Felting a sweater

Luckily enough, a store bought sweater, but still one that was worth €70! (about US$90).

During the sales in January I decided to splurge on a few sweaters. I've taken the habit of checking the content of sweaters, and found these pretty high quantity wool (or the like) sweaters. At quite a bit off.

This morning I put one of those sweaters with 3 others through a wool-wash program in my machine. It's the first time I washed the sweater, but I've done wool sweaters on the program before and it works.

Well, for once in his life the boyfriend decided to do some laundry at noon (blame it on the pups) and he put the load from the washer in the dryer! Somehow the thought flashed through my head in the morning but I silenced it by thinking "he has never done anything like that before". Well, wrong me.

I saw it this evening. I panicked. I got really mad! The sweater shrunk. It felted!!! It's not 100%wool, but the percentage in the sweater felted, and the sleeves now come half way to my forearms. :'( The other sweaters were either superwash or not enough wool, they made it just fine.

But the sweet brown sweater with the hood which I've been wearing like crazy the past 2 months, will now never fit me again! I plan on trying a bit tweaking, but it's still to cry for.

Then again, good thing it wasn't a handknit! Boyfriend did suggest to rip the sweater and knit it over! Sounded nice enough, but it's a cut storebought sweater, so no ripping.

I was really angry at the boyfriend though he did it to do good. What I hate is that I've been trying to explain him about laundry and the machine and such and he won't listen! He said things like "you shouldn't wash things then" (I need to do laundry, right?), and "You should have put it in the dryer then" (first, it can't go in the dryer, and secondly, I put it in the machine before leaving for work, so it wasn't done yet). Oh well, I'll forgive him in the end. I'll take his bankcard going to the city tomorrow! :D

I have more to write but I'm exhaused and a bit depressed/negative these days. I'll try to update tomorrow though.

Because you asked!

On request, some cute puppy pictures! They all have their eyes open and are starting to "walk", and they play and bark and growl! :D To cute!










And just to show they are already just like their mom :



(Esna's favourite way of laying around! :D)



A normal post should follow shortly!

Lace yarn

Just a quick note as I'm extremely tired and in a really bad mood after an awful day at work (more maybe later, if you are really interested).

Yesterday I spent quite some time at this website, reading and looking at the super yarn! The lady had been on my friends list at LJ but I never payed much attention (don't know why really). But well, here it is : she spins lace yarns - as thin as she can - for fun! And that was just what I was looking for! :D

Don't get me wrong, I love all those special spun yarns (or novelty yarns or whatever), but it wasn't something I wanted to do. I wanted to spin yarn as fine as possible from all sorts of mixes of fiber.

I'm not at the lace-stadium yet, but I'm practicing and I'm now even more motivated! I don't feel strange anymore for wanting to spin sock-, fingering- and lace-weight yarn! Maybe there will be an occasional other yarn, but well, I just want to spin fine yarns! :D

Off to bed now ...

The car and me ... ??

I'm starting to think that I am not meant to ride this car, or any car for what it's worth. I've been in a complicated annoying accident today. That will be the 3rd one in less then a year!!!

I went to the city today, in a totally good mood and feeling full of energy, for some shopping and time at my LYS. I arrived there and parked the car in a busy street. While parking I was hit at the side by a bus (Public transportation that is). I was in line with the pavement and thus no longer on the street, though driving backwards towards the actual spot (I was still on a zebra-cross-thing, where you can't park, but no longer on the street --> very important!). The bus hit my side badly and my front bumper was thrown off. It was a heck of a noice! I was so scared!


Now I'm ok and I do drive an old car so the damage is bad but not a drama. The big, huge issue is that if you are involved in an accident with public transportation here in Belgium - and there is nobody injured - you are most likely to be found guilty (99% chance), no matter what. The public transportation here somehow got a free card as for accidents. They always find a way to make it your fault.

So the moment I felt/heard/saw the bus hit me I knew it was a big mess. When I got out of the car and saw the damage I flipped, but mostly because I knew what would happen and for once I was 100% sure I hadn't made a single mistake and I wasn't at fault here.

A police car stopped immidiately, but the nice cop informed me he was not allowed to interfeare with the public transportation (if there's only material damage) as they have their own people. For once I was smart enough to get the police involved (if the car hadn't passed by I would have called them) and it was to no use.

So basically my boyfriend is very annoyed with me, though he knows I can't change this. I didn't do anything wrong at all!! I might not have been standing completely still - when your car isn't moving you are never at fault, hitting a car that's standing still is always the hitters fault - but there is nobody to proove that (I was hardly moving as I was just checking if I wasn't hitting the side walk).

I might have a little chance as the person from the public transportation service wrote on the paper that "the car was hit" (my car that is) and well, the Dutch translation leaves no room there as it actually does mean my car was hit, I didn't hit the other car. I don't know what will happen now, but I'm stressed really.

I don't think I ever mentionned the other 2 times. The first time - I don't even remember when that was - I was on a 2 lane street and in a difficult bend a small truck hit me. It happened on the line between the lanes, so it was hard to tell who was in fault. The workmen in the truck asked not to call the police as they had just picked up the truck and were still missing a few papers. I didn't - boyfriend had agreed - but afterwards they asked for a complete replacement of their bumper (only scratches) and put all the blame on me, while my car was hit at the door and so on.

The second time was just after Christmas. I don't remember hitting anyone at all but I supposedly hit another car (with my front, his side) and just drove off. That's of course a big thing, it will put a huge blame on my card. But I would never leave the scene of an accident. I didn't feel or hear anything (I don't have a radio in my car) and there was no damage on my car. No news on that one yet, it still has to go to the judge and all. It's a criminal case, imagine!!

So basically, is someone trying to tell me something? I'm so carefull these days! Boyfriend just said it might be better if we keep this car instead of buying a new one as we are planning. Well, what happened today WASN'T MY FAULT and it might all change with a new car, right? Maybe this one is cursed?



PS.: Nothing knitting related, sorry, I hardly held my needles. Thanks for the nice words on the pups! they are doing ok and Esna is getting used to it all! And I'm finally getting some sleep again!

The pups are here!

Just after midnight, on March 1st, our lady went into labor. It all went really quick and before I knew it the first pup had arrived. My sweety totally panicked and ran away from the pup. It took me and the bf quite some persuasing to get her back, and quickly after that the 2nd and 3rd pup arrived. The 4th one took a bit longer and the 5th one totally took me by surprise. The little one almost didn't make it. She wasn't breading at all and it took me more then 10min to get her breading. She had a lot of fluid in her lungs. It was the first pup Esna had to remove everything from and I think she wasn't quick enough. But the last one made it.

Here they are, 1 male and 4 females :




They look like little tigers! :D Everyone is doing ok though I do think Esna is still breathing quite heavily. I'm about to phone the vet in the hope she can come by first thing.

And then It's time for my nap, 'cause I stayed up all night!


Thank you for the thoughts!