May 08, 2005

slice o' life

Here's my slice of life to fit in with Julia's suggestion. Yeah. I know. It's not Saturday anymore, but I just read what was going on. And dammit, I am bitter that I'm not in Maryland. It's all my fault, kind of. If I had known that we would be sitting in the cold, in Paris, instead of moving, I would have gone to Maryland to see my sister and hit the festival. Oh well. Of course, if I had known that I was going to be pregs, ill all the time and my husband would be jobless come May 10th, I might have chosen to stay home anyway.

For all of you who think living in France must be exciting and romantic, get ready for reality:
Yesterday, my mom, Frog and I left my in-laws' house where I had ingested record-breaking amounts of butter in less than 60 hours. Frog drove while I slept the whole way. We got back and I discovered that my email wasn't working, nor was my site. My URL had expired because contrary to my expectations, it had not been renewed automatically. This led to much swearing, yelling, calling New Mexico and I even threw a telephone across the room. It wasn't working. I threw it. It's still not working. No loss. Maybe I'll throw it again just for fun. Then, mom and I went to the grocery store where we stood in line for a long time. We played UNO with Frog and I lost again and again. Then, we went to our favorite restaurant where I struggled through dinner. It was great, as always, but I am just not comfortable sitting down or eating or breathing or doing anything besides laying down. We came home reeking of smoke. We went to bed. Now it's 1:17pm on Sunday and my mom is the only one who has showered. Frog and I are still in pyjamas. After I make myself presentable, my mom and I are going to go buy shrimp to stir fry at one of the only stores that is open on Sundays. Then we'll probably choose between doing laundry and walking around the cemetary down the street or watching horrible TV. Romantique et excitant, n'est-ce pas? At least I haven't blown all of my savings on yarn.

PS. Sorry if I sound grumpy. I'm really not. I'm just perma-tired and the rainy, gray, unseasonably cold weather is starting to get me down.

Posted by kate at 12:02 PM | Comments (14)

March 15, 2005

multiplying like... bunnies

Spring must be in the air because I keep seeing bunnies. Like these and this one (on March 1) and another and a blue one (on Jan. 25) and this cutie and this one in the wild

I figured I would put some bunny hints out there for any of you who happen to be making them. If you aren't making bunnies, stick your tongue out at my blog, roll your eyes and then scroll down to "Did you know"

Black is a hard color to use for the embroidery. Nearly everyone who mentioned mean bunny faces used black to make the mouth and I'm convinced that one has something to do with the other.

Don't understuff!

Go down a needle size or two to get a nice, tight fabric if you have to. You don't want the stuffing to show through, do you? I know I specified a size, but who cares. It's a bunny. You aren't going to wear it.

It's easier to do the embroidery before the head is completely stuffed and sewn up. I stuffed mine a little, sewed on the face and then finished stuffing and sewed up the back.

I apologize for not getting the info up on my site for the backwards loop cast on. I promise I'll do it as soon as I can bribe Frog to take photos for me. In the mean time, there's good info here (Scroll down)

That's all I can think of for now, but I'll add things as I think of them.

Did you know that in France they say that on Easter morning bells fly out of the churches in Rome and come to France to hide eggs and leave candy for children? Yes. Bells. Like the things that go ding dong. What's even better is that they are bells with wings. That's right. Huge, heavy, metal bells with little cartoony wings that fly and somehow gently pick up eggs and hide them in bushes and leave giant Kinder Eggs and Lindt Bunnies (but very sadly no peeps or jelly beans). I mean, a rabbit hiding eggs is a pretty stupid idea, but at least it's a living breathing animal that can move because it wants to. Bells? Really! I don't care if they are magic bells from Vatican City! What do they take us for, ding dongs? Excuse me for the extremely lame joke. It's time for bed. Anyway, the point of this rambling is, Frog keeps saying I should knit a bell. The only cloche I would like to knit is one that could go on my head. And it wouldn't have wings.

PS It was Blossom who wrote the last entry in case you didn't notice. She claims she's going to buy yarn this weekend. We'll see! Since my blog seems pretty devoid of concrete knitting content, maybe I'll let her jump in and show us what she picked out for herself.

Posted by kate at 10:35 PM | Comments (16)