Summers Done!

Alright, so summers not technically over with yet but Kaity went back to school yesterday and thus restores the peacefulness of the house for most of the day. Thankfully next year Bree starts Kindergarten and I can promise you this, I will not be a sad crying mom when I throw her butt on the bus. I'll be doing a super happy dance. Kindergarten goes all day here so I'll have the house to myself....wooohooo! Just gotta make it through one more year.

Alright lets see, what the heck have I've I been up to since my last post which was over a month ago. A lot has happened since I last posted.

I got my new baby in and it was love at first sight. My Apple iPad.

I'm still using it like crazy. This thing is way better then my iPod Touch. Don't get me wrong the Touch is great but the screen is tiny and some things like surfing the net are a royal pain. Did I really need to buy the iPod? No I didn't but I did because I'm selfish and dang it I deserve some fun stuff too. I'll just fall back on the excuse of "but Shawn got a new motorcycle!" He's already traded in the Honda Rebel for a more powerful motorcycle with the understanding that this will be the last motorcycle he gets until it's paid off. When you compare his motorcycle to my iPad, well I think you get the point. :)

I finished my "on the go" sock and have started another pair.

These are toe up, two at a time with a short row heel and a picot cuff. The stripes don't match because it's insane to try to match up the stripes on Patons self striping sock yarn. The yarn is some Patons Kroy that I picked up from Michaels a while back. The new pair I started are made with Regia that I got from a dear friend when I first started knitting. The yarn has been marinating in my stash for over 3 years now.

A new pair of socks for Bree.

These were made with some leftover yarn from a pair of socks I knit for myself. She does love her handknit socks.

I picked up the anniversary kit from The Loopy Ewe.

The mug is now holding my crochet hooks and cable needles....I already have a favorite mug for my one for my tea. I finally broke down and bought one of those 16oz mugs from Montezuma Mudd and it's worth every penny I paid....love it!! I have all of the Loopy anniversary kits with the exception of the first year. If I remember correctly we were flat broke when the yarn went up for sale. I think the first year was just yarn and a pattern. The mugs didn't come into play until the second year. I've managed to snag a kit every year since then. It is after all around the same time as Shawn and my anniversary. We hit year 12 this year on the 7th of Aug. Hard to believe we've been married that long.

My latest shipment from the Lord of the Rings sock club came in. You can click here if you want to see it. This is the last set of shipments for this club. I think there are one or two more shipments left.

I finished my Diamonds and Cables Socks.

These are knit with String Theory Caper sock in the Isle colorway. The pattern is from Toe Up Socks for Every Body. I've been slowly working on knitting up all the patterns in the book.

I finished re-knitting the Butterfly Garden socks.

They were way to tight so I had to rip the leg and reknit them without the pattern on the back. I opted for seed stitch on the back of the leg which blends with the seed stitch in the pattern on the front of the sock. I'll definitely work these again with a slightly thicker yarn. I'm thinking DIC Smooshy would be perfect for the next pair.

I finished the bleedin, flippin, boring as all get out to knit, baby blanket.

I used Knit Picks Comfy worsted weight yarn. It's a really nice yarn to knit with. I'm contemplating using this to make the girls some cardigans for next winter. I'm not a baby blanket, afghan knitting person. I get bored with them and have to force myself to finish them. Little L was born awhile back so I obviously missed giving it to my Sister in Law before he was born of course it doesn't matter much since it's the middle of summer in So. Cal and it gets hotter then the hubs of hell in Bakersfield. I do not miss that heat. Hell come to think of it there isn't much I miss about home besides my parents, oh and going to the beach. Oh man how I miss going to the coast and walking the beach. Being in a landlocked state sucks at times. :)

All the rest of my finished knits are secret knits and I can't post about them for obvious reasons. I'm still working on my Sun Ray shawl and I've started a new pair of socks. I was going to knit the Norwegian Rose socks from Toe Up Socks for Every Body but my brain and hands can't take stranded socks so I'm going with simple stripes.

I'll leave you with this photo of Bree and her lambie Pillow Pet.

It was love at first sight. Her current pillow was thrown off the bed and she's slept on her pillow pet ever since she opened it up on her birthday.

A Little Progress

I'm up with a sick kiddo so I figured I might as well start a blog post. Might as well put my time to good use, right? Kaity is sick with the flu and Shawn's getting over his bout with it although he still has a cough that is driving him crazy. I'm have my fingers and toes crossed that Bree and I escape the crude but seeing as we're surrounded by it it'll be amazing if we don't catch it.

I have finished a few projects since my last knitting related post but that shouldn't be to surprising since my last knitting related post was almost a month ago.

The Raspberries & Chocolate Mallow socks (ravelry)(non ravelry).

I knit these with Frog Creek Fibers Ebullient sock yarn in the Raspberries and Chocolate colorway. The colors are gorgeous, the yarn was nice to work with and I really enjoy the fit of these socks. I will be trying some of their other base yarns.

I'm trekking right along on my moms Whispering Pines shawl (ravelry)(non ravelry).

I'm actually not far from starting the edging on the shawl. I do believe I have around 21 rows left before starting the edging.

I started Mara (ravelry)(non ravelry) for my trip to and back from Oregon.

I'm using Araucania Nature Wool which I picked up on sale at WEBS awhile back. I want to make this as big as possible so I have something warm to use when I'm sitting in my chair. The only time I worked on this was in the car with the exception of one evening at my granny's house where I knit maybe one row before swapping to a pair of socks.

I finished my stripey Regia socks.

Their just a basic toe up sock with a short row heel and a picot cuff. I used a Turkish cast on and knit until I was bored with them. The stripes aren't matched up with this pair. I thought I had it but they were off by several rows and I didn't feel like ripping them out to start again.

We got snow a few days before Halloween.

Friggin' crazy weather! It melted in about 2 days but all total I think we ended up with about 4 inches in town. I don't think we got quite as much on the base.

Thankfully Kaity didn't get sick until the day after Halloween so she was able to go out Trick or Treating for a little bit.

They both had a lot of fun. Kaity went as Mitchie from Camp Rock and Bree was a little bumble bee. I think Bree was just as excited to hand out candy to other kids as she was to get candy.

I did get some goodies since my last post. I'll just link to my Flickr account since some of these could possibly be spoilers for some people. My Woolgirl Emerald City Wizard of Oz sock club kit made it in. So did the 3rd installment from the Zen Yarn Garden Spin Art fiber club, Lord of the Rings sock club, and My Perfect Fall is Halloween Kit.

My first skein of Bugga! that I managed to snag from some one who was destashing on Ravelry.

I can see why people are going crazy about it but I'm not going to miss sleep or go crazy trying to get more when there are other cashmere base sock yarns out there that are beautifully dyed and easier to get. Yes, yes I know it has 20% cashmere but frankly I think ZYG's Serenity sock is just as squishy and soft and it's a whole lot easier to buy. That said, if I had some extra cash and I stumbled upon some in an update I would buy it if I liked the colors.

I'll leave you all with a pic of my little yarn hugger.

Bree is my knitting helper. She loves helping me take pictures of
yarn and projects and sits in my lap to help me knit. Plus she loves to "fuzz" the yarn. For some reason Bree asks to fuzz instead of feel but only when it involves yarn. She always asks if she can "fuzz it" when I get a new skein of yarn. I've
even caught her sniffing it. The kid is a crack up in a yarn store. She treats the yarn as if it's super special (of course it is and I've taught her well). I think I have a yarn addict in the making. :~)

Better Watchin'

Our LCD TV now has a new home.

We bought a wall mount and got it up on the wall before Bree killed it. She has tried using it as a drum on more then one occasion. I'm figuring that LCDs do not like being smacked, so up on the wall the TV went. It was surprisingly easy. Now to get my cable company to add more HD channels. We are still contemplating going back to satellite. I still need to get the pictures back on the wall that were taken down and the speakers need to be rearranged a little.

I've knocked out a few FOs since my last post. I'm on a sock knitting kick again. Sock knitting seems to hit me in spurts. For awhile there it was taking me months to finish up a pair. My last pair took me 4 days. I know I can't believe it either. I knit them two at a time so that may have helped. Plus it was loaded with cables making each row different. I move through patterned socks faster.

First finished pair of socks are Baudelaire (Ravelry)(non Ravelry).

I used ZYG Bling sock yarn. The colorway is Cherry Swirl. I love sparkly yarn and Roxeanne has such pretty colorways. These took a little less then a month but there was a few weeks that I didn't work on them because I was working on a test knit.

Next is the Lacy Cable socks.

The pattern is Karen's Socks (Ravelry)(non Ravelry). The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock, colorway Poppy. I really liked this pattern and look forward to trying more sock patterns by this designer. The sock pattern is a top down pattern but I reversed it and knit them toe up, two at a time. These took about 3 weeks to knit but I put the second sock to the side so I could start my Baudelaires. I didn't pick them back up again until the Bauds were finished.

The final FO (that I can show you that is) is my Absinthe socks (Ravelry)(non Ravelry).

These are the socks that took me 4 days to knit. I did shorten the leg by two pattern repeats. So that would have added another day to my knitting time. They were knit two at a time. There are some errors in the leg chart which hasn't been fixed on Knitty (as of 19 Mar) yet but have been noted by the designer and some knitters in the Knitty Socks Ravelry group. I messed up the cable on the foot but it wasn't to noticable and didn't bother me enough to rip out over 20 some odd rows so it stayed. I used ShiBui Knits sock yarn, colorway #7495 Wasabi. Shibui has a nasty habit of pooling. If you're not a fan of pooling then this yarn is probably not for you. I love pooling so I'm happy with the socks.

My rainbow bamboo socks now have heels. I'll spare you the pic since it would be rather boring. I also finished a test knit for Woolgirl but since it's from one of the club kits I can't show you until everyone has gotten their packages.

I started another pair of socks.

The pattern is Baby Cable Rib (Ravelry) from Sensational Knitted Socks and the yarn is Paca Peds HT, colorway is Tye Dye. I love they way it's striping.....no the yarn is not a self striping yarn.

Even the back is striping nicely. Hopefully it stays this way when I work the leg. I'm knitting a short row heel since I don't want the gussets of a heel flap to mess with my striping.

I do have a sample knit going for Madelinetosh right now with another one on the way. I should have a teaser pic in my next post along with a few goodies.

I got this absolutely adorable bunny in from Woolgirl as a thank you for test knitting for her.

It's so cute and the girls love it. Course they loved it even more when they found out it had M&Ms in them. Bree calls them bunny M's. They are stored in a bunny and there's only one M on the candy so why bother with the second M.....toddler logic hard at work.

I also bought some Rowan Cotton Glace from a UK ebay store.

I'll be using this to make a dress for Kaity. I'm making some half knit/half sewn dresses this year since they are much faster to make. Wow, is Rowan a lot cheaper to buy in the UK and have it shipped here. I paid like $3.50 per skein after the currency conversion. Then shipping was only a few dollars more. Way cheaper then the almost $8 per skein plus shipping it would have cost me here in the states.

I'll leave you with Bree and her new pony.

Wee monkey is so short she has a hard time scooting around on most of the ride on toys out there. We found this one out a Target which is rated up to 36 months so it's a tad smaller and shorter then some of the other ones. She loves it!

Happy Crafting!

Fasten Your Seatbelts.....

we're in for a long trip post. Go grab your favorite beverage and I'd grab a snack if you're starting to get hungry because this is going to be a long post. I've got my trusty Mac and a ice cold diet cherry pepsi so I think I'm all set for the post. Now to figure out where to begin.

For starters, we found out that the "we're no longer picking up plastics for recycling" was a misquote so I'm very happy. They are still picking up plastics but they are asking us to separate the #1 & #2 plastics into separate bags. No biggie I can do that! I'd be much happier if they picked up some of the other numbered plastics too but beggars can't be choosy so we take what we can get.

On another note, I'm having second thoughts about selling my wheel. Frankly I think trying to sell it right now isn't going to be a good decision. Everyone is buckling down on their spending and cash isn't as readily available. This isn't the reason I've decided to hold off on selling it though. I'm feeling like I didn't give it my "all" and didn't give spinning a chance. So I'm setting at least 15-20 minutes every afternoon for spinning. This will start this Monday (9 March). If by later this summer I haven't found a love for spinning, I will find my Precious a new home.

On a second note, Kaity is taking piano lessons now and is taking to it like a duck to water. She didn't feel like playing baseball so she asked if she could take piano lesson we said sure and she has done really well. She's actually sticking with the practicing every day too. I'm a proud Mama.We even managed to snag a full size Yamaha keyboard from ShopKo for like $79. It retailed everywhere else for almost $200. Don't have a clue why ShopKo had them marked down. Their loss is our gain.

I finished some dishcloths for the Monthly Dishcloth KAL. I'm trying to knit all the cloths for the whole year.

For the 16 Feb KAL there was the Circle Cloth (ravelry)(non ravelry).

You may remember that I knit this the first time in two colors and ended up cutting the dishcloth short because I got sick of the color changing. This time I used only one color and I have to say I enjoyed knitting it a lot more. It does make a very thick squishy cloth. I bet that this would make a great pattern for knit bathmat....hmmmm, must think about that for a few. I might try it.

For the 1 Mar KAL there was the Pot O' Gold Dishcloth (ravelry)(non ravelry).

Cute pattern. I used yellow instead of gold since I had in my stash and I think Shawn would kill me if I bought anymore cotton yarn. I have at least a metric ton. Some of it is from my pure lack of self control. I can't walk past the stuff at Michaels, Joanns or Walmart without through a few skeins in the cart. I can partially blame the enabling of Sue too. ;~)

What else have I been working on? Oh, I finished my sisters scarf a day or so after posting about the progress here on the blog. The Malabrigo was so yummy I couldn't put it down!

It's already happily keeping her neck warm although I don't think it's as cold in Idaho as it's getting here. The yarn is Malabrigo worsted, Oceanos and the pattern is My So Called Scarf (ravelry)(non ravelry).

I'm making great progress on my Baudelaire socks (raverly)(non ravelry).

I'm knitting these for the Makin' Cookies KAL (it's a ravelry link). The heels are turned but I still have several repeats before I can knit the ribbing and bind off. I'm confident that I'll be done with these before the end of March. I'm thinking about increasing the stitches to make sure the legs are big enough. I'm afraid they might turn out to tight. Guess I should try them on to see.

Since I finished my Stripey stripey socks I needed a new on the go project so I started another pair of socks.

Please meet my newest project, Rainbow Toe Ups. Their just a very basic toe up sock using Regia Bamboo, color 1062 that I purchase from the LYS here in town. I'm knitting a stockinette foot, short row heel and I'll probably use k3, p2 ribbing on the leg. I'm actually about 2 inches from starting the heels now. Plain socks work up so quickly.

Lets see, what else.....give me a minute to back track through my photos. Oh, here we go....Kaity's Silly Socks.

Every year the school does holds a sock hop after school with a Dr. Seuss theme. The kids are encouraged to wear silly socks so Kaity and I threw these together. Well actually I threw them together she just came up with the idea. She thought it would be silly if her socks wore socks. I knit 4 mini sock and attached one to each side of a pair of commercial socks and then knit a few rows with some fun fur....shudder! I hate fun fur....see I told you I loved my kids. ;~)

These are a couple of the socks I knit for Woolgirl here recently.

They are samples of a new cotton sock yarn she's getting in by Kollage. It's called Luscious. The rusty colored sock is Mona (ravelry)(non ravelry) and the peach one is a basic cuff down sock with a picot edge, k2, p2 ribbing and a slip stitch heel. I really enjoyed knitting with this sock yarn. I was afraid that the cotton would bother my hands but it didn't. The yarn doesn't feel very springy when you are holding the skein but it has some very nice bounce once it's knit up. I had problems with it being splitty and coming untwisted when working the cast on but after a few rows knit I didn't have any problems at all. I'll be buying some to make summer socks for the kiddo and I. I really miss my handknit socks in the summer so this will be nice to have to make some I can wear.

Alrighty! I finally made it through the WIPs and FOs. Now on to the goodies I've obtained since the last post. I destashed some yarn I wasn't using so of course I needed to replace said yarn with new yarn right. Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

First up is the second installment of the Yarntini Happy Hour Sock Club.

It's called Blackberry Kiss and is just as yummy as the first shipment. I have one more shipment coming later this month with my bonus skein of self striping Appletini.

Some Crystal Palace Panda Silk.

I picked this up from a Ravelry destash. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with this. I may go ahead and knit it into socks. Who knows!

Some Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn, color #4453.

I picked this one up from another Ravelry destash. I've been wanting this color but kept putting off buying it. It was reasonably priced so I picked it up. Plus I'm still going through a self striping sock yarn obsession.

Next up, I finally snagged some Sweetgeorgia sock yarn.

This is the superwash sport and the color is Berry. The exchange rates were in my favor and I had money burning a hole in my PayPal account. She had some very tempting colors.

Some Cascade Heritage Handpainted sock yarn.

I picked this up from 2 Old Divas ebay site. It was on sale for $10 so I picked it up. I'm a sucker for sales. The colorway is Cherry Berry. I know I know, I need more sock yarn like I need another hole in my head.

The piece de resistance, Zen Yarn Garden Cashmere DK.

The colorway is called Truffle. This is for me and only me. It's soon to become a yummy cowl. I can't think of anything better to keep me warm then a yummy cashmere cowl. Now if only I could afford a whole cashmere sweater.

Zeus really enjoyed the sun we had the other day.

This happens to be one content little doggie. If there's sun shining you can bet you'll find him soaking up the warmth. I don't blame him during the winter the sun tends to disappear a lot. We're back to snow, cold and cloudy here. Bree and I enjoyed the morning sun shinning through the living room window too.

Our living room Arctic Rec Room (well it's not really the living room but it's the room we use as the living room) has huge windows on one wall. It's actually several smaller windows put together but all total they are like 7 ft wide...needless to say our living room is almost like a sunroom.

I'm done! Finally!! I just finished up my Woolgirl test knit today so that will be on it's way to her very soon. I have a new test knit coming in from Madelinetosh soon. When I have enough progress I'll share a little with you. I'm hoping to have my Baudelaire socks finished soon so I can pick up my cable lace socks again. They got tossed to the side for the Bauds.

Happy Crafting!

Gingerbread Livin'

What do you do when it's -12 and way to cold to play outside? Well too cold unless you want to risk frostbite. Why you make a gingerbread house of course! We've been having freakishly cold weather here. It's about 8am here and it's -22 F, -42 if you factor in the windchill. That's way to cold for any sane person to be outside. Needless to say Shawn took Kaity to school this morning. No way was she standing outside to wait for the bus when it's that cold out.

Kaity and I started the gingerbread house after Bree laid down for her nap but Bree helped finish the house after she got up. I'll just post the pics so you all can see.

Told you it was lots of fun! We bought the gingerbread house kit at Sam's Club a few weeks back for less then $10. This thing is huge and actually smells and tastes like gingerbread. It's much bigger then any of the ones you can buy at Michaels, JoAnns, etc. for around the same price and those are super stale and don't have that lovely gingerbread smell....well at least the few I have bought haven't. The bonus was these came with 6 gingerbread snowman ornaments. Course there are only 5 in the picture because Kaity ate one.

The Wii has been a handy thing too since it's to cold to go outside and it doesn't look like there is any relief in sight. At least with the Wii you get some exercise while you play.

I'll be back in a few days with a knitting related post. I should have some FOs and most likely some goodies too.

Happy Crafting!

Fun at the Park

We took the girls to the park for a picnic and of course these means heading over to the duck pond.

It's huge! The picture doesn't capture the whole pond there's more to the right and left that isn't pictured.

The girls had a lot of fun feeding the ducks, geese, swans and gulls.

 

OK, so Kaity had more fun feeding the birds then Bree did but Bree liked watching the birds flap around and make lots of noise. She smiled
and laughed. I think her favorite part was walking around the duck pond a second time. She rode in the stroller the first time around the pond.

After we fed the birds we headed over to the playground for a little swinging and sliding.

Bree didn't care for the swing but she did like the slide.

I think it helped that Kaity showed Bree how to slide down.

It probably helped that daddy was at the bottom ready to catch her. We didn't get any pics of her coming down the slide since Shawn needed to catch her and that's tough to do while trying to take a picture.

We topped off the fun day by stopping at The Popcorn Colonel for some tasty popcorn. My favorite is the caramel popcorn....yum.

All
in all we had a great time at the park. We're going to try to stop at
parks when we go out to let the girls play for a little bit before the
weather gets nasty. Winter's just around the corner here. The forecasts
have been showing a possibility for snow in the mountains....won't be
long before it's snowing here.