Where Oh Where Has My Little Dot Gone

OK ... don't call me Dot. If I'd had any forethought whatsoever when I chose "DotMom" as a screen name, I would have re-thunk it all over. Don't call me Dot.

"Dot" is a rather petite woman with a blond beehive do that she get's re-hived once a week at the Beauty Parlor. She bowls in the Wednesday night Ladies' League down at Twilight Bowl and Tan, she square dances on Saturday nights, and she's married to "Bud." I'm not Dot, so don't call me that.

I'm far from petite at an Amazonian 5'7", and I weigh more right now than any 5'7" Amazon should who isn't in her 2nd trimester. I occasionally bowl with my children, but I haven't Square Danced since they made us do that in High School Phys Ed. (Do they still do that in h.s.? Probably not, and that's what's wrong with our society.) Oh yeah, and my husband is definitely not a "Bud." Don't even call him that.

I guess this brings me to why I haven't blogged in so long ... the reason you all have been missing your little "Dot" ... give me a sec while I get my eyeballs lined back up in the front of my head ...

yeah ... OK ... I haven't been blogging because I've actually been doing things that don't involve a computer, sticks and string. A few things, anyway. We've managed to pull four very large yard waste bags full of weeds out of our gardens, and we have at least that much to go. I've potted up lots of annuals, raised a few bucks for our local Relay for Life, cleaned portions of my home and hung out with the kids. Oh yeah ... and I have been knitting a wee bit.

My latest gift project is this little sundress knit for some church friends who just adopted a darling little girl from China. This was knit from the Emma's Sundress pattern using Plymouth Wildflower DK in a discontinued colorway.

On a visit to my LYS, I found these darling daisy buttons that were apparently made just for this dress, I'm sure of it!

I also knit myself a pair of Pomsquad footies (sans the pom) using King Cole Smooth in Cream and Buttermilk.

I was unable to achieve gauge using my brand spanking new Size 1 Addi circulars with this yarn. So, I re-calculated the pattern. Additionally, I found the short-row heel instructions in this pattern to be not quite accurate, so pulled out my Knitting for Dummies book and used their instructions instead -- my short rows still need some work, as you can see from the picture. Finally, I can't do a Figure 8 cast on to save my life so I used a Turkish Cast-on instead. These footies were a real learning experience.

I have hopes of re-writing this pattern to my own specifications and adding in a stitch pattern of some sort for the top of the foot. I also have some ideas on making it an adjustable pattern, meaning that you can plug in your gauge and go from there.

So, here are my Pomsquads ... holey heels and all ...

This week my guys are gone on a week-long Boy Scout campout, which means I'm going to really have to work hard to get myself to bed on time. I'm really bad about staying up late when there's no one here to remind me that grown ups actually do need to go to bed once in a while.

As a matter of fact, I was up until the wee hours last night watching "Shall We Dance" and knitting on DD's Kidlet Tank, which I finished (woo hoo!) sometime after midnight but before dawn. I would take a picture of that, too, but the camera also went on the campout.

My goodness it's getting tired in here. I think it might be naptime.