3 Year Coopiversary!!!

3 years ago today my sweetie and I drove from southeastern Virginia to Maryland to meet a dog named Dewey and see if we wanted to adopt him. He was just perfect. Everything we wanted in a dog, so we loaded him into a crate and drove home with him. But first things first, he needed a new name, Dewey was out and Cooper was in!
We quickly found out that he was quite the handful. We had some bad times, like when he would try to bite us every time we put him in the crate and when he dug a hole through a plaster wall and when he ate the arm of a chair, but we've had many, many more good times. He's now a great little guy.
Very well behaved and a great big brother to Trapper. He loves being outside and going for walks. He's a true hunter at heart. But most of all he's a little daddy's boy. He loves his Joshua and is never far from him.
Now if only we could get him to stop jumping on the windows whenever the mailman, fedex, or ups drives by the house!!

Ravelympics - day 9

Wow, it's day 9 already and I'm not halfway done, oh no!!!! I had a major mess up 2 nights ago that I realized at 10:30. I thought about waiting until the morning to fix it so I would be fresh but there were still hours left of olympic knitting. So, I frogged about 5 inches of the left front and reknit following the actual directions (you think I would have done that from the beginning!) I was able to make it to just about where I started frogging by the end of the women's all around. Last night I finished the left front and cast on for the right front. I'm not too far on that yet:
In other knitting news, look what came in the mail today:
I will probably wait until Monday to try them out so I don't have to explain this purchase to my sweetie. But I don't know if I'll be able to wait that long! I really want to get the back and the left front of the sweater blocking.

Now for some non-knitting randomness. My sweetie and I went raspberry picking today!
Unfortunately the owners had just picked most of the berries to bring to farmers markets, but there was still enough for us to get 2 pints. My sweetie was a bit cranky at first, thinking we were not going to get many berries, and he felt weird cause it was basically just someone's house. But he cheered up quickly and we had a great time. The best part was these little guys popping out of the bushes:
They almost made me want a kitten, then I remembered how allergic I am and that my dogs would probably eat it! After berry picking, we stopped by the farmer's market and picked up 2 pints of blackberries and I'll be making blackberry/raspberry cobbler today and my sweetie is making some berries and cream thing!!

On the baby front, no baby yet. But her room is complete! Every thing I could possibly think she might need is in there, clothes are folded and put away, shelves are hung, and diapers are stacked and ready to go. This is my favorite part of the room, the nursing area. I'll be spending plenty of time in that glider. I'm definitely gonna have to work out how to nurse and knit at the same time!!
OK, off to make some cobbler and do some knitting!!

Ravelympics - Day 4

OK, here's my progress so far:
Sorry about the washed out look of the photo, I didn't realize it until I downloaded the picture and I'm far too lazy to try again. The cable pattern isn't showing up good in the photo and it's a little hard to tell it's leaves in person unless it's stretched a bit. I know blocking will help though. There will probably be even more knitting done by the end of the day. There's not much interesting on right now but I think tonight's broadcast should be pretty good. I have about 4 inches left on the back and I really want to finish the back.

I'm still enjoying working on this and loving the way it's coming out. I think I've got a good pace going and, as long as I don't burn out on the pattern, I think I may actually complete this by the end of the olympics.

I'm basically knitting on this exclusively, although with the decreases encroaching on the cable pattern, it's getting a bit complicated to work on too late at night. I busted out my english garden socks and knit a few rows on that last night but not many.

Oh, and a bit of a yarn review for you. I'm using Knit Picks Cadena to knit this it's 70% wool, 30% alpaca. It's soft and sturdy and really nice to knit with. And it's bulky so it works up really quick. The only problem I'm having is knots. I hate when there are knots in my skeins of yarn. These skeins are only 110 yards long, in my opinion that's pretty short for bulky weight and there is no need to knots in skeins so small. Well, skein 1 went fine, no knots. Skein 2 was a disaster with 2 knots in it! They're tied up so tight and so close to the ends of the yarn that I thought the yarn had just knotted a bit and went to untie it when I realized that the yarn was broken. I had almost knit right through the knot thinking it wasn't a big deal, but I'm glad I didn't! I'm about halfway through skein 3 right now and I've had 1 knot already. I'm very disappointed with this. I spit spliced it back together so I won't have any extra ends to weave in, but this is just unacceptable to me! I think I'll have to do a bit more research next time I buy another large quantity of knit picks yarn.

Ravelympics, day 2

Last night and today have been somewhat productive knitting days. Last night I knit through the whole opening ceremonies, although it was so cool that I wound up watching a lot more than knitting!! I did some stuff around the house this morning while my sweetie played on his xbox. But then he decided he needed to go fix our front steps that are coming a little loose. It was perfect timing. . . right as the olympic coverage was starting!! So I sat and watched rowing, beach volleyball, swimming, and cycling while knitting away on my sweater. It was a nice relaxing day. Then my sweetie came back in and wanted to play his xbox again, oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Now I'm trying to wrangle the pups, who are just uncontrollable the last few days. But, I did manage to take some pictures of my latest WIPs.

First the english garden socks. They are just plain stockinette and I'm hoping they'll fit since I just guessed on the # of stitches I need. The color changes are just too wild to make anything with a pattern, I think this shows off the yarn nicely though. Oh, and it's so soft!!! They are getting put by the wayside for the next 17 days though.
Then, my second sweater attempt, what I'm calling my olympic goal sweater. I love it so far. If it turns out as good as I hope then it will be good motivation to lose weight!!
This is about 8 inches of the back. It's going pretty fast. Gotta love bulky yarn!! I'm hoping my sweetie will let me watch tonight's olympic coverage and I'll get even more done. He doesn't understand the whole olympics thing though so I don't want to force him to watch it and we only have one TV in the house (usually not a problem, but it just may be a big problem tonight!)

9 months down!

I'm now nine months preggers!! Only one month left, hopefully less. She was breech at the last appt and I'm really hoping she flips or has flipped already. The next appt is Tuesday and I think if she doesn't flip by then we may be scheduling a c-section (ouch!). Her room is just about ready for her. I'm waiting to get the cushions for the glider back from the cleaners and then it will be all decked out. The only real think I have left to do is pack my hospital bag. I've got most everything I need gathered together, I just have to actually put it in a bag.

Today is also the kickoff of Ravelympics! I'm going to try to knit a sweater in 18 days, unless the baby comes before those 18 days are over, then I think I have a pretty good excuse for not finishing. It's knit on size 10 needles, so I have a good chance of finishing. I haven't knit anything on such large needles in a long long time.

In knitting news, I've been working on my nursing shawl and a pair of socks. I'll post pictures later, along with some pictures of the spinning I did while Val and the kids were visiting. I've been really lazy lately, but I'm hoping to have some FOs to post one of these days too!

A little of this and a little of that

I've been up to quite a bit lately. My sweetie and I decided to make maple sugar candy the other day. It was much more successful than our first attempt where it didn't set up. This time we beat it for a bit too long and it set up too quickly to get it into the molds. We had to put it in a glass pan then cut it apart later. Not the neatest looking candy, but it tastes pretty good!
My next endeavor was to make a sling for the baby. I was going to order one on etsy but they depend on your size and I didn't want to spend all that money then (hopefully) loose weight and have to buy another one. So I went to Walmart and got some inexpensive fabric. I wanted something heavier than quilters cotton and my only choice was camouflage, great for a boy, not so great for my little girl. But I did find this camo fabric:
It's camo butterflies, a bit more girly. After 2 hours or so of sewing and trying to figure out the instructions, I had this:
My baby sling. I've got my great babyhawk mei tai carrier for outings, but this will be nice for around the house while I'm trying to get stuff done. It's basically a slightly shaped piece of fabric that is folded in half. My body goes where the chair is and she'll go in the fold of the fabric at first and when she gets bigger she sits on the fabric. We'll see how it works and for $8 worth of fabric and 2 hours of my life I can make another one if I loose weight.

My last crafting project was a rag quilt for the little girl. There's a quilt shop hop going on this week and I went to the 2 local quilt shops (that's probably all I'll get to because I really don't have the money to spend on stuff and I feel like I have to buy something at every store, plus all the other stores are about an hour away). Anyway one shop was selling a rag quilt kit. I had this grand idea of making a beautiful, labor-intensive, appliqué quilt for her, but I haven't worked on the thing in months so I thought I'd make her a rag quilt in the meantime so she at least had one blankee from her mama! Here's a picture of the back:
And one with a bit more fabric detail:
I just washed it today but I haven't gotten a picture of the ragginess yet. It's absolutely adorable though!

And just for the fun of it, here's a picture of Cooper protecting the house from his lookout on the deck:
One of these days I may actually have a knitting FO, but don't hold your breath!!

Today's Haul

I don't go shopping all that often anymore. Everything is just too far away, so I combine my shopping trips into massive shopping trips. Today was no exception! I had a gift card to spend at Babies R Us so I invited my friend to take a trip with me to go use it up. She's a mom so I figured she'd have some good advice on final baby preparation things that I didn't think of. And she sure did. My one big purchase at the baby store was a temporal scan thermometer. I know a few people with them and they all say it's the best thing ever. My sweetie thought it was pretty stupid, but he's a boy so what do you expect! Other than that I got wipes and newborn diapers, diaper rash cream, some essential breastfeeding items, and a few cloth books.

After that it was off to Whole Foods where I stocked up on biodegradable plastic bags to use in the diaper pail. What's the point of using biodegradable, plastic free diapers if you're just gonna throw them in a plastic bag? Then was lunch at Olive Garden and a trip to Toys R Us. I actually didn't buy anything there, my friend was shopping for her son's birthday.

I got home and realized that the quilt shop hop started today and I got back in the car and went to the 2 close shops. The other 9 shops are about an hour or so away so they will have to wait til another day (I'm thinking tomorrow!) I got a kit to make a crib size rag quilt, a penny rug kit to make a small thing to put a votive candle on, a new thimble, and a new marking pencil (it's like a mechanical pencil but with chalk!) All in all it was a very successful day of shopping. I tried to nap when I got home but the dogs would have none of that, after all I did leave them alone all day and they deserved some play time!

Hopefully tomorrow I will manage to spend less when I go to all the quilt stores! The shop hop goes on through the weekend and most of next week. I would love to spread it out a little, but with gas over $4 a gallon here, I'm not about to make that many trips to Columbus if I don't have to. I'm going to try to hit the remaining 9 shops tomorrow, but I'm not counting on that actually happening!