Random

Today's post will be a compilation of random thougths.

First random thought:
As Fay rains down on the Sunshine State of Florida, the weather she brings is slowing making it's way north and has hit the Delta. The days have been gray and cool with lots of rain and small occasional pockets of sunshine. To cope, I have a secret weapon at work. My work office is located across the street from the main building where they keep the Starbucks. I love having a cup of coffee in the afternoon, but the rain hinders my desire to run across the street, so I keep coffee at my desk and this:


A nice mini French press. It is a lifesaver. I've had it for a few months and bought it on pressured impulse. I say "pressured impulse" because I loved it the moment I saw it but wouldn't buy it because I didn't need it. After staring it during multiple visits to the local Starbucks, Italian finally told me to just go ahead and buy the damn thing. I'm glad he did! I've used it several times at work and it's been a great little pick me on gray days. It's even been a little pick me up for coworkers who have stopped by for a much needed break.

Where the mini French press has helped me cope at work, my knitting has often been a coping mechanism outside of work. The watermelon socks helped me cope with long lines at Disney and the Shaped Tee helped with the flight. Sometimes, though, the knitting backfires, like when you realize the armhole shaping in the Shaped Tee is just too deep and really needs to be ripped out and reknitted, which is what I did.


I may have lost some progress, but at least the shirt should fit a bit better when it is finally finished. As for finishing, I did finish the front, as well as a pair of socks.


Pattern: Diagonal Cross Rib from Favorite Socks
Needles: Knit Picks US size 0 (which I still do not like because of the weight.
Yarn: Custom dyed sock yarn in the colorway Watermelon
Notes: This yarn has gotten the most comments from people, both knitters and no-knitters. It's fun to knit because the yarn is just too cute and looks like watermelons. It also reminds people of Christmas. The pattern is quite easy to follow and makes a nice comfy sock. The pattern works well with striping yarn as well.

Always with me

No pictures today, but just a few thoughts. Little Clover and I talked a bit about my mom. Today is the anniversary of her death, and he asked me if I miss her. I told him that I do miss her. He also asked if I ever forget her. I asked him what he meant and he asked if I ever not think about her. This was an interesting question to me because it made me wonder how much I'm on his mind. I told him that yes, sometimes I don't think about her, but I still love her and she's always in my heart, and with each passing year, I'm less and less sad on this day. We kept our tradition of eating Korean today and made a toast to her. Little Clover and I talked about her while eating ice cream on a beautiful sunny day. I saw her in every patch of clover I passed and a small sprinkling of rain brought thoughts of rainbows. Even though today is a reminder she is gone, she's always present. I miss you, Mom.

And we're back

We are home and we hated leaving Disney World. We've been to Disney before and had wonderful times then, but this trip was just a tad bit different. Little Clover is in one of those in-between ages. He isn't a little kid anymore, but he isn't completely a big kid yet either. Sure we did the big kid rides like Big Thunder Mountain and the Primeval Whirl. We even went on a water coaster at Typhoon Lagoon, which is essentially a super charged water slide that you go down, and up. We still went on the little kid rides, too, like "It's a Small World" and the Animal Kingdom equivalent of the Dumbo ride. There were a few times when I even felt this little hand slide into mine while walking. I doubt I'll have many more moments of these with Little Clover, so I cherished each one with him this past week.



One of the best parts of Disney with this particular little person is visiting his favorite park, Epcot. Yep, my kid loves Epcot above all the others. He likes to walk around each country. He especially loves to eat the foods of each country. We sampled Japanese cuisine twice. The first night consistent of a little hibachi dinner,


where Little Clover displayed his mad chopstick skills.



The second trip to Japan consisted of a visit to the sushi bar where Little Clover order his usually: a seaweed salad and an order of flying fish roe sushi. The nights in Japan were the only times when he didn't eat Mac 'n Cheese or hot dogs.

A couple of nights later, we feasted in Germany while listening to a traditional band. Little Clover tested out his flirting skills with the older girls at our table. He got a few laughs telling them about how I almost stepped on a snake that morning and completely freaked out. I maintain the snake was huge and at least 10 feet long. Little Clover and Italian swear it was under 10 inches, but they weren't the ones who almost stepped on it. At least it gave Little Clover a great story to retell.

We also had the pleasure of visiting Norway were we spotted Dale of Norway sweaters. I've got to get one of these patterns. The shop had the Peace pattern from the 1994 Olympics and it was beautiful. One day, I'll be able to knit a beautiful Dale pattern.

Speaking of sweaters, did you know Disney World has sheep?

It was like a mini sheep and wool festival.

And in case you think I didn't knit a bit, let me tell you, you can get a lot of knitting done while waiting in line for rides. When we left for Disney, I had just turned the heel of the second sock and picked up stitches for the gusset. After waiting for buses and in several lines, I managed to knock out a good chunk of the foot.

I made the most progress while waiting in line for one ride for 2 hours. Yes, 2 hours was spent winding my way through a throng of people to go on a 6 minute ride and it was totally worth it. What was the ride? The new Toy Story Mania, and yes, it was worth the 2 hour wait. We had a blast and it was one of our favorite attractions.

As with all good things, the vacation came to end. I plowed my way through the front of the Shaped Tee on the plane.

Normally, I'd have plenty of time left to finish the top and wear it this season, but the weather has been oddly cool. Maybe I can layer it under a cute cardigan. (Guess I'm knitting a cardigan next).

Cool weather always makes me think of fall, as does the start of another school year. Today, Little Clover officially became a fourth grader. This is the last year of elementary school and I tried my best not to cry a single tear. I almost made it, too.

Happy first day of school, Little Guy. May you have a year of happy memories ahead of you.

May the force be with you

All the hoopla from the previous post was after a two hour detour to Tampa :) This has been an adventurous trip.

Vacation continues

In April, I booked a one week vacation to Disney World, staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in a room overlooking the savannah. Little clover loves animals, so this seemed to be the perfect place to stay. We left Friday and after a slight two hour unplanned detour to Tampa, our plane landed late in Orlando. I went to check into Disney and hop on the first of many Disney buses for the week, only to discover that our travel agent booked us for the wrong month. This vacation was turning into quite an adventure. A couple of hours later, between the efforts of Disney, the travel agency, and myself, we had a place to stay, we were still on property, and we could stay in the same room the entire week. We're in fact, at one of our favorite places, Fort Wilderness. So far, the rest of our vacation has been wonderful. More to come later!J

Finally

Hi! You've reached the Irishclover blog. The blog may be a bit skimpy on post and photos for a bit because we are finally on vacation; and not just in a "wow, it's been a long time" kind of way. It is more of a "after everything we finally made it."

Post mobile

Existing blog is irishcloverknits.blogspot.com. I would like to post to this from my mobile.

Three years later

I wasn't completely useless while Little Clover was gone. My spinning flourished and is becoming more consistent. There is still room for improvement, but I'm becoming happier with my singles. I also finally finished a tank top I began three years ago. I have no idea if I'll ever wear it, but I'm glad to finally have the project finished.

Why did it take three years to finish a tank top? Because I only knit it when I was at a beach. It began as a beach project three summers ago, when I had just picked up the needles again. The yarn was a synthetic ribbon and seemed perfectly capable of enduring sand, sun, and water. I casted on a few weeks before the trip so I would be in a good spot for knitting in the car, which I did. I knitted on the beach. I knitted on the ride home. Looking back, I must have been a very slow knitter back then. I packed away the project, not knowing the term "UFO" at the time, until a year later, when we went back to the beach. Out came the tank again, and away it went when we arrived home. I repeated this for two more trips to sandy areas, having expanded my definition of "the beach" and finally finished the knitting part on our last trip to the cabin. All that was left was the seam of two straps and the weaving of ends. Now, it's really ready for a beach trip.


Pattern: Ribbon X back tank Knitty from Spring 20005
Yarn: Tahki Stacy Lily Ribbon yarn
Notes: Overall, the pattern is super easy and very easy to put down and pick up at random.

Now, I'm focused on finishing up one more top before summer's end.