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Ten on Tuesday: Super Bowl Party Foods

2012-01-31T07:06:00.000-05:00

Since I don't usually watch the Super Bowl, I'm going to read this week's ten on tuesday as my favorite snack foods.

1. Chips and Salsa
2. Potato Chips and Shrimp Dip
3. Carrot Sticks or Sliced Cucumbers
4. Pigs in a Blanket
5. Apples and Peanut Butter
6. Popcorn
7. Pretzel Sandwiches (with kisses, but with rolos especially)
8. Homemade Pizza Rolls
9. Cinnamon Rolls (to counteract all the salty)
10. or almost any treat from Gus and Pauls (local shop)

silk spinning

2012-01-30T07:15:00.000-05:00

Looking back through my blog posts I estimate that I started spinning these silk hankies in July 2009.

That's a long time...

Even if you figure that it'd been a back burner project.

Even if you take in to account that I'm trying to spin it pretty thin so it takes longer.

Even if you remember that I have to have smooth hands to work with it, so anytime I have a catch on my hands I don't take it out.

Even with all that, almost two and a half years is way too long to have this 'in the works'.

So I think this silk is about to get some attention and hopefully get finished soon!

New Grey Spinning

2012-01-27T07:15:00.000-05:00

I am working on the spinning still!

I decided to finish as much of the grey as I could before moving on to something else, so, of course, I estimated how long that would take.

I took the next braided skein and divided it into 4 long strips. The first one took me about 3 hours to do, and then the second (when I did less random web and kid stuff) only took me about 2 hours. So I figure that I'm looking at another 5-6 for the second half of the first skein and then somewhere between 8 and 12 hours to spin the third one. Of course, these are each 8 oz, so I'm not feeling too bad about that speed. I just need to keep putting in my ear buds and spinning to my audio book.

working on second pink sock

2012-01-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

I've been working away on this second sock and as you can tell I'm actually almost done. There's about 12 more rows and then the ribbing.

The only problem is I don't like how the ribbing is on the first sock, so I think I'm going to try something different on the second sock and then rework one of them so they match. Hopefully soon you'll see finished socks and I'll be moving on to something else!

finished pink sock

2012-01-25T07:14:00.002-05:00

I finished one of the pink socks!

You remember these, right?

Well that one is completely done, and the second one is already past the heel! Update on it soon...

Ten on Tuesday: Movies I Want to See

2012-01-24T07:14:00.003-05:00

10 movies I want to see, in no particular order - if you are normally a person I recommend movies to, do not take this list as a recommendation, as I usually think hard about specific people and their tastes before I do that. This is just a list of movies I want to watch personally.

1. Crazy, Stupid, Love. - It's on my counter right now from Netflix, no clue if it's good or not but I am wanting to see it.

2. Down with Love - an old favorite that I purposely put in the middle of the netflix queue a while ago and it has almost crept up to its turn.

3. The Princess Bride - ever since an accidental reference to it during a spelling bee more than a month ago (marriage, followed by sword, come on, you have to make a joke) I've been meaning to watch it but haven't yet.

4. Anne of Avonlea - my youngest girl finally read the first book so we got to watch the first movie, but this second movie actually covers (kindof) the next two books - so I won't get to watch it with her soon, but I might watch it by myself some time before then!

5. Homeland - damian lewis and mandy patinkin in the same show? and I know it's not a movie, but when I get a disc from netflix (or give in and order it on amazon or something) then it is like a movie, and it would be hard for a show with that combo to be wrong...

6. The New Star Trek movie - the sequel to the most recent re-imagining of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. It won't be out until 2013 but I'm interesting in how it turns out.

7. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - nothing more needs to be said.

8. The Hunger Games looks really good.

9. RED - can anyone see the trailer for the new GI Joe movie and then not want to rewatch RED?

10. The Vow - looks interesting!

An old finished yarn

2012-01-23T07:56:00.002-05:00

This is a yarn I finished a while ago during the blog silence and never showed off.

I spun it entirely on a small turkish spindle and then plied it on the wheel because I was impatient.

The small spindle looks like this:

and can be found here. I like it because it's nice enough to really use and small enough to fit anywhere (since it comes apart into three pieces).

I spun most of this yarn while watching tv, waiting for kids, sitting at the library, or some other way half-occupied.

Once I plied it and washed it, I measured it and the yarn looks like a sock weight! It has been a while since I've had a true sock-weight yarn (rather than a slightly thicker but will work for socks), especially one that is three plied.

blue/green turkish spindle spun and plied on the wheel

Socks done!

2012-01-20T07:53:00.001-05:00

I've been working on a pair of socks for my friend Ericka. Actually, I've been working on two different pairs of socks, but one of them I have to follow a chart, and the other one is just plain knitting - which do you think is almost done?

Hmmm... even the photos give a clue: one has a picture of one lonely sock, the other of two almost done lovely socks. Yeah, that would be the pair:

Gray Spinning

2012-01-19T07:47:00.002-05:00

A while back I read a blog post (I think by the yarn harlot) where they mentioned that you should never knit with grey during the winter. I think that might be my problem with my spinning. I did, however, begin this when it was not grey outside. I just need to hunker down and finish at least the one skein (I have another two to do sometime). Or maybe I just need to make sure all my knitting has color and move to the spinning wheel only after I am color-saturated.

Actually, I am pre-writing this post and I have a couple of days before it will be published, let's see if I can finish this skein and maybe even have it plied and washed before this posts.... but considering all the other things I want to do this week, perhaps not.

UPDATE:
I did finish spinning the first skein. I even plied and washed it:

Pretty right?

...but I won't know what pattern to start until I know how much yarn I have, and to do that I still have two more skeins to spin...

Fingerless Mitts for Painting

2012-01-18T07:25:00.001-05:00

When my friend Laura heard I was trying to get our upstairs finished and asked if she could do anything I joked about painting, and she looked at me seriously and offered to help again. She ended up using several buckets of spackle, a couple gallons of paint, and many many mornings. I watched her kid while she worked, but then we worked out a deal that she would get 3 knit projects (within reason) done for her. This is the first (I have yarn for the second, and the third is still up in the air).

While trying to decide what she wanted me to make I was showing her the different yarn I already had on hand. I also showed her all the yarn I had spun without a specific project in mind, and she just loved this yarn:

(also pictured here)

I did an advance search on ravelry and found that that skein of yarn was enough to make these mitts, which are lovely.

I had to finish some christmas and personal knitting before I could get started, but once I cast on each mitt only took two or three days of my knitting time and they are done!

Ten on Tuesday: Things to Do Inside

2012-01-17T07:21:00.000-05:00

When it's too cold to go outside you can:

1. Read a book
2. Cook or Bake
3. Clean the whole house - or just one room
4. Knit, knit, knit
5. Spin some yarn
6. Play a game
7. Do Paperwork
8. Make sure the kids' schoolwork is done
9. Have a fire in the fireplace
10. Watch a movie

Some Family Goals for 2012

2012-01-16T08:04:00.000-05:00

I won't list all of the family goals for 2012, as I didn't get permission from the family, but some of the ongoing goals to be accomplished daily are to write in journals every night and go make sure the sink is clean each night before bed.

We are also trying to have some theme nights regularly (movie night, game night, talent night, etc) and to plan some family adventures each month!

Goals for 2012

2012-01-13T07:56:00.000-05:00

Now that I've held myself accountable for my 2011 goals it is time to list my goals for this year.

Goals for 2012:

1. Move at least 20 minutes every day
2. Get my Goodreads to-read list down to a 3 month or less wait
3. sew piece one clothing for each person in my family
4. read my Sunday School lesson each week
5. 2 vegetarian meals each week

So far I have moved 20 minutes each day except for one Sunday.

My oldest book on my goodreads list was put there April 2011, and I started with 43 books on my list (one week in I'm at 45 books).

I will hopefully do lots of other crafting, for myself and others, from a variety of crafts - but it's time to make myself pull out my sewing machine and use it.

I did read my Sunday School lesson for week 2 (week one was Jan 1st and I hadn't made the goal yet). I also read my lesson for Relief Society. It helped that I had read the lesson for Sunday School though, as I was able to step up and sub for a teacher. I've also started the lesson for week 3.

The two vegetarian meals will be something I am not necessarily doing every week from the start but something I can hopefully build up to and then maintain.

Two quotes

2012-01-12T07:29:00.000-05:00

I was reading Sheepish, by Catherine Friend. In it she quoted Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

"Quitting is fundamentally different from stopping. Stopping happens all the time. Quitting happens once. Quitting means not starting again - and art is all about starting again."

...and from The Winter of our Disconnect by Susan Maushart
pg 70
"The belief that a stimulated child is an advantaged child is so widely shared we rarely bother to articulate it. So too, of course, is its corollary: that a bored child is an at-risk child. In fact, the moral imperative to keep our kids occupied or suffer the consequences is one of those unexamined articles of faith that has helped to make modern parenting such a minefield of misplaced guilt and misdirected resources."

Not at all connected to each other really, but they both struck me in my reading so far this year

Goals from 2011

2012-01-11T07:22:00.000-05:00

I had five goals last year, so it's time for some accountability:

1. Make a habit of daily scripture reading
2. Read a majority (average a book a week) of my goodreads list
3. Spin at least 60 oz over the year
4. Go through toys - donate/toss/keep and in 1 or 2 places
5. Deep clean each room twice

1. I did make it a habit, as long as I was working on the New Testament. I read that a chapter a day, most days, and finished it in September, and then I kindof stopped and need to get back on that wagon.

2. I started the year with 68 books on my list, some having been added as long ago as June 2009. I read 215 books during 2011 and I had 43 books on my to-read list as of Jan 1, earliest from April 2011.

3. I spun 28.9 oz
8.5oz attack of the green (vest)
69 grams (2.43oz) batt for noah
4oz azure dragon
200 grams (7oz) blue chili char stone
7oz gray superwash alpaca

That is not as much as the 60 I was aiming for, but seeing I somehow lost the summer (due to weather and weirdness) it's not as bad as I thought before I started adding them up.

4. We did go through the toys. There is now a dollhouse and 4 barbies upstairs, and a toy corner in my son's room, but otherwise they are all in one place. Unfortunately I feel like I need to go through them again now that they are finally gathered, but that might wait until spring or summer.

5. I did not get to deep clean the rooms like I was hoping to, but each room was gone through and cleaned thoroughly. Some rooms even got emptied and freshly refilled, as we finally managed to get the upstairs done and the girls moved up.

So I didn't get the goals all done the way I wanted to, but each goal was achieved in the spirit of the goal and in each case more was done than would have gotten done if I hadn't made the goal and aimed for it!

Fall scarf

2012-01-10T08:12:00.000-05:00

I finally decided I needed a project for me in the middle of everything, so I found a pattern I liked for the yarn I had spun during the summer, and a week or so later I bound off the last leaf on this scarf/shawlette:

Of course, that was the same day that the snow started and we lost power for a week and didn't celebrate Halloween, so I ended up wearing it randomly throughout the week.

I didn't block it then (no heat = use scarf; not get it wet on purpose) and I still haven't - I would like to some time, but it won't be any time soon.

Sorry some of these pics are a dark - figured it was better to get it done than to wait for great light!

Christmas Sweater

2012-01-09T07:57:00.000-05:00

When we had a October 29th snow storm it knocked down many tree limbs and we lost power for a full week. We kept warm and made sure we had enough food and it would have almost been fun if we had known for sure when the power was going to be back on. During the week I realized that the Little Tomato had no sweater. He had outgrown all of his sweaters and sweatshirts and similar items. He had a poncho and a jacket and a coat. While I did like seeing him run around in his poncho, I figured he could use a sweater.

Soon after power was back on I dug out some yarn and started a sweater for him. I had some superwash (machine washable) wool in a color he was willing to approve, it was just a little thin. I tried a swatch with it held double and it was almost close enough to work - so I paid attention and used the stitch count for the size larger than I wanted and all was good. I worked on and off for about 3 weeks and then finally finished.

He refused to put it on and then when I finally got him to wear it he insisted on wearing it every day for over a week. This, however, is the only picture I could get of him wearing it. (It does have a hood that he can put on, you just can't see it in the picture)

Brown Java Socks

2012-01-06T07:56:00.000-05:00

I started these in April and didn't finish them until October. They didn't really take that long (although they are a bit fiddly), it's just that they kept getting put aside while I'd work on other things.

This is a pair of socks for my husband. Most of the ones I make for him are plain knit and rib, but every once in a while (once a year maybe?) I try to make him something a bit more complicated.

I knew this pattern would be crazy enough that it would need a very plain yarn for it. I had to buy two skeins so there would be enough to make a tall pair of socks, and in the craziness of looking for the yarn on ravelry I actually ended up with three skeins, so at some point I might make a pair for me!

Black Hood

2012-01-05T07:54:00.001-05:00

Back in the early part of last year my sister-in-law asked, politely, if I'd be willing to make a scarf/hat for my brother for his birthday. Since his birthday wasn't until fall and she was willing to pay, I said, sure, I can do that. After looking at prices and materials we decided she would buy good quality yarn and pattern and I would donate my time cuz I love them and they like handmade things and treat them well.

We decided on this pattern that has a hood and an attached scarf....

In a color that can't go wrong with my brother, and can't help but improve his look.

It was a fun knit for me with a slightly different construction and (for those who understand knitting:) an I-cord edge that is knit at the same time as the scarf! So simple, but had never thought of the method.

I had my son pose with it so I'd have a picture of it on someone before I mailed it off. He, being three, was not so impressed.

I did have it finished and mailed before his October birthday, but I did cut it a little close!

Christmas Slippers

2012-01-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

This year I made slippers for my girls using a pattern that is not meant to be felted. They seem to prefer this kind of 'sock slipper' more than the clog slippers they have had before. I managed to finish them before christmas and so I wrapped them up, even though each girl had seen me working on them.

I also managed to make a pair of slippers for my husband. I worked on them during the day while he was at work and then hid them each day before he got home. He knew I had bought the yarn, but was under the assumption that I would be making them after Christmas when things were calm. I still need to sew some fabric on to the bottom so they won't be slick, but they did felt to the right size!

And, not to be left out, the Little Tomato was also given slippers for Christmas - not made by me though! Lily had decided to make him some and stepped up the crafting time in order to get them done and under the tree before the big day.

That left me as the only family member without new slippers, but since I have two pairs that both fit and are still in good shape that was quite alright.

Rainbow Shawl

2012-01-03T17:00:00.000-05:00

I still had a couple of slippers to finish for Christmas, so of course I pulled out the Rainbow yarn and shawl pattern I wanted to make for one of my girls and started that instead.

I did end up finishing this on the Wednesday *after* christmas, but since Curly didn't know it was for her that was not a problem. She had commented how much she liked it several times while I was making it. I had implied that the finished shawl would be for me.

I wove in the two ends and was planning to block it this week, but she *Really* wanted to wear it January 1st to church, and she seems to like it unblocked, so I don't know if I will. I'll plan to leave it for now. (For those who don't knit lace, blocking is when you would wet the shawl and stretch it out, pinning it to something and let it dry that way. It really helps to finish it off and let you see the pattern and enjoy a flat (rather than chinese noodle looking) shawl.

Christmas Presents

2011-12-31T20:01:00.003-05:00

For Christmas I made my mother-in-law a pair of felted slippers in beautiful purple/red variegated wool....

and my sister-in-law had mentioned she'd like an ear-flap hat that didn't have a pompom on top or weird ties - easy enough to skip that step if you are making it. So she got a hat in a nice shade of oatmeal.

Unfortunately in my pre-christmas rush I forgot to take pictures. Oh well, pretend you saw them and they looked so pretty!

Four more Baby Showers

2011-12-31T16:59:00.003-05:00

I posted the first of five baby showers I knew were coming and then I dropped off the face of the earth... or of the blog....

Between September and October I made gifts for 4 more showers (and attended three of them, darn allergies).

Each new baby got a blanket and a coordinating bear.

I usually try to make each baby gift unique, and these are... kindof. I did, however, follow the same basic pattern for each in an effort to save my brain (and my time).

I grabbed two random strands of yarn (boucle, homespun, left over teddy bear yarn, etc) and did seed stitch through the blanket. Lovely. It worked up thick and cushy and quickly, with much love and not much thought.

It seems that the yarn I usually like to use to make teddy bears is not available for sale any more. Thanks to ravelry I was able to find a nice bunch of skeins, so for now they will still be made with the traditional yarn, but I might have to look for a replacement soon!

Hopefully more blog posts about my fall and winter will be popping up soon, just not tonight!

Baby Shower and Spinning

2011-08-08T14:44:00.003-04:00

Some time over the summer I just gave up on the blog. I do have something to finally post today through, and we'll see what happens when school starts up again.

I had the first of several baby showers, so I made this blanket:

...and this bear to go with it:

During July, while the Tour de France is going on some crafty people decide to have a tour de fleece and while they are biking, we spin... I had some grand plans, but it ended up being that I spun just a bit (at least 15 minutes, a handful of times more than an hour) every day. It worked out pretty well since I only missed a couple of days. I do have a spindle of fiber that I managed to spin 2/3 of it, but alas, it is not done, so you don't get to see it.

Here is the one large skein that I did finish. Details are on my ravelry stash page for anyone who cares for that, but basically, I took this:

and this:

and made this:

(only one large skein, I just liked how it looked different on the brown vs the white background)

Time

2011-06-15T12:19:00.001-04:00

...because I needed one more project, I started to sew some skirts for my girls (actually, because they needed Sunday appropriate clothing for church and I didn't want to search in stores for hours because I want cheap *and* modest) I machine sewed through a couple skirts yesterday, but had to put my machine away for the rest of the week, so I'm now seeing what I can hand-stitch through and I'm actually remembering how much I enjoy hand sewing.

...I'm trying to figure out how to fit strawberry picking into the next week or two

...I really need to go start dinner (eggplant beef stew and fresh bread) because although both of those are so simply easy to make they both require me to start them many hours before when I want to eat

...I love my new triangle bag my friend gave me - not only is it quite cute, it fits one of my knitting projects, allowing me to change one of my other bags to a sewing bag (see note one above)

...The tornado clean up continues. We have power and clear streets and life is pretty much back to normal for us and 86% (made up statistic) of the city, but if you drive through one of the parts that was directly hit it is devastating and heartbreaking still.

...I realised I'm feeling a bit gun-shy on filling the fridge and freezer since we spent those days without power (and then lost if for several hours during the severe thunderstorm a week later) but I will need to do a massive shopping trip sooner or later, before my husband gets tired of picking up a couple things at the store a couple times a week on his way home from work.

...I really like my Turkish Delight spindle that we bought a couple of years ago. I'm spinning on it when I have a few minutes here and there and it's so much fun

...I noticed that even though my good reads list isn't down where I wanted it to be per my goal for the year I only have 14 books (out of a current 56) that were on there as of January, so I've almost reached the spirit of the goal (reading what's on the list instead of having books that I actually want to read live there for years) and since the list is only there to help me so I don't have to remember all the books I want to read - I'm feeling very good about that!

...I need to go eat lunch before our weekly library trip

2011 MA Sheep and Wool

2011-06-08T20:57:00.006-04:00

This post could also be called the last of the May Adventures, I'm just a little late posting it.

Memorial Day weekend is always MA sheep and wool in Cummington, MA. It's become traditional for our family to go. We always see some shearing...

...and the past couple of years we've enjoyed seeing some sheep dog trials (this is the pen that holds that sheep that have already been herded).

The girls both wanted to do a workshop. We did the kool-aid dying last year so we tried the spindle spinning this year. Then the kids all got to weave a bit. The guild that runs that hands out these sample cards that have last years weaving in them.

Of course, other than seeing the animals the next best thing is checking out all the vendors. This year I was also picking out some fiber for my neighbor who couldn't go at the last minute - so I got her some fun Spunky Eclectic and Foxfire Fiber - both of which I've purchased and spun before, but not this year...

The bag there was purchased from a no-kill animal shelter near Pittsfield that had all sorts of bags to choose from. It's also the only item I didn't take a separate picture of.

This is from Into the Whirled

I've seen her fiber and yarn on etsy and ravelry - and I finally gave in and got a colorway I've been eyeing for years. I also let each of the girls choose something. Any guesses which color each of us girls chose?

This is from a booth that was called Frabjous Fibers.

There were in the middle of an open area we kept walking by, and they had a couple big bins full of different sized scraps, sold by the ounce - so the kids each picked (with my help) a length of fiber each.

While we were sitting in the kids play area (sand box turtle filled with feed corn, toy tractors to play with, bales of hay to sit on a run around) we bumped into some people we knew. They were showing us what they had bought and mentioned this one place where they had a big bin filled with different sized skeins of different colors of yarn. The catch was they were selling it by the handful. So my husband said he was willing and we went to get our money's worth.

This whole pile of yarn fit into one of his hands. It's 525 grams (that's enough for 5 pairs of adult socks)

So, on the way home we stopped at the grocery store for a couple of items. Since the little boy was sleeping my husband went in with one of the girls - and finally did what he's been threatening for a while. He's been telling the kids that if they wanted to go camping again they need to be brave and show a willingness to try new things....

So we had lobster for dinner that night! It was the first time for the kids, and they actually did a really good job of trying it. All three of them. It was only my third time eating lobster and I enjoyed it too.

Next up, current knitting and soon after that, some of our June adventures....

Full Disclosure and Percy Jackson

2011-05-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

The past several weeks I've been sitting at my computer on a Monday and after making sure the kids have their lists for the week (school-work expectations) and I plunk out Monday's blog post, check what the ten on tuesday for the week is, schedule that, and then see what I have to say for the rest of the week and schedule that too. In a short amount of time I'm done for the week, and then they just post every morning when I've told them to.

This week that did not happen. This weekend was a little nuts, in a good way. Saturday was free comic book day, so we brought the kids to a participating store and they got to pick (from 10-12 different ones) a free comic book each. Then the family brought me out to Lunch for Mothers Day. Over the yummy chinese food we told the girls that we had decided I would take them on an adventure that afternoon. They were going to go hear Rick Riordan. They were smiley. They were excited. In this house Percy Jackson and friends are second only to Harry Potter... maybe. So after dropping the dad and boy off we drove about half an hour and got there just before they opened the doors. The girls had brought books so they were content to sit for the almost an hour before he was scheduled to speak. He was great. The girls loved listening to his speech and then he answered questions from the crowd. We did end up buying a book, so that we could get into the signing line - so now each girl has a personalized autographed book (Red Pyramid and Demi-gods). We also lucked out and got autographed (but not personalized) copies of Throne of Fire - one for us and one for someone in our extended family. (and after that we still did grocery shopping and started watching the newest Harry Potter movie). Then Sunday I gave a talk (on Mothers Day but not about Mothers Day) and helped out with the kids for a couple minutes - then came home and collapsed. I had been given breakfast in bed, kids ready for church, dinner, and chocolates - and I had gotten the okay to buy myself a book, craft kit, movie, and garden stuff.

So... on Monday - I typed up one kid's list for the week - told them both to go off of that, and did my best to feel productive but mostly recover. Tuesday I was running errands and appointments from 10:20am until 3pm (which doesn't sound bad, but it felt like a comedy of errors), and still needed to prep my science lessons for Wednesday.

I'm scheduling this up for Wednesday morning and then the blog will be on break until next week - I do really like this thing of having something post every weekend, but oh well.

Ten on Tuesday: My own way

2011-05-10T16:50:00.001-04:00

So, the ten for tuesday this week was something about throwing parties - yeah, so not me. Some of these topics have been borderline and I've gone with them, but this one... I just don't want to try to fake it, so... no ten on tuesday today. Thanks for reading!

Happy Mothers Day!

2011-05-06T09:48:00.003-04:00

What a week it's been, and next week starts a-whole-nother one...

Hope you enjoy the break between them and have an awesome Mothers Day! (I know it's not a good day for everyone for various reasons, but hey, reclaim it and enjoy it!)

...and hey, Noel, here's a shout-out on my blog for you... I hear another contest entry calling my name :)

Current Crafts

2011-05-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

I am still knitting...

I started another pair of socks for my husband. I'm using a pattern called Java. Because of the way these socks are designed I'm trying to make them following the pattern exactly. This means that this pair of socks is being made top down (I start with the ribbing). Normally when I make socks, especially socks for my husband who is tall and has long feet, I like to start at the toe and just keep working on the leg until the yarn is done (or half done rather for one sock). This starting with the ribbing is fun, but it's making me a bit anxious already, and I'm only an inch or two in.

Star Wars Day

2011-05-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Star Wars day to you all! May the Fourth be with you always! :)

I'm not quite sure how we will celebrate (aside from Little Tomato wearing his new star wars shirt - he thinks it's really cool that it has a darth vader helmet on the front - and back!)

There will probably be game playing (lego starwars and lego clonewars) and perhaps some movie watching, and I'm almost positive we'll be playing my kids favorite you-tube song. Although I don't think the festivities will continue into food (I'm just not big on decorated cupcakes - I do like puns though, anyone got anything normal I can make that can pun its way into star wars territory?) we'll try to have a day without any fear, anger, or hate and with ewoks lots of singing and you can sing along.

Let us know how you celebrate this fun day!

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Birds

2011-05-03T08:00:00.003-04:00

Ten Favorite Birds:

This is kind of a tough one. I don't mind birds, in fact, I enjoy seeing them, but I usually don't tell them apart or look _for_ them. I do enjoy seeing different ones in pictures or museums or zoos. Hmmmm....

1. Flamingos - pink from the shimp - I love it.

2. Penguins - Have you seen this movie? If not, you should. Oh, and march of the penguins... wonderful stuff.

3. Chickens! Friends or food, chickens are good. :)

4. I have to make sure African Grey makes it on this list - my husband had one growing up, and although not always sweet he is a very cool bird.

5. Peacocks

6. Heron

7. Hummingbird

8. Ducks

9. Ostrich

10. Vulture - who can't love them after their performance in disney's robin hood.

Chickies

2011-05-02T12:39:00.003-04:00

This past week we have the fun experience of chick-sitting. It worked out well that only one day was really rainy and one day was kind of cold - so we got to put them outside and enjoy them at our leisure most days.

It was fun to take care of them, but I'm glad I normally don't have 14 extra little lives depending on me...

The family we chick-sat for was kind enough to let us choose two to keep and raise, so yesterday we chose the two we wanted to keep and returned the rest.

(These are not necessarily those two, as this picture was taken earlier during the week)

Contest Prize

2011-04-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the contest prize that Noel won. She had said to make anything. So... it took me a little while to figure out what to make and what yarn to use.

I had picked up this fiber last May at the MA sheep and wool I believe.

...and then over the summer I had spun it into this yarn.

Then it was just sitting in my yarn bucket, waiting for its turn to be made into something - it is now a scarf:

...and it now belongs to Noel.

...stay tuned for the next contest (not immediately, but soon... ish)

Goals: Books, books, and more books

2011-04-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

Let's talk a bit about books... and lists.

Over this past month I've finished about 20 books. At the same time I keep adding interesting books onto my 'To-Read' list. So, unfortunately the number on my list has only crept down by a couple.

One of my goals for this year was "Read a majority (average a book a week) of my goodreads list" Since the beginning of the year I have definitely surpassed that goal. My real goal, in spirit, through was to read down my list... for two purposes. First, was to read the books that have been on my list the longest. I had a number of books on my list that I originally put on during the Summer of 2009. That's almost two years. I now only have two books from 2009. Second, kindof connected to it, was to have a shorter list so it's not a monkey on my back - so when I see a book I want to read, it feels ok to just start it.

The other part of that goal is that I had originally figured out what my running total should be to get down to a handful by the end of the year. April was supposed to be 45-50, and I was at 52 at the beginning of this week.

If you are really interested in seeing what I've been reading you should join goodreads and then add me as a friend. I don't normally put reviews into that, but you can feel free to ask me about any specific book.

Here's a quick snap-shot:

I finally got to read 'The Help' which was an interesting story of families and the people they depend on. I read 'The Other Wes Moore' which was a man comparing his life with someone who had the same name but a very different life. 'The Pioneer Woman: Black heels to tractor wheels' a modern love story, which was so much fun to read. 'The Beyonders: A World Without Heroes' is book one of three - only one is out right now. It's the new series by the author of Fablehaven and Candy Shop Wars, which my kids all love. 'The name of the wind' was SO good and enjoyable reading - I'm hoping book two, which is out, will be equally good. 'Heroes for my son' is 30 second biographical sketches of 52 different people the author wanted his kids to know about. 'Till we have faces' by C.S. Lewis is the book club book this month.

This is just a picking of the last while and I really enjoyed so many of the books I've read this month. I have 9 more library books, 10 more books requested (6 of those are currently in transit), and at least 6 that I own that I'm planning to read. So if I don't get to anything else during the month of May you now know why....

A Hat and some Yarn

2011-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

I had a hat I wanted to make, and some yarn I wanted to use. They actually worked together too.

The only problem is that it was a crochet pattern. I can crochet fine, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that I can knit while I watch tv or movies. I can only crochet if it's a tv show or movie that has a lot of dialogue - not one where I have to keep looking up to see what's happening. So, I started.

I even thought about making this hat the contest prize, but then I realized it was becoming child sized, as the yarn was just a bit on the thin side.

Eventually I did finish the hat.

...and then I had someone almost immediately claim it.

(That's the hat on Curly's head)

I had also been working on some spinning. I had a batt I was gifted, and a spindle I had bought back in November. I finally used the spindle and the batt is now gone. I still need to measure this yarn though.

(It's only one skein - two pictures so I could see both the front and the back)

Ten on Tuesday: Ways to Save

2011-04-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

Ten ways to save at the grocery store:

1. Keep staples on hand (you can buy them when they are on sale and you won't need to buy them every time)

2. Look at your freezer, fridge, pantry, and then the sales, then plan your menu based on those.

3. Make a menu and a shopping list

4. Stick to the shopping list (I usually allow myself one treat/non-list item each time)

5. Specialize to each store if you can spare the time (produce is cheaper at a produce store, meat is cheaper at a butcher, paper goods and cleaning supplies might be cheaper elsewhere)

6. Buy in bulk - when it makes sense.

7. Sometimes it makes sense to buy in bulk, if you can split it with someone else right away.

8. Go shopping when you aren't hungry or tired. If you can go without grabby kids that's even better.

9. I've never had great success with couponing... but if it's something you are planning to buy anyway, cutting the price is a nice thing.

10. Check out subscription services - right now we're getting some household items from amazon - if you subscribe you can save more and they'll ship you more on a schedule - which you can edit and adjust.

Ten on Tuesday: Why I love my Family

2011-04-19T10:37:00.001-04:00

Ten Reasons I love my family:

1. We all work together

2. Bike Rides

3. Movie Nights (with or without popcorn)

4. Rollerblading

5. We all craft

6. We can laugh together

7. We're all geeks - my kids can discuss star trek and star wars with us

8. We try to help each other through our different strengths

9. Books, books, and more books

10. Our monthly family adventures (Jan - Family game day. Feb - Garden/Seed shopping. March - planting seeds and buying and using rollerblades together. April - does an easter trip to family count or do we need to squeeze another one in this week?)

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Snacks

2011-04-12T19:48:00.002-04:00

Top 10 snacks:

1. Granny Smith Apple and Natural Peanut Butter

2. Popcorn - buttered and salted just right

3. Almonds

4. Chocolate/Pistachio Bark

5. Breyers Carb Smart Fudge Bars (100 calories - tastes like soft serve on a stick)

6. Cheese

7. Celery with some Laughing Cow cheese in the middle of it

8. Ohh... speaking of cheese, a wheat bagel, toasted, with cream cheese

9. some yummy granola from BJ's wholesale club

10. Some small candies - chocolate :)

You might be able to tell from the list that I'm mostly still trying to stick to south beach (perhaps a break soon and then try again in the summer?).

I do have some craft stuff to blog about - hopefully I'll get to it this week!

Ten on Tuesday: One hit Wonders

2011-04-05T20:00:00.002-04:00

The top ten one hit wonders...

(I gathered this from different lists online, so this might not be my actual top ten, but the first ten that I recognized and liked - I did end up looking through the top 100.)

1. Cab Calloway - I Wanna Be Rich - 1990
2. Norman Greenbaum - Spirit in the Sky - 1970
3. The Penguins - Earth Angel - 1955
4. The Vapors - Turning Japanese - 1980
5. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U - 1990
6. Timmy T - One More Try - 1991
7. Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffanys - 1995
8. Nena - 99 Luftballons - 1984
9. Chumbawamba - Tubthumping - 1997
10. Joey Scarbury - Believe It or Not - 1981

Fun stuff. I don't necessarily know the lyrics to all of these, but what fun it's been hearing a snippet of each again!

What's your favorite random song?

Ten on Tuesday: Reasons to Use the Public Library

2011-03-29T17:32:00.002-04:00

Top 10 Reasons to Use the Public Library:

1. Free books, movies and music!

2. Interlibrary Loan - so I can get almost anything

3. Knitting time at the local library

4. The ability to see what we have on our cards (for the whole family) online - so we can find them all and return them without too many fees

5. The ability to request items using our cards online

6. The ability to renew items online

7. Different Activities they hold for the kids (crafts, animals, science demonstrations, etc)

8. Summer Reading Program

9. Checking out their New book lists every month to add interesting titles to my Goodreads list

10. Making it so this year, so far I've read about 53 books, and own only 3 of them. I have hope for the rest of my to-read list.

TonT: Reasons to be Glad it's Spring and a Vest

2011-03-23T16:23:00.002-04:00

Since I'm behind already, let's not do all ten and do a show and tell instead this week...

I am glad it's spring because I love this:

...and this...

but unforunately when I zoom out...

I have no love after that picture....

I did finish the vest for the little tomato

This was obviously planned during his green period. He is still in it sometimes, but is now in a period of transition. It fits him well though, and I love this new pattern - no sewing! I love it. If you knit and are part of Ravelry you can see it here. I ended up having to undo most of the body and make it more narrow and use the other end to add ribbing and make sure I had enough yarn to finish... but it worked and I ended up with about 6 inches of handspun left at the end!

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Pies

2011-03-15T19:38:00.003-04:00

So... this week's topic is favorite pies. Yes, I'm still watching what I eat, but it's beginning to feel more natural. I just need to mix up the lunch time salad a bit on the days I'm home and have time to make anything else with a minimum of two cups of vegetables. Right... on to pies.

1. Pumpkin

2. Apple

3. Chocolate Cream (made this for our feast this november - so good)

4. Chicken Potpie

5. Beef Potpie

6. Lemon Meringue - how did this end up so far down the list??

7. Key Lime Pie (especially that frozen one... maybe I'll bring one to book club this month and cheat a bit!)

8. Hershey Pie (again, frozen - single servings are wonderful, especially when on sale)

9. Quiche - we call it egg pie with veggies here, and we make it with TONS of veg

10. Peach Pie

What's your favorite??

Contest Winner

2011-03-08T11:51:00.003-05:00

I collected all the entries to the contest and numbered them all, in order of when each person entered. I then took all those numbers to random.org and the winner was number 3. That was Noel. So... let me know what you want! yarn spun or something knit...

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Smells

2011-03-08T11:34:00.003-05:00

My top ten favorite smells, in no particular order...

1. fresh lemon/lime

2. warm bread just sliced

3. the crisp clean smell of someone who's been out in the cold

4. the smell of rain coming soon

5. fire (also the sound and look of it, but the smell is sometimes nice)

6. my kids, freshly showered especially

7. chocolate

8. pumpkin pie - although the spiced pear butter I made this past year is close to that... not that they smell the same, but they provoke the same bundled up fall feeling.

9. flowers - I enjoy the sight of some flowers more than others, but just the smell of any flowers walking into a room is nice.

10. Fresh clean clothes that have been dried outside in the sun

Secret Knitting revealed

2011-03-05T16:57:00.002-05:00

I finished knitting the second sweater last night, woke up this morning only needing to sew on buttons and weave in some ends before the afternoon baby shower. I don't like cutting it this close, but it became difficult to bring this with me to work on it on the go.

The little baby sweater (just missing buttons)

When I made a second hat for a different baby (who is bigger than average) I was given the first hat back and so it made a nice baby set with the sweater.

Then I had lots of this matching yarn left and figured it would be great to make something for the new big brother:

Luckily, my little boy is about a year older, so I figured tight on him would be roomy on the giftee.

I was really happy with how this whole set turned out!

Now, back to my scrap blanket, a shawl I have just barely started, a vest for my boy, and maybe something for my oldest, who is a birthday girl next week (but not done for her birthday, no way)... and if you win the contest, maybe something for you!

The contest ends tonight and I get to start phase two of the South Beach Diet tomorrow morning. So far it's been a success, it is still hard when I crave something, but I am full most of the time from all my vegetables!

Goals and Promises

2011-03-02T07:00:00.001-05:00

Ha Ha, I entered the title 'Secret Knitting' and it published for some reason, so this blank post really was secret knitting. Nice. I think I'll update the title....

I am still working along on the gifts that I am knitting. They will hopefully be finished before this weekend, so you can look forward to a post finally showing them soon. I am more than half done I believe right now, and almost all done with the thinking parts, which is good because I don't have much more thinking knitting time (non-thinking knitting can be done while talking or watching shows... thinking knitting has to be at least some what paid attention to).

So, I'll take a minute, before getting back to that to recap my goals and where I am on them.

Goal number 1: Make a habit of daily Scripture Reading

Yes, this is going well. I am reading one chapter almost every day, and on the couple I've missed I've made myself catch up the next day. I am in the middle of Luke right now and am fine continuing with that.

Goal number 2: Read a majority of my GoodReads list

I'd say this is going well... not great, but pretty good. I had mentioned something about a book a week - well, I'm up to about 34 for the year so far, but... I had also made a rough sketch of how many books I should have on my to-read list each month, as I knew I would always be adding more. I started with 68, added some to a high of 78ish and I currently have 54 on my to-read list. This falls just below the February goal, so, ignoring my currently-reading books I will count this one as a check.

Goal number 3: Spin at least 60 oz over the year

This one gets a partial, as I am currently at 8.5 oz for the year, and two months done I should be about 10 oz. I usually spin a bit more as it warms up for some reason though, so we'll see if I can catch up over the next couple months.

Goal number 4: Go through toys

Nope, not yet. This will be most likely accomplished after we switch to summer schedule for school.

Goal number 5: Deep Clean each room twice

I have started this, but not enough for even a partial check mark. That spring cleaning I'm looking forward to at the end of the month should really help this!

And don't forget the contest... Any comment or getting someone else to comment gets you an entry until I close it Saturday night! All details and prize info here

Ten on Tuesday: About March

2011-03-01T15:00:00.000-05:00

This week's Ten on Tuesday is a little fun, the list is the top ten reasons I love the month of March.

1. Two of my three kids are born in March - that makes the whole month fun.

2. My birthday is at the beginning of April, so March means I get to start thinking about it.

3. Every once in a while you get a nice warm day where the air feels so clean and fresh.

4. During those one or two days I love to open the windows, just for a bit, to air out the house, which is wonderful.

5. Snow melting - enough said.

6. Seedings - it's time to start them planting, we went last weekend and made some purchases, so I think this next weekend we'll be starting our garden (inside version).

7. Once again, with the snow melting and the warmer weather I can sometimes get outside. Whether it's a walk or a bike ride - I mostly hibernate in the house during the winter, so it's nice to move around outside.

8. We are now (well, after tomorrow) 2/3 done with our organized school year. March is usually the time we start the last push, last units, and looking forward to the end and summer schedule.

9. Flowers. I know they aren't really coming out of the ground yet, but going to the different stores I have to visit for my normal shopping I can see all the blooms and start to get excited about spring.

10. Spring Cleaning. While it's warm but not warm enough to play outside (closer to the end of the month?) I look forward to taking a week or so and just cleaning out all the corners of our small house.

South Beach

2011-02-24T09:19:00.003-05:00

This week I purposely did not post for Ten on Tuesday - I might be able to stretch for some categories, but this week's Favorite cocktails or mocktails was too much of a stretch for me (as I don't drink or like mocktails even) so I decided to skip it.

I did want to post this week though, and then I ran into a problem. The only knitting items I am currently working on are not blog-able. They are gifts for people who could (whether they do or not, who knows) read the blog.

So.... I thought I'd post about another aspect of my life. I in the middle of day 5 out of 14 days of South Beach Diet, phase one. Phase one is a pretty strict two week course in re-training your body. For these two weeks you severely limit carbs and sugar - including pasta, rice, bread, starchy veg (carrots, peas), corn, oats, potatoes, fruit, milk, etc. None of those. Which sounds pretty drastic, but I am eating lean meat and eggs and low-fat cheese, and lots and lots of green vegetables.

For breakfast I am eating protein (eggs, cheese, canadian bacon), and at least 1/2 C vegetables - usually spinach in my eggs and a can of V8. For lunch I can have protein and at least 2 Cups of vegetables, and some fat. I usually have a large salad - lettuce and fresh spinach, cucumber, pea pods, broccoli, peppers, almonds, ham or chicken breast chopped up, and small amount of dressing. For dinner how I cook the vegetables varies, but I can have once again protein, at least 2 cups of vegetables, and some fat. I have 2-3 snacks a day - usually a certain amount of nuts, or celery with cheese. I also have a scattered through the day a variety of hard sugar free candies and some sugar free popsicles.

The first day or two was pretty hard, both because it was weekend/holiday, so not my normal schedule and also because I was pretty addicted to my carbs throughout the day. I absent-mindedly grabbed a cookie at the end of a library event yesterday, and I plan to cheat a bit tonight at bookclub, but otherwise I figure I can do this for 14 days. I am letting my kids eat some of our contraband food for their lunch and breakfast - but dinner I am only making one, so they have to eat our food or cheat from it in only small ways.

On day 15 I start phase two and I can start adding back in one serving of starch (bread/rice/pasta) and one serving of fruit. I can slowly increase those to three servings a day, as long as I don't notice cravings coming back. I can also add back in 1 1/2 c milk or yogurt.

I'm doing this diet with my husband - he's done it before a couple of times while I've done most of it but not stayed strictly with it due to other circumstances (pregnant or breastfeeding usually), so it's been interesting to do it completely. I usually feel so full by the end of the day - but i still want my chocolate - maybe soon I'll have to grab some sugar-free fudgsicles. The idea is to continue with phase two until you get to your desired weight and then move into phase 3 where you still eat with the same basic guidelines but add some things back in every once in a while. Our usual course of attack has been to do phase one and phase two for a while and then slowly drift back to our normal eating habit, to return and do phase one and phase two sometime (a year or two) in the future.

Now, if you made it this far, through all my diet talk...

I realized that my last post was post number 250. A milestone number of posts and the fact that I'm sick of snow and cold... that means that it's time for a contest! Just leave a comment and you'll be entered into the contest. Get someone else to leave a comment (they have to somehow mention you in their comment) and you'll get another entry (and they are then entered also!) I'll then pick a random winner from all the entries. The only rule is that you have to make sure I have your email address if you want to be able to win (I will not be tracking people down - I'll just skip to the next random winner who is easier to contact). Oh, right, and you can comment on any post going forward until the end of the contest - not just this one... Feel free to comment more than once - each comment on a separate post will give you a separate entry - multiple comments on the same post will only result in one entry - make sense?

Oh right, you might want to know the prize.... There are two options - if you are a knitter/crocheter you might be more interested in the first, otherwise you are welcome to choose either.

Option A: You can choose some fiber in my stash and I will spin one skein to whatever weight yarn you want... plied and washed and ready to make something with.

Option B: You can choose any project that will use one skein of yarn in my stash and I will make it for you. My stash in pretty eclectic right now so that's a lot of different project options, but if you get your heart set on something that isn't in my stash we can talk... no promises.

The contest will close to entries at midnight my time zone saturday March 5th - that gives quite a while for entries, and it just so happens to be the end of phase one for me! I'll pick a winner and let you know monday march 7th.

The little Admiral, aka Tomato

2011-02-18T12:35:00.004-05:00

My young son has had two different 'blog' names - I don't know which will end up being his for good, but almost three years old now both still fit.

After finishing a pair of socks for his older sister a week or two ago I looked at some yarn left over from a pair of socks I had made for my husband. I weighed it, compared it to some of my pairs of socks and realized I had *just* enough to make a short pair for me... Yeah, I must not have really wanted them, because as I was starting the toe he declared that he needed socks and those looked good. Now, normally I don't give in to demands like that... but I think he's right. He needed a pair of dress-up socks, and these did look good for his church outfits.

So now Daddy and the Admiral have matching socks. He might even wear them this Sunday if I remember.

I also finished spinning some yarn for a vest for him. At least that's what I hope it will end up being.

It's green. Can you tell? It's also about 8.5 oz and more details you don't care about on my Ravelry page :) I had a goal of 60 oz this year, so I am still on schedule for that... We might discuss the rest of the goals at the end of February....

Back at Christmas my in-laws gave me a gift card to webs, which is just lovely! I ordered some yarn for a sweater for ME and although it was backordered, it arrived this week.

Won't that be nice? I'm thinking it will be a new zipper sweater as my old creme one is pretty pilled.

Ten on Tuesday, on Friday: blog edition

2011-02-18T12:14:00.002-05:00

This week's ten on tuesday was supposed to be ten non-knitting blogs that I like to read... I'll go with the definition of blog being anything I read in my RSS reader, so here goes:

1. The Pioneer Woman - she's usually so on point and with it - add in cooking and homeschooling posts and it's perfect!

2. Penelope Loves Lists - she's been a bit busy lately, but this take on life so resonates with me.

3. Unclutterer - the name is pretty self explanatory...

4. The Happiness Project - once again, pretty understandable from the title. Sometimes she gets a little too repetitive, as I've read her book and her blog for a while, but the reminders are usually useful and helpful

5. Space Station Nathan - Nathan Hale, illustrator extraordinaire has a blog. He worked on Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack, both comic book style fun kids books. During February he's challenging himself with a picture book concept everyday... and before that he posted a page a day of a beginning reader picture book (who says once you start reading the words that the pictures have to be boring?)

6. It Made My Day (or IMMD) - This updates in my reader several times a day, so when I check my mail randomly through the day I can usually catch one or two of these happy short stories.

7. Not Always Right - I have a snarky sarcastic mean side to my humor, and these little stories always make me roll my eyes and chuckle at how idiotic some customers can be - and behave better if I find myself in a similar situation....

8. Mormon Mommy Wars - sometimes touching, sometimes pointless - always amusing.

9. The Glass Posse - A woman in New York, who is Mormon, a mom, a wife, and trys to take advantage of living in the city while consistently running to casting calls.

10. My friends' blogs - I don't know who wants the traffic and people and who doesn't so I won't put up links, but I love reading about what's going on with people both near and far - I almost never comment, but I so enjoy feeling in the loop!

Catch-up, Yarn and Knitting

2011-02-11T09:12:00.003-05:00

Recently my husband saw this project on his RSS ravelry feed and really liked it. Well, thanks to Ravelry I clicked around and found someone who had that yarn and was wanting to sell it.... So a little less than a week later we got this:

...and this...

...in the mail!

I also belong to a barter group on Ravelry and sent off some DVDs I didn't want anymore, but someone else did and sent me this:

some milk fiber

some bamboo

a sock blank (sock yarn that I can dye now)

Some Targhee, which is a breed of wool I haven't tried to spin yet

...and a beautiful batt for me to spin - can't wait to see how this looks!

I've been working on a pair of socks for one of my daughters for almost a month now - and I finally finished them earlier this week!

I started with yarn that matched a tunic I made for her that she loves,

After starting both of them so I could work on them at the same time I had to get both of them through the heel...

Then I just have to keep working on them and trying them on her and working on them some more. This is how you will probably see them normally:

Once it warms up and spring is here though you might see them like this:

The patterning on them matches the tunic, just a little different, and then ribbing on top of course to help keep them up!

After finishing those socks I pulled out some yarn left over from a pair for my husband. I wanted to use at least a bit more of it before sending it to the sock blanket, so I started a pair, and before I could try them on and measure my foot, someone else claimed them.

So, a little boy will have matching socks with his daddy. Right now I am actually finished with the first one and started the toe of the second.

Two Ten on Tuesdays

2011-02-08T21:33:00.003-05:00

So, I missed last week's Ten on Tuesday - and although I have another post or two coming later this week hopefully I figured I should catch up a bit!

Last week was ten things on your nightstand:
1. My alarm clock
2. My reading lamp
3. Current book I'm reading
4. Pile of next books I'm planning to read
5. Sometimes a box of tissues - when allergies hit I better have a box near me or I can never sleep
6. New Testament - which I'm still on target for my goal this year of a chapter a day
7. A coaster for a glass of water or herbal tea
8. A small basket that holds bookmarks and random little odds and ends so they don't spread out and fall
9. The current book I'm reading aloud to my kids - we just finished 'Hero and the Crown' and we're now reading 'Little House on the Prairie'
10. Many many other books - my nightstand is a small bookcase my sweet husband finished for me and holds all my craft books, old magazines, and writing books

and this week's Ten on Tuesday is my ten favorite Oscar winning movies...

Let's see if I can find ten Oscar winners that I really like!
(looking only at the list of Best Picture Winners)

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Casablanca
3. Around the World in 80 days
4. The Bridge on the River Kwai
5. West Side Story
6. My Fair Lady
7. Sound of Music
8. Gandhi
9. A Beautiful Mind
10. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Health and Beauty Products

2011-01-25T15:08:00.003-05:00

Is it a bad sign that the last three posts have all been for Ten on Tuesday?

I think it is definitely a sign that I need to get moving on some of my craft projects! I guess the problem is they are all long-ish term ones. The quickest would be the socks I started for 'Curly', but even they are pretty thin yarn and feet that are getting bigger every day. Maybe I can have a real post when the snow stops here... ;)

So, my favorite health and beauty products... let's see.

1. My pedometer - I have a very competetive nature, whether it is competing with myself or someone else, so keeping track of my steps makes me move more, and know I'm moving more!

2. My mp3 player - during the winter I can't exercise much outside so lately I've been listening to my mp3 player while jogging in place (or around the house). Sometimes if I'm jogging in place I even play on my....

3. Play station 3 - Just the past week or two I've been playing tetris (while listening to music) while doing my jogging - oh how the time does fly!

4. My warm bed - very healthy to get enough sleep, and to stay warm on these cold nights!

5. Water - I love drinking it and it is so good for you

6. My new bar lotion from The Loopey Ewe. I just love it, and my hands are pretty picky about lotions.

7. Small bottles of shower gel from Bath and Bodyworks... I love trying out new scents

8. Vitamins, especially a little iron

9. Blistex - I'm not one for lip stuff, but I don't like chapped

10. Umm, I don't know? What's your favorite?

Ten on Tuesday: Favorite Childhood Games

2011-01-18T11:30:00.002-05:00

Well, this ten on tuesday was favorite childhood games, so....

1. Playing in the sandbox. We had a big one in the backyard and used to make castles and tunnels and if we were really lucky we'd get to bring the hose over and soak the sand and get more creative.

2. Four Square. We used to play this in the street in front of our house - having breaks as cars came down our mostly quiet street. The neighborhood kids could really bounce high enough that you had no chance to send it back!

3. Clue

4. Parcheesi

5. Uno

6. Pretend School - which is actually pretty funny since I homeschool now.

7. Hide and Seek - Backwards or normal

8. Word Association Games - one person starts by saying a word, then it moves around the group in an orderly fashion with each person just saying the first word that comes to them - with the third person playing off of the second person's word and so on. It could get pretty funny in our family.

9. Computer Games - old school atari like digdug, space invaders, qbert, etc or the newer old ones like mixed up mothergoose and where in the world is carmen sandiego?

10. Trivial Pursuit - but we played with a religious set of cards, so I stink at the normal trivial pursuit, but have a fair (jr level) knowledge of scriptures and such!

Help me out family, what am I forgetting? ...or for everyone else, what did you like to play when you were growing up?

Ten on Tuesday: Ways to be More Organized

2011-01-11T09:00:00.003-05:00

In an effort to blog more and put a tiny bit more of myself out there I joined a group for Ten on Tuesday - so every Tuesday you'll get a little list from me to you!

This first Tuesday is Ten ways to be more Organized:

Of course, trying to be more organized I got this post ready on Monday for Tuesday and then accidently published it briefly.... oh well, here it is now, for real on Tuesday.

1.Make a list Sometimes I go days or weeks without a list, but normally I live off of lists. I started on at least half the mornings last week on the days I knew I needed to get stuff done but wanted to sit on the couch all day. I started one this morning and I have 7 out of 15 crossed off already. I also, however, make lists of more long-term things. I have a netflix list of things we want to watch, including 30 items on the save portion that means they aren't out yet, but that way I don't have to remember them. I use goodreads the same way, I can keep track of what I've read, which is interesting, but I love more keeping track of what I want to read so I can use those brain cells for other things.

2.Make a routine When things happen all the time you don't have to think about them, just make sure every once in a while that you are doings things efficiently and keep going without thinking. When it's time for the weekly library trip my kids know I'm going to pull up their record on the computer, see what's due, make sure they can find any books we aren't returning (so I can keep an eye out for any that are 'missing') and make two piles - those we are returning (into a bag) and those we are keeping (back in the other room)

3.Make a schedule Very rarely, on days that I know are going to be crazy I actually write down my mental schedule of the day to make sure I am not trying to fit in too much or forgetting anything. Most of our schedules though are to make sure everyone is on the same page. I write out school schedules for the girls most weeks so they know which days to get different things done - that is kindof a routine too because it's mostly the same every week, but if there's something different it is reflected in the schedule.

4.De-clutter your surroundings If your brain is constantly looking at stuff it will make you tired. If you can never find anything you won't feel organized and your free time will be eaten up by clutter and mess and searching.

5.De-clutter your life People vary, but when I get going too crazy my patience wears thin and I snap much quicker at my family. When I make sure I have enough time to mentally rest life goes a lot smoother.

6.A Place for Everything... and everything in its place. This goes with the declutter surroundings a bit, but also it means others can help. If there is one place for specific items, others can (may?) put them back in the right place so everyone can find them when they need it. Scissors are always in one drawer in my kitchen (at least the big pair of scissors are), the library books go into the bag in the living room, board games go back in the closet, shoes go in the closet, coats get hung up, etc.

7.Plan ahead I know, easier said than done, but if I know I have tons of activities on a certain day I try to have the kids prepare the night before, make sure I know what dinner is going to be, tidy up the house a bit so I won't come back to a mess, etc. I always try to have a book or a craft with me so I won't mind any delays, and remember which things are the important things .

8.Pack a bag When I'm getting ready to go and do something I grab one of my big bags and just throw everything in it. This works for us for two reasons - the kids usually pack their own bags now with me just verbally going through it with them, and I always empty the bag at the end of the day. This keeps me organized on a daily basis with what I think I'll need, and when I can I'll pack it in advance so when it's time to go I can just grab it.

9.Just do it for me, being organized has a lot to do with just doing it. Don't put it off, don't delay... plan and then do it. Especially if you have tasks nagging you to do them and you know they'll only take a few minutes go ahead and get them done. Then you'll have less hanging over your head and you'll be able to see what needs to be done next.

10.Ask others for help I recently finished a book all about changing your life in short, quick ways. (If you're wondering about that book you can look at my goodreads list!) One of the things I learned from the book was that the best way to get closer to someone (friendship-wise) is to ask them for help. Being organized is not a one person Olympic sport. It is a group effort, at least it is if you don't want to end up a little crazy. Everyone, no matter how organized they are, will need help getting through this life. So don't wait for someone to notice, just ask!

Some days I feel more organized than others, but on the days I feel pretty good about it, these are all part of that feeling!

New Year, New Yarn

2011-01-10T10:29:00.003-05:00

I had some gift cards hanging over my head that I suddenly felt the need to use before I lost them! I exchanged a couple gift cards for this:

For some reason my husband has placed order with The Loopy Ewe before, but I never had. I got two skeins of smooshy sock yarn and since I had a little left over I decided to try some new lotion. It's the tin that has a pear on it because, it's pear scented. It's a solid lotion that you rub on your hands like a bar of soap - so far it's great! The sock yarn looks wonderful too, but it will be heading to the bins of yarn stash for the moment... I also love ordering from the loopy ewe (or watching my husband open his orders) because they always include just a little something that you didn't order - this time I got a card to keep track of my knitting needles and a couple of sample cards of other yarns.

I had also bought some green fiber for something for my son recently, but when looking for patterns I realised it wasn't quite enough, so I looked on etsy for something green and superwash and found this:

It also came with a little nice smelling satchel that I didn't expect. I love these internet orders that slip something extra in! The little Tomato was very excited to have me open a package and explain that it was eventually for him. It originally came in the mail as one long braid of course, but, since I want to spin them together into one yarn, without carding them completely together, I split them each up into little tiny balls of fiber which I will rotate through as I spin. So here's how they look together:

New Year Goals

2011-01-04T10:13:00.002-05:00

Every year my family sits down, looks at the goals we had made for the previous year and makes new goals for the new year. 2010 I actually lost our list of goals and then found it two days before the end of the year, so our achievements (of those goals) were pretty dismal. I had made progress on all of my goals, but only actually accomplished 2/5. This year I have five new goals.

1. Make a habit of daily scripture reading
2. Read a majority (average a book a week) of my goodreads list
3. Spin at least 60 oz over the year
4. Go through toys - donate/toss/keep and in 1 or 2 places
5. Deep clean each room twice

I'm actually starting in the New Testament reading just one chapter each day, trying to make it more of a habit than an rushed goal of reading each book. If I stay on target I should finish the New Testament around the end of August, after that I'll hopefully move on to something else for a chapter a day.

I have a current list of 68 books I want 'to read' (well, actually 67 since I am reading one of those currently and haven't moved it over to that list). I had books on there that I originally added to the list last June, which doesn't sound bad except for the fact that I 359 books listed as read since last January. I give myself permission to just delete a book if I'm no longer interested in reading it, otherwise I want to read and work that list down so it isn't where books go for a slow torturous death.

I really enjoy spinning. I feel more calm and relaxed when I get to spin for a bit every day for a while - and while that is not exactly my goal, my aim of 60+ oz for the year is very reasonable. It breaks down into 5 oz a month which I could easily do within a couple of days if I just did it. I have a lot of braids or bags of fiber which are 4 or 5 oz each - so that would be nice to work through, but I also have a couple of larger lots (brown alpaca, grey superwash, more?) that I could spin up for a bigger project...

Toys.... We aren't actually over the top here, but we do have way more toys than we need - especially if you consider that we have three kids who spend a lot of their free time either reading, gaming, imagining, or playing with a couple specific toys.... I just need to psych myself up and go through them and decide and sort. ...and then go through again and make sure that they are stored in a way to make it easy to pull out and play with and put away again.

I am good about keeping the house neat. In fact, I actually kindof like keeping the house neat (especially when everybody in the family grabs a room and straightens and the whole house is done in less than an hour). I am not good at keeping it *really* clean though. Surface clean sure, but a deep scrub the walls and baseboards, mop and wax the wood floors kind of clean is very rare around here. I think that nesting is one part of my previous pregnancies my family really liked because everything got super cleaned and gone through (no, I am not pregnant and not planning to be pregnant, just realized that's the only time I've enjoy scrubbing).

So those are my goals for this year - and I think I'm pretty set for achieving them, as long as I don't lose the list again (which now that I've typed them in matters so much less!)

Christmas and New Years

2011-01-03T10:52:00.003-05:00

For Christmas my kids gave me some wonderful presents! 'Curly' and 'Tomato' each gave me a skein of yarn:

The colors are a bit tricky to photograph, but they are purple and maroon. They are meant to be used together as the specific yarn used in a pattern on my new LOOM! :)

Unfortunately the new loom was missing a small hook (which arrived today - thank you webs customer service!) so I started warping it with some of my weaving cotton to practice and learn how this rigid heddle loom works. I look forward to having some fun over the next week or two and then hopefully warping with the new yarn!

My husband also gave me other presents, including a couple of knitting books - Wrapped in Lace by Margaret Stove and Knit. Sock. Love. by Cookie A. both look interesting. He also gave me Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day - which I love the artisan bread book so much I'm excited about these variations.

My other daughter 'Lily' gave me some coupons for extra chores around the house and a whole book of different things I can request of her (running some laundry, sharing with siblings, watching siblings, doing her school work quickly, etc)

I also received a beatles cd and an elvis cd, a gift certificate to webs, and some fun games to play with the family.

During our wonderfully calm (although disappointedly sick) vacation I also finished the fiber that was on the spinning wheel, so I now have this pretty yarn!

We also watched a lot of tv and movies (due to the sickness that travelled through the family) and so I spent a lot of time wanting to work on easy projects - the crochet blanket is pretty simple and straightforward, so I made a lot of progress on that. Currently it is almost big enough for a lap/couch blanket, but I have at least three more large-ish amounts to add and then I'll want to look through both my stash and my husband's for more sock scraps!

I also spun a little silk on the spindle last night, even though my hands are a bit dry it wasn't as bad as I thought and was actually pretty calm and fun.

Warming, in Green

2010-12-17T11:35:00.003-05:00

I finally finished the last of the winter stuff for my kids... only about a week after it started to get cold enough for them. After finishing them I took a night or two and just watched tv without crafting before picking up another project to work on during my evenings.

First, the mittens:

Second, the hat/scarf:

I really wanted to make one of these for one of the kids - and the girls didn't need hats or scarves, so Tomato had to be talked into it. It didn't take *too* much talking, but every time I tried it on him he would freeze for a second, then feel with his hands where the knitting ended, and then really quickly WHIP it off while declaring '2 inches'. So, if I needed to actually measure anything I had to do it really quickly while he was frozen for 1.5 seconds.

I think he decided that he liked it though.

He really loves that it matches his mittens and that they are both green.

Speaking of green.... I found a really neat group on Ravelry that likes to barter - yarny stuff of course, but really anything. I swapped my many skeins of lopi yarn for four skeins of this:

At this point I'm not sure if it will end up being for me or for one of the kids, but I am really excited about making something with it in the new year!

Decisive Element

2010-12-02T16:41:00.001-05:00

Happiness Project blog

I have this Goethe quote I find myself going back to:

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”

The Un-Fun has begun....

2010-11-29T10:01:00.004-05:00

I have a song stuck in my head. It's a silly song from my childhood - in fact I mentioned it to my sister and she burst out laughing. I looked into getting it as an MP3, unfortunately it'd be really expensive right now to do that, as it's part of a 12 book series (and you know I couldn't just get one!) and each book and music sells digitally for more than I want to pay (or for a lot all together). Someday perhaps, but in the meantime I went onto Ebay and found an auction for the three music books that hold the piano music for the whole series- no going and snatching the auction up!

The exact song I had stuck in my head was all about Professor Un. He's the arch enemy of Captain Dependable... you can see why I loved this growing up. He somehow makes it so Captain Dependable becomes Un-Dependable. ...and when that happens, the Unfun has begun! Hooray Professor Un! Don't worry, the brave children manage to fix the situation and all is great in the end.

So, instead of doing laundry and cooking and all those other nice things, we took Thanksgiving off. We brought our veggies and rolls to the extended family meal, we split up some food assignments and had our own feast on Friday and then other than attending church we did nothing. We had some Un-fun. We ate leftovers... We sat and read... I got a little knitting done and I think a couple of games were played. It was a wonderful weekend. ...and hard for it to all come to an end.

With all that down time I managed to finish the Gl-ittens for Curly.

She had to come running when a called about 486 times to try them on, but she did so happily....

...and now she loves them!

She even wore them to the store last night when we had to run out for a few things for a certain husband birthday cake that needs making this week.

I even managed to start the mittens for the little boy....

so many stories already while knitting for him... the first mitten is almost done!

Slippers, Slippers, and a Glitten

2010-11-27T11:42:00.002-05:00

The slippers for 'Little Tomato' are done:

He loves wearing Red Socks (and we get a kick out of the sports pun that he has no clue about). He insisted as we were picking out yarn for 'Lily' to start making her own slippers that the red yarn was his. Nice of him to pick out some bulky yarn.... they worked up fairly quickly and aside from a couple days when they were missing, he has worn them almost non-stop around our cold house.

'Curly' chose some yarn out of the girls' yarn basket in their room and had me start slippers for her. Unfortunately I ran out of yarn as I was starting the second slipper, so they have different color bottoms, but they are warm and fuzzy (and can be machine washed, unlike the red ones) and only took a couple of days of tv watching once I got moving on them.

As I said earlier, 'Lily' chose some yarn out of my stash and is working on her own slippers... She's almost to the sole on the first one, and then the second should move faster. I might take pity on her and do the sole, which is the only tricky part on the whole slipper.

However, as she was starting to work on her own slippers she was not left out of the mommy knitting juggling act...

I was finishing up her glove/mittens:

And they are now done!

She had to try them on ummm... about 435 times in order for them to have the perfect fit.

...Curly's first glitten is almost done, work will commence on her second and then only to plain mittens for Tomato - he is insistent that his mittens will be green!

New England Fiber Festival

2010-11-18T18:56:00.004-05:00

The first weekend in November was a very busy one. Saturday we squished in a lot, and then Sunday we recovered....

The first annual New England Fiber Festival was held on the Big E grounds. My kids were very excited, as they had wanted to go to the Big E and although we didn't make it this year they would at least get to see where such an event would take place.

It was a fun way to spend the morning - some animals, lots of vendors, and many fun things to see. I ended up bringing home a small amount....

(this does not include my husband's meager purchases of one skein of yarn and two patterns - he's already snatched them and put them away)

I purchased my fiber at Spunky Eclectic. This included some fiber for me to use, green fiber for 'Little Tomato', and sparkily fiber for 'Curly'. I also bought a small skein of fiber at the New England Felting Supply booth and a little wet felting kit there also. It was funny to buy from them as they are based in the town my husband grew up in, and I've never been there before... maybe when I use up more of my stash.... I also bought three skeins of yarn - two of them on 50% off sale at Creatively Dyed. Once again, green for the Little Tomato, and pink for 'Curly' and then I picked up some neat rainbow Kauni yarn for a shawl for the girls. 'Lily' wandered around the show with us but wanted to play at the train table with her brother more than she wanted to choose yarn, so we let her do that.

We then had a couple of hours downtime - which was nice since it had been a crazy week.... and then the near-by crazy uncles showed up to babysit so my husband and I were able to attend a Pink Martini concert. If you've never heard them you should check out some of their music - jazz and pop and world music all on the same album. We own all four of their albums (and just got the fifth one - a holiday one - this week) and really enjoyed the show.

Socks and Socks and... Mittens?

2010-11-01T22:49:00.004-04:00

Alrighty, no pictures this time, just a quick catch-up and a promise of pictures next time.

Since my last post I finished the brown tunic for the girls and a pair of socks for me. I am SO close to being done with another pair of socks for the sweet husband. However, halloween, with it's need of costumes, has prevented that. Progress was made today now that halloween is done, and they should be finished soon.

That is excellent since earlier this week we canvassed the 'warm things' basket in the front closet and while hats and scarves are in good supply we are completely out of mittens or gloves that fit this year's hands. Since last year's hands are gone and will not be returning I guess I will be starting new mittens within the next week...

(I'm torn whether it's a good sign or not that the Little Tomato put his hand into daddy's new sock-in-progress and declared that his hand was warm and I needed to knit for him now)

Baby Showers and Bread

2010-10-11T20:56:00.005-04:00

This past weekend I attended a double baby shower. I was planning to make each of these mothers something, but plans, as I said in my last post, got moved up a little bit (They are both due in the early-middle of november) when I heard when the shower was scheduled for.

One family is have another baby boy, and since it is their fourth child I changed things up a bit and chatted with her ahead of time. All set on making a sweater and hat I went to the store and chose some shades of brown.

I decided to go with my wonderful wallaby sweater pattern (which, in one booklet has sizes 2-48") and I actually dropped and did a size smaller than it had, which involved some math, but thankfully not too much.

I wanted to try out a new hat though, so I looked on Ravelry and chose what I hoped would turn out to be a neat baby hat.

Since I didn't get their gauge I did the largest (three month) size and hoped for the best. This is what the hat looks like when it's worn as the largest it can be.

And this is what it looks like when you take it off:

Hopefully, with that range of sizes, it will fit the new baby this winter!

The other family that this baby shower was for is having a little girl. They seemed like people who could take some color, especially as we enter winter, and so, not finding a pink I liked, I made this blanket:

Bright, eh?

I also made them my more traditional baby shower gift of a bear...

It was a fun time, aside from an unexpected allergy attack earlier that evening....

I have gotten many comments, and questions, about the bread I mentioned in my last post. It was this book which I think is well worth the price, or a trip to your library. It really is the best bread I've found for pasta and soups. Anyone who wants to try just the basic dough, let me know and I'll give you that one recipe (I tried it off of a website review of the book several years ago before I bought the book) or I can lend you my book for a couple of days if you are local. They also have a healthier breads version of it that I haven't looked at yet.

I also spun a little bit today (while I should have been starting to sauce my apples....)

One of my friends is making a secret project and needed just a bit of red/orange yarn. I found this small amount of fiber and now it's ready to go to her!

I'm still plugging along on a couple of the other projects - it was nice to get back to them after finishing the shower gifts. I'm at the point in several of my projects where they are almost done, all the fun stuff is over and I just need to put in the time to finish them - which is a lot less exciting then starting something shiny and new, but I will do my best to finish at least something soon!

August and September

2010-09-28T14:01:00.003-04:00

So, last we left our crafty tale spinning had been going on a little bit every day and progress was being made...

Fiber was being made into yarn and much fun was being had by all...

...and then came the day I didn't feel so good, so I spun on and off most of the day and then played some starcraft that evening without setting up a good place for the computer mouse. I felt a lot better by the end of the day. Mental Health wise it was exactly what I needed, however, the next day or two I noticed that my wrist was really sore. So after those last two yarns I started another batch but stopped. I spent a couple of days resting it and then slowly, over a week or two, started using it more each day and it's fine again now, but I'm again out of practice with the spinning.

During this time my husband finished a pair of socks for me.

Since he's (mostly) stopped blogging I figured I would show them off here.

I've worn them once since they were finished and now that it's getting cooler I look forward to wearing them some more (along with all of my other knitted socks)

We also have spent some time at local parks (both biking to them and driving on occasion).

This was a day that we biked, fed the ducks, played on the playground, and everyone got to take pictures. Little Tomato took a picture of his pants (and the corner of mommy's sweater)

We have been harvesting and making yummy food. One of the biggest hits was this pot of spaghetti sauce (made mostly from garden tomatoes, supplemented by canned) with meatballs (made from local grass fed beef purchased at our farmers market).

That same night we had a fun artisan bread. I have loved the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes book, but I normally make the same two recipes over and over again. That morning, as I was flipping through the book I came across Spinach Feta Bread.

Yum Yum.

It seriously took about 10 minutes to stir together, left it on the counter for a couple of hours and then 5 minutes to make the loaves and about an hour or so later I shoved them in the oven for 30 minutes - so less than 20 minutes of my time and we had yummy bread.

Along with several other things we grow in our garden every year (cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, chard, eggplant, peppers, etc) we always try to grow squash. The butt of all gardening jokes just won't grow for us, but we did get a couple small cute butternuts this year for the first time.

(measuring cup for scale)

Back in June Curly was given an interesting birthday present.

She got to name and take care of a chicken for a week or two. We were given instructions and enough food for the time and she had a blast. Mommy and Daddy, however, were having more than a blast I guess... we got a little bit attached. So we got permission to keep Sam (Samuel or Samantha) and watched it grow.

and grow....

and grow...

until the past couple of weeks when we started to hear Sam every morning.

The thing is, Sam was spending the nights in a cardboard box just inside the kitchen door, so the crowing in the morning was actually kindof cool (plus, you know you are not morning people when the rooster crows around 8 every morning - and sometimes wakes the kids up).

But then he started to crow outside randomly during the day also, and as much as our neighbors like us, I didn't want to see how much they like us, so sooner or later we knew Sam would be dinner. So last week someone came over and taught us how to take care of a rooster in the city. We did cook up a lovely meal (including those cute butternuts) and talked about the circle of life.... and we look forward to raising some more chickens again in the spring.

back to crafts....

Current Project Round-up:
Back when my wrist was recovering I figured I'd move it in a different direction for a while, so I started a project I've planned for a long time...

I started a granny afghan. I'm using my sock yarn scraps (obviously some scraps are longer than others) and planning to just keep going around the one square until it's as large as I want it to be, so this project might take a while.

I started a tunic cap-sleeve cardigan for my girls to share (yes, two years and one inch apart they are sharing clothes already).

I attended a conference where I had several hours available to knit while listening, so I get it almost done, and then discovered it wasn't nearly long enough for these long-torso girls, so I bought another skein and I need to just keep working and finish it off. It's going on hold for a week or two though, as I have some baby showers coming up....

...and here's a sneak peak at one of those projects!

Drive by Blogging

2010-09-07T13:42:00.004-04:00

I was just reading a blog in my google reader (anyone who reads any blogs should take the time to set a reader up!) and wanted to share a quote that hit me.

The blog is Unclutterer by Erin Doland, the post is here.

And she said...

All while I was reading Chris Guillebeau’s book, a quote from Orison Swett Marden kept running through my mind:

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

I love that.

The whole post is worth a read, and for that matter, I really enjoy this blog.... but I just love that quote and reminder.

I'll be back with more spun yarn and knitting and crocheting and such soon...

Six Weeks of Spinning

2010-08-10T15:09:00.004-04:00

Well, as the title would suggest, after months of not touching the wheel, I've been spinning for about 6 weeks straight now, trying to get in a little time almost every day (only missing one or two days before vacation week where i managed to spin about half the days)

So.... here's what about 4 1/2 weeks of spinning looks like:

...and the other 1 1/2 weeks are these three yarns:

A lot of these were either given to me for my birthday or were purchased at MA sheep and wool. All were just bags or braids of fiber at the beginning of the 6 weeks and all are now washed, dried and ready to craft with now. All are different blends and came out different weights of yarn, if you are curious about any you can ask or check out my stash on ravelry. I'm still spinning and trying to do a bit every day, as I can see the outcome of just a bit of effort daily and want to work through more of my fiber stash - it is so nice to knit with handspun! :)

I also, in the middle of that, went shopping and got a shirt to wear with a sweater I had finished... and managed to get a picture taken:

The sweater isn't quite as flattering as I was hoping for, but it does look good and I'll feel fine wearing it, after it cools down a bit more of course! I've had the yarn and pattern for it for a long time and I'm glad I finally got it made and done.

I also finished socks for my sweet husband.

He had bought this yarn and tried to use it in a different pattern for him, and although that pattern wasn't working with it he loved the colors, so he handed it over to me and I turned it into plain ribbed socks - very easy to work on while trying to multitask and fit him pretty well.

I'm now working on a not so plain sock... well, every other row is plain knitting, but every other row is a lace pattern that hasn't been memorized yet (and I'm almost 3/4 done with the first sock)

I do like how the pattern and yarn are working together though (yes, this picture is a couple of weeks old, the first sock is now through the heel and working up the leg)

So I'll keep working on the sock, I'm currently spinning some bright soysilk that I bought in Cummington, and I'm starting to look for some commercial yarn to pair with one of those spun yarns above... I'm thinking a vest of my now two-year old Tomato boy sometime this fall....

Finally a picture!

2010-07-08T11:26:00.002-04:00

Finally, a picture of a finished sweater on me. I took this right before the heat wave started, so I don't think I'll be wearing it again until fall.

I should have a picture of me wearing the blue sweater soon also, just need to wait for it to dry again.

I'm almost done (about to bind off) with the first sock in the current pair for my husband - so I'll be casting on and starting the second sock maybe tonight. I also have kept up the spinning (or plying) every day so far since my last post... I'm on my second lot of fiber, and I'll soon be plying that and starting a third something or other!

...but first, laundry is waiting for me to fold, and mending will get done too hopefully - then off to bind off the sock and spin some more.

Spinning Again

2010-06-28T09:43:00.004-04:00

The blue lace sweater is now sewn together and finished. It looks okay on me, but I either need to find a shirt to go with it, or give up on it and pass it on....

I have finally started spinning again. I was planning to start the fiber I had put next to the wheel sometime this week, but then I realized the tour de fleece starts next saturday. So, friday night I pulled it out for just a few minutes and made sure everything was running smoothly. I haven't spun since we put in new seating, but everything works well together and I have spun for at least a short while every day since then. I never have joined an official team for tour de fleece, but i do tend to spin for it every year so far.

I also started the next pair of socks for my husband. He had some yarn he loved and had started some socks with a new pattern, but it wasn't working, so he handed over the yarn and I'm now making a plain pair of socks with it. It is fun stripey yarn and I'm enjoying working with it. I am almost (within 5 rows?) ready to start the heel, and then i get to start the second sock probably.

Sweater Blocked

2010-06-24T09:30:00.002-04:00

I finished the blue lace sweater tuesday night. I managed to block it yesterday, and because it is cotton I was worried about it taking forever to dry in this humid weather, so instead I dry blocked it! (This involves pinning the sweater out to the right measurements - making sure it stretches right and the edges are straight - and then spraying it with water)

I ended up having to refill my little spray bottle three or four times, so if I plan on doing this again I might want to purchase a bigger spray bottle, but since I had the pieces pinned out on foam boards the water didn't damage anything and it was dry this morning!

Due to other chores I might get to sewing it today, or I might have to wait another day or so anyway, but at least I was able to unpin, neatly fold, and put everything away so I'm not worried about the kids getting to it!

Lace - Socks and Sweater

2010-06-23T09:00:00.002-04:00

After working on the socks for my husband (with fingering weight yarn), the vest for me (out of dk weight yarn), and the tunic for my daughter (out of fingering weight yarn), it felt really nice to work with some sport weight yarn, especially this sport weight yarn, Knit One, Crochet Too Ambrosia is 70% alpaca, 20% silk, and 10% cashmere.

These socks were knit up so quickly, not only was the yarn a heavier weight than I am used to making socks with, the lace made them even faster!

I actually knit three feet, as the second one I made I realized my gauge had changed too much to have them both match and fit. So I ripped out and went up a needle size for the second sock.

I had bought this yarn several years ago at Webs, and it's been sitting in my stash for a long time, waiting to be made into this exact pair of socks the whole time. It's nice to finally have them in my drawer instead of my bin of yarn and fiber.

At the same time I bought the yarn for the socks I also purchased yarn for a sweater. I finally started that also.

I'm almost done with the sweater and hoping to have it completely done within another week or so. If you look at my queue on ravelry I only have 6 items listed now, the socks and sweater were the items that had been on there the longest, it's nice to feel like I'm finally accomplishing some things that have been on there for years!

Socks, Vest, Tunic and More

2010-06-22T09:00:00.001-04:00

When I posted about my birthday one item hadn't arrived yet... I had commented on this listing on etsy to my husband right around my birthday and he surprised me by ordering it for a late present.

I haven't been spinning lately, but I have plans this week to at least start some again.

Soon after he returned from a trip for work I (a month or two ago) had finished brown socks for my husband.

I forgot to take a picture right when I finished them, and he wore them the next day, so if they look a little stretched it's because he just took them off!

He already handed me yarn for another pair which I am planning to start within the next couple of weeks... I love doing the plain socks, I can knit while watching tv or while watching children - which means they got done quicker than patterned socks!

I finished my first steeked project!

Unfortunately I ran out of the green yarn about 1/4 of the way through the neck ribbing! Someone else on ravelry had listed the same yarn, same dye lot in their stash and was willing to swap me it for some of the yarn in my stash! I only had to wait a couple of days (Well, less than a week) for it to arrive. I worked on the brown socks and finished them while waiting and then finished up the vest as soon as the yarn arrived.

I love how the vest looks on me, but you will have to wait until I buy a new shirt to go with it, as I don't have anything that looks great under it yet! I will post pics here or on ravelry or both once I've made that purchase.

I originally made these slippers for my husband, but I left them in the washer felting a smidge too long and while he could fit into them they weren't comfortable. So I promised him a new pair in the fall and I felted these a bit more and gave them to my dad instead. My mom already purchased nice leathery bottoms for them (and got them in the mail) and just needs to sew them on and he'll have a great warm and non-slick pair of slippers!

I also finished the weaving!

I had done one set of napkins already and after christmas I warped the loom for another set. My family loves using large cloth napkins at meals and although we bought a bunch at ikea I really liked the look of the handmade ones. I finished weaving on my birthday in april and then finally took the couple of days needed and finished most of them for my daughter's tea party that she had for her june birthday. A couple of days later I finished the rest and now the loom is returned and the weaving yarn is back with the stash... perhaps sometime for christmas or spring I'll look into getting a cricket loom or another small loom that I can use for a while and pack away otherwise. I did enjoy weaving though!

Last year when we went to the MA sheep and wool was when my daughters discovered their love for weaving and we originally borrowed the large floor loom from my wonderful neighbors. This year we went to sheep and wool and the family enjoyed seeing the sheep, shearing, sheep dogs for the first time, kool aid dying, lots of things for sale, friends (fun bumping into our neighbors and their friends and sharing their fries!), and a tiny hay maze and play area!

We kept our purchases in check as we are slowly realizing how anti-surplus-consumerism we really are (yes we have stashes, mine - yarn and fiber - fit into four rubbermade bins, my husband's fit into another two and I'm comfortable with that amount). We purchased some new fiber for each of the girls (the pink for 'curly', the yellow and half the brown for 'lily', the green and rest of the brown, and the bright colorful one for me) and some patterns and the yarn for them for my husband. All of my stuff is already added into my ravelry stash page - which I love for knowing what is in those four buckets when I find a new pattern I want to make! If you love the look of something and don't want to go searching on ravelry (or don't belong) ask me and I can tell you what it is!

Also for my youngest daughter's birthday I finished a tunic for her!

I was actually shocked, I worked on it for a couple of weeks and she never asked what it was... I guess they are used to me knitting strange things and just being so excited about them that I explain what they are randomly, but she never knew it was for her, until I was *almost* done with it on her birthday... I told her, tried it on her, finished the last set of pattern and then did the bottom edge and washed and blocked it.

She was very excited about it and twirled in it every time she's put it on so far. She couldn't wait to show her friends, so she wore it to a birthday party she was invited to less than a week after her birthday!

Welcome Baby

2010-06-21T11:24:00.001-04:00

In the ongoing process of catching up and then trying to keep up, I noticed I hadn't ever posted this blanket/bear combo...

I loved making this blanket. I knew I was going to make something for this new baby, and the mother mentioned that she had been looking through patterns because grandma wanted to make something also, so I asked her to send a pattern she liked my way.

I did spend a tiny bit extra to make this out of cotton, like the pattern called for, and I'm so glad I did. It was fun to work with and made a gorgeous finished baby blanket.

Even though this wasn't a first baby for the family we wanted to welcome her and so we had a casual fun shower, about three weeks after she was born. Since I had all the extra time I had the blanket and bear done ahead of time.

Since I still had time left before the day of the shower, I had a lot of fun embellishing the bear and the outfit. My kids all loved the bear and were sad to see it go.

I think this is one of my favorite combinations...

Winner and Finishing

2010-05-14T16:07:00.003-04:00

Congratulations to jackie, who won the mothers day contest! Email or facebook msg me your shipping information and I'll try to mail you the prize soon!

I'm in the middle of binding off the pair of brown socks. I got some matching yarn from a fellow raveler, and was able to finish knitting the Vest. I steeked and finished the ribbing and then chose to block it right in the middle of a cold, cloudy week. It took 3 or 4 days to dry. I think I'll be sewing down the steeks either tonight or this weekend and then I can post some pictures. I also have a whole roll of napkins that I finished weaving at least a month ago that I need to hem and cut apart. If I can do these nagging final steps on each of these project then not only will I have finished things to use, but I will be able to start several new projects that I've already chosen.

Off to finish the socks!

Mothers Day Contest

2010-05-03T19:46:00.002-04:00

It's time for a contest... and since Mothers Day is coming soon, I thought it'd be fun to tie that in.

Whether you are male or female, if you have children or not, everyone has a mother.

To enter this contest just comment *on this post* with a story about your mother. It can be funny or sweet, embarrassing or praising... This will run until Sunday night (midnight) and then on Monday morning I'll randomly pick an entry and that person will win a small prize.

If you mention this on your blog/twitter/facebook/etc and others enter via you, you can get a bonus entry if they let me know who sent them in their comment.

Good luck!

PS: I'm still working on my vest and socks for my husband... luckily for him, I was almost done with the vest (steeked and all, just doing the ribbing) and ran out of the green, so while i try to track some matching yarn down, his socks get exclusive knitting.

Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams

2010-04-17T14:35:00.003-04:00

When something is going on in the life of someone you care about you can't always help. Sometimes you can't change anything, and, in fact, you don't want to intrude - you just want them to know someone cares and that they aren't alone.

I had been mentally planning this out for several months. I ordered this yarn on February 17, and waited for it to arrive.

I then, on the evening of February 23, cast on a pattern from knitspot, and set aside my other projects for about a month and worked on this...

As it comes off the needles it doesn't look very special. It's lumpy and bumpy and the holes look almost random, but after being soaked and then stretched out and pinned and stretched some more and re-pinned... and then letting it dry.... it looks much more impressive:

I had *almost* a skein left when I finished the shawl. I had thought I might have about that much extra, so I had already searched out a pattern. I cast on another knitspot pattern, and began knitting on this scarf...

It's a little hard to see the cool zig-zag that developed, but I really liked the texture and so I chose not to 'hard block' this and instead just carefully steamed it so it would not roll, and left it more textured and not lacy.

I had to wait a while to post because I wanted to make sure the items got to the two recipients... which has now happened. Both shawl and scarf will hopefully provide comfort and warmth.

Pay it Forward Finished

2010-04-17T14:27:00.002-04:00

I was a little late finishing up my pay it forward promise, but I had two done and only one left... so I made some new washcloths for my mom, who happened to have signed up on my blog and had already fulfilled all of hers.

Then, since wash cloths are just a little boring for someone who waited over a year for a small gift, I included some candied ginger which I know she loves, but won't buy for herself.

And then I wrapped it all up with itself and handed it over to her! :)

Pay it Forward - DONE!

Birthday Bonanza

2010-04-17T14:00:00.006-04:00

I had a wonderful birthday earlier this month. My oldest daughter made me a knitted dishcloth and a coupon to have her wash dishes sometime. My second daughter gave me this beautiful yarn:

...and then promptly asked if I would make her a pair of socks sometime.

And of course, my little boy gave me a big hug (and I swear he wished me 'happy day' first thing that morning before he even heard birthday mentioned).

My husband spoiled me with this yarn...

which will actually go into his stash, as he said he might use it to make something for me, or if I get to it first I can use it if I want.

He also gave me some beautiful fiber I had admired online...

Isn't that pretty? He also gave me an official shawl pin, as I've been randomly using anything that would work.

He also gave me a Loopy Ewe gift certificate and then my sweet husband also gave me a yarn bowl. It's a beautiful piece of pottery that can hold my yarn while I'm working...

I also got a great book from my brother's family, several exercise dvds (that I had asked for), a new cake doctor book, and a yogurt maker.

Thanks to my husband who made sure I had a great week, and to everyone else for their birthday wishes and gifts!

Crazy Busy

2010-03-17T09:35:00.002-04:00

Another month has zoomed by, and what a month it has been. I did mange to get one more pay it forward gift off, and now, although I am past the year deadline I do have a plan to get the last one done, hopefully soon. Other than thinking about that gift I also am knitting. I do have several projects in the works, but my time is going to only one, and it happens to be the one I can't post about until it is done. I'm hoping another week or two will see it done, but I've said that before about other projects and have been wrong....

Now since this is normally a craft blog, and I don't have crafts to blog about... I've been pretty silent, but this past month has been very busy. We wished my little brother a happy birthday, made a couple trips to Ikea, watched olympics and had fun doing homeschool with that theme, celebrated the short life of little Hazel, baked two cakes and watched my oldest turn 8, planned a baptism, started shredding my body, got the bikes back out for a family ride, wished my dad a happy birthday on pi day, been so happy about the warming weather and spring coming, and realized it's been a month since I blogged.

So, it's been busy, as we've been doing our normal daily/weekly things during all of that... I bet life has been crazy and busy for all of you too. I've been thinking of have a little contest with a prize, anyone interested? ...watch for my next post!

Pay it forward Progress

2010-02-17T13:23:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to wrap up my last two Pay it Forward gifts.... hopefully by the beginning of March I will be done and good!

We're watching a lot of Olympics... including doing our homeschooling around that theme. I'm knitting and spinning and such, but not all the time as I'm slowly recovering from a cold.

What are you up to?

The end of 2009

2010-01-11T16:09:00.008-05:00

OK, before I can start fresh, I need to finish wrapping up 2009. From mid-October until now I did finish several items.

One item I am still trying to get a picture of is a poncho I made for one of my friends. She painted my kids' room in exchange for the knitting. Beautiful simple alpaca silk.... yum. Hopefully I'll at least post pics of it on ravelry sometime. It's my own fault - I was so excited to finish it that I handed it over to her without remembering to snap a couple pictures.

I did, however, finally take some pictures of my green shawl

It's alpaca tencel yarn and is warm, and drapey, and easy to throw on around the house.

I gifted a blanket and bear set in mid-December to a beautiful new baby girl. Aren't they sweet?

I was given some yarn so that I could make scarves for the homeless (for an Eagle Scout Project). Since I know the guy doing the project, was given yarn, and wasn't planning to do any Christmas Knitting anyway, I whipped out 7 of them while watching tv and supervising schoolwork. It helped that all of them were worsted weight held double, knit on either 11 or 13s.

Back in October I joined with a ravelry group called Ply By Night. They order the same fiber and then spin it different ways to see how it looks as yarn and then knit one of two projects. Of course, I haven't spun mine yet, but I've enjoyed watching some other projects get spun and knit in that group. This might be next on the spinning wheel. (After I finish the current green I'm spinning)

I also joined a fiber club. I've admired the colors and beautiful fiber whenever I've seen David's work, so I was on the waiting list for the Southern Cross Fibre Club. When my name came up on the list I jumped in. He is in Australia, and so my December shipment came a couple days after Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas... when I was ordering some items for some other members of my family, this ended up in my Knitpicks cart.

I love the look of this kit. I now however, have two different steeked vests to make, hopefully this year.

My husband gave me these beautiful braids of fiber...

So now I have a queue for the wheel (or spindle) and plenty to keep me busy this year...

I have already made some resolutions for myself, none of them are fibery though this year. This year I guess my simple fiber goals would be to enjoy my stash and to relax and enjoy my projects. I'm not going to say not buy anything, and knit and spin only from stash, but my goodness, I do have a lot of pretty things that I should use. The relax and enjoy is to remind myself that I should be using this as my downtime and hobby, not as another stress.

The Present is Good Enough

2009-12-13T20:44:00.002-05:00

I recently read this blog post which prompted me to look back and find the quote and original post she was talking about:

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” - Voltaire

...and then I've stumbled across these two quotes that go so nicely with that concept...

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.”
--Epicurus

"We don't have to be perfect today. We don't have to be better than someone else. All we have to do is to be the very best we can."
--Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, "One Step after Another,", Nov. Ensign 2001 pg. 25

I'll be back to update the past two months of my crafts soon, but I thought that in the stress of the holidays it would be good to share these.

Gifts and Weaving

2009-10-19T22:00:00.006-04:00

My newest niece received a bright teddy bear that arrived in her home just a little while before she did.

I also worked on a gift for my neighbor's new baby - she or he hasn't arrived yet, but a new bear and blanket are waiting for him/her.

I recently finished weaving something. It was my first weaving project and it was very exciting to have it come off the loom. I still need to finish hemming and weaving in the ends of all the color changes.

I can't wait to have all five cloths done and wash them and have them done... I just had these random other things to finish first.

...like these:

My three kids now have new slippers (or will as of tomorrow when I felt the last pair and stretch out the smallest pair a bit)

More things for the Kiddies

2009-09-17T15:40:00.007-04:00

I'm getting ready to mail off (or send with my mother when she goes to visit) a package to my sister's house. The brown pocket hoodie is for one of the kids... The newest little kid will be getting a teddy bear (yet to be made) and a blanket

It's a nice snuggly cotton blanket... I used up all my scraps and bought a couple of new skeins to make sure it would be nice and big.

I think I reached my goal. The only problem right now is it is shedding a bit as I discovered when my little tomato insisted that he sit on my lap and wiggle as I worked on the last little bit (I think he might be getting a complex - I keep crafting and he loves each item a tiny bit as I work on it, and then I give them away - I'll have to make something soft for him soon). It's just leaving little cotton threads behind - I think a couple good washings and it will be fine.

Of course, I'm ruining all of the surprises for my sister, but since I won't be there to see her face anyway (and it's up to her whether she wants to show the pics to the kids or safe the surprises for them), eh.

I then wanted to try a new technique for spinning. These samples were core spun over some crochet cotton. One of them (the red) I spun a bunch first, and then let it untwist a bit as I corespun it. The other one is definitely more rough and twine-like since I didn't twist first. - so it's a little tight.

I felt I had played enough with the technique (I'll try it again sometime with different fiber) so I just spun normally the other fiber in that packet and started a little doll blanket.

This will be for my 5 year old niece in that family. As I finished it up I added some pink merino with some glitz in it, I think my girls are a little jealous. I might have to make them something small with glitz in it soon!

I'm still working on socks for my husband, a vest and a shawl for me, and of course, the teddy bear with sweater to finish up this package so I can get it ready to send!

Current Favorite Recipe

2009-09-17T12:08:00.003-04:00

I know, I don't normally share recipes, but this one is good. I got this from the 'Reclaiming the Home' group on ravelry several months ago and every time we make these and they are eaten until gone, the begging for more begins. Let me know if you try them!

Chocolatl Scones

2C flour
3Tb sugar
1Tb baking powder
4Tb (1/4 C) cocoa powder
1 (or 2) tsp ground cinnamon
1C chocolate chips
6Tb chilled butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 C half and half or buttermilk or evaporated milk or sour milk (1Tb white vinegar or lemon juice + 7Tb milk, let stand 5 min)
1Tb more of the above milk
2 tsp cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix dry ingredients. Add chocolate chips. Cut in butter until butter pieces are pea sized. Leave a well in the center. Mix milk and egg together. Pour mixture into the well. Stir until moistened. Dump out dough on floured surface. Knead 12-15 times until dough is smooth and pliable. Do not overwork.

Pat dough into a circle 1/2 - 3/4" thick. Cut into 12 wedges. Place wedges 1" apart on baking sheet. Brush the 1Tb milk onto the wedges and then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake 12-15 min until golden. Serve plain, with whipped cream, or with ice cream. (Can be microwaved for about 15 seconds if cold to make it warm and moist) Store in a ziploc bag, with the air squeezed out.

They will stay good for a day or two before starting to stale (but I've never had them last longer before being eaten). We've been making fresh whipped cream (heavy cream, a little powdered sugar, a bowl and beaters that have been in the freezer for a few minutes - Yum!) to top them, and I'm thinking some fresh fruit on the side would taste great. I'll have to try that next time....

Gifts...

2009-09-09T22:33:00.000-04:00

It's 10pm. The house is quiet. Everyone else is asleep. So after finishing up some other things, I decided to catch up on the blog. It's been a month almost, but this time I have valid excuses. Many of these items are for other people, so I couldn't blog about them before giving them... well, one of them I will, but as it's for my nephew and he won't see if unless my sister shows him I think we can all survive.

First up was a baby shower gift. I finished these with plenty of time (more than 26 if I remember correctly) to spare. I took photos and even took the time to place them in a nice gift bag.

As you can see, I normally try to match my teddy bear outfit (if they have one) to another part of the gift (if there is one), unfortunately, in an effort to make the blanket as big as possible, I only had enough yarn left for a rascally little hat.

I made the vest out of other yarn in my stash.

Hopefully the little boy won't be as much of a scamp as his bear is.

...speaking of rascally little boys (like that segue?) I finished a sweater for my nephew. He's about a year older than my little guy, so I thought it'd be funny to put the sweater on him.

He didn't agree...

So here's a bad picture of the sweater...

...hopefully after I mail it out I can get a good picture of him wearing it.

I hope it fits him well, after all the measuring he endured for it (custom fit, except it should be baggy). I want a picture especially if it doesn't fit well - he just can't have the same expression in it as my guy!

I also finished the swap sweater. In the end it took 50 hours (dk weight, lots of little cables and lace... fun, but long). Isn't it a pretty color and stitch though?

I'm hoping that she won't have to block it all out every time it's washed, but I wanted to in order to make sure the fit was larger than needed.

I saw it on her on Sunday (without ribbon still - hopefully a pic of that when it's in too!?) It was loose and hanging just right and very pretty.

If it won't just dry flat and work then I will show her a quicker way of blocking than with all of these pins! I'm glad she likes it and it fits well, I hope she still likes it so much after many hours of sewing for me!

...and last for now, but certainly not least, is the sweater I finished for Curly. This is the reason my nephew got the above sweater. I needed/wanted to knit one from pattern before I tried to adapt for handspun yarn.

This is fiber she chose back in May at the MA sheep and wool (Fantom Farms). It was fun to work with when I spun it in July during the Tour de Fleece. I wanted something a little bulkier than what I normally knit with, but not as bulky as when you buy 'bulky' yarn in stores. I knit a swatch to see what size needle would work best, and then figured out how long around the sweater needed to be, and then cast on for the size that would give me that many stitches around her body. (It ended up being the 2T size, so I followed that around, and just made sure to knit to the right lengths for her). Having made the sweater once already really helped me know where I could adapt and where I should follow.

I think it worked out great - unfortunately, I was about 12 rows short in the hood (and only had about 10 inches wasted yarn - in 4 pieces), so she got a couple stripes of Cascade (violet) and then to tie that in I put the flowers on the pouch. If I had known it was going to be that close I would have spread it out and put random stripes throughout the whole thing, but I'm not about to rip out the whole thing to change that when this works fine. She loves it, and has even worn it out a couple of these chilly mornings.

I am working on a couple of knits for my nephew's family, but I've also started swatching for a couple of projects for me - and then I still have a sock started for my husband, and various spinning things - both started and planned. We started homeschooling again this past week - so I'm purposefully giving my projects a backseat for another week or so (still working on them when I can, I still need to knit/weave/spin a bit, right?) to give us time to adjust back to school schedule instead of summer schedule, but then I'm hoping to find more time again and finish a couple!

Distracted

2009-08-10T20:17:00.004-04:00

I'm still trying to finish a couple of projects, but I have been busy with this:

and with this...

...and my husband's week long vacation, and painting our hallway and bathroom ceiling, and our ninth anniversary, and normal summer stuff.

I should have at least a couple finished things to show next week, but this week is going to be lots of quiet work, which sounds great to me right now.

Present Pictures and Tour de Fleece

2009-07-28T09:59:00.003-04:00

Since my presents for my nephew arrived I can now show the pictures of those. I made a blanket for him...

You can really see the cool texture in the close-up.

...and a little bear also!

The silk that I had recently finished spinning was knit into a kerchief for Lily.

I adapted a shawl pattern and knit until it was big enough. She of course, then cut her hair so it is less needed, but she can still use it.

I used the rest of the silk to make a choker for Curly.

She loves wearing it and has me put it on her most days.

now, for the Tour De Fleece wrap up. Out of my six goals I managed to accomplish 4 of them. I did spin every day - in fact, yesterday was the first day I didn't spin probably all month. (and I washed yarn instead - all of these pics are pre-washed)

I also finished some fiber...

The Yarn Pirate April Club Fiber was finished. I think it's between a lace and fingering. I'll have to measure it after it dries.

I also finished the Fantom Fiber Purple. This is for a sweater for Curly. She helped choose it at the MA sheep and wool. She wants it made into a Wonderful Wallaby sweater.

I really like how it came out. Now I need to do a swatch and see how much I'll need to play with the sizing. I was aiming for a worsted weight yarn, some places look a bit thicker as it's drying.

Another goal was to start the silk hankies I have.

They have been started. It was fun to just start this and put it away in the middle of the other spinning.

The Sweet Pea (Yarn Pirate) was spindle spun and then plied on the wheel. The purple was done completely on the wheel. Both were chain plied. The silk is on my bosworth featherweight.

The two goals I didn't get to were to spin either gray or brown for an adult sweater, and to spin another fiber (4 oz or less) of something I had gotten at Rhinebeck several years ago. Oh well.

Now that the purple yarn is done for Curly's sweater I need to finish a commercial yarn test of the pattern (so I'll know what if anything I need to change as I knit the handspun one). This is for one of my nephews... there's no time crunch, I figured I'll send it out in the fall with a baby present, but Curly is wanting it done tomorrow so I will start her sweater as the purple yarn dries.

I'm still working on the lace and cable cardigan for my sewing swap friend, but I am on the first sleeve, and actually halfway done with that I think... so if all goes well I should be seaming it up within the next week or two. After that (during the wallaby sweaters) I plan to start two things for me. One is a shawl, and the other is a vest.

This is the yarn for the vest, which is going to be fun as I haven't done colorwork in a while, and I have never steeked, and this pattern calls for both! :)

I also have a loom borrowed from my neighbor and I just got all the tools for it today... I think I'll be learning to warp a loom sometime very soon also...

For Fun and For Family...

2009-07-27T17:46:00.004-04:00

Enjoy!

(July 16, 2009 10pm)

Tour de Fleece - goals

2009-07-06T13:28:00.005-04:00

Ok, so although I never really sign up for things, I sometimes do like to participate. The Tour De Fleece for instance, is a spinning challenge to set some goals for yourself and spin every day of the tour de france (July 5 - July 26). Last year I managed to spin four different yarns. Three of those four yarns have now been knit up, which is a very happy ratio. The orange became a bag, the sage and daffodil yarn became mittens and a cowl (the mittens are loved by Lily, the cowl - not so much), and the red yarn became Noel's scarf.

This year I would like to:

1. Finish the April yarn pirate roving (5/16 done, working on number 6 during the first couple days of TdF). I've been spinning it on a spindle and plan to navajo ply it on the wheel to get a sock weight yarn.

2. Spin the purple wool that was just bought at the Ma sheep and wool for Curly's sweater

3. Spin either some brown (alpaca) or gray (superwash) for a sweater for an adult

4. Spin one additional braid of pretty wool in my stash

5. Start some more silk (hankies?) on my featherweight spindle

6. Spin some (at least 10 min) every day

I'm not sure I'll finish all of these goals, but at least they are out in front of me now, so I can keep an eye on them. So far I have done the spinning every day by working on the April roving on my spindle. the only problem is I have a lot of knitting I want to get done in this same time-span. ...and some sewing, and some gardening, and exercise, and family time... yeah. We'll see how well I can juggle these goals with the rest of my life!

What are your hobby goals for July? Come on... other than normal daily things that HAVE to get done, what are you trying to do this month?

Another month, a bunch more done

2009-06-29T21:32:00.004-04:00

Wow, what a month it's been. We finished all of our external homeschool groups, 'Curly' turned 5, we celebrated several times, we went camping for the first time with kids, we started our 'summer schedule' (piano practicing + one schoolish thing every day), we've endured days and days and days of rain, my back went out, the library summer reading program started, the garden is planted and in, we picked strawberries and made jam, flowers are blooming, and suddenly a month has passed.

On the crafting front many things have been started, several things have been finished, and much more is planned...

First up, I did my first Pay it Forward gift. Noel was given this beautiful scarf.

It was made of fiber that I spun last July (tour de fleece). It's a merino/tencel blend that spun close to a dk weight. I was planning to make this Rivulet scarf - and joined a group on Ravelry to discover they were doing it as a Knit-A-Long, so I decided to let it skip queue and started during their KAL. I had to drop down a bunch of needle sizes, as I'm not used to holding yarn tight unless it's for socks, but it was a fun pattern, and pretty easy.

Handwash cold, lay flat to dry (I blocked it out with wires and pins, but just laying it flat should be good enough). I told her all this when I gave it to her, but thought I better include it here in case her memory is like mine...

Hope she likes it and gets lots and lots of use from it!

Next up, I started a pair of socks for my husband. I actually began it during the drive out to camping, I finished the first toe on the way, and then on the way back I only did about 6 rows.

I have this as my travel project, as it is mostly ribs with just a couple tiny cables, I can figure out where I am fairly quickly. It's yarn from my husband's stash (that he wanted me to knit up for him), and a pattern from WendyKnits.

I also had been drop spinning the silk cap I purchased. I managed to finish spinning the single, wound it into a center pull ball, fixed the big mess it became, and plied it. Then I wound it and plied it back on itself, so this is a four ply cable yarn I guess.

Althought it was purchased for 'Lily' she was willing to share. After I finished a kerchief for her (shawl pattern from Knitter's Stash - changed into a stockinette pattern instead of a garter one, and then I added a crochet border on to the knit on.) I also made a choker necklace for 'Curly'. She loves it and I still need to snap a picture...

Let's see... I also started a time-swap sweater. One of my friends made a bunch of skirts for my girls, and so I'm knitting for her. We agreed to buy our own materials and just swap time. Since she chose a sweater that's made with Dk weight yarn, with cables and lace, I might be getting some more sewing done for me :)

It's a debbie bliss pattern, Empire Line Cardigan, making it with Knitpicks swish so she can machine wash and then lay out to dry.
I did just finish the back yesterday. I need to block it out to size it and make sure it all looks good before I start the two fronts.

I'm also involved in another time-swap. My friend gave me a big bag of roving to spin up for her. I never did take a picture of the roving, but 21 hours later...

There was actually three skeins, two larger and one smaller. I had given her the first one after finishing it so she could see how it was coming along. I didn't really take too many measurements of the yarn, since it wasn't mine to keep, but it was very nice.

Probably a bit thicker than worsted, which was the only direction she gave me (thicker rather than thin). I spun it all up and Navajo plied after I filled each bobbin, that way I had some finished yarn gratification before the end.

I can't wait to see what she does with it... even if it takes a while!

Oh right, since it was the month of June I also got my final fiber club shipment. This fiber is BFL and the color is by the Yarn Pirate and is called Zinnia. Although I really enjoyed getting the fiber club (great present idea any time, almost any fiber club...) I thought I'd not renew this gift from my husband and maybe buy a bit every other month of different wool blends from different etsy sellers. Unfortunately I've already found several that I like and faved on etsy.

It is so pretty though, I can't wait to spin it...

However....

I have started a bear and blanket for my new nephew, need to finish the rest of the Empire Line Cardigan, I borrowed my neighbor's loom, knit my husband's socks, a vest for me with steeking, and fiber to spin for a sweater for 'Curly', and many other projects that I can't wait to get to... so the fiber club spinning will happen - sometime.

Projects and Sheep and Wool

2009-05-26T11:14:00.000-04:00

I finished my traveling socks.

Originally this was a top down sock, I didn't bother doing anything to the pattern, so technically it's upside-down, but I don't care - looks good.

I also finished a teddy bear. My husband asked if I'd make one for a co-worker who went back to Japan, who's wife is due this summer sometime.

Kindof cute - now it just needs to be shipped.

So, suddenly, the day before MA sheep and wool, I didn't have any knitting projects. I had a couple spinning ones, but nothing knitting. So I cast on something I've been wanting to do for a while. Using some of the yarn I spun last July I'm making a Rivulet Scarf.

Originally the pattern gives no gauge and uses sport weight with a US6 needle. This gave me such a loopy wide scarf that I ripped out the 10 rows or so I had done and dropped down to a 3. I did about 15 rows and decided it was still too wide. I actually dropped down to a large US1. That's the same needle I just used in those socks I finished. I think I actually hold the yarn and needles differently (looser?) if I know I'm not working on socks, because it still is loose and drape-y but looks like a scarf instead of a wrap now, which is much better.

With apologies for the bad picture, I am also spinning on the wheel...

A friend of mine bought this wool for felting purposes and now, after using some for that, is ready to not have a big bag of wool in her life (or house) so I'm spinning it for her in exchange for probably some house repair advice from her...or something.

A few hours down, many hours left.... but it is fun - as she had no specs in mind for the yarn, so I'm just spinning it the way the wool and wheel want it to work.

I also got my May Yarn Pirate Fiber. This time it's BFL in colorway Zephyr. Pretty. :) I really want to start it right now, but have too many things going on at the moment.

Ok, so the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool was this past Saturday. Since we didn't go to any fiber fairs last year I was really looking forward to it, in fact, I think the whole family was happy about going. We looked through all the barns and stalls and saw the sheep, and then started going back and making purchases.

Curly has been wanting a sweater - most likely a Wallaby with a hood and pocket. I was spinning some yarn recently that she's tried to claim (and I probably will use it for her too) but this bag should be perfect...

especially since it has purple and blue :)

I then went over to the Journey Wheel booth and bought myself a 'real' spindle. I have a big ashford boat anchor from my mom, a spindlyn and a small ebay spindle (which is good, but not very sturdy). I chose a Purpleheart Featherweight. It's only 17 grams (.6oz) and it spins forever!

While buying the purple wool bag I also picked up just one small silk cap from Fantom Farm. I'm spinning it now on the new featherweight and will probably make a small kerchief for Lily with it.

I wish I had grabbed a couple more... oh well.

My husband picked out two projects he'd like to make, both are lacy, both use fingering weight. One will be blue, and one will be green, both from Sliver Moon Farms.

He also decided he wanted to at least try spinning, so when we walked by the Spunky Eclectic Booth he picked up some BFL in a nice green...

...and a little turkish spindle.

He says that if he like spinning it will be his for good and I can buy another one sometime soon - and if he doesn't like it then we made sure that I also like the one he chose. He has dabbled a bit now and seems to enjoy it. So far he's using some of my mill ends white superwash (mostly the pencil roving bits) and he's picking it up pretty quickly...-

We also stopped at The Wheel Thing and got some fun tools. I haven't tried them out yet, but hope to soon

We also sat through a senior (teenagers?) class sheep show that had a variety of breeds and listened to the judging, got to watch one shearing, saw the winning fleece and knits and yarn, and the girls had a chance to weave - they now want to borrow a loom and do some more 'real' (not potholders on a peg loom) weaving...

To finish off the day I ordered a tiny bit of yarn for a vest and helped one of my friends pick out a pattern and yarn for a sweater I'll be making her (she did some sewing for me), so I have a bunch of things I'm working on, and a bunch more planned. Fun Fun Fun!

The Difference Between Cooked Noodles and Pretty Lace

2009-05-11T15:06:00.010-04:00

OK, here's an in-progress shot of the shawl, see how it's all lumpy, bumpy... the stitches are pulling together so it's pretty small and looks messy?

That is why we let lace soak and then block it before it dries completely. Usually this is done on a foam board, with big pins and wires...

You stretch it out, pin it in place and then stretch and repin. If you want a soft block you might just stretch it once. If you want a hard block you keep stretching - first one side and then another - lace can usually stretch a LOT. Once you have it how you want it, you just let it dry. When you unpin it and take the wires out it might relax a bit, but it will still hold the shape and be pretty.

Once blocked you can see the empty space that makes lace look so nice.

Isn't it purty? :)

The shawl didn't take all of the handspun yarn, so I wanted to make something else with it. I looked around a bit and found a pattern I liked, and then did something completely different.

Not completely different I guess, but I did change a bunch for this pattern - some details are on my ravelry page.

This Mothers Day was pretty low key, but we did go on a family bike ride, since I got a new bike! I still need to put a child seat on it for the little guy - already ordered. The girls have been riding the past couple weeks to knitting time at the library (1.5 miles one way) while I've been pushing the stroller and walking. In anticipation of my riding too I thought I better get them used to carrying their own books and knitting. So we (they helped choose the colors) used my leftover Lopi and made these two backpacks.

Here's another shot of Lily's. She decided to have me make hers second, so all the bugs would be worked out of the pattern I was adapting.

I still need to sew on big toggles or buttons, but right now I clipped one of my stitch holders there and it worked fine (I just want them back sometime).

One of my birthday presents from my sweet husband was a 3 month membership to Yarn Pirate's fiber club. I got my first shipment a couple weeks ago.

It's called Sweet Pea, and it's already on my little spindle. I broke it into 16 little balls and I'm just working through them one at a time.

I'm also working on some Superwash I had ordered a while ago from The Loopy Ewe that I'm spinning up using my Spindlyn. Aside from those two spinning projects I'm down to one knit project currently.

That one knit project is my socks. I had gotten both of them past the heel (toe-up) and when I counted the cable twists they didn't match. I then compared them and figured and tried to make sense of it - undid the offending one and redid the increases and heel. I then counted - I had undone the wrong one. I then undid the other one and redid the increases and heel and they now match fine.

The other sock is just a pattern or two shorter, but now I can pick up either and just knit on them whenever. I have the four row pattern memorized, and it's very easy to tell which row I'm on. I'm just knitting until I'm a lot closer to running out of yarn (since they are using separate balls of yarn).

I'll keep working on these - but I will be starting another teddy bear and a lace scarf soon!

Slippers, Shawl, and Sock

2009-05-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

One (or two) more catch-up posts and I should be good to go. I actually couldn't post these right when they were done because they were a gift for my Father-in-law (his birthday was the end of April). Since Webs has a sale on their Cascade 220 I used it to make a pair for me, and then bought enough for his slippers and some for my girls that I'll make sometime over the summer.

These are a lot of fun to make - I just have to pay attention to the short-row shaping.... I can't really put them down in the middle of a section.

I ran them through the washer a couple of times and then had my neighbor try them on quickly - his foot is a half size off of my FIL, so we thought they'd fit well.

We went the extra step and put the leatherish bottoms on them so he won't be slipping around (and hopefully they'll last a little longer that way). I hope he likes them!

I also finished my swallowtail shawl. I had taken a break for 3-4 weeks in the middle of it, and then another week or so while I pondered the nupps in it. I ended up doing those rows with the help of one of my little crochet hooks - it took a tiny bit more work probably, but it was a lot easier than trying to make my needles work through 5 stitches...

Here it is before blocking:

...I have a whole post for blocking and after that I will do right away!

I am still working on my traveling sock also - updates on that soon too!

One Year (a month later)

2009-05-05T20:40:00.000-04:00

Ok, so it's been a month since I started this post - time to let it out of draft mode and let it be seen.

My little Tomato is growing up. He's a year (and a month) old now. For his birthday I finished this:

Cute huh?

...I thought it was much more cute this way:

This was on his actual birthday - this is one of the first times he stood by himself.

He isn't walking by himself yet, but he is all over the place and he looks so much bigger already.

I did the sweater top down and it was a good thing I had done it that way. The first time I tried it on him it fit ok, but every time I picked him up I had to tug it back down. I went back and added a couple more inches to the body and it works much better now. He was willing to let me take pictures all I wanted, as long as I kept handing over some animal crackers (and let him take the hood off).

Swapy Birthday Fun

2009-04-21T15:33:00.003-04:00

Ok, so my birthday was the beginning of April, but I've been a lazy blogger (well, a busy mommy) so here's my Birthday Post:

After taking a year off from swaps, I decided to participate (again) in the Ravelry Birthday Swap group. I was partnered up with someone else who had my same birthday and we sent nifty little packages to each other. She had mentioned that a mustard colored yarn would be cool - and look what I found on etsy:

So I spun it into a true 3-ply (haven't done many of those - usually a navajo ply it) and came up with this:

(the big skein is the 3-ply, the small skein is navajo plied of the extra singles)

Pretty yarn :)

I was pretty pleased with how it came out - didn't get a completely accurate yardage measurement, but it came out I think close to a DK (If I remember correctly?)

I then took a fun trip to Webs to finish off the package (and get some yarn for a couple other projects and such of course). So here's the complete package I sent to her:

And here was what she sent me for my birthday:

The chocolates and candies disappeared quickly, the kerchief went right on my head, the apron I have been using a lot already, and the sachet I haven't decided yet where to put it. The yarn and ribbons were for a project that she had seen on my favorites page, since the pattern is free she got me the other supplies needed so I could make it. It took me a couple days to cast on, and about a week or so to finish it:

So I had a great birthday! (My sweet husband also took the day off of work and did the homeschooling for me, made me take a bubble bath, took us out to lunch, and bowling, and then someone watched the kids while we ran errands and had a calmer dinner out... and presents spread throughout the day) Oh right, and one of the presents was three months of Yarn Pirate's new fiber club :) ...the first fiber came earlier this week...

Bear and Socks and Fiber... oh my!

2009-03-25T17:12:00.004-04:00

I had this post almost ready to go out about a week ago, when suddenly our DSL wasn't working... it took 5 days to get it back and then another day to make sure everything was working again, so finally, here's the post!

My husband has a co-worker who recently had a child (well, he's the father, so he didn't *have* the child, but yeah...) so my sweet husband asked if I'd be willing to make a bear for them.

Then of course another co-worker saw the bear and asked if I'd make one for him to give away, so we coordinated and got more colors...

At this point the second bear is actually done and photos will be in the next post!

I also finished the stripe-y socks!

My husband now has a pair of tall warm winter socks (and he actually wore them while it was still really cold).

He did say that the shaping started a bit late, so it's a bit tight right before the increases start.

...and the ribbing still had too many stitches in it (didn't decrease enough), so it stretches a bit big - we're trying to decide if it's worth fixing or if we'll just keep it in mind if (when?) I make another pair sometime before next winter. Since we keep the house so cool during the winter these were definitely appreciated!

...and completely unrelated...

While shopping for a swap I'm participating in I saw this roving in an etsy shop and loved the colors! So... this came to my house and gets to stay :)

My fiber-y stash and Ravelry

2009-03-13T14:53:00.003-04:00

At the end of January my husband decided that he needed to take stock of his yarn. So we set up some white posterboard, a couple of good lights, and used our newish camera to take pictures of all of his yarn. Of course, while he was setting it up (with his yarn sitting calmly off to the side) I brought my yarn into the other end of the kitchen and quietly piled it up. The spinning fiber snuck in also.

My husband of course was able to get his yarn uploaded into ravelry that night. My stash on the other hand.... I ended up entering it mostly in an all day marathon a week or so later. I entered everything. 8 grams of raccoon fiber? into the database it went. 3 big bags of alpaca fiber? Weighed and recorded. Lots of scraps of Lopi yarn? Ummm... maybe entered it all together, but with all the information I have. I really want to forward these scraps onto others (already mailed off two envelopes to people on ravelry who needed just a bit more of something I had) or I want to use these up in a productive way. I figured I had to enter every single bit - or toss them, because if I don't know what's there, then there is no way I'll ever use it.

So everything is up there... and now, for those of you who have no clue what ravelry is, and therefore couldn't follow those links... go sign up. wait a couple of days. ...and then you will know. Ravelry is about knitting and crocheting. It has forums to find people to talk to, places to record the projects you have finished (or those that you will never finish). It has databases of patterns and yarns for you to browse through... and of course, you can keep track of other people's projects that you like... or those you plan to make.

After putting up my stash I decided to go through my queue. I know that many people use their queues in different ways... I personally use it to keep track of those projects that I would really like to make. Perhaps I won't cast on in the exact order that they are listed, but when it makes it to the queue it means I really do plan to make these and usually already have the yarn on hand. Of course, there are already 12 patterns there. So I guess I know what I'll be doing for a while... (of course, I'm not locked into any of these, but there are reasons that they made it to the queue)

Now that my fiber is all listed, and my queue is set up, I really am excited about some of my future projects... of course, I still enjoy my current ones.. I just wish they were a lot shorter :)