Their Time to Shine

This is Shiner.
He was doing part of his nightly exercise routine—gearing up for his big delivery day on Sunday. You have to keep those reflexes tight!

He's been our resident Easter Bun ever since this guy


handed over the torch and retired from active duty a few years ago. Now Gilligan lounges around like Easter is just another day. Though he still hides little tiny round eggs for us. They never get tired of that.

I wanted to post these to show off my little guys while belatedly climbing onto my furry soapbox to say that rabbits make wonderful pets but aren't really good pets for kids and real rabbits make terrible Easter gifts. You really should know what you're getting into before you get one. They're prey animal who are hardwired to chew—which means that they don't necessarily want to be picked up and carried about and will undoubtable find some pair of your shoes (my favorite fluevogs!), an article of your clothing (my favorite black sweater), your rug (yes, the purple rug he's up there dancing on), or a piece of furniture (my blue vintage couch) to chew. And that doesn't even cover the dangerous (i.e. electrical wires) chewing potential.
Bunny-proofing is important!

They are all different and are all just full of personality as long as you have the patience to sit back and let them be who they are. Our two are as different as night and day, but we love them both!

It is impossible for me to not relax when I look at this.

And, yes, it's an ad, but could bunnies and the House Rabbit Society have a better spokeswoman?

Happy Belated Easter!

The First Sign of Spring?

Perhaps.

Though it was more spring-like here earlier this week. Now it is drizzly and dreary outside.

sigh.

Don't tell me the groundhog lied to us?

I guess I'll have to make due with my very slowly growing fabric garden.

Did I Mention That I Finished Something?

Because I did.
I actually finished it a few months ago, but besides being my first "real" intarsia, it was also my first project with steeks, so it sat around while I screwed up the courage to actually cut through stitches that had taken me days (weeks) to make. Then there's the blocking process which, along with sewing the pieces together, is my least favorite part of knitting.
But it has to be done. I mean, if you want to be able to wear it.

On the other hand, the knitting part of this vest was so much fun. Every time I work on a different type of knitting I think, "this is the technique for me!" I like cables, sock knitting, lace, chunky-yarn knitting, fingerling-weight knitting, etc. etc. etc. However, I really think that intarsia may really be for me. I love being able to do straight, simple knitting with quick little color changes to break-up any potential monotony. Plus, it's very easy to see if you've made a mistake (I never seem to catch my cable mistakes until I've run through the whole pattern), and pretty easy to fix a mistake since the color you need is just hanging back there behind all the action on the front lines. So I guess I'm saying "yay" intarsia!





The pattern is from See Eunny Knit and I highly recommend it. Though do believe her when she says the vest is meant to fit snugly. I like the vest a lot, but I do have to do a little shimmying dance to get it off! I showed my true midwest colors and used Brown Sheep yarn—I guess the Nature Sport? (Sorry, I bought it 2 years ago...)


Here's another photo from the back...
And if you've checked in here before, you may remember this, but that was really the second intarsia project—I just managed to get the photo up first.

Bernard is Lonely

Poor Bernard.
He looks sad, right?
He had some views on Etsy and then something went awry over there and my view counts were zeroed out.
Now he only has a sad little 1 next to his name.
Won't anybody even give Bernard the time of day?

Ack! Is Quilting Month Over Already!?!

Because I barely got anything cut out, let alone pieced.



Well, O.K., I did do a little piecing.



I guess I misunderstood. I thought "Quilting Month" meant start 5 new quilt projects in 29 days. (Though I did start one in January, and I already had most of the fabric involved in all of these.)
This red & white West fabric has been lying around forever (well, since it was on sale at Reprodepot, anyway)



It is a humbling experience to lay just one of these squares on top of your bed (and ours is only a full-size). and imagine how many other 1 1/2" squares you'll need to cover that sucker up!



Lucky for me, only one of these projects has a real deadline.



And fortunately, it is not this one... yes, this will be hand-pieced. whew.


For me, February was also "sit on the couch while hacking your lungs out and going through multiple boxes of Kleenexes" month, which made tracing templates for hours and hours seem appealingly simple-minded.

Check out these cute and lovely quilts, too! (Check out her flickr set, too!) You know I like this one, too!