Punishments

I really don't know who I punish more when I take away tv viewing for a day or several days. My middle girl who can read at a 3rd grade level (while still in Kindergarten) or myself. When I turn off the tv the girls tear the house apart. They do things that would bring them harm (sliding down the stairs on blankets) and lots of noise. I tried throwing them out of the house to play, but we had the "it's a bug" crying, the "it's raining" cry and the one I loved most...."it's a thunderstorm." It doesn't help that they really can't play in our backyard without constant supervision (not of them, but of the evil neighbors and their evil dogs). I do have Jim Dale reading Harry Potter books (number 5) playing in hopes that they listen quietly (yeah, right), but that is not happening. I can't handle this much noise and there are things that I want to get finished before the weekend. That is what I am trying to do...I am working on dishcloths (to give as gifts), my daughter's hat (she tore the needles apart trying to put an 1 1/2 inch amount of knitted hat on her very large head) that I have restarted more times than I care to count, 3 afghans and 1 clown and 1 penguin. When I get these finished I'll post the links to where I got the patterns or at least the book that you can look at to make something like it. I am also trying to get photos onto my snapfish account so that I can print photos for my neice (she is coming to town and I like to give her pictures of her with her cousins). But that keeps stopping itself. So very frustrating. I decided to take a break from that and put up some photos of things I have made recently. I hadn't put up photos because gifts for my friends were in there and I wanted this to be a surprise for them.

Okay, now to the pictures:
Hats that I have made.... The pattern idea came from Wendy Knits. It is a 3 x 3 rib, but I added 18 to the cast on to make it large enough to fit my daughter's head. The smaller size fits my youngest daughter and my neice. This hat was made for my oldest daughter and fits my youngest. It uses some leftover sock yarn that is a rainbow. My oldest loves rainbows. I started with a 3 x 3 knit and I don't remember how many I cast on and I used 1 1/2 US dpns. When I got to the crown, I just started playing around with trying to put a long thin area that would just be fun.

Did I mention that I was working on dishcloths? I think I did. I have a friend who likes the color yellow, so I made her some yellow dishcloths: I made one with a stripe, because I had someone ask me how to add a stripe to knit items. I made one that has Christmas coloring. I made just a plain yellow dishcloth. I also used a pattern from RaAnn Clegg (her site is: http://wicketstitch.blogspot.com/2007/11/leprechaun-and-pot-of-gold-dishcloth.html) I love her designs and I really enjoy making the dishcloths using her patterns. I also finished a prayer shawl. I gave this to my friend Margaret. She has very serious asthma and hasn't been feeling well. Also, there have been a number of accidents in her yard or in front of her house. She loved her new shawl and was very happy to get this. I also began teaching my daughters how to knit. This is the scarf that my oldest girl worked on:

Now for some of our backyard wildlife: We saw this poor bird and couldn't figure out what it was, but with some research, it appears to be an albino robin (it is half normal coloring and half albino). We have several rabbits They come very close to the house.

My newest cat has become a very interesting part of our household. After Easter, we had some empty Easter baskets lying around and she would lay down in them She likes to play with pencils: The other two cats just have to have a good deal of adult contact. My middle cat, has taken up residence in a broken drawer of my daughter's dresser (we are in the process of trying to fix it, again).