Happenings

This morning Knut took Elias to go riding with him and Grandpa out in the field.  He should have fun in the tractor and combine.  It has been a peaceful morning minus our almost 3 year old.  I hate to say it, but it’s been so quiet.

I’ve been keeping the chickens “cooped up” until noon every day to see if they’ve been laying elsewhere in the morning.  Still no eggs.  If there still aren’t eggs by the end of the month, I’m keeping them cooped up with food and water until I see eggs.  I’ve threatened them with this several times but they think I’m bluffing I think.  I’m not bluffing.  I can take away their yard.  I’ll do it too.  They’re supposed to start laying between 4-6 months.  They will be 6 months at the end of this month, so I have certain expectations here backed up with months worth of feed costs that I was thinking I’d recuperate at some point.

I know…I just need to be patient.

Knut said that corn harvest may be done before Halloween this year.  I don’t remember it ever being done that early.  Normally the weather stops them for a few days.  I think he’s glad he’ll have plenty of time to finish putting wood up for the winter.  We’ve started burning wood 2 days ago now, and we have plenty for about a month or so.  I’m not running the fireplace all day yet, but it’s become (once again) the favorite room in the house to do schoolwork in.

The upside to harvest is that I get lots of time in the evening to do whatever I darn well please.  I finally got Photoshop and I’ve been playing around with picture editing.  I haven’t figured out how to round the edges of my pictures on there yet, so you’ll have to put up with pointy corners on the blog until then.  I really need to redo my header one of these nights.  I have no clue why it’s been blurry.

I can watch as many Jane Austen movies in a row as I like without any male influence rolling his eyes, and that’s precisely what I’ve been doing.  Knitting and watching movies.

My knitting has been suffering from a bit of ADD.  I’m trying to get the Dirk sweater written up by the end of this month to send off to Knit Picks for distribution.  Now that it’s a “have to” I’ve stalled a bit, but I have no doubt I’ll get it done in time.  I’ve finished the 2 custom cowl orders I’ve had.  My aunt wanted 2 of them, and I made them a bit longer than the original pattern as requested.  I do mean to get some of these in my store.  I bought some super soft yarn to do just that.  I blame the KADD (Knitting Attention Deficit Disorder).  Now that these are done, I should be able to add another cowl into my knitting rotation.

The original pattern can be found here.  These cowls were made with 5 pattern repeats instead of 4, which made me dip into a second skein of yarn, but it was sooo worth it.  They’re just lovely.

In addition to finishing the pattern stuff for the Dirk, finishing the Clara Cowl orders, and playing around with the Miss Serina design, I’ve finished a new pattern prototype.  It just needs some snaps and possibly a little embroidery on the back.

I ordered some gray snaps to use on it, and I’m thinking of embroidering a little gray baby elephant on the butt.  This sample is made in size small because I’ve learned I like to make prototypes in small sizes because I tend to redo parts quite often, and it’s just faster.  One of my sister in laws was commenting how she’s trying to find a nighttime cloth sleep solution for her twin boys as they are wet in the morning no matter what she has tried.

After our conversation, my mind was whirling over a densely woven cover that would be good enough for heavy wetters, but cute enough to wear whenever.  So this design was born.  It’s named the “Buttercup” and was named by Silje “because it’s for the butt.”  She cracks me up sometimes.

So I cast on a size M for Solveig so that I can try it out on her before I make 2 larges for my nephews and hopefully find a solution to the nighttime diapering conundrum.  I plan to sell the pattern, and offer it for anyone who wants to sell them in their etsy or hyenacart stores, as I don’t see myself being able to make a lot of these.  I’m having so much fun designing now.  I’ll probably have them in my store on occasion, and always have custom orders open. 

The one I’m making for Solveig I’m going to use buttons instead of snaps just so that I have pictures for the pattern of what that option would look like.  I’m using some of my pretty pink wool that I bought for my store, but people seem to prefer the gender neutral colors, I guess.

I’m not sure what to do with the prototype one, as it has a few technical knitting errors in it, and so I’m not so keen on putting it in my store.  I’ll probably hang onto it for a rainy day.

And that’s what’s happening here.