i get Lost May 8, 2010

i never really cared about watching ‘Lost’ until i ran out of tv series to watch.  i think it was the same closed-mindedness that kept me from watching Battlestar Galactica for so long.  That, and i remember being so uninterested in listening to a radio morning show discussing Lost that i didn’t think about it twice~ until a couple weeks ago when i ran out of stargate episodes to watch.  Thanks to Hulu and my mom saying it was a good show, i dove right in………. and i love it!!!  and Sawyer is so freakin hot!!!!!    anyway, my sister Jennifer just sent this to me and i still can’t stop laughing!!!

How the Lost characters make peanut butter jelly sandwiches:

Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ingredients and shout “HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?”
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients
4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate
1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly
2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best
3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum
5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer
1. Throw the jar of jelly at wall, sneering “I don’t need no sandwich”
2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames
3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot
4. When no one’s looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke
1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves
2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway
3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all
4. Run around the room and grab everyone’s knives, insisting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

Hurley
1. Make sandwich
2. Eat sandwich
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 ad infinitum

Sayid
1. Procure 23 milligrams of uranium-20
2. Set hadron supercollider to eight megajoules
3. Program a sandwich-making macro using Cobol or Visual Basic
4. Act all tough-like

Desmond
1. Eat sandwich
2. Call the sandwich “brother”
3. Place peanut butter slice over jelly slice
4. Spread jelly on the other slice
5. Spread peanut butter on one slice
6. Take two slices of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly

Ben
1. Steal someone else’s sandwich
2. Claim you coerced them into making the sandwich for you all along
3. Say you’ll tell them everything if they make you another sandwich
4. Stare at them all creepy-like

Libby
1. Lay out plans for one of the most intricate, fascinating, and delicious sandwiches of all time
2. Just as you start making it, get shot

Claire
1. Mmmmmmm, peanut butter

tasha likes hats February 16, 2010

Tasha loves when i make her hats, which is just fine with me cause i love making them!! 

I may have posted this already, but this is called the convertible hat (http://aprildraven.blogspot.com/2009/08/convertible-hat.html)

  both tasha and madaleine have been taking turns wearing it

next up is the swirls cap (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/swirls-cap)

  this one fits madaleine better, but the color is more suited for tasha.  they both look great in it though!

Boomer started being in heat this week and the boy cats that haven’t been fixed yet have been uber-spraying up the house.  They’ve been exiled to the porch and garage.  So what does boomer do?  She sticks her head out of my bedroom window and meows, and there are some boy cats outside that i’ve never seen before!!  Too bad for them!

Now that the house has been relatively boy cat free this week, Rosie is loving all the attention!!  Here she is happy to have her spot back on our bed:

And what’s even better than getting her spot back?  Adrian!!!!!  By far her favorite person in this house!! 

She follows him around everywhere, she even starts wagging her tail when she hears the schoolbus coming in the afternoon!  Here he is coming out of the bathroom:

Adrian wanted me to make a toy for her so i made a snake (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=289504.msg3294051#msg3294051)

she loved playing with the snake until she got side tracked by her all-time favorite toy ever……PIPE CLEANERS!!!!!

  (she’s waiting for me to give her back her pipe cleaner!)

Every morning i hear meowing in my room and everytime i look down there she is walking around with a pipe cleaner in her mouth and meowing at any cat who dares come near her!!

Oh, and how did i find out that Boomer was in heat?  I saw her run upstairs and a second later 5 of the boys were chasing her.  It took a bit but i hunted down all the boys and escorted them to the front porch.  I’m thinking “whew!” until i see Boomer rolling around like crazy in the living room.  I search the house again and i find this guy:

  I guess it’s not all bad, he is by far the friendliest, sweetest cat ever!   After all the trouble i’ve gone through this week keeping the cats out, i better not see a bunch of baby tobys or baby twinkles!!!

Later!

nathalie

overdue post February 12, 2010

i have been meaning to do another ‘stuff people make with my patterns’ post and then my computer died!!  all i know is that i was looking through my documents on my computer and i was running a program that converts videos to burn onto dvds when all of a sudden the screen freezes and then goes to ‘the blue screen of death’ i.e. blue stop screen.  i shut it down and restarted, and when it went to the ‘start windows normally’ option i clicked it but it looped back to the blue screen!  i finallly got into safe mode, i followed the directions on the windows help thing and went ahead and uninstalled all the programs i had, i even uninstalled the most recent updates and the updates that others had problems with but nothing worked.  I’m not electronically inclined so i did’nt know exactly what to google for but when i started the computer and hit ‘start windows normally’ it would’nt go to the starting welcome screen.  i realized that rebooting was my only option cause my phone wouldnt work (magic jack) and i had no money.  guess what happened when i did the whole reboot thing?!  it did’nt work cause windows could’nt start properly!! 

At this point i resigned to my fate, shut down the stupid computer, dragged the girl’s tv into my room and watched a CSI Miami marathon with Madaleine.  When i woke up the next morning i decided to try one more time and omg it actually worked!  I already hated losing all the pics i had’nt been able to burn onto cds, but the worst is losing the video of Madaleine’s first band concert (she plays the violin).  Sucks for me, right?!!

So, moving on i am very pleased show off this super-duper mushroom house crocheted by Laurie:

  Awesome-ly cool and it totally made my day!!!

Here is the link to the pattern: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/maddies-shroom-house/ 

I love all the flower scarves that have been made, and hopefully i’m not leaving anyone out!:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/pretty-pretty-flower-scarf/)

 made by Chapella1988 over at ravelry

 made by Clare76  from Ravelry

 made by suzecro at Ravelry

  made by TamzinB at Ravelry

 a modified version of the scarf, also by TamzinB

 made by lyndseyloo at Ravelry

 made by NattyDReese at Ravelry

 made by yarngirlie at Ravelry

 made by QuirkyNurse at Ravelry

 made by titaniumrose at Ravelry

 made by woolymountain at Ravelry

Projects made with cat toy pattern:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/squiddly-cat-toy/)

 made by Elenerv at Ravelry

 made by TokyoKyotoxx at Ravelry

Projects made with afternoon delight turtle pattern:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/afternoon-delight/)

 made by kaitana at Ravelry

 made by mcrowthers at Ravelry

Evil Minions!!!!!!

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/evil-minions/)

 made by caitirin at Ravelry

here’s another pic in front of the computer screen (i do have a weak spot for these evil little guys!)

  lol! i wonder what this one is up to?!!!

 made by LugosiGirl at Ravelry, these are her evil office minions!!!!

Here’s one i haven’t seen in a while~ fancy feast!:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/fancy-feast-tutorial/)

 made by Annemoon at Ravelry

**EDIT**

another fancy feast has been made!!!

made by fuzzmom at flickr, here is the picture link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzmom/4163090628/  a beautiful blue!!!!!

and overboard fish:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/we-all-love-free-patterns/)

 made by ivory142 at Ravelry

and kiwi bird:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/my-crocheted-take-on-kiwi/)

 made by PlentimawFish at Ravelry

 made by meelee514 at Ravelry

 made by perlinavichinga at Flickr

and last but soooooooo not least, mint chocolate bunny:

(pattern link: https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/mint-bunny/)

 made by yellowpinksparkley, i was having a bad day and i saw this and what a bright spot!!  Can’t help but smile with this cutie around!!

Oh, one more, it’s from my crocheted hat pattern (https://gnathalie2.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/happy-birthday-steph/)

 made by mcm at Ravelry

A huge thanks to everyone for sharing all your wonderful projects!!!

Later!

Nathalie

Dubbi the cat January 13, 2010

Everyone calls him ‘dubbi’, but his real name is ‘double-D’ from the cartoon ‘ed,edd, and eddy’.  He belongs to our neighbors across the street, but for the last week he has made himself at home here. 

I’ve seen him hanging around our porch, fighting with Toby and sleeping under the car.  He’s even come into the house on ‘cat food’ days (aka~ days we buy the giant bag of cat food!) , but when he’s done eating he runs to the door and waits to be let out.  A few days ago i woke up in the middle of the night to turn off the bathroom light and this is what i saw:

 and just so you know, he is by far the largest cat i’ve ever seen!

He is super friendly, he rolls on his back when you pet him and purrs like crazy!  And he’s not sketchy like some of my other cats!!

Here he is getting comfy next to Luis last night:

None of my cats have a problem with him, exept Toby, and he uses the litter box so he can stay as long as he wants to!!

As for crocheting, i’ve made 3 of these hats so far:

This blue one is for my brother’s girlfriend, Megan.  I found the pattern on craftster, here is the link:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=318485.0

~the only changes i made to the pattern was i used a size I hook instead of K, and i continued crocheting around the brim instead of chain-2/turn. 

I also made a few cat hats for the girls, this is the first one i made.  Please note the unfinished yarn ends sticking out of the sides (natasha couldn’t wait to try it on!)  And for the record, this pattern ROCKS!!!

  She is such a sweetie!!

Oh, the free pattern for the cat hat is here:  http://gegecrochet.blogspot.com/2009/04/holy-julie-newmar-batman.html

And i will do another show-and-tell post with projects made with my patterns in the next few days!!!! 

Later!

nathalie

vine on a fence scarf November 19, 2009

new free pattern!!!!

 

 

Download free pdf here: vine on a fence scarf

 

Enjoy!

nathalie

a work in progress November 11, 2009

My older sister, Jennifer, has been wanting me to make her one of my pretty pretty flower scarves for a while now.  So i started going through whats left of my yarn (thanks, cats!) and found a bulky super soft dark brown that i won for having the cutest kitten picture in a group over at ravelry.  She wants a scarf with blue or green flowers, but i reallllllllllllly wanted to use the brown and then it hit me:  the brown can be the fence with the flowers running up it!!  

So i am now in the middle of designing a new flower scarf, called ‘flowers on the fence’!  I have a very strong dislike for sewing stuff in crochet only cause the stupid ends never stay hidden, so this will be another no-sew scarf~ the base is the brown fence, then there will be a green vine with leaves crocheted onto it, along with a flower ‘row’.  I’ve already got the green vine with leaves figured out, i’m still working on how to make the flowers in one ‘row’. 

Here is the brown that i have done so far:

 

I would already be done with it, but when i went to the kitchen to throw some chicken in the oven the cats had dragged most of it down the hallway and stairs!  I picked all of it up and caught Boomer trying to grab it again.  Here she is staring at it, waiting for me to look away for just one tiny second:

  she wants it real bad!!!

 

Baby Carrot is doing wonderfully at our house~ still the most purr-iest kitten we’ve ever had!  She loves sleeping next to me, and here she is on my spot:

 

And here she is again about half an hour after i moved her over a bit:

  she even purrs while shes sleeping sometimes!

 

I couldn’t resist taking a close up pic of her:

  what a sweetie!!!!

 

Later!!

nathalie

baby carrot is the new kitten November 9, 2009

Natasha wanted me to drive her up the street to see if her friend could play.  She went to the front door and as i’m sitting in the car i see a little orange kitten running up to her.  She asked her friend if it was hers, but her friend thought that it was one of ours!  I knew it was coming when she picked up the cat and turned towards me……”mom, can we keep the kitten?”

Really?  When have i ever said ‘no’ to a homeless baby kitten?!!!!!

  

 

Adrian came up with her name~ Baby Carrot!

She is super super friendly, and the best part…… She uses the litterbox!!!!!!!!  

She is still apprehensive about the big cats but she adapting quickly

 

My side of the bed is on the right, and everytime any of my cats sleep next to me it’s on the left.  Not Baby Carrot!

Here she is like an hour after we brought her home:

 

The coolest thing so far about her is that she is a little purr-bot!  I love happy kittens!!

Tasha found her under her blanket later on in the day:

 

and this is how i woke up this morning:

 

And we found a home for 4 of our cats lasr week!!  My husband came home from work with a cage and said he knew a family that wanted a girl cat.  I put the two orange girl kittens from across the street in, and Luis grabbed an orange-tipped white girl and Cheeto and brought them over ~ btw, i didn’t know he brought Cheeto till later!    He came back with an empty cage and said that the two children fell in love with the kittens and the parents fell in love with the big cats!  He said the family lives on a gigantic property with horses and dogs,  and they had been wanting cats for a while since their previous cat died of old age.   Hey, maybe they’ll be interested in a couple of our ‘spray up the entire house’ cats!!!

The two boy kittens from across the street are still here (no shock there!) and my brother Sebastian LOVES one of them~ the growly one from the video in the previous kitty post!!  We ended up naming him ‘Hagar the Horrible’, and here he is hanging out on Sebastian:

 

and now he’s taking a nap on Sebastian:

 

and then we were joking around about ‘i’m lovin’ it’ from the McDonald’s slogan, so i got this pic of tasha and sebastian:

 

And to finish off this post, here are some projects i get to show off:

From my pretty pretty flower scarf pattern:

  by woolymountain

 by Jardiniere

 by threadfulart

 

From my squiggly cat toy pattern:

 by knitting techie

 by TokyoKyotoxx

 by elenerv

 

From my afternoon delight turtle pattern:

 by mccrowthers

 by jacintillating

 

 pinkphreek is still working on one!!

 

and from my overboard pattern:

 by ivory142 ~ she named it ‘elmer’!!!  cute!!

 

later!

nathalie

fingerless gloves in pics November 6, 2009

It’s always a struggle trying to find working batteries in my house so when i took some out of one of the kids toys, it had just enough charge left to take pictures~

Here is what i hope is a helpful tutorial on how to make my awesome fingerless gloves pattern!

The glove pattern uses back post double crochet (bpdc) to create the ridges on the glove.  I am left handed, so if you’re right handed then just do an extra round 2 for the glove part~ that way the ridges stay on the outside of the glove!!

**so i just looked it up, and i guess the actual stitch i’m using is Front Post Double Crochet!  Either way, whichever stitch you’re more comfortable using to create the ridges works either way!!**

Here is a link to a front & back post double crochet how-to:

http://www.crochetkitten.com/tutorials/fpdc.html

http://www.crochetkitten.com/tutorials/bpdc.html

Now for my gloves:

First start with chain 9, then double crochet in the 3rd chain from the hook and double crochet across, then chain 2 and turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next row,  Back Post Double Crochet in the next post and in each post across

To do this stitch (BPDC) , yarn over, then stick your hook behind the double crochet stitch from the previous row

 

 

 

 

 

 

then yarn over and pull the yarn back through the post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then double crochet as usual

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is what the other side of the stitch looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is what the next BPDC in the same row looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last bpdc in the row is done in the very last dc-post, here is what it looks like:

 (the rows will even out as you go along!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

You will continue crocheting one row double crochet, then one row bpdc until the cuff fits around your wrist/arm:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next step is to fold the cuff in half with the ridges sides touching each other and then slip stitch across:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you will turn the cuff inside out and chain 1 and turn:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now sc aound the edge of the cuff , about 27-30 sc as evenly spaced as possible:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then slip stitch into the first sc of the round, chain 2 and turn:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next round, you will dc in each sc around, then sl st into the beginning ch-2, chain 2 and turn:

(pic of sl st in beginning ch-2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the next round, bpdc in each dc post around:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the rest of the glove pattern, you will alternate rounds of dc and bpdc (make sure the ridges are facing out!)  When the glove is as long as you want it to be you will crochet the thumb round next.  The thumb round is a double crochet round.

Chain 2, turn, dc into the first 4 dc, then chain 5:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then skip the next 4 stitches and dc into the 5th one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then dc in each stitch the rest of the way around, sl st, chain 1 but do not turn.  Then sc in each stitch around, sl st to join, fasten off and enjoy your gloves!!!

Have fun!

Nathalie

Kitties are doing better! October 15, 2009

The medicine is working wonderfully, and the kittens are doing much better!!  Only the smallest girl still has a tiny bit of red around her right eye, but no more goo and no more sneezing!!!   Still pooing in corners, but our living room has tiles so clean up is easy.

 

My cats are more tolerant of the babies now, and Super Cheeto Friend treats them like her own!!!

  My favorite pic so far!!!

 

and usually Momo is a real a-hole to other cats, but he likes this little guy:

 that’s his arm on the kitty.

The kittens have been pairing up with big cats today, except for this girl:

  infection is gone, but she’s really sensitive and squirmy when i try to clean her face~ still working on it though!!

 

this little girl is glued to cheeto:

 

 

and this little boy was listening to the michael jackson ghost video from CNN:

  Killer video by the way, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Am67-Sew7k

 

In the earlier post, Blubee was sooooooo not having anything to do with the kitties.  Well, now see:

  “dinner”

I need to keep an eye on her!!! 

Last but not least, the first night they were here i treated them to ham~ here is the link to the video:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gnathalie/4012958454/

 

Later!

Nathalie

adventures in babysitting October 13, 2009

Our neighbors across the street have a litter of kittens in their backyard, and me and tasha thought it would be hilarious to bring them over and then act like they were ours!!  Hahahahahaha!!!  It totally worked too, cause the look on Luis’s face was just priceless!!!!

Our cats have just gotten over a kitty-cold (lots of sneezing and eye goo) and we noticed that the poor little baby kitties had gotten the worst of it!   Only one of them was really sneezing, but i decided to keep them here for a couple days (out of the cold rain that started last night) and nip this cold in the bud

Here are the kitties yesterday (blurry pic)

 

 the pic is blurry, but you can still see how gross their eyes are~ it’s hard to give them medicine where they live cause the second you go near them they run under the shed!! 

 

The same kitty virus keeps getting passed back and forth between our cats and since the kittens are the youngest and the first to show symptoms i am treating them and hopefully stopping the viscious cycle!!!

 

 

The first few hours they were here were spent sleeping and eating…….and hiding from my cats!  You would think my cats would be a bit more tolerant of the newbies, but no such luck.  Execpt for Pork Chop, he took a nap with the kittens.  And he didn’t hiss at them! 

Today was spent exploring the kitchen and the living room, and pooping all over the kitchen and living room!  I spent the day cleaning the kitchen and living room~ PEEEEE-UUUUUU!!!!!

 

After their second dose of medicine today i rewarded them with……….HAM!!!!  They loved it!!!!  Here is a pic of them eating:

 

 

 

 

 

The lighter one on the right is the ‘top cat’ (aka. bully) and ate whatever ham he could reach!

 

All the other cats could smell the ham and were just itching to get some:

 

If i had taken one step back you’d be able to see 5 more cats sniffing around!!!  (btw: the yellow-y stain by the door is paint from a not-quite-dry-yet art project)

 

 

 

 

As soon as they finished the ham they were off to explore the upstairs (yes, and poop all over it too!) 

 

 

 

 “Enough with the ninja already!!!”

 

 

 

 

 

The other 2 kitties decided to check out tasha’s room:

 

 

The girl under the tv stand is the runt,  and is very apprehensive about everything!  The boy above her is the alpha kitty of the bunch.

 

I super extra lightly wiped their faces/eyes last night, but it was a bit too much for them so i’ll work on goo-removal later tonight

 

 

 

Here are some of my favorite pics of  ‘alpha-kitty’:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Blubee is having none of the kittens shenanigans:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blubee was named by tasha because her fur has a blue-ish tint to it~ super gorgeous!!  Here she is sleeping on my bed last night:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And like an hour later i got this one of  Momo and one of the boys that still doesn’t have a permanant name!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scarface loves hanging out with me when i’m on the computer, but i guess he got tired of waiting for his turn:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madaleine was telling me all about the fair that she went to with her friends, and i guess Scarface thought it was his bedtime story:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet dreams kitty!

(he’s sleeping next to Blubee)

 

 Oh, almost forgot!!!  Just one quick thing about my birthday~

Luis surprised me with a cake that one of friend’s wife makes:

 

 

pretty cool! ~ and blonde like me too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s look a bit closer:

 

 

 

 

Can’t see it just yet?

 

 

 

 

How about now?!:

 

BOOBIE!!!!  lol!!!  madaleine had a friend over to spend the night, and a couple girls from next door were over hanging out when Luis brought the cake in~ we were laughing so  hard!!!

 

 

What was really special to me was after they all sang ‘happy birthday’, Madaleine got her violin and played the song for me!!!    Then i ‘shaved’ barbies armpits and back and cut into the cake!

 

 

 

and here is what scarface was doing then:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later!

nathalie