A lot of talk about chairs

The kids had these small folding chairs that came with the Babee Tenda feeding table and they've seen a ton of use over the last 5 years. The seat cushions were pretty disgusting by mid-summer when we hauled them down to the playroom. Early this fall we noticed what appeared to be mold growing on one of the seats so they were tossed into the garage until further notice.

Tonight while Rob was working on a paper out of the house and both kids were attempting to sleep off their colds, I rummaged through my fabric stash and pulled out an old thrift-store shower curtain. Ta-da! My first ever upholstering job.

It came out better than I'd expected. And yes, I did strip off all of the old vinyl-lined fabric to remove the mold first. The cushions were in fine shape thanks to the plastic layer under the old cover.

My only regret now is that I should have cut the fabric more carefully so I could re-cover our kitchen chairs in the same print. Ten years of use and 4 years of kids in general and 1 year of Jorge specifically does not lend itself to clean white seat cushions.

Speaking of thrift stores and chairs...

Jorge's crib door has been open for months meaning he has all the freedom that comes from a toddler bed but still can prop his feet up on the rails and flop around like a fish (hi B!) and generally be contained. However, since this cold/flu of his started he's been insisting on sleeping on the floor and the only way to break it seemed to be re-configuring his room. So today we converted the crib to a toddler bed, turned it against a different wall, re-arranged some baskets, and turned it into a big-boy room. The only thing missing was a comfy chair for the grown-up to sit in during bedtime stories so I stopped at out our local Salvation Army and scored the perfect chair. One arm was a little loose so tonight Rob dismantled, glued, and then re-attached that part and it will go into its bedside position in the morning.

As of tomorrow we'll have three newly functional chairs. Huzzah!

PS I've never upholstered before but a quick check of youtube videos gives you some guidance. It's pretty fun--it's like sewing with a staple gun. Bam!

I not want to

Since Thursday night Jorge has slept approximately twenty hours. Four nights, four bad nights of sleep.

He's feverish and miserable. He whines constantly. Mostly he just whimpers out "I not want to." Generally it's not in relation to any particular verb, he just doesn't want to.

For three nights I've slept on the floor. Correction: The first night I slept on the floor; the next night he decided he wanted to sleep on the floor with or without me and so now he sleeps on the floor. Sometime around midnight he wakes up and we re-medicate. Sometime around 2 AM he wakes up coughing his little brains out and I end up sitting with him until 5 AM and finally passing out next to him and then crawling back to my bed at 6 AM and then Rob wakes up with him at 6:45 when he wakes up like clockwork, perky, and starts singing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It's a damn good thing he's cute.

Tonight I came home from work to find him not sleeping but instead sitting in his room playing with various toys from the basket next to his crib which was now within reach of his little nest. He was expecting me to tell him the Strawberry Story. I made him return most of the toys and the whining started; I asked him to lay down to hear the story and there it was "I not want to....I not want to.....I not want to...."

Not want to what? He doesn't know. He just does not want to. And neither do I. I know we can't give him Nyquil; would it be so wrong to just dose ourselves?

Crochet and Knitting Projects

First up was completing the purple and pink scarf which Katie and I have been crocheting since late summer. She had picked out the two-toned skein of yarn and a pink crochet hook (never mind things like sizes...we shop by color) for her birthday and we double-crocheted our way to a scarf. By "we", of course, I mean that Katie spent most of the time sitting on my lap and holding the crochet hook while I moved the project and yarn around to crochet. But she did learn the little chant of "loop and dive, and pull...and pull...and pull" pretty well. I think she'll be ready for her own project next year; perhaps a wash cloth.



Friday night I added another foot or so to the scarf and then added the tassels. I individually knotted each string at the bottom so here's hoping they don't fray out into one furry clump in the first washing.



Next to the scarf you'll see this weekend's main event: Katie's own pair of fingerless gloves.

I'm chronically cold with terrible circulation in my fingers so when I saw some simple fingerless gloves--think socks with the toes cut off and a hole slit in for the thumb--on the cheap at Target I grabbed them. Lovely. My hands/wrists stay warm and all 10 fingers are still easily available for typing, knitting, or other who-turned-the-heat-down-indoor or mild-weather-outdoor activities. Katie fell in love with them and so I hunted online for a simple tutorial on them. This pattern at purlbee was as simple as I found. She loves them.

Finally, since her crochet hook was free and clear after Friday night's scarf completion, she asked me to make a skirt for her Happy Hippo. That turned into a request for a dress so a top was added in red. She was so impressed it inspired a painting at her easel.

Also: Jorge has a flu-type bug and has been hacking and coughing and occasionally vomiting all weekend. His fever started in the 99.9 arena Saturday night and with each dose of medicine it would come back higher than before, topping out at 103 this afternoon. He's finally asleep after about 48 hours of coughing and miserable misery. It was a gorgeous sunny weekend and Katie had two birthday parties to attend so it ended up being a bit crazy here, but we did manage to get outside to blow some of the stink off each day. It's a little alarming how stir crazy we all were after a week of rainy, cold, snowy weather; it's going to be a long winter.

Technical Details

Note: my adjustments to the knitting pattern to make it kid-sized

1. I only cast on 28 stitches rather than 40. I also used size 7 DPNs and a thick yarn so adjust that to make a circumference that works for your wearer.

2. I then joined the ends and knitted in the round with a rib stitch (K1 P1 all the way around and around) until it was a reasonable length to be the base of the thumb--about 26 rows with my yarn/needles/tension.

3. I followed purlbee's instructions on making the thumb gusset but only did the first 4 increases (rows 1-6 as instructed) and then skipped to the bind off (row 13), but only bound off 5 stitches. This made a pretty tiny thumb hole which is just the right size for her. It's also very stubby (about 1/4") but that's enough to hit her first knuckle.

4. From there I did about 3 more rows of rib stitches and the eyelet row. However, when she tried it on after I'd cast it off it was not quite long enough across her palm and back of hand so I added a double-crochet crocheted edge by putting two double-crochets into each eyelet hole. That added about 1/4" which made it fit more like my store-bought ones.

Next up: some adult ones! Who wants them?

Edging in on 90...

Today I became one of those women who carry around knitting projects and pull them out mid-small-talk at your kid's birthday party.

I also became the little old lady sitting on her front porch in a ratty cardigan knitting and occasionally yelling at squirrels.

And the crazy old lady who lost her glasses and ran out of contacts and went around blind most of the day until she found a highly unfashionable scratched-up pair.

I'll try to fix the last one Monday. The other two I make no formal apologies for and will post the finished products tomorrow.

Am I the only one (ok, besides Rob, but he's confirmed crotchety)

First there was just "shop early" which led to the ridiculousness that is "Black Friday" and now, it seems, we have to deal with "Black November".

Tonight I saw "pre-black-friday-shop-for-Christmas-tomorrow-or-your-greedy-awful-materialistic-kids-will-hate-you-forever" commercials AND newscasts for at least 5 stores. About sales they are running now, already, the first week of November, for Christmas. If I see that horrible Kohls commercial where the smug moms sing about how much junk they've bought for their precious snowflake kids one more time I'm going to boycott. Kohls, the tv, shopping in general--something will be boycotted.

It's getting worse, right? I'm not just getting more crotchety, too? I mean, I'm almost two weeks ahead of my usual grumbling point.