holiday countdown

I have been getting really excited about this Christmas knitting thing and these little projects that I have been knitting have begun telling me who they will belong to. I bet you never guessed yarn could talk, but it does. I think I have 7 total knit so far. I say finished, but I haven't woven in ends on anything yet. I will take care of those little details later. So far I have knit 3 pairs of mittens, a pair of fingerless mittens, 1 adult hat, 2 baby hats, 1 ear warmer, and I have started on a chunky lace shawl, a sweater, and a scarf. Wow actually 11 projects total either started or finished. I have a feeling though that I may burn out before Christmas is over, but when I look in the drawer that I am keeping all of my gifts in it is definitely motivation to keep on.

I also can't wait to put up Christmas decorations, the lights, the smell of cinnamon and pine, it's also the one time of the year that I am excited about all things glittery. Woohoo! I will force myself to hold off until after Thanksgiving though :) Oh and I am doing 2 holiday swaps!

There is a lot of excitement here at home and I hope at yours as well!

No more sick in Socktober, November is here!

We made it through Sickfest, and I made it through Socktoberfest with 3 pairs of finished socks. The last pair was knit on #8's but no one really needs to know that do they. Other than that let me do a little recap of the rest of the month....

-Declan has been working 2+ hours every night after work to finish his certification (just a couple more weeks to go).
-We had a smashing grad party for him.
-Abe now falls asleep on his own, and 95% of of the time it's all night. Our secret....no more bottles and lots of story time, oh and a big fat teddy bear to sleep with.
-Marley can add fractions, where she pulled this from is beyond me.
-I gave up some of my involvement in Marley's school, and it feels good.
-Abe was a gnome for Halloween and Marley was a witch. While out he had his first piece of candy, and many more after that, and a kind friend gave me a shot of Apfel Liquor. On the note of Abe eating candy, we found pieces of wrappers in his diaper the next morning. Gross!!!
-I am going to run a half marathon with my Mom, and hopefully my BFF Sarah. It isn't until April, but training started last night.
-I have started Christmas knitting. Or let me put it this way.... I have started knitting small projects because I want to, and hopefully they will find a home for the holidays.
-Abe needs a diaper change, want to come over and help out with that??

Socktoberfest Day 8/Sickfest Day 3

What good comes out of spending 3 days at home with a sick kid? For me it's a finished pair of socks and another pair that is 75% of the way finished.

So here are the socks!
The yarn again is Earthly Hues Sapling Sportweight. Needles are #5's. Socks on #5's go sooo fast! They would have been finished yesterday morning, I just dread kitchner stitching the toe up.

Sickfest update: Marley's fever was at it's highest yesterday 102.7, and it has been high since last night. She voluntarily went to bed (whoa!) and has been getting sick to her stomach since last night. It's 9:30am and she is back in bed. Wee man seems to be in good shape, he even took a 4.5 hour nap yesterday which is almost unheard of, maybe that's a bad sign. Ah well, back to knitting in my pajamas and working on what will be my first pot of coffee for the day :)

ps- every time I tried to type "sick" I would accidentally type "sock".

Socktoberfest Day 6

It is Day 6 of Socktoberfest, and at the pace I have set for myself I think I may finish my 3 pair goal. Here is the first in sportweight pair I'm working on. It went soooo fast. We went camping over the weekend and the hour long drive on the way there and back was a very good opportunity to get a lot finished on this pair. They remind me of bell peppers. I have the second sock cast on and I am an inch away from the heel. Wheee!!

October 6th doesn't only mean that I have been celebrating Socktoberfest for 6 days, but it also means that it is Declan's birthday. A quarter century! Even though I hate that Marley stayed home sick today, I have very much enjoyed doing things with her that we haven't had the chance to do, like decorate the house for Declan's birthday. We have plans for my Dad to come over and watch the kids while we go out to eat, so it should be a nice low key birthday. Want to know what Marley and I got Declan for his birthday? I let her go to the Converse website and design a pair of Chuck Taylor hi-tops just for him. They won't be here for another week or two, and I know that he doesn't' read my blog, so I am not worried about ruining a surprise.

Science Projects

For Rachel :)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 8:35am

Morning Observations and Actions:
Marley has a low grade fever 100.0, gave 1.5 tsp of Motrin. Whining ensued.
Phone call to school stating, "Margaret will not be at school today."
Attempt to cool fever and mood with "Handy Manny".
Abe is displaying signs of what may be boredom. Pull out rocking horse. Giggles and rocking.


Experiment of the Day:
At home remedies for diaper rash.

Hypothesis: When baby has diaper rash there must be something at home to relieve and prevent diaper rash.

Experiment: During diaper changes, bottom was wiped using a wash cloth dipped in a luke warm solution of water and baking powder. Thin layer of shortening was applied to bottom before putting on a new diaper. Shortening is no longer able to be used for cooking because of accidental "double dipping".

Conclusion: I was able to find to reliable at home solutions for diaper rash.


Rachel is that what you wanted? I hope I did okay, I don't remember much from science class!

Socktoberfest Day 1

Well yesterday was the first day of October, and that means SOCKTOBERFEST! This will be the first year where I have celebrated, I suppose I may have been knitting socks during a previous October. I don't think there are any rules or anything like that, just knit socks. I am going to attempt to finish 3 pairs. The first pair was started last month, and I am almost to the heel of the second sock. The next pair, which I cast on for last night is using Earthly Hues Sapling sock yarn, which is a sportweight and on #5's so it should go quickly. And the third pair I haven't decided on yet.

In non knitting talk, Abe just started saying "Oh, no!" It's a very dramatic, and very troubled sounding "oh, no". And Marley is still enjoying school. They have begun to develop some sort of sibling rivalry, but it seems to be all in good fun. It goes something like this... "you have a blanket, I want a blanket, you are stand 3" from Mom, I want to stand 2" from Mom, you are crying, I want to cry louder, you have a book, I want 5 books, etc, etc...." It has been coming from both sides too. Ack!

No news is good news

Recently I have finished quite a lot of knitting projects... Declan's sweater/jacket, my Epaulet jacket, a beautiful lace shawl for work (I need to show that one off still), plus a few other little things. After finishing all of those I have started up a load of new things, most of which are Christmas presents, which are mostly all for people who will see these things if I post them here. Bah! I will tell you there is a sweater involved, Fair Isle mittens, a hat and mitten set, socks, and I wanting to start some more lace :)

We've also gotten back into the cave of TV on DVD. It started when my BIL and his girlfriend moved in, we watched old episodes of Weeds, Californication, Dexter, Big Love, True Blood and most recently we've started watching Lost, from the very beginning. It's horrible. I mean good but horribly addictive. Just today they (the BIL and girlfriend) bought a house! Well, made/accepted an offer and soon they will be gone, and I am thinking that the only good will be that maybe we won't watch as much TV.

Let's see, what else...
-Abe now says truck, trash, down, us (when we look in the mirror together), and this.
-I've learned that all Mom's go to park in black spandexy pants, including me.
-After almost 2 years I finally got my hair trimmed, 3" of split ends and crap came off of the end.

FO: The Epaulet Jacket

Let me introduce you to the Elizabeth Zimmerman Epaulet Jacket...
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted Merino Wool and I have no idea how many skeins at that. FOr each color I pretty much used up an entire skein, except for that pink.

Needles: #8 circular Addis

Notes: Okay this pattern was amazing. She has you start at the neck band, and then knit a tab off of the back, and then saddles for the shoulders, and then pick up all of those stitches and knit on down. I mentioned in a previous post that I opted not to knit the entire thing in garter, because of the bizarre lack of growth when it comes to garter. So, it was joined in the round (did a little waist shaping) and then steeked. At the bottom I did do a garter stitch border, and then bound off. The sleeves seemed to take forever, but I did do those in garter stitch. I got a little tired of the striping so for most of the sleeves I stuck to larger blocks of color. I decided against anymore of a collar than what I started with, and did a 4 ridge button band on each side. I got lucky with the buttons and found exactly what I needed in the large stash of buttons that was left in our house when we bought it.

This sweater is so warm and cozy that I cannot wait for fall to finally hit. We had a little taste of it a week or so ago, but again, it's hot again.

ETA: those are our pigeons in the backround :)