gone in a flash...

i say it every year and every year it rings more true -- time passes so quickly.

let's celebrate tonight. tomorrow we'll clean like the dickens and write a great post with a bunch of year-end wrap-ups and resolutions. it's not a new year until we do those year-end little tasks.

and i know i'm a dork because one of the things i look forward to the very most is writing all of the birthdays, anniversaries and important dates in my new datebook. how boring and virgo-ish it is...but it makes me indescribably happy.

as 2007 draws down to it's final moments, here's hoping you are finding joy in the little things too.

see you in 2008!

v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n...kind of...

it's that time of year again. time to hang the ornaments, wrap the presents, bake sugary sweets and....have a colonoscopy.

three years ago i got the greatest christmas gift a girl could dream of - a clean bill of cancer-free health. each year since i've celebrated by getting a colonoscopy to keep the good vibe going.

and my christmas gift to you, dear reader? a reminder to schedule your screening colonoscopy if you have a family history of colon cancer or are over the age of 50 or are experiencing symptoms (you can go here if you're unsure what might make you eligible to for this test). please do that as a gift to me, okay? colorectal cancer is the third most common occurring cancer. it happens equally in men and women. good news? it's very easy to cure with early detection.

so for the next two days i'll be at home, crossword puzzling, reading, preparing for my test, and thanking my lucky stars for my continued good health. after that? i'll be enjoying the holiday season, knitting, sewing, watching rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and eating marshmallow frosted cupcakes. i may check in here, i may not, but don't think you're not all in my thoughts...especially since so many of you have kept me in yours for the past 1,095 days.

here's to a relaxing, sparkling, joyous holiday!

i love snow...

merry, merry, merry from the three peas!

change...not a big fan...

last night we finally made one of the final steps into the 21st century...we installed high speed internet. up till now, we've had dial-up and that was starting to wear everybody out.

but with the new internet access we also have a new e-mail address and well, everything that's tied to that e-mail address, hmmmm, like this blog and n's facebook and all of the college info we get via e-mail, well, that all has to be updated. some of the updates are going smoothly and some are not...

i keep sending test comments to myself...and then i tried to access my new e-mail from the office just now and it says i don't exist (those are not the exact words, but drilled down to their real meaning, that's what they mean).

so please bear with me, dear readers. as a rule, i don't like change (as evidenced by my blog set-up...same for years), so this transition is tricky for me.

p.s. i re-read yesterday's entry and i can only blame my recent lack of sleep or caffeine deprivation on the state of that entry. yea! WOWZA...write much, heidi?

sincerely...

if you scroll way, way down at the bottom of this screen you will see my little site counter. just now i noticed that it has surpassed 20,000 hits. who knows who my readers are? i know many of you in real life. i'm sure there are some that come and visit and don't come back again. that's expected because i do that too...start down the rabbit hole and find myself at someone's site that i simply adore, forget to add it to my favorites, close the window, and then **poof** never do i find it again. then there are few folks out there that i didn't know visitors then i see them out and about and they'll talk to me about something i've only written about here, not any where else in my life and then i know they're queen for a day devotees.

any way you come to be here, i'm grateful for you. thanks for reading what i write, liking what i make, and then taking the time to tell me about it.


sincerely, you all mean a lot to me.

******************
and for you know who, here is a link to two of my newest daily reads

brooklyn tweed - the photos alone are a good reason to visit, but there's also wonderful knit items, links to tons of other great knitters and his writing about his own handspun is almost the push i need to try my hand at it...not quite, though.

knitty.com - the winter issue is out and it is chock full of goodies. there's a section on spinning too. very nice!

smooth...

although i don't think i'm susceptible to advertising, of course, i am. info-mercials are hilarious, but they also appeal to some animal instinct inside my brain. it's as though the false enthusiasm starts to ring true after the initial two minutes of hilarity wears off. and so that is how i came to be the owner of foundation garments by kymora. i was lured in by their promises of "free" extras (all i had to do was pay shipping and handling), and the "guaranteed" promises of inches off.

yesterday, my little miracles arrived in the mail. i was so busy after i got home from work, that i waited until this morning for a trial run. and now, here i sit at my computer, tighter, firmer and smoother than i was yesterday at this time, but, admittedly, a bit less comfortable.

for those of you who know me in real life, i am tall and appear slender, but am large-framed with a boyish, straight up and down figure. these slenderizing wonders were obviously manufactured for the woman possessing a semblance of a waist, of which, i have none. so although i now can sport the vintage 1970's tomato red stewardess dress with fitted bodice (which is what i have on today), underneath i feel a tiny bit constricted.

i suspect from historical experience with these types of garments that by 5:00 p.m. today i will edit the words "tiny bit constricted" to "being squeezed to death by a boa constrictor."

and to those naysayers (kelly, i hear you!) who say i look fine, i only have this to say: my reflection in the full-length office bathroom mirror is all i need to remind me that this is the best money i've spent on shipping and handling in a very long time.

hmmm...

see that wreath pic i posted down there? yea, it's sideways...i do not have vertical blinds on my front door, and that's how i figured it out. oh well, still pretty, i think.

i have (again) decided to stop reading the newspaper (i read on-line) and listening to local news. i know that bad things happen every day, but once i've read them or heard them and those nuggets of information have entered the curlicues of my brain, i cannot un-read or un-hear them. i'm not in denial, really, i just want to surround myself with positivity and it's far too easy to get mired down in the negative.

instead i am working hard in the studio on some felted composition book covers, pink and green christmas ornaments for my silver tinsel tree and knitting this shawl. it will be 2011 before i am finished, but i am using it as reward knitting...when all of my other chores are complete i knit one repeat (about an hour for the twelve rows).

happy monday, my sweeties!

felt wreath...

excuse the washed out photo, folks. this is the result of the end of daylight savings time, leaving for work when it is still dark and getting home at sunset -- no good picture-taking light.

also, the wreath is a little smooshed from being sandwiched between the storm door and front door all night. imagine it a little more fluffed and it will be more accurate.

this was easy to make and only took about an hour. i used felt scraps that were already just lying on my cutting table.

i love it and now i want to make a million of them in every color in the rainbow...not like all of the colors of the rainbow in one...like this one.

happy tuesday, party people!

giving thanks...

early in october i set up my wares at a locally owned, fabulous store called recycled rose. the owner, sue, sells a super eclectic mix of handmades, antiques, florals and gifts. you name it -- she's got it.

in anticipation of the show, i had just finished a blanket made up of felted wool squares. it had an asymmetrical gees bend kind of feel. i loved it and hoped that someone else would too. turns out someone did...but not in the green colorway i had chosen. the admirer of the blanket asked if i did custom work and as i am always wont to do in those situations, i said, "yes."

truth be told, i don't really love doing commissions. normally, i work if/when the spirit moves me, on items that speak to me at any given moment (that's the beauty of also having a 9-to-5). commissions can feel like a homework assignment. this commission was especially weighted, too, because the sweaters my "benefactor" wanted me to use were her husband's...her husband who was deceased...and they were all 100% cashmere. she was very excited about the prospect of having a blanket using these otherwise unused sweaters. she came to my house the very next day and dropped them off. we decided to mix in a few of her sweaters too. i got very excited too, seeing how much this would mean to her.

then this happened...you know that saying, "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans?" yea, that was the universe's very thinly veiled message, "slow down, wallace family and spend time with each other."

but i did finish up the "quilt" last week and delivered it on tuesday. as i drove to drop it off i got more and more nervous. these were some seriously meaningful sweaters i just cut into a million pieces. was she going to like it? was it going to live up to the expectations she had?

i walked into her office and unwrapped the blanket and held it out for her to inspect. as her expression, she wore a truly beatic smile. it was a success. she said she was so glad to have the blanket for thanksgiving. we hugged.

i hope you had a blanket of love this thanksgiving...in more ways than one.

beaker bag instructions...

beaker bag

supplies

small amount of malabrigo worsted weight for contrasting color (cc) (reserve about 2 yards of this color for sewing together the bottom of the bag)

one skein of malabrigo worsted weight for main color (mc)

size 11, 24” circular needle

tapestry needle

scissors

gauge

not really important as this bag is felted/fulled…this is a “let go and let it be” project. go with the flow, knitter!

abbreviations

bo - bind off
cc - contrasting color
co - cast on
dec - decrease
dec rd- decrease round
k - knit
k2tog - knit two together
mc - main color
pm - place marker
rd - round
sm - slip marker
sts - stitches

directions

body of bag (knit from bottom edge up)
co 110 sts with cc. join for working in the round being careful not to twist stitches. pm for beginning of rd. k55 and pm to denote middle of rd. k every rd until piece measures 3” from co edge.

change to mc, and k every rd until piece measures 5” from co edge.

decrease round – on next rd dec as follows: k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before next marker, k2tog, k1, sm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker for beginning of rd, k2tog, k1. 4 sts decreased (106 sts). k 3 rds even. repeat dec rd and following 3 rds of straight knitting 8 times until you have 74 sts left.

k until piece measures 12.5” from co edge.

handle
on next rd, k10, bo17, k10, sm, k10, bo17, k10, sm; next rd – k10, co 17 using backwards loop method, k10, sm, k10, co17 using backwards loop method, k10.

finishing
knit above handle opening for 3”. bo all stitches. sew in ends using tapestry needle. turn bag inside out; with cc yarn sew bottom of bag using mattress stitch or whip stitch.

felting/fulling
i have really good results in my washing machine using dawn dishwashing liquid. i use the lowest water setting and a hot water wash cycle with a cold water rinse cycle. some suggest not letting your machine spin when felting. i always let the machine spin and i also put most of my felted items in the dryer. this purse, however, will dry very well flat on a dry towel.

here is a picture of the bag before felting:

see that little bit of orange at the very top of the handle? that's where i ran out of the main color of the malabrigo, got too lazy to rip out the last two rows so i could have enough to cast off with, couldn't find yarn harlot's instructions for binding off without using any yarn and decided to use some of this yarn instead. of course i knew that it would felt at a different rate than the malabrigo. it ended up okay...not great, but okay. i felted the bag twice so it's extra dense. (there's a joke in there somewhere...ya know, all, "i like my felted bags like i like my men -- dense")

please note, these instructions have been knit ONE time...not test knit by anyone other than myself, and i may not have the nomenclature or abbreviations down, although i do think a medium/beginning knitter could figure them out. please e-mail me using the button above if you want these instructions in a Word document. and let me know if you make this bag...and please send pics that i will post.

have a great weekend, wool-ites!

harder than it looks...

instead of doing all the things i was supposed to do this weekend, i decided i was going to try my hand at writing a knitting pattern. i started with something simple...a fulled (aka felted) handbag. fulling hides a multitude of sins so i figured if there were any mistakes they wouldn't be too noticeable. also, i used malabrigo worsted weight yarn in two colors leftover from the wrist warmers. that yarn is so fabulous that nothing made out of it can ever turn out badly.

last night i finished everything but the casting off and sewing up. once the bag is done i'll take pictures (before and after fulling), double check my math and post the instructions.

this bag is in a shape i haven't seen before (in my limited experience) and it's a cross between the much loved buttonhole bag and the stripey bag from one skein.

of course, in the name of full disclosure, if the finished product is a bust, i'll post that too.

we're everywhere...

at our weekly knit and gab fest last night, the barrista watched me knit for a while. i didn't know he was watching me until i got that feeling you get when someone is watching you and that feeling forces you to involuntarily look up and directly into the eyes of the person who is looking at you. he smiled a friendly grin and asked me if i was knitting socks. i told him, no, i was knitting wrist warmers (easy mistake as both are knit in the round on double pointed needles). he told me he was knitting socks for a friend of his. then he walked around the counter and stood at my elbow, raised his pant leg a bit and showed me his socks. he told me he had knit them himself. the socks had small neat cables and were a lovely gray. they went great with his black hi-tops. he told me the socks he was knitting for a friend would not be that intricate. i agreed that was a good strategy. sometimes you need to gauge a person's ability to appreciate handknit items and then you can go hog-wild with something really fabulous.

he stood there for a little while longer and chatted away about knitting.

and then we entered that weird phase that inevitably comes up in a conversation with a stranger when the initial topic is exhausted and you've come up empty on how to (a) transition to a new topic or (b) gracefully end the conversation so you can both go peacefully on your way.

eventually we extracted ourselves so he could go back to latte production and i could concentrate on the CF4.

but now i know a little more about the geeky boy with the straw colored hair and glasses who makes me my coffee each week. he knits too.

tv is a good thing...and a bad thing...

every fall season i swear i will NOT get hooked on any new tv shows. and then kelly reads me the synopsis and reviews from his bible (aka, entertainment weekly). i then vow to only watch two episodes (to be fair, the pilot could be horrible or the first "real episode" could be, so i have to give them a fighting chance). and you know how it turns out, don't you? tv is like crack, or meth...or so i've heard, not having personal experience...you can become addicted instantly. and so it has gone this tv season.

granted, i wrote off bionic woman and journeyman because, well, they both sucked. i wanted the new jaime sommers to be jennifer garner from the first season of alias, but she's not. and i wanted journeyman to be the time traveler's wife come to life (btw...i looked and this fabulous book is being made into a movie in 2008) but it is just the kind of cheese, cheese, cheesiest episodic one-hour pseudo-science fiction that i hate.

but what do i love? pushing daisies. this show is a one-two punch of fairy tale, alternate universe, crayon-colored sets and costumes, well-written, snappy dialogue, fast-paced, heart-rending subplots that i love, lerve, want to squeeze to within an inch of its life. please watch it, though, because as soon as i let the universe know that i love a show, it smacks me in the face and cancels it (for example, my so called life, once and again and freaks & geeks).

what other shows do i like this season? big bang theory...chuck...reaper...(we've decided that chuck and reaper are really the same show, but i like them both anyway.)

what old favorites are still on my list? america's next top model...amazing race...heroes (i'm about ready to give up on it though, 'cause i'm starting to get that jerked around feeling like i did with LOST)...boston legal (however, what's up with the revolving door on the casting office?)...the office...my name is earl...hmmm, i know i'm leaving some shows out, but kelly will add it in the comments, won't ya?

and what's so far off the radar that i forgot? ER...grey's anatomy...desperate housewives

but as entertained and distracted i am by television, good and bad, i have a love/hate relationship with it. how much more could i accomplish if it wasn't there to pull my attention away from more intellectual pursuits? and if i was honest with myself? what would i REALLY be doing with this fictional extra time i keep fantasizing about? would i still be knitting but while listening to the radio or my iPod? would i read more books from this list? would i go back to school?

just like the tootsie pop owl, though, i may never know, because it is here to stay.

finishing things up...

while sitting in the hospital and then in between doling out medication, ice packs and forehead kisses once we got home, i've finished up a few knitting projects.

>>> two scarves for a swap that's due on december 12 (how good does it feel to be done early?)

>>> two pairs of wrist warmers -- one pair for someone i know who is turning sweet 16 this week! one pair for me.

>>> i've got another wrist warmer on the needles (in a yummy brown for nathaniel) and one of a pair complete (except for the thumb) for my very young cousin's christmas present.

i've really got my eye on this kit, but i am enforcing a moratorium on buying any more projects until i finish up at least one pair of socks.

i also frogged a scarf that i was knitting with two skeins from my rockin' sock club yarn...the combo didn't make my heart sing and what's the use wasting time knitting something i don't love?

and really? knitting is all i want to do these days anyway. grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking...even making the bed (which kelly always does anyway) seems taxing to me. my brain needs a rest, i suppose. knitting is stress relief...yoga for the soul...so i've been feeding the need to move my hands while keeping my rear end firmly planted in a comfy chair.

all hallow's eve...

yeah, that's right! it's a flaming pumpkin head.

an adventure...

first off, let me say that everything is okay.

yea, you parents out there know that phrase is actually code for "something bad happened...but don't you worry your pretty little head about it". and the bad thing is...13 days ago my son got his leg broken in soccer practice.

because he is an overachiever, it was a massive break...both bones...both compound fractures....compartment syndrome that needed to be surgically addressed by fasciotomy (WARNING...this link is NOT for the weak hearted)...you know...a gigantic painful mess.

before...



after...



two surgeries, four days in the hospital and a week at home recuperating -- we are now returning to the semblance of normalcy. we are all back to work and school. now the fun really starts.

when kelly and i have faced challenges in the past, we've always tried to maintain a "hey, isn't this adventure going to be fun?" kind of attitude. usually, at least in our estimation, the challenges had not been too taxing...for example:

question: how do you get two adults to work and a toddler to daycare with one car of which the clutch is going out?
answer: it's an adventure! and, bonus! we can come up with ways to bend the space-time continuum to get everyone where they need to be on time.

question: what happens when the drive part of the transmission goes out, but the reverse part still works?
answer: drive in reverse, silly!

not all of our adventures are car-related (okay, a lot of them used to be), but we always worked it out. this situation, however, has proven more interesting than any other we had faced previously. and, in addition, now we were dealing with a teenager -- an independent teenager who was quite used to taking care of himself and controlling his own destiny. imagine the implications, if you will.

so the three peas are adjusting, to say the least, and growing in ways we didn't think possible, to be generous. but it is all working out...each day gets a little bit better than the day before. there are setbacks, but those are to be expected. we are learning to enjoy small and large victories whenever we can (nathaniel was elected homecoming king a week and a half after the accident and was able to attend homecoming to receive, and proudly wear, his crown!)

but mostly, in this year of "lasts" (last halloween before college, last homecoming dance, last EVERYTHING before college) i am seeing this adventure as an opportunity to cherish the time i get to care and nurture my son back to 100% health. seeing my way clear to that end, though, has proved to be difficult as we are all frustrated and teetering occasionally on the edge of despair, but still i try to focus on the positive.

home is where we let our guard down. the outside world may never see us crumble, but within our own four walls, we can relax. often that deep exhale is accompanied by a flood of tears or a primal scream from our toes or a hysterical laugh that cannot be understood by anyone other than family. that is where we are these days -- putting our best face forward and coming home to unclench our jaws and help each other walk again.

different, but the same...

last weekend, a mood overtook me and possessed me to get all my hair cut off. the entirety of the thought process lasted less than 29 minutes, and the total lapsed time from initial formation in my brain to the shampoo girl sweeping up billowy piles of my locks was 2 hours.

and now, a week later, i'm left feeling wonderfully light, but conspicuously exposed. my long hair was a shield, a curtain that kept the outside world at bay. now, though, with by tresses chopped to shorter than chin length, i'm out here, flapping in the breeze, for all the world to see.

and you know what? when you make a drastic change to your appearance, people who barely know you feel like that is an opening to comment -- "wow! that's drastic...what made you do it?" almost-strangers ask. "none of your business!" is what i think, but politely, ala miss manners, answer, "i was just ready for something different."

i looked in the mirror yesterday and felt like a different heidi was looking back at me. almost as if the hair was plopped down on my head and that by virtue of it being different, it made me different...but it doesn't. still me....

i'm it...

mary beth tagged me and since i'm such a good sport, here goes...

You have to post these rules before you give the facts. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blogpost containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

my middle name is sue...ick. but then when i think about it, what other middle name goes with "heidi?" in grade school, my nickname was "heidi the ty-d-bol lady." what? yea, for those of you under 40, do you even remember the ty-d-bol man? i mean, how in the world are women not freaked out by a man in their toilet? (i almost wrote something not very nice about chuck berry, but i refrained.) it's like that commercial for lunesta...you know the one where a giant prometheus moth lays next to my face just as i fall into a drug-induced slumber--ACK! how is that supposed to make me want to buy their sleep aid. if those are the type of acid-trippy dreams i'm going to have, well, i'll just stick with unisom.

but i digress...

S - silly. i bet you thought i was going to write serious, but no. this is a fact that only a few people know about me -- i'm very silly. ballet pirouet through the living room? check! sing in a froggy voice at the top of my lungs? check! enjoy the most juvenile movie ever made? right on! giggle with glee and clap my hands satisfiedly under my chin when i find a ponytail desk blotter at the antique mall? you can count on it. turn a cartwheel or a roundoff in the front yard? every year on my birthday! i was a very serious kid, and not very kid-like. when i got older, i guess i thought i should make up for lost time. childhood only lasts so long, but silliness lasts forever.

U - unconventional. if you've read this blog for very long, you already know this about me. i do very little that is thought of as run-of-the-mill. nathaniel says i'm a neo-hippie. my boss thinks i'm a little off. i hold down a 9 to 5, am married, a mother, own a home, car, cat, but how i got here was out of the ordinary -- just like my thrift store warddrobe, my dollar store reading glasses, my collection of paint-by-numbers, my penchant for picking up furniture out of other people's trash and my music selection (claudine longet anyone?). the cookier cutter existence is not for me. as my uncle would say, "that's why they make chevy's and fords."

E - eager. ever since i can remember, i've been anxious. anxious to start kindergarten. anxious to be married. anxious to start a family. it's really an eagerness, an impatience that is difficult (if not downright impossible) to squelch. really, just ask kelly the story of our engagement! i want to learn new things, but i often want to learn them right now or sooner, if at all possible. this fact, however, is why i find it hard to stick with something that i'm not good at immediately. skiing, for example. i was excited to strap on the skis for the first time, but then, well, i wasn't good at it...at all. and that fact kept me from enjoying the learning of the skill. this flies in the face, however, of how i stuck with the clarinet for 5 years and i was horrible. my family was thankful when i threw in the towel...oh, the aural agony of my practicing. and you would think, wouldn't you, that after all that time, i would have learned how to read music? nope. not one single note.

okay, now here's the part where i'm supposed to tag people...but all the folks i know who blog don't have the right letters in their names, so i'll tag missy (she has an "s" in her name!) and becky (oh look! an "e")...and hope they don't smack me the next we meet!

and now i'm back, from outer space...

i've missed this little bloggity-blog. no really! hey you! over there in the corner, snickering? i really have been busy. so please don't minimalize my heartfelt outpouring of blog-apologies.

so here's some random...

it is almost autumn and just in time, because i am just about finished with summer! the muggy, the a/c (hate!), the warm water from the tap (too hot to drink, not hot enough to make a cup of tea), the tired played out summer wardrobe (oh, gray target knit skirt that looked so cute and flippy in may. i've worn you to death, girlfriend, and i am wont to throw you in the give away pile due to your pilled fabric and stretched out hem due to the numerous trips to the washer/dryer. too bad you're still so comfy...), mosquitos, the inability to take a pleasant evening walk without a requisite outfit re-do immediately following, and the plant-killing heat. summer, it's been good to know you, now be gone!

i have been doing double duty at my day job and that has kicked my sorry butt. i wish i was exaggerting when i write that i have been working 50-60 hours a week, but i am not. everything else in my life has taken a backseat while we try to hire another me...but i think this may take longer than a little bit. bear with me, people. i'm dancing as fast as i can. oh, and a big shout out to kelly who has taken taking care of me to a new level what with the cooking and the laundry and the straightening and the never-ending supply of hugs, kisses and positive support. he is a force to be reckoned with!

(ed. note - kelly and i have always shared all household duties and chores. the exception for the past two months is that he is doing it all. me, on the other hand? i have been routinely returning home after a 10 hour day, eating his divine meals and then promptly falling asleep on the couch. there is simply no man on the planet that can hold a candle to kelly wallace.)

and last but not least...i found my perfect tattoo artist the other day. i'm reluctant to share this information with the world at large, but something tells me that the world has already figured out how awesome marie wadman is. i sent her an e-mail yesterday and just hope that someday soon she will respond. her waiting list is 6-8 months long. that's good for me, though, because i have a very special anniversary to commemorate that is about two years away. but you know me...a planner and always way ahead of time. i will let you know if/when i hear from her. i've never been to san francisco. to have marie do the work would require traveling there. i'm up for a good road trip.

and i finished the purple monstrosity sweater about a month ago...finally! pics soon.

everyday is earth day...

guess what? when you send out your desire into the universe, sometimes it comes back to you fulfilled.

our local municipality is making recycling mandatory!

to me, this means the world might just be waking up.

good morning, mighty citizens of earth. we've got some work to do. go grab a cup of coffee and let's get down to it!