Having a day off!

The New Years resolutions I am really sticking to, not the only one but one of, is to have a day off on the weekend. I do a load or 2 of laundry a night when I get home from work, hound my husband to pick up during the week and on Friday night or Saturday morning we have been cleaning top to bottom to have Sundays off.

So with my new time off I have had time and energy to do a few things I want to.

One bone of contention around here is dressing up the min pin Edie. We have 4 dogs but only Edie would be a dog you would dress up. She weights a whopping 5 lbs, has no body fat and very short hair. The poor thing gets cold in the winter!

However, my husband and sons HATE the fact I put a sweater on the dog. She owned three items, a sherpa style coat Lauren bought her when she got her and then gave to me when she gave me the dog, a small pink sweater again from Lauren and a hot pink handspun sweater I made her, her first winter with us. All are size x-small. They are now too small for her. She wears an X-small around but she is now too tall so they pull but items from the store in size small tend to be too big.

So I set out to make her a coat to keep her warm, to keep her from digging at my blankets all the time dragging them across the floors to find warmth, and something the boys would possibly not detest.

The solution! Camo fleece coat for Edie! It's not quite a snuggly because it lacks arms and actually stays on, and it's keeping her warm. She hasn't been shivering all day and is running around completly content in her camo coat.

The husband and the boys still think it's stupid to dress up the dog and not pretend they can't find her to let her out....oh well at least I'm not making her dresses and such!


I was still in the simple sewing mode, things I could make fast, with what I have, without making or using a pattern because I HATE using patterns. Well my one son needed new pajama pants, he's tall, skinny and lanky and no matter what fits his waist is about 4 inches to short.

With less than 2 yards of walmart $1 table flannel and about 30 min I created him some new pajama pants. He was given no choice in color, it was what ever mom had on hand. But they now fit perfect with a little room to grow and no more high waters.

So this is how I get to spend my day off without chores. 1 well dressed dog and 1 well dressed child. Now it's time to go knit on my wandering vines sock as I am still working on finishing off all WIP's before begining any new projects.

Laundry Detergent and Fabric Softner

I was looking for laundry detergent and fabric softner a while back that was pretty much allergen free. There is absolutely nothing you can make that you can say NO one will have a reaction to, but, I did foster care and had kids coming in allergic to fragrances, allergic to certain soaps or with various skin conditions like eczema set off by many detergents.

I also have senstaive skin myself and a son with a skin condition plus it's much more economical to make my own. It now costs me roughly $2.00 to make enough detergent for 80 or more loads of laundry.

Here's what you need:
1 bar fels naptha soap (its in the cleaning products isle not the bath soap isle: if you can't find this you need 1 bar of hard laundry soap or 3 bars of soap of your choice from the bath isle)
1 1/2 cup Borax
1 1/2 cup Washing soda (not baking soda and you can substitue soda ash from a pool store if for some reason you can't find washing soda)
1/2 cup of biz or powdered detergent booster of your choice
32 qt stock pot you will never use for anything but making this again
Water

Step 1:
Grate your soap and add to stock pot (I have a kitchen aid mixer with the grater attachment I use but you can do this by hand with a cheese grater and the item can be washed and reused for food as this is just soap)

Add 12 cups of water and set heat to med Let cook until soap has melted

Once soap has melted turn off heat. I do not remove this from the heat as i let it sit on my stove overnight to cool so it doesn't matter.

Add 8 cups of hot water from the tap and then stir in the washing soda, borax and Biz. You will see foam don't stir to create more foam just enough to disolve the powders.

Now I fill the stock pot with water about 1inch from the top...this will be about 40 cups of water.

place lid on pot and let cool/set over night. It takes about 8-12 hrs for this to set up into a thick gel liquid.

You can pour this into a 5 gallon bucket with a lid or I persoanlly just place the pot on the floor next to my washer once it'scooled. I then use an old measuring cup and scoop 1/2 cup out per load.

Fabric softner:

Theres 2 I use

Softner 1: The easy breezy
Need distilled white vinegar
2 Downey balls

to use: Fill both balls up to the line and drop in washer (2 per load)
If you have a dsipenser addd 1/4 cup of vinegar to it for fabric softner.

This will make items made from cotton (except jeans) get back that feeling like when you purchase them. If you hang clothes outside it aids in helping boost brightness in clothes as well, also it won't set stains as much as a commecial fabric softner will.

Softner 2: I am still perfecting this

you will need:
10-12 cup container for storage and mixing
1 cup baking soda (not soda ash this time we want real baking soda)
6 cups white vinegar
essential oil of your choice (optional)

Place baking soda in container then slowly pour in vinegar. This creates a chemical reaction so will fizz and foam up thus why you need a larger container then needed. Just keep pouring then let this mixture sit about 15 min until the reaction is over.

Stir the mix to ensure all the baking soda has reacted with the vinegar then add about 10 drops of essential oil for fragrance.

Use about 1/4 cup per load. This adds some softnes like a commerical softner but not as much. However, it still doesn't set stains like a commercial softner.

On an added note since we're here
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup salt
1 cup vinegar
4 cups boiling water

Put soda down drain, then salt and then pour in vinegar
let sit 10 min
Add 4 cups boiling water and let sit for 30 min

Helps clean basic clogs and sanitizes disposals and traps so no more drain smells.

Designing Socks

My friend Sandi is a wonderful independent dyer and we collaborated to create a summer sock club in 2009. Most knitting clubs come about because a designer has a vision and then has yarn dyed to match that vision. Ours was backwards: Sandi designed the yarn and handed it over to me to become inspired to create a design based on her color choices.Month one I was handed a lush blue yarn. It wasn't a cold blue but a serene color with flecks of lighter and darker blues within. Before a design thought came to mind the yarn itself reminded me of running water in a warm stream during the dead of summer. As I started playing with the yarn I know it had to be made up into something with waves...cables? no we wanted to keep the club set no higher then the intermediate level and even though I love cables and think they're easy, not everyone shares my love.

I finally created a simple design with easy repeats that I felt any advanced beginner or intermediate knitter could accomplish easily.

Any Which Wave

Now to dish the dirt on these socks because i always see these fabulous designs by designers and wonder about things...well here's my dirt. In this beautiful picture above you see 2 socks artfully displayed on display feet. my husband is a wonderful photographer and has been charged with taking all our pictures for these projects. What you don't see is that the sock in the background was lacking a toe! I needed pictures and was a day away from finishing these off so we posed them in a way it appeared 2 socks were complete. they are now finished but they weren't then! But, they did only take a few days to complete from inception to finishing off. I personally write my patterns out as I create the first item and then i read it over to check the spelling and grammar, and then i use it to knit the second item as a way of checking the pattern.

We didn't have a theme established at the time of this socks creation but due to us both feeling the color and then the pattern appeared as water we created a theme for the sock club based around the elements. So what needed to come next?

Controlled burn

Fire was the next logical colorway Sandi chose to go with. i was presented with what looked like 2 odd sushi rolls of yarn. The yarn was dyed in sections so it went from yellow to orange to red instead of striped or variegated. This sock was designed to be worked top down or toe up and the pattern will match either way you chose to knit this. i created the picture above as a top down starting with the red. I had tested the pattern repeat and measured out how long my finished sock would be so I knew how many pattern repeats to do per color. I started on the red and worked until that color was the length needed and then I unwound the rest of the red from the ball and picked back up knitting with the orange for the next set of pattern repeats. Once i hit the heel area I simply picked up the yellow from the outside of the ball to create the heel. This way if you were wearing clogs you would see all 3 colors on the back. i then finished the orange section, again cut off the left over orange and finished up with the yellow. However, it was designed so someone could chose their own color lay out and people in the club have.

Now for the dirt! Originally Sandi dyed up a skein of yarn I actually love but it wasn't translating the way she had intended. She looked into flames themselves and saw the colors how they traveled from an orange into a white/yellow with the blue flame we all see. you will eventually see the originally "Fire" yarn she created as I have used it in a new design, but, for the sock it wasn't working. We discussed this and she came up with the colors you see above and then I was able to come up with Controlled burn based off the newest idea.

We had one last direction to travel in because Air well we'll say Air means you went barefoot...so earth was next.

Wandering Vines

Sandi's base yarn is a very nice wool nylon blend that holds the colors well and is great for sock making as well as any other item where you want soft wool yet the added nylon for durability and some spring! But, for her creation of earth she went to an equally beautiful yarn but something more specialty for socks an Alpaca silk blend. It's lush let me tell you!

The colors are beautiful in purples and greens and the yarn is a dream to work with, but, don't you know this was the hardest design I had faced yet! I wanted to show off the colors while designing something based around earth but anything resembling rocks or tree roots was just not working for me. Then I became inspired by my back yard.

We have a length of sidewalk running down the back yard hill that has many annuals planted along it; hostas, ferns, morning glories, sweet peas and the like. Towards late summer early fall the intruding vines that look like the leaves of a morning glory over take this area strangling the other plants unless you are diligent about weeding....we'll we all know my joy of gardening so yeah I'm not really dilligent, but, I find it just as beautiful to see these leafy vines over take the back yard before winter hits. the leaves go everywhere, up lilac trees, over the fencing and cover the pathway. our club was for socks one could create knitting top down or bottom up and i did manage to create a pattern that would look the same in Controlled burn no matter which direction you started in, but, for this sock I wanted there to be a marked difference because the wines in my back yard don't grow in one direction so when you knit one top down and then one toe up your vines look like what i see every fall. Theres a faux cable running up each side with some stitching done to mimic a rocky pathway between the fron and back of the leg. And, the leaves run back onto the heel instead of having a traditional patterned heel.

The dirt on these would only be that I have yet to finish sock 2. the club had ended and i moved on so this is part of my WIP's I have to complete before starting any new projects.

These are patterns listed for sale through myself for the pattern or through sandi for the yarn or a kit of yarn and pattern. You can find her on etsy at Twiggi knits

Catching up

I have a lot of blog catching up to do least of which is cleaning up my side bar since most of the jobs listed have long since been completed.

In the past year so much has changed. We had done foster care for a few years and were in the process of trying to adopt a 5 year old in our care that ended badly and we are now taking an extended break from offering care.

My oldest daughter had moved out to live with her boyfriend, against our desires for her to do so but you have to let them go and believe you raised them right.

we finished off a lot of home improvement projects refinishing the floors on the second floor as well as resurfacing all the walls and ceilings up there, except for that hallway....it's still not done as far as walls go.

My husband and i both started new jobs and now find our lives changing with just two children left home, both inmiddle school, and we've entered that time in life where we are much more free to come and go with no small children at home waiting to be picked up from school and no babysitters needed for a quick run out of the house.

so things have changed a lot in life in the past year! my last blog i listed a long list of resolutions and so far so good. I am planning on taking this Sunday as a me day as it's been a long 65 hr week at work. I wasn't able to clean all week as i had hoped because last Monday my washing machine broke. We purchased a referbed washer a few months ago and it's already died so the appliance place is coming to look at it Monday. I wasn't able to cook at all this week as food is low in the house and i haven't been home before 8pm any night. this is because Monday after I discovered the washer was broken, i went to go to work to find my car broke down. It's only 5 yrs old but now i need a new engine! the bills seem to be piling up so i don't think the resolution to not purchase any craft supplies will be a hard one to keep...i'm broke!

So the car is still dead with no cash to repair it at the moment, the washer is dead so can't do laundry, then some small appliances went as well...food processor and popcorn machine. And, as many know, we have been fighting with the cable company for 3 years about our service which caused me not to have internet at home for over a year. Well it's still not fixed, they have given up on trying but have also given up giving us credits for lack of service so I have given up paying for service that doesn't work. so we once again face it all being turned off but it doesn't work reliably so it's not a huge loss. so my weekly blogging may have to be from work, which is fine i can do so and can bring in photos to post as needed.

But, the kids and husband and I have been doing more together, some games and movie watching. 2010 sucks as far as finances, relying on vehicals and my job just not being what i would like, but, at least my children are happy and healthy, my animals are happy and healthy and we aren't homeless....always have to look on the bright side!

A New Year to commit myself.....Ummmm????

New Years resolutions seem to be those things you make then break. Some of us try harder than others to stick with it for a month or so but soon most of us fall off the wagon back to old habits.

If you are one of those that has been able to keep to these resolutions then Good For You! But, I think it's because some of us make more realistic goals, and that is what I have been trying to do every year.

One year my goal was to try out a new yarn a month to expand on my fiber knowledge. I came close to fulfilling this resolution, funds ran short so it was hard to keep to but not for want. I think one of the most important things is to make any resolution, any life changing decision, known to your family and friends so you can have a support system as well as someone to answer to.

I also wanted a large list of resolutions. I generally make 1 or 2 and they are usually things like exercise daily and try a lot of yarn....I can do one but not the other, lets set reasonable goals and enough to make us feel like effort is required.

So without further ado here are my resolutions for 2010

1. Finish all knitting, crocheting and sewing WIPs prior to starting any new projects. I haven't even counted how many I have but off the top of my head I can think of 16 so I know there's probably twice that eeepp!

2. To have no more than 4 WIPs at a time after finishing off what I have started in the past few years, and to finish off at least 1 prior to starting a new one.

3. To publish one design a month, these could be knitting crocheting or sewing and could be free or for sale but at least one a month! I do actually design a lot because I have that perpetual issue of not being able to focus on actually following a pattern, but, I never write this stuff down so I'll have to get better at that.

4. This is a hard one, to lessen the bitching about work and just suck it up and go to work and come home and put it all away. For those who know me or follow me on plurk they know I am there a good 10-15 hrs a day so it is my life right now, but I do need to stop letting it get to me and the fact I feel it's just a job and not a career I crave

5. Figure out what career I actually want. I can do whatever I set my mind to and I'm not trying to sound pompous. I am a great employee pouring myself into what ever is needed and always trying to accommodate. I'm not an "assistant to" anyone but the common joke is that I am my bosses personal secretary because I just try to make his life easier by doing what I can so he doesn't have to see it, deal with it or stress about it. I educate myself on what ever the topic at hand is so I can be perfect at my job. I am a perfectionist or strive to be one, I know an issue for those that have to live with me, but, thats how I am. I am also steadfastly loyal! So for all that I can say I am the perfect employee never sick, never late, always there, always on, always willing to do more and more and educating myself as I go. I just don't know what career there is for me in this region of the world as it's been economically depressed for as long as I have known and I'm not the cute or hot girl with a ton of connections that has career opportunities just presented to her. So I really need to figure out what I want to do here, moving isn't an option sadly, and then figure out how to achieve that. College, even though I loved it, only produced $65,000 worth of debt and absolutly no jobs....ok enough bitching about that!

6. To blog at least once a week! I will have to figure out which day of the week will work best but at leats once a week is, I think, an achievable goal. I've actually been quite busy but looking at my neglected blog one woul never know.

7. To not purchase anymore craft supplies unless needed for the current job at hand. I really have enough of a stash of yarn, material and notions to make a ton of stuff I just always buy whats on sale or when I have a coupon and just can't anymore (see #5 which infered student loans UGH)

8. Creative cooking. I once had to create recipes and try new things out. I fell out of loving to cook and taking pride in it but would like to get back into cooking on the creative level of producing usable, functioning, reproducable recipes. I will go for once a month though, I do work 60hr weeks and then clean all weekend a girl can't commit to too much here.

9. To spend more quality family time with my husband and sons even if that means I have to play xbox, wii and playstation to do so. We usually watch TV or movies together, sometimes play aboard game, but the boys are just getting busier as highschool creeps up on us and my husband and my job don't always mesh to do a lot.

10. To take 1 day a week to have to do nothing. Nothing planned, no work, so a saturday or sunday, no expectations, no laundry, no cleaning etc. This will mean that after a 15 hr day I'll have to come home and instead of sitting down to relax go do laundry instead but I need one day to just loaf and be a blob...probably the opposite of most resolutions where people are trying to figure out how and where to fit in more exercise and self help classes, no offese if those are your resolutions, but, the most self help I can have and the best thing for my health at this time will be to have 1 day a week where I can just destress!

OK 10 is enough and please feel free to share your delight and disgust of my choices, I am sure someone will critique the order of the list or the length of certain statements vs others. But, share with someone your resolutions because when you think about it any resolution is because you accept you have a flaw and wish to better yourself, which is never a bad thing, but, share that desire with people who can help you obtain that goal because you can't be a better person if you isolate yourself from humainty.

It's now 1:30am here...perhaps one of my resolutions should have been to go to bed at a decent hour? naaahhh we said achievable goals

Happy New year and may 2010 be even better for us all

Happy hooking, pleasent purling, spin your hearts out and sew a bunch. I will be here for 2010 and hope you all help hold me to resolution 6.

When I was almost finished

Ok so the story on my living room furniture

I had a vintage 6ft long yellow, down filled, sofa that I loved and came home to one day out on the curb with all the down filled cushions taken already. My mother lived with me at the time and bought a nasty, dog smell infested, sante fe covered, small sofa from a friend of hers so wanted mine out to put hers in. So one day I come home to find she had someone help her heft my sofa to the curb to bring hers in and by the time I discovered this the cushions were all gone, thanks to garbage pickers, and the deed was done.

A few months later she needed to leave my home, never to move in again, but, I was left with no furniture as she was taking her sofa but had thrown mine out.

About that time my friend Lauren was moving to Florida and had a sofa, chair and a half and ottoman in her family room she wasn't taking with her. I took these off her hand years ago as she's now been back from Florida for two years...so this was all maybe 3 years ago or a little more.

You've probably seen this chair and sofa set in many images on my blog, white background with large blue stripes on the sofa and a denim blue chair and ottoman. Well it matched nothing in my house, had a few issues and i decided to recover them, 3 years ago.

Here's the chair, missing it's back cushion after a fight between some new pets in the house. The bottom cushion was worn and needed to be replaced.
The ottoman had a few holes and ware spots in the material that just got worse in my house with kids and pets.

So left uncovered this is how bad this chair would now look. I think even the cheapest of the cheap would pass this up on a curb!

Now I purchased a fabulous ultra suede in my favorite color to recover this chair. I started the cover when the back cushion was still attached and got to the point where I only had to add the skirt when that back cushion was destroyed. I was upset and didn't want to deal with it so it sat for 2 years with no back cushion, no skirt, and an over sized slip cover that now was too large for the chair. Well now it's all fixed. I had to repin the whole thing and took off 2-20x8inch sections on each side of the back. I added the skirt and closures and washed the whole set. The only issue left to tackle was the back cushion as you can't sit comfortably on the chair without something behind your back or you're hitting the bar in the structure tright on your lower back.
So I made a back cushion I thought would be large enough but by the time I stuffed it enough to fill it out to where it was comfortable to lean back on it was now to small width wise. I'll have to work on this portion again sometime and then make a matching cover for it as I still have plenty of fabric left even with the ottoman covered.


So for now I am still using the pillow I covered the other night, but, theres now a skirt to the floor, the blue is all cover and it looks finished. This pillow could pass for the back cushion and only I, and anyone reading my blog, would know it's suppose to be other wise.

Now I only have the sofa left to slip cover in the living room and I will once again have a matching set.

Spinning to Knit

I have been learning to spin, as many people know, and am finally getting better at it! This is a Cascade spindle given to me in a swap last year if you see my 12 days of Christmas postings from December of 2007. Well I finally started using this spindle in September of '08 lol yeah I was scared I was going to screw things up.

This is a wonderful roving given to me by Mardi in exchange for a bag I am making her. It's 50% cormo wool, 30% finn wool, 15% angora and 5% mohair.
I was able to spin the singles to about a lace weight and then do a 2-ply yarn that came out to be 16-17 WPI or fingering weight, baby yarn etc.
Here's everything together, starting on the top left the roving, next the skeined 2-ply yarn, then top right is the balled up working yarn and bottom right is the 1st project I have made really from my own hand spun yarn, a fingerless mitten.

Here is one completed mitten so far and the 2nd is in progress. Its a simple 1 day item on the weekend you could make called Merletto Mitts by Jody at Javajem.

They are so soft, warm and the colors came out wonderfully. I'm seriously impressing myself knitting these because the yarn is knitting up so much nicer then I could have ever imagined. I think this means I'm officially a spinner.

How to Pay your Lawyer

Ok kidding! It's a joke between my friend Lauren and I as she does represent me in court when needed but is also one of my best friends. She dragged me to the fabric store one day, a foreign land to her, so she could have some help picking out fabric I could use to make her a bag but that she liked as we have very different tastes.

Well I finally finished her purse for her last night. It came out really cute!

Upholstering

I have several projects around the house that have needed to be completed for quite some time. One of which is finishing slip covering my living room furniture that I have had the material for for almost 3 years now. So I finally got sick of looking at this green chair that was getting worse and worse as the weeks rolled on and one night, at about 3am, decided to start recovering it.
Here is an in progress. You can see the dark olive green of the original chair here.

And, to even my own family's astonishment, later that day I finished the whole slip cover and the chair was finally rejuvenated! I decided not to go with a full skirt to the floor on this piece because I liked the look of the wood legs showing. I do plan on eventually sanding and staining the legs though.

Then a quicky last night. I had a 26x26in throw pillow form I will admit I threw on the chair in its white splendor and have been using it uncovered...I know ghetto!

This material I have only had a few months and amazingly was upholstery material I found on the Walmart $1 table. I made the piping to give it a more finished look and inserted a zipper so the cover can be cleaned without destroying the form.

The living room is finally coming together now to just finish a skirt on another chair and slip cover the sofa...and not take 4 more years to do so.

Another Bag, More Socks and Mittens for the hubby

So as one can see from my sidebar I have a waiting list for bags. I wish I could make them faster and as I do each bag I do get a wee bit faster with them and then listen to feedback on what could or should be changed/added/deleted etc.

So here was the latest bag delivered this morning and the recipient was so happy she bought yarn to match her bag...which we all noticed also matched her current project bag, and yarn and her car!

Heathers Bag

I also realized about 30 min before my Monday Morning knitting group I really had nothing portable on needles so I had to remedy that! I have some beautiful Araucania hand painted sock yarn and no idea what it wanted to be. So I brought my cake along, in one of my sock bags of course, and cast on a toe while I was there. I am using size 1 (2.25mm) needles and generally like 64 stitches around on these needles, so figured I'd cast on and increase to 64 stitches before I came home to decide what the socks would be.

I decided on Express Lane socks (linked in the side bar) as it would give me a slight pattern to hold my interest while knitting, but, would be enough straight knitting to really showcase the beautiful yarn.

Express Lane Socks

I also had some Alpaca left over from the Hemlock Ring Afghan I made for the Olympics. I had to open a new hank of yarn to bind off the last 2inches of the afghan leaving me with about 108 yards of yarn to use on something.

My husband liked the feel and warmth of the yarn so I made him some fingerless/convertible mittens. I started with the Pele pattern but soon discovered that pattern just didn't work for my husbands hands (I'm not sure whose hands it would work for as they were about 4inches to short and 10inches too wide) So I used that pattern as inspiration but did a lot of modifications I noted on my Pele Project Page on ravelry.

Now they well fit like a glove and will keep his hands toasty warm and he has no excuse not to shovel this winter!

Hubby's Convertible Mittens

I also had started 3 times a pair of socks out of a beautiful Brooklyn Handspun yarn that Mardi gave me in exchange for her bag. I ended up settling on the Pablo Blue socks which I loved to knit, they were fun and interesting, however, a bit small for my foot using the pattern directions. This is alright though because they are a Christmas gift for my mother in law whose foot is about 1/2 a size smaller then mine so will fit her beautifully!

Pablo Blue Socks

So thats whats been getting done, craft wise, around here the last week. I have more bags cut out and more projects in mind. I do start my college semester oh in about 8hrs and expect with school, kids, homework and such things will slow down a bit on the craft front but not all that much! I find it very therapeutic to craft during school and such because it's kind of time for me away from a computer, kids, text books, TV's etc.

Ravelympics 2008

I participated in the Ravelympics for Team Splurk and decided my event would be the Afghan Marathon....for non rav/plurking people: This means I decided to cast on a knitted afghan at 8am on 8-8-08 and to cast off by the closing ceremonies, Beijing Time.

Day 1
08/08/08 8:08am
Cast on: Hemlock Ring Afghan
Yarn: Berroco Cuzco in Oliva 682.5 yards used
Needles: US Size 10 double points, 29" circ and 40" circ

Ending Day 1 at 66 as seen below

Day 2
08/09/09
You can see the cute stitch markers April made me that I used for this project!

ended day 2 on row 88

Day 3
08/10/08
With a sever sinus headache all day I was able to work on this and finished off at 11:oopm EST
I then wove in the ends, washed and blocked the afghan.

Here it is stretched out on a queen sized bed drying. The finished size is 45" from point to point.
Not a huge afghan more something to throw on your lap but given the fiber content of 50/50 Alpaca/Wool it's more then warm!

It's now dry but will wait till there is sun light for better photos.

I only entered this one event thinking I would need many more days to finish this project so I'll just support my team mates from here till the end.