What has 4 legs, a long tongue and a long neck?

Can you guess?

A giraffe! The last time we went to our local zoo, we saw that there had been some babies born. Aren't they cute!

Staying close to mom.

Enjoying a snack.

See you later!

Fearless? You Decide.

I'm way behind in my ABC posts but will try to catch up. When I uploaded the Fearless Knitter button on my sidebar, I thought about what it means to be fearless. Yeah, I know I haven't put a zipper into a sweater yet, but when it comes to knitting, there are not too many patterns that I'd be afraid to try. Although if you look carefully at my shawl, I did put lifelines in.

I could have been fearless and just continued on but no, I put the lifelines in mainly because I am really afraid that if I make a major mistake, I will not be able to recover especially with this Kidsilk Haze. Hmmm... maybe I'm not so fearless.

But then I went on to think about other aspects of my life. As I've gotten older, I have come across situations where I've been confronted with an opportunity to try something and it was very likely that the opportunity would not arise again. Do you take the plunge and try or do you take the chance of saying "I wish I had"? To me, I think those may well be some of the saddest words you can say - to have had an opportunity, not taken it and then regret it. All of the following pictures are from a trip I took to New Zealand with my Mom and Dad in 1996. NZ is really one of the most beautiful countries - did you know that the sheep outnumber the people?! How can that not be a great place! Anyway, one of the places we visited was Queenstown where there are many outdoor activities in which to participate. When we pulled up to the Kawarau Bridge, my heart was beating quickly but here was one of those opportunities and I knew I had to try.

Here I am standing on the edge of a platform on the bridge. I have put my life into the hands of the nice man behind me as he attached a padded belt around my ankles which was then attached to a giant bungy cord. They adjust the bounciness according to your weight and this is definitely one situation where you don't want to lie! Thank goodness the employees are willing to jump with you because I knew there was no way I would willingly dive off of the platform on my own. You can't jump feet first because the cord is attached around your ankles and you end up hanging upside down.

There we are hanging upside down - that little raft comes and gets you at the end. I can't really say I enjoyed this - it went by way too fast and I had my eyes closed for part of it. You bounce around a lot like you are on a huge rubber band. Now the other thing I got to try was much more enjoyable and you could actually enjoy the scenery. I went flying on a tandem parapente which is a two person parasail. The hardest part was hiking up the mountain because once you are all hooked up, you have to run off the edge of a cliff to catch the air. Here we go.

Now this was a cool ride!

One of Life's Equations

Work

+

Travel for Work

+

Getting Sick After the Travel

+

A Sick Child

=

Not a lot of Time or Energy For Anything Else

Consequently, I have not been blogging or reading email and I apologize to anyone who may have emailed me in the past 2 weeks. The crafting has been a bit slow too. We have also been dealing with my daughter's desire to test her independence and her/our limits. It has not helped that she has a few friends that seem to have almost no rules or structure imposed on them and consequently I get the question of why do we have rules when they don't. I explain that we think the rules are important and some of them are for her safety - things like: she is not allowed over a friend's house unless there is an adult present or if she is at one friend's house and they decide to go somewhere else, she has to tell me. Pretty basic things, but difficult when as one other neighbor said to me a few nights ago - "those kids are wild". Don't get me wrong, they are good kids but just don't seem to have the same structure that we try to maintain. This particular problem will actually solve itself in June but I'd love to hear any advice from other parents.

There has been a little knitting and sewing since I remembered that my daughter's substitute teacher's last day is this Friday and she is due with her first baby in May. I knit up a hat from the book Itty Bitty Hats

and made a matching burp cloth for one of the bibs I had shown a while back.

I think this will be a nice gift.

Time Warp

Well, Carole wanted pictures so here they are. The sad pictures come first. It took me about 5-6 days to go from this

to this.

And less than 10 minutes to get back to this.

Like I said - sad. But such is the life of a knitter. Now I'm waiting for my LYS to order the Addi lace needles in the larger size I need to work on the cabled part of this sweater. Maybe I better swing by there and check that they placed the order.

The not so sad part is that I have been able to work on moth.

Can you see the start of the Twin Leaf pattern?

And I've also worked a bit on my Monkeys -picot edge and I'm going for 7 repeats on the leg and then a short row heel. I hope I have enough yarn!

What's on the Needles?

To be more precise, the title should be what's on the needles that I am actually working on, but that seems rather long for a title.

1. Ms. Orangepants (thanks Carrie for the new name)
The pressure is off since one participant of March Sweater Madness actually finished her sweater during the first week of competition. I was all ready to tell you that I was about 3 inches away from finishing the body of the sweater when I noticed a slight mistake in the last cable row. I must have put the knitting down in the middle of a row and when I picked it up, instead of finishing the row, I knit in the wrong direction. So like half the sweater had an extra row in it. Now this has happened to me before, but maybe I shouldn't be admitting it since it is possible that this has never happened to anyone else and I am the most unobservant knitter on the planet. Anyway, this meant that I needed to rip out about 3 rows so I took it off the needles and ripped back.

While I had it off of the needles, I thought it would be a good thing to try it on. Oh no! I had dropped down a needle size for the cable section like the pattern suggested, but I think it may be a little too snug. I could block the hell out of it, but I think I will probably rip back to the start of the cable section and continue with the same size needle I had used for the top of the body. This means that the sweater will be on hold as I wait to get a pair of the Addi lace needles in a size 7. I experimented with making my cables without a cable needle and I love the sharp points of the Addi lace needles for picking up the stitches. So, the sweater and I will wait.

2. Wing of the Moth
This is in pretty much the same state as last week since I have been concentrating on the March Madness Sweater. Now with the sweater on hold however, this will change. I am looking forward to getting into the next lace section over the next few days.

3. Monkey Socks in STR Dragon Dance
Also in the same state as last week for the same reason as above. If I was brave enough to bring them out this past week during a day long video teleconference that I sat through, I would have made some progress on them. But, I'm not really sure how it would go over with the higher ups and I really need my job to finance my fiber addiction. So, the socks stayed in the purse.

Maybe it is spring fever, but I also have all these ideas for new projects and have been looking at new yarn. But I have been so good about sticking with the stash, that I need to think for a few days before making any new fiber purchases. Have a great weekend!

E is for...

I'm cheating a little here for my E post. Recently I introduced my friend Elaine and her new blog. Now, I will admit that I'm not thinking about these ABC ALong posts too far in advance or I would have planned to have that one as an introduction AND my E post. Instead I will link back to it for those who may have missed it so that you can see some of her beautiful handwork.

I must admit that I don't even remember when it was that I first met Elaine (we both work at the same place), but I will say that I am sure glad we met. We both like to try many different types of crafts and are there for each other when questions arise. As I said before, we are a little bit too good at enabling each other and will sometimes find that we have bought similar things without even telling each other. For that reason, we sometimes have to impose a "no buying" time around the holidays because there have been times when I have bought something only to find that Elaine bought the same thing for me for Christmas.

It's great having friends that encourage you and help you when you need it and I am very lucky in that respect. I'll leave you with a picture of one of my Christmas gifts from Elaine - it's from the Stash and Dash pattern by Amy Butler made with Chocolate Lollipop fabric.

It's perfect for that sock in progress.

It's Madness I Tell You, Sheer Madness

I had expected to concentrate on my Wing of the Moth shawl for the month of March. I had just finished the Fir Cone pattern and put in a lifeline before continuing on to the next chart. Here is a picture of my WIP at this point.

Then March Madness struck. No, it has nothing to do with basketball, but everything to do with sweaters. Michelle announced the start of March Sweater Madness where you choose from 3 sweater patterns and complete your sweater during the month of March. I toyed with the idea but I don't have many options in my stash for an adult sweater. Two options to be precise and one is already earmarked for another sweater. This left one choice - Jaeger Shetland in orange. March 1st the patterns were posted and one of the choices was Mr. Greenjeans which I have been looking at a lot recently. But I had this fear that I would look like a pumpkin in my orange sweater. So the day went by without casting on. Well, I'm sure you can guess where this story ends up - yes, I cast on for Mr. Greenjeans with my orange yarn on March 2 although I am thinking of calling my sweater Mr. Orangepants. Here is a picture of my newest WIP where I have just divided the sleeves from the body.

I am really enjoying this knit and I think that the end result will be quite nice although I don't really have any illusions of being the first one finished. But I do have one request. If you see me wearing the sweater, please don't mention ... well, you know.