FO's and a birthday

I've been in the midst of swap knitting on top of finishing other things I've been working on and today I finally finished my swap gift. The pattern is Ribbon Mittens (rav link). The color work technique is called Estonian Roositud. It was an incredibly interesting new thing to try and I'm really excited about the possibility of teaching a class on it. Basically you inlay the colors as you knit even though it looks like it is embroidered on afterwards.
I used Claudia's Hand Painted Felt Me in the Circus colorway and it was knit on #3 needles. Scrap yarn was used for the color work bits.

This swap is called Retro/Kitsch and is part of the Odd Ducks of Ravelry Swap group, which always has the best swap themes. This pattern popped up when searching for "Retro Mittens", I suppose I can see that.

Either way, they were fun to knit, but look at all of these ends to weave in! I'm wondering how awful it would be to say forget about doing that. Ummm, yeah probably not so much. They are drying after a much needed blocking and I'll weave the ends in tomorrow night and then into the mail by the 29th.

And then my Guernsey Wrap. What a smash! I'm sooooo pleased with how it turned out and this yarn knit up so well and then blocked out into this light, drapey and warm piece.

I'm in love with the amount of stitch definition I got out of it, and for being 40% angora it barely shed while knitting.

The pattern was very well written, and I can honestly say I wouldn't mind knitting it again.

I did have some issues with yardage and needed to omit a couple of sections and at the very end I didn't knit the last two rows so I would have enough to finish the garter stitch border and bind off. I did that math I mentioned, and math you failed me! Maybe it's because I told it to eff off in that last post, but oh well, it's finished.

Despite not knitting the entire pattern I was able to block it out to nearly the same size as the pattern said, I got 16"x73", definitely a good size. Looking back on the yarn yardage issue vs. the size I got, I wouldn't have changed my decision to add another 12 sts because the width is perfect.

Now it's time to go shawl pin shopping and I've got my eyes on this one, and this one, and how about this one too.

And a birthday...

for our girl, who turned EIGHT YEARS OLD yesterday! EIGHT YEARS OLD! Time flies. We had a little family celebration on Saturday night with lots of pie, pie for dinner, pie for dessert (and we've enjoyed pie for breakfast and lunch since then). Mom made chocolate pie and I made my Great Grandma's apple pie along with mini cherry pies that were made from the cheapest cherry pie filling, apparently the cheapest cherry pie filling is exactly what Marley wanted, full of goo. Beck and Wendy spent the night and they stayed up until nearly 1am even after we told them to GO TO SLEEP numerous times. Hell we weren't asleep either, but instead were catching up on Downton Abbey. All parties paid for the lack of sleep.

Declan took the kids to the City Museum on Sunday and Robin and I spent the afternoon knitting and eating leftover pie, actually that's what I did. The girl had a great day. I'm sure 8 will bring many new adventures and I can't wait to see them.

Hey look, it's knitting!!!

So I teach these knitting classes and during class I do a lot of knitting. Really? You knit during knitting classes? I know right? Well most of the classes I teach are beginning ones and I'm constantly talking about how good it feels to finish a project and that's why when they choose their first project for the last three weeks of class we encourage them to knit something they can finish, well and so that we can cover all aspects of knitting a garment, starting with choosing a yarn and pattern to weaving in ends and blocking if necessary. But here my beginners are every week with me knitting something different. They might "ohh and ahh" a little bit, because you know those beginners are an easily excitable bunch- rightfully so, but they do a lot of asking me if I finished the thing I was working on the week before. I hang my head and shamefully say "no". It's always the same thing out of my mouth, something about also being easily excitable, and adult ADD, and lots of UFOs (which getting those beginners started on the knitting lingo is hilarious, Frogging, get it... rip it, ribbit, or tinking, those always get a giggle).

But really I feel sometimes like a failure as a knitting teacher. Shouldn't I be bringing in finished things each week for inspiration? It feels that way sometimes. But look I did finish something, and seriously I talk a lot on here about finishing v. not finishing things, I really need to remember how great it feels. But oh doesn't it feel so good to start something new, even if that means you have 10 things going at the same time.

Back to the "look it's knitting!" part of this blog, I did start and finish something last week....
A pair of longies for a sweet little boy. The pattern is Looking Glass Longies and the yarn is Cascade Jewel and 220 for the ribbing. The pattern is written for five different sizes using three different weights of yarn. The pattern is written using a series of charts to determine what number of stitches goes where since there are so many options, this sort of thing is a little intimidating to me as I don't have the patience to look at the charts. I'm glad I stayed focused though, and I've already cast on for a second pair. The construction is pretty ingenious and keeps it interesting. The crotch is knit first while you have your butt and leg stitches cast on and on the needles. There is a bit of picking up and simple decreases for shaping. I didn't follow the short row instructions for the rump, again that patience thing, but I've done a few pairs of soakers so I felt comfortable doing my own thing here.

They fit him great! And this yarn is holding up so well, which says a lot considering the kid spends most of his days crawling around. He's worn these almost every other day since they were finished and they have done their job as a wool diaper cover should.


Now enter my next undertaking, very excited, once again. Sarah, that I work with, mentioned wanting to start one of Jared Flood's new shawl or wrap patterns and not to feel left out I decided I wanted to knit one too. We agreed to do it as a KAL and decided the Guernsey Wrap was perfect. After a little bit of stash diving I came across this...
It's called Softie from Kimmet Croft fibers and I got it super cheap from Knitty Couture during her closing sale. It's a merino angora blend and is hand dyed, yummmm. It's slightly lighter weight than the pattern calls for so I originally cast on with #6s, got halfway through the first pattern repeat and changed my mind. I frogged it (rip it, rip it), grabbed some #8s and cast on for one more pattern repeat, so 70 sts. I have 800 yards and the pattern calls for 630 yards. I'm really hoping I will have enough to do the full pattern, but I'm getting a little concerned.

The next time I'm at work I'm going to weigh the last of the first skein to see if I can figure out if I will need to stop short before doing the center part. Eff you math!!! Hopefully I'll be able to block the hell out of it to get the length. I should have no problem with the width at this point, but I would kind of like to wrap it around me as it should.

The nice thing about this KAL is that Sarah and I, and now another girl are all talking our projects up on FB, which has been motivation to keep going, while I'm sure our non knitting FB friends enjoy the countless pictures and post updates, sorry guys. Plus this pattern stays pretty interesting with the pattern changing every 11 rows or so. Let's see how far this one gets!

Valentines Schmalentines

It's that time of year again, a time for wine and roses, filet mignons and spinning beds, chocolate covered everything and pink hearts. For us it's been the flu. Marley finally made it back to school today and since Friday, Abe and Robin picked it up and I think (fingers crossed) that today puts an end to it for Robin, just like yesterday did for Abe.

The nice thing about being sick is that it seems to be an excuse to relax a bit on everything. Tv all day? Sure! You need a couple of M&Ms with breakfast? Okay! And what child would go through an illness with out Mom and Dad waiting on them hand and foot, enter the beef pho I made Saturday night for Marley...
Or even a Boppies running to the store to grab them the essentials... ginger ale, Greek yogurt, strawberries, blackberries, goldfish crackers, cinnamon bread, and sherbet. I did not know these were the essentials, but they seemed to have helped, let's just say we were all spoiled a little bit. Especially when Grandma stopped by on her lunch hour and brought us a new thermometer and coffee, which was much needed after two nights of not sleeping with a baby who also was not sleeping.

But then came today, Valentine's Day. Kids needed presents, because those past couple of days were sick days, this deserves an entire new level of spoiling, which of course I'm happy to do. Marley and Abe were made Zsa Masks (rav link), we made white chocolate covered pretzels for Declan, and Marley and Abe decorated boxes to push Robin around in. Declan and I occasionally "celebrate" but this year we're getting Mexican takeout, I stayed in my pajamas until 5pm (this post was much more cynical in my head, but I was still wearing the pjs at that point, maybe it's a good thing I took a shower and changed my clothes), and then tonight Declan and I are supposed to write poems while sitting facing each other with our knees touching. Some kind of crap like that, oh there you are cynicism.

I had some issues with the yarn on Marley's Zsa mask. Can you tell? Make this a good lesson for all of us in the importance of dye lots, and switching yarns every other row or something like that.

But I can't end a Valentine's Day post like this. What with all the gazing and shit that's going to happen tonight. So here is a new, wonderful thing in my life, a freshly spun hank of handspun. Lots of pictures of it too, because I am very proud of it.

It's not the most uniformly spun, it's all leftovers and yeah there were some issues with one bobbin being spun one way, and the other being spun the other way, but man I'm in love with it.

I Navajo plyed it to deal with the bobbins being spun in different directions and am giddy about how it turned out. All approximately 220 yards of it.

More yarn porn.

Oh yeah, and then there's this one...

Happy V-Day to all :)

Valentine's Day Picture Cards

Yesterday morning while flipping through some school papers I realized Oh shit! Marley's Valentine's Day party is tommorow!! Of course I had hoped to make homemade cards, and I pinned the heck out of stuff on Pintrest in hopes of finding the most speshul snowflake Valentine for me, err her, to make. So now time is short, why a party today? I don't get it either, but we needed something fast and my other ideas included coat hangers and beeswax and silk flowers oh and lots of time. I quickly ran through the other things I had seen online and found something that would work. She was a little miffed about making them because "they never look that great." Oh confidence, pick yourself up a little my sweet girl. I showed her this idea and decided we could make it work.

And because I can I'm going to tell you how to do it and pin this shit back on Pintrest, so there.

Supplies:
Camera
Suckers
hole puncher or something sharp to make the holes
tape (optional)
stickers (optional)

Instructions:
Take your photo with the child's arm slightly in front of them, if I had a fancy camera I would have played around a bit with the focus, but sigh, no DSLR for me. Upload your photo into a program that allows you to "write" on your photo. I used Paint, super low tech, but it works. I downloaded a couple Valentine's Day fonts for free from DaFont.com. We used "Heartland". The little hearts are all one of the fonts as well, but you could easily get the same effect wth stickers.

After I glitzed the photo up I sent it off to Walgreens. One hour and $9 later (this includes the two bags of Tootsie Pops) we had everything ready to assemble. Punch your holes on th top of the hand and directly below. Insert sucker and tape to the back if it seems loose. And there you have it!

The bum thing though, Marley woke up with a fever and is staying home to miss her party. There were some tears, let me tell you, but it's been promised that she will have a bag of Valentine's when she returns and can hand out hers.

Herding Cats, 1.17-1.20

Back in September I started a new "job", and I say this with parentheses because I always feel silly describing something involving parenting my own kids as a job, but anywho... so this new thing brought two extra kids over twice a week. Enter V (2yo) and F (12m.), and before we go any farther V & F's parents consented to me blogging about them. The beginning was TOUGH. Robin was still pretty new at that point, V was very homesick, and between juggling nap times and who gets to play with what toy and then feeding everyone lunch I was ready to pull my hair out. And note that this was just two days a week.

We got into our routine, and it's a strict one, I'll tell you about that later in this post (exciting stuff you know!). V warmed up to the idea of being here all day, Robin became a more efficient nurser and Abe decided to share his toys. So here we are now, doing FIVE days a week.

These are the cats I herd.

So yeah, a little bit crazy, but I've got my reasons. It's that good kind of chaos too, the kind that when you get a minute or two to sit down you melt into the chair. The kind of chaos that makes you sleep better at night, and the kind of chaos that you just have to give into sometimes, join in, start barking like a dog, draw endless pictures of 3 headed monsters, have conversations with dolls about whether or not they want cheese, that kind of stuff. You can't lose it, and really there isn't time to. Back in September I remember one day when V was really, really sad. We were eating lunch and she was sobbing at the table, clutching her blankets like they were the last remnants of her parents, not eating lunch and then her brother began to cry, then Robin started to cry, and then Abe looked at me and said "I just want to cry because everyone else is." I sat there thinking kid you are my rock! don't go out on me now! And there was a little of what the eff am I doing this for!? But we've gotten past all of that, trust me. These kids are dolls, F naps like a champ (knock on wood), he has the funniest way of crawling and eats like a horse. V is an observer at our house for the most part, but if you can get her to open up a bit, which she does, she is a hilarious, giggling little girl.

Our days our super structured...

Drop off 7:30-7:45a

Story time at 8:30a

F goes down for a nap at 8:45a

Put Robin down for a nap at 9-9:30a

Craft/cooking/activity with the older kids 10a

F wakes up around 10:30-11a

Robin wakes up around 11:30a

Lunch 12p

Clean up 12:40p

Story time at 12:45/1p

F, V, and Abe down for a nap at 1:30p

Robin down for a nap 2p

F and V start waking up around 3ish

Pick up between 3:15-4p

Yes, there is lots of playing in between all of this. Lots of playing during, around, on top of all of this, it is good. Once a day V and Abe watch a little TV, 20m-30m of something like Sesame Street, Dinosaur Train, Yo Gabba Gabba, or something along those lines while I nurse and rock Robin to sleep for his morning nap. And sometimes, when all the stars align I have 30m- 1hr of time in the afternoon when everyone is asleep. It's incredible. I sit. I might get on the internets, like today and write this blog, or I might knit, or I might sew, but I typically don't do anything I should be doing, like dishes or laundry. It's a fantastic span of time. Sometimes Declan gets home from work early in there and we sit together, again it's fantastic.

So I thought I might write about this new adventure every once in a while, and call it "Herding Cats", because that's what it feels like, chasing babies, filling cups with milk, handing out snacks with a 20lb. baby on each hip, that sort of thing. So if you don't like babies or kids stay away on these posts, and if you think I'm crazy or wonder "why?" then come by and read these. I'll tell you what we've done this week for activities (this week we... made pasta, did crayon etchings, made cupcakes and pasta necklaces) I might tell you what I've fed these kids, stuff like that.

And here's me, in the midst of being crawled on by babies and attacked by toddlers, probably telling someone "no".

On finishing and starting

This. sigh.

This was my Christmas present to myself. A gift for working so hard on all of those other gifts. A little thank you note to me. I have been working on it since the minute I finished knitting my last gift. It was finished a couple of days ago and is still needing a bath and to be blocked. I love everything about this project, it's the Holden Shawlette btw, I loved buying the yarn and needles to start it, downloading the pattern to my new Kindle (this has proven to be awesome for knitting) knitting with this yarn was crazy wonderful, the garter stitch eyelets, and even the tedious picot bind off. And what I loved even more about all of those things was selecting/buying/and casting on for a project just for me and then, and this is crazy, but finishing it before I began anything else.

Typically I pick up projects here and there, start a lot, finish few, and finish even fewer just days from starting. Most of them I quickly lose excitement in and if they are finished it's often because I have to (gift or something like that). This was entirely different. I was so excited about this thing that I went on to start and complete two more things! A square for a comfort blanket and a fair isle hat that doesn't fit.

For Christmas, Declan had gotten me enough yarn to knit this sweater I have been coveting. I've been siting here with 1400 yards of wool just waiting to be knit with, but a little fearful of starting after completing all of these quick projects. This sweater, on my best and quickest attempt, will take two or three weeks. It's not a hard pattern, it's just a freaking sweater and I have kids. So I've spent the past couple of days pumping myself up, giving myself little pep talks about how I can start and finish this sweater in hopes of wearing it before the weather changes back to warm, and I was already to do this but then this happened...

Damn fabric store. Damn cute little felt things I've been pinning on Pinterest. Damn cheap little felt squares at the fabric store, wool felt too nonetheless. This picture doesn't even show all of it. Sad face. I may never get this sweater started.

And what trip to the fabric store would be complete without some books on what to do with all of this fabric? Well they came from the library, and I've been jonesing on these books from Soule Mama and I was thrilled to find one.

Besides what's in these books I'm thinking felt garlands, and little gnome-like people and hearts for Valentine's Day and all of the white is planned for little felt letters and envelopes complete with stamps. Better get busy!

Wine Cork Friends

Yesterday, while stuck at home without a car we were (I was) in desperate need of something to do that was a little more structured than running in circles and making kitty noises. So I pulled out our jar of yarn scraps, jar of wine corks, markers, glue and pipe cleaners and this is what we got. Wine cork friends. I really tried to come up with a more creative name or one that alluded to drinking A LOT of wine, but all you'll find from these is that we (again it's just an I here) drink a lot of cheap Pinot.

I honestly had as much fun making these as Abe had. He was really excited about the glue, I was really excited about all of the yarn hair possibilities. Meet our friends...

This is Smokey, as in Smoking Loon Pinot.

This is Pepper, he's kind of a crazy eyed monster.

This guy practically wears his name like a badge.
Can you believe that his hair is cashmere?

This lady is French, her name is Champagne,
she's the life of the party and an opera singer

Looking Back on 10 Intentions for the New Year

Just over a year ago I wrote this post on my intentions for 2011. I've thought about the post on and off throughout the year, wondering what if any I've accomplished. The nice thing about the Intentions is that they seemed to hold a little less pressure than Resolutions. I wish I could say I can check all 10 off, but I can't, so here is a look at them one year later.

1- Clutter free house? I spent a great deal of time, there is a post a few months back, cleaning my craft space, since then it has gotten a little jumbled, and we have definitely gone through some things this year, but there is still clutter. And I would like to say that for 5 people living in 900 sq ft. of space we are doing pretty well.

2- Try to understand my children more. This is tough. I think I've accomplished this, but it seems like there needs to be some sort of clause on it, like understand them and be empathetic. I really, really try. But it's hard, especially when there is whining or screaming involved. I will say that I've been more open to who my children are, not going to go into that too much now, but I am knowing them better, this is good.

3- Publish 6 more patterns. This did not happen, and I will blame the baby for that :) But I did get four out there this year, they were all at Knit and Caboodle, but that still counts, if only I could get them on Ravelry. But here's the list... Quickie Mitts, Two Color Cowl, Christmas on Fair Isle Stocking, and Family Mittens.

4- I did this one! A drug free birth. I'm really proud of this one, because it wasn't just me. If it weren't for Declan, my Dr., my friends I don't know if this would have happened. Thanks to all.

5- I failed horribly at this one. I did get Christmas Cards in the mail and thank you notes for baby things, but no actual letters.

6- Financially we are better, and not just because we are making more money, not by much, but we are smarter with what we are doing with it. This is a big one, and I'm happy to say we've done well with it.

7- Paint rooms. Ha! We did Marley's, but that's it. End of story.

8- Explore a new hobby. Yes! Embroidery, specifically silk ribbon embroidery, and I hope to do much more of it!

9- Vegetable garden? Meh... blaming this too on the baby. But watch out this year might be the year for it.

10- Stop being judgmental. I've had my moments this year on and off. I don't think this is one of those on/off things.


So how about this year? Who knows. Just trying to be a better person. Not just mom or wife or whatever, but a better person in general.

How did everyone else fare?