It was about an inch in diameter where it grew from the ground, taller than me and covered with ripe burrs ready to snag any deer that might get close to it. In an unparalleled display of acting first and thinking later, I tried to uproot it. I succeeded in raining thousands of burrs down upon myself -- hair, shirt, shorts, socks, shoes, all over.
By the way, I did not even succeed in loosening the soil around the roots. So I trotted out to the garage for my shears. Walking in burr covered clothes served to drive the burrs further into my clothing and make them itch against my skin. But the worst part was that they looked like bugs. I kept spotting them clustered all over myself and thinking they were bugs. Countless times I reminded myself-- they are not bugs. Its a good thing too, else I'd probably still be running around the back yard screaming.

Finally I hacked through the stem with the shears and got that big bully into a garbage bag. Next I had to figure out how to get rid of the burrs. Thankfully the Artist could fetch my bathrobe for me. I wonder how many times I'll need to launder that outfit?

Then I got myself into the shower. You may have heard teenagers take long showers. Today I probably had them all beat. I lost count of how many times I washed my hair. I just kept going until I no longer saw burrs rinsing out to the tub. When the steam cleared from the clock I learned more than half an hour had passed!

Two Projects

I have two projects underway at the moment. With the cold weather coming on and my favorite every-day cardigan showing signs of wear I've begun a simple shrug. The first sleeve is nearly complete at this point.
There were scores of patterns to choose from at Knitting Pattern Central. I knew I wanted something with a longer sleeve and a longer back for utility, not a cute or a swanky accessory. I settled on the Chocolate Shrug because I thought I had enough wool-ease on hand to complete it. But my search through the patterns has left me

entranced by this garment.

Something else to yarn-shop for! I'll have to look in my closet and find what would be the best color to consider.

The other is the summer top I started about a week and a half ago. I am enjoying the sleek feel of the Berroco glace yarn. I do find it very difficult to work with the skeins. The yarn is slippery enough to become tangled easily no matter how careful I am, but then I have only had the practice of working with three skeins so far. Untangling a skein and winding it into a ball takes enough time to make me not want to use this yarn again.
I have not made a reverse stockinette garment before, it is interesting to see how it will turn out. The section I've knitted so far is not long enough for me to get a good idea of the drape yet, and being so tightly packed onto a straight needle the results are skewed. In the past I have not worn many things with this much texture. The photo has such a classic-natural feel that I could not pass it up.

Rick has had another horrific work week so we're headed out dancing this evening. We'll visit, Spectators Sports Grille, the club his band is playing next week, to see the band Disco Inferno. Hopefully we'll get to enjoy a little Tribe while we're there. Should be fun!

Pan Handle Cover

A while back I made a cast iron pan handle cover for a friend. Since then, I have been asked for a few more. One was accidentally roasted in the oven (burning wool smell doesn't mix well with roasting dinner smell). And my friend wants to give some to other members of her family. Since the last time I photographed one of these holders I have become more adept at the two-handed knitting. Because of the insulation desired on this particular tool, I have also decided to continue making these both double stranded and with the twined knitting technique. It felts into such a dense fabric, like a super thick and heavy wool blanket.

Tournament

Saturday was a long day. We began taking a leisurely drive toward the Summit County Fair Grounds. When we had been on the road a while, we realized there was an error in our directions some where and we were not far from our destination, but not there yet either. Don't you hate that feeling?

To save time the Artist changed into her uniform in the car. That is quite a trick when wearing a seat belt.

We arrived at the tournament in time to register and to learn that the 3-5-year-olds were competing first. Tournaments are a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Thankfully, there were other folks from our school to talk with and go through warm ups with. Some of the nine-year-olds from our school competed first. We cheered them on as they did their forms, and moved to the next ring to watch our ten-year-olds.

The Artist did very well. She gives a little something extra when she is on center stage I think. She earned the gold medal in her age group.

After the forms were done, board breaking competitions began. The Artist did not compete in this event, so she was free to watch her classmates, all of whom did well.

We all enjoyed watching some of the advanced belts do some spectacular breaks. Some competitors needed two large men to hold and brace a board, and a third behind them bracing the men's backs. The sharp sound of splintering wood was heard from all parts of the arena. The occasional dull thuds of limbs glancing off boards immediately followed by the mix of sharp breaths or groans by the onlookers were interesting to see. A couple of competitors hobbled on sore feet the rest of the day due to failed breaks.

The sparring ended the day. The tournament organizers were at a loss to find a sparring partner for the Artist. When she grows taller and heavier that will be easier. Since they started with the younger children, the others her size were finished before her age group started. Finally, they found a 12-year old boy, on the smaller side, but still taller than the Artist.

Our choices were for her to spar with him or not at all. She gave her best effort and held her own. She did not win the match, but we were very pleased to see how she battled an unknown competitor. His longer legs did give him an advantage. Her speed kept her in the ring longer than I expected and she executed some kicks she has never done in sparring matches before. Well done, Artist!

In all, we are much happier with the Artist earning a silver medal for losing her match than the meaningless gold they offered to give her had they not found an opponent. I'm surprised they would do that. To me it cheapens the accomplishments of others who earned their medals.