Frog Monkey

Baby Gifts!

2012-01-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of new babies out floating around. Max and Caleb. They are cutie-patooties.

1. Max belongs to friends of ours in town - La and I got to stop in over the break and drop off their gifts finally. He was snoozing when we stopped in. They did not share ahead of time whether the baby was a boy or a girl, so he got a red hat and monkey blankets. I liked Red as a unisex color anyway, but they're also Cardinal fans. So it's good. The hat is Cotton-Ease and was knit top down starting with a 4 stitch i-cord.

2. They've also got a 3 year old girl, so I put together this doll quilt and baby hat for her. The hat was made the same way as the other one.The backing was some stash that I really like, but never quite knew what to do with it. I think this was the right thing.

3. The next baby is Caleb - he belongs to a friend I've known since 1st grade. They're in Montana. He's got a couple of board books, flannel receiving blankets and a Pixie hat (the vintage pattern)! I know I've got a picture of it all the way finished but it is still on my camera. The construction of the hat was sort of peculiar - I relied on photos others had in Ravelry to figure it out. Instead of the button strap, I made an attached i-cord tie. It is slightly wonky, but should stay put. El, my 4 year old is asking for a hat like this. She tried on the hat I made several times. It almost fit - if I switched to a worsted weight yarn, I think it would fit and I wouldn't have to change the numbers.

SWAPS - Some Whatchamacalit With A Pin

2012-01-11T21:34:00.003-05:00

These are the SWAPS we made for camporee. I could swear I copied them from the web, but maybe I combined a few sources into this - so here's what we did.

Our Brownie troop is working on the WOW (World of Water) Journey and one of the things was sharing with others - camporee swaps seemed like a great opportunity. So, this is what we made.

QuickVersion: (for people, like me, who don't like instructions) safety pins, jewelry baggies, tissue paper or paper basket fill, shrinky dink plastic, colored pencils/sharpies, MS Office clip art. And "fortunes" with info about how to save water & our troop number.

0. Setup: I found clip art from the Microsoft Office clipart site and made a piece of paper that had lots of fish/sea/water themed black and white clip art that would be fairly easy to trace and color. I sized them so that their max size was 1.3", but they could have been bigger. I made a copy of this paper for each girl. Also, I tried it all out so I could show an example to the girls.

1. At the first meeting, the girls each got one sheet of plastic. We used sharpies and colored pencils, and the girls traced and colored the designs they wanted onto their plastic. When they were done, they cut out their shapes and we put them into baggies with their names on them. Aside from tracing and coloring the clip art, other ideas that fit with the theme were: umbrellas and rainbows. Some girls also made hearts or pro-GS messages.

2. Between Meetings, I cut out the ones that didn't get to finish and I baked them all, in batches. It was not as bad as I feared - no major warping, not too stinky, I didn't get them all discombobulated. The shrinky dinks went back into each girl's baggie. I also found a lot of tips about saving water at this site, and put the ones that elementary school aged kids could do (they are not going to replace the toilet with a low-flow one) with the troop number in an excel table and printed out a page for each girl to use.

3. At the second meeting, the girls assembled the swaps by filling the bags with shrinky dinks and either tissue paper or paper basket fill. Then add the pin and "fortune" about how to save water. And then, back to the baggie to wait until Camporee.

Super FO!

2011-11-20T21:51:00.001-05:00

I finished my (seemingly) year long project! So, most of these things were all either WIP or not started when last I mentioned this project. I've been making a hat and scarf for my sister, her husband and their two boys. I found a post from March where I first mentioned it.

1. A hat for my BIL. Jaques Cousteau. I really like it. It seems kind of big, but I think it's probably good.

2. The scarf for Robby. Cascade 220 superwash quatro, 2x2 rib, 32 stitces across.

3. The scarf for Andy. Cascade 220 superwash, 2x2 rib, 32 stitches across.

4. The hat for Robby. Similar to the Jacques Cousteau, but knit on 72 stitches with 3x3 rib.

5. The hat for Becky. Similar to Turn A Square. I should have read the pattern - I didn't realize it was free until I was trying to figure out the decreases. Also, lesson learned: Do not cast on a multiple of 13 for a hat. It really limits your rib and decrease options.

I'm at the part where I have two socks on the needles that I'm working on, but nothing meaty. Not sure what to do next, but there are babies, so there may be hats. :-)

Ode To The Twenty Minute Tote

2011-10-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

Have you made The Purl Bee's Twenty Minute Tote? You should. It's good.

We made a whole slew of them for Girl Scouts last year. Out of muslin with twill tape handles. Then the girls decorated them with paint pens. It was for the Art to Wear try-it. My co-leader and I each made half and the meeting where we colored them was a lot of fun. The bags were just the right size for bringing their Journey book back and forth to the meeting.

Friday, I was at Joann's buying birthday presents. We had two parties this weekend - one for a girl turning 5 and one for a girl turning 8. I got them the same thing as eachother. It met my criteria - when I showed it to my girls, one approved (art supplies, but not messy) and the other wanted it for herself. They each got: a set of 12 colored pencils, Crayola Color Sticks, a sheet of alphabet stickers, a sheet of cute animal stickers (both from the scrapbook department), and a pad of paper that had drawing, tracing and construction paper. I also picked up a remnant thinking I could sew a tote bag for each to put it in (I hate wrapping gifts. And I think Gift Bags are a great concept that everyone wants to reuse but no one does.) The remnant was 33" of a bright home-dec weight, 44" wide. I might have been delusional about how much time I had to make the totes. We had two soccer games before the first party on Saturday. Luckily we had some benign tropical weather and soccer was rained out.

I fussy cut the material so that the tree was kind of in the middle of the bag. I made the handles out of the material. (cut 2 - 3" x 33" strips for each bag, fold one edge in by 1/4" inch and sew it down the length of the material, fold the other edge in by 1/4" and sew it down. Then fold it in half and sew closed with a zig-zag. Top stitch the other edge with a zig zag. This is all to avoid having to turn it right side out. And ironing. That would have made it easier. I could have pressed each edge in by 1/4" and then just sew it shut.) I didn't feel like getting my straight pins out of my sewing box. The lesson I learned is that it is worth it to pin the handles in place on the first go-round. Otherwise you have three seams to rip out to re-align the handles.

The Double Comb-Over - Girl Scout Awards

2011-10-10T21:27:00.000-04:00

One of the problems I have with Girl Scouts is awards and ceremonies. It's not a problem that I have with Girl Scouts. It's just something I have been working for a long time on getting right. I have a bad habit of putting awards + print outs in a baggie and handing them out at the end of the meeting. Inevitably, they want to open the baggie, look at their awards, touch them, see what they are. Who can blame them? Frankly, I'm kind of excited to give them out, so I can hardly ever wait until the end of the meeting, and then someone loses a petal or a piece of the cookie patches or something.

My mom used to cut out trefoils from construction paper write the name of the girl on front and a list of badges on the back. She attached a ribbon that had all of the badges attached to it. Then when she did awards, she could hold up the thing and read all of the good stuff that the girl did.

I tried it when we bridged last fall because we had a lot of awards, and I had to pin stuff on people anway and there was an audience, etc. And it actually worked well. I used scrapbook paper, cut out slightly wonky trefoils. Safety pinned them to the girls. Nothing got lost, no one got stabbed.

I found something easier. It may not be better all the way-- I like the trefoil shape/symbology a lot. I was getting ready to buy some 12x12" cardstock to do it all again this year, but then I found these journaling tags that were $2 for 24. (The cardstock was 65c/sheet.) I got some brown grosgrain ribbon - we're 3rd grade Brownies this year and put this together:

I used pinking shears to cut probably 8" lengths of the ribbon and then chain pieced them on my sewing machine using a largish zig-zag stitch.

Once I had a string of 15 of them, this is what they looked like.

I cut the little thread in between each badge to separate them, and got this: back and front views.

For the first one, I just had service stars to attach. This time, I've got their first journey triangle and early bird registration patches. Some girls had a preference for which tag they got, but it mostly worked pretty well. Having a die-cutter thingy to make a tag or a trefoil shape would be an excellent way to do this.

Our day at Disney's Hollywood Studios

2011-09-30T23:14:00.000-04:00

I do not have as many FO's to blog recently, so here is some real life...

Yesterday, the big kids had the day off of school, so I took PTO and we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. Nothing says Rash Hashanah like a day at the parks. [I know, it really doesn't. I'm being flip.]

It turned out to be a great day at the park. All five of us went, and we all got to do things we enjoyed. For this trip I did not make lunch reservations anywhere. I have come to believe in the power of a sit down lunch - it is OK to take a good chunk of time out of the hottest part of the day, sit in the air conditioning and not have to worry about how to carry two trays with a couple of kids in your blindspot to find a table that is clean and has enough seats. The park is small enough and there are a few counter service places that have some good choices. All we had to worry about was getting to lunch before melting down.

Here are some highlights of the day:
First thing DH went to get fast passes for Toy Story Midway Mania, the kids and I picked up maps and headed over to Star Tours. El was still too short. She can't wait to be 40" tall. We got a baby swap pass and DH and the big kids rode Star Tours. El and I ended up at Muppets (my favorite thing at the park.)

Turns out that DH forgot his phone at home. What did we ever do before cell phones? How did we ever set up a rendez-vous? I texted the monkey. We met up again and went to see Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

This attaction is a 16 minute version of the 83 minute movie. Also, the monkey's high school theater group recently did the play. The attraction features a mix of movie clips, live action (people), lasers, and puppets. The eight year old La thought it was strange. She liked the high school production better and the lasers were the best part. It reminded me of Mickey's Philharmagic, but not as good.

We hit the ABC commissary for lunch, then split up again. DH and El went to the Disney Junior Live on Stage. La and the Monkey and I went to get fast passes to the Rockin Roller Coaster, stopped to see the bust of Art Carney,

and ride Star Tours with the baby swap pass.

After that, I found out that the Monkey's phone died. We waited for quite a while for the other two to get back from the Disney Junior show - turns out they missed the first one and hung around to see the second one. And the whole time we were waiting I was sure that they had finished first and went on to do a second fun thing.

We managed to hit the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. It was good - I hadn't seen it since I was in college and none of the others had seen it before. It is still good.

We all went on the Great Movie Ride. La and I went on that a few years ago. It's weird. It was a little scary for El, but, just scary enough, I guess. Later she reported that it was her favorite thing. Then it was time for frozen lemonades and for DH and the big kids to ride the coaster. They all had fun. El was disappointed that she didn't get a lemonade (she picked out a coke so she didn't get a lemonade), but we waited for them.

Finally, it was time for the fast passes to the Toy Story Midway Mania. We hadn't been on this in a while. It was really fun. El and DH were a team, against me. El beat me. La and the Monkey rode together. Our last attraction was One Man's Dream, which I hadn't seen since I was young, when it was at the Magic Kingdom. El put in the request to go to it. And fell asleep halfway through the movie. We should have gone during the Rockin Roller Coaster when she really needed a nap!

We put El back in the stroller to snooze and did a little shopping on the way out. The trouble with falling asleep before being buckled into her carseat is having to carry thirty pounds of love on the tram and out to the car. Also, the tram (or monorail as she calls it) is her favorite ride. I was sorry she slept through it. We stopped at Steak N Shake for some restorative cheeseburgers and milkshakes and headed home to get cleaned up for bed.

Umm. So, do you want to see what I've been knitting?

2011-09-20T21:43:00.000-04:00

Let's see. I don't have fabulous FO shots, but this is what I do have:

1. I finished these socks for my sister. They are similar to Knitty's Broadripple, but the stitch pattern is K2 YO K3 K2tog K2 K2tog K3 YO K2
The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shephard Sock. They fit her perfectly and she likes them. :-)

2. I finished this hat for my brother in law, Rob. It's Cascade 200 Superwash and part of the "Warm Woolens for my Sister's Family" project of 2011. It really deserves a good FO picture, so you may be seeing it again. Also, I haven't washed/blocked it yet. But it's really cool. It's the Jacques Cousteau Hat I used mods from two different people - one was the size of the needles (it was really unpleasant to knit that tightly, but I like the results so far) and the cast on number (100), the other was to do the decreases as 4 lines instead of 3, to lessen the pointiness of the top of the hat.

3. I finished a scarf for my brother in law. It's the same yarn as the hat. It's like a mistake rib stitch pattern. CO 33 stitches, K2P2 to last stitch, K1.

4. I'm working on a scarf for my nephew. It's K2P2 rib, in a Cascade 220 Superwash Quatro. I tried a lot of things and came back to this. I really liked how the yarn looked in stockinette stitch. El, my 3 year old cut the yarn and cut into the skein. I'm thinking about how to work in the stripes of blue into some other project. Or, maybe fringes.

I finished the scarf for my sister and the hat for my other nephew. So, left to do are: a hat for my sister, a scarf for nephew #2, and a hat for nephew #1.

What I did on my summer vacation: Sewing

2011-07-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

My husband is at Boy Scout Camp with his troop this week. So I took off work and am spending time with the monkeys. We have done a lot of random fun (cheap) stuff, it's been a quiet week around the house. We've done things like practice driving, have breakfast at Bagel King (and lunch at Ikea), swim at the Y, go to Costco. You know. The stuff that vacations are made of. :-S While we've been home, I've been sewing. Lots of imprecise sewing.
1. I made this dress for El. It's based on the Weekend Sewing Flower Girl Dress. That pattern works much better if you think of it as a tutorial and not a pattern as such. The fabric is some linen-ish stuff I got from Joann's. The embroidered flowers felt itchy so I lined it with some quilting cotton. (Yay for stash!)

2. I made a new curtain for the bathroom window. Also a new shower curtain. It's indoor/outdoor home-dec weight fabric, so I think it'll hold up better than what was there.

3. I finished this quilt that I started a few years ago (in 2009!).

I tried free motion quilting for the first time (you can really tell the difference between the first and the last block. However, it's still not real fabulous.) The whole quilt is on the delightfully wonky side, so it was probably a good one to try it with. I really need a walking foot for my sewing machine.

This is the backing fabric. I bought it for something else orginally and it worked nicely for this.

T-Shirt Fun

2011-07-04T19:52:00.003-04:00

For Father's Day, the girls and I made shirts for my dad and their dad. We went with standard freezer paper stencils. A GPS satellite symbol for my husband, a 4-function calculator for my dad. This was not a well photographed project, but it was standard freezer paper fare. We've done it before. Looks like I must have internalized some of the lessons learned (yay!) This time I printed the picture on regular paper and then used masking tape to attach the print out to the freezer paper and just cut it out of both layers at the same time. Centering the image on the freezer paper would still be a good idea. We got our images at The Noun Project and put them in a Word document, expanding the picture until it took up most of a sheet of paper. Not fancy.
But. This is what we did for La and El. They watch certain shows where the main characters wear shirts with somewhat random words. We made those for the girls.

First, El (the 3 year old) picked out these words for her shirt:

Then La was disappointed that we no longer had the right letters to spell "CUTE". So we used the thesaurus and came up with this:

Care Package

2011-07-02T19:48:00.000-04:00

Ever since I saw this rag quilt, I've been hanging on to the idea of using leftover flannel to make one. It seemed like just the right thing to use up leftover PJ pants material. In this blanket, I see pants for the monkey, from when he was about 8 or 9, pants for my nephews, pants for El and La, receiving blankets for a couple of different babies, bib/smocks for some neighbor friends. It's neat.

It turns out, though, that I may not have the temperment for rag quilts. And my family may have known this about me. I showed them the test block and La asked if I was going to cover up the raw edge. And my husband was perplexed, too, that it had an unfinished edge on top. They knew something I didn't. Once the finished quilt got washed, man, did I ever trim the strings all up.

It was really fun to put together. They are 5" squares. The back is the same fabric as the front. It was odd to get used to sewing wrong sides together. There is no batting or middle layer of flannel. I stitched it together using zig-zag stitch and I just went around the outside edge with zig zag also. There's something nice about when you finish putting the top together the whole thing is done.

The rest of the story is that when I had about half of the blocks assembled, I found out a friend of ours was having surgery. So, it turned out to be a quilt for him. This is a family we've known since the monkey joined Cub Scouts at age 7 (10 years ago). He could probably use your prayers and good thoughts - we do not yet know how the story ends. But he's back home from the hospital. They texted me a picture of him in the hospital with the blanket (smiling).

A whole bucket of random

2011-05-11T09:57:00.000-04:00

1. iPods. I wanted to listen to a specific song on my iPod this morning, so started it with that song (it happened to start with the word "All", and then listened from that song, alphabetically. This is something that I do not normally do. Here are my observations:

There is a wide variety of music that starts with the letter A. Talking Heads (And She Was), Handel's Messiah (And Suddenly), the Beatles (All You Need is Love), Smash Mouth (All Star), They Might Be Giants (Ana Ng).
How many versions of Ana Ng do I really need? I do like the second one I heard better, but still. How many?
I was surprised to hear a song that I had never heard of on my iPod. It must be from an album that I loaded for my daughter. But still. Never heard of it, never heard it before.

2. We started a bathroom remodel. Our master bath has a shower stall, and the faucet/valve/handle/on-off switch (what is the technical term? It's a mixing valve handle that you pull to turn the water on and dial to change the temperature.) Well, it has been leaking water as you run the shower. Quite a bit. Monday, DH took it apart to see what was going on. Now, on Wednesday, the shower walls are gone, Visqueen is up, and there's kind of a sketchy plan.

So, when you find yourself looking at how your shower is put together, from the inside, (not because you were really curious, but because you have to), you could find yourself with any and all of the following reactions:
No Wonder.
WTF
Now, there's your problem.
Is that load bearing?
The good thing is that now we will have some decisions made for us (like when (e.g. asap), and how fancy (e.g. not very - budget is small).
Oh, and this is when it's nice to be married to an architect.
And the other good thing? It will hopefully be a while before we have to think about doing this again. We've known that this was on the list for the 10 years that we've lived here.

Growing stuff worked...

2011-04-25T21:59:00.001-04:00

Look: Stuff Sprouted!
1. Pumpkins from the two Halloween pumpkins.

2. Lettuce from the seeds from the store.

3. Pumpkins from the seeds from the store.

Last weekend we transplanted these guys into bigger containers and have them near the front door. The lettuce isn't doing as well, but the pumpkins are really holding up. :)

I think we have one tangerine plant trying to do a good job, and we moved the Abby Cadabby pumpkins in to the house to sprout in the jiffy greenhouse things.

Here's what it looked like when we did the transplant. Sorry for the bizarre angles.
1. Pumpkins

2. Lettuce.

3. Group Picture.

Sockarooni!

2011-04-24T20:00:00.002-04:00

I finished one pair of socks
and started another this weekend. :)

The pattern for both is "You're Putting Me On" (rav link). The top pair was started in the summer of 2006, as best as I can figure. I started the second sock about a month ago. My 3 year old picked out the brown striped yarn (from stash) for the new pair of socks. The 8 year old would like the next pair of socks to be for her (not brown though.)

New Quilt Top

2011-04-23T22:15:00.000-04:00

I really like how this turned out. It's not quite what I thought it would be, but I don't think the math in my head was quite "right" for that to happen. It's the right size for a couch blanket. I just need to figure out what's going on the back (probably stash flannel, now that I'm thinking about it) and make a quilt sandwich.

The plain is muslin, the brights are from a "jelly bean" colored fat quarter pack that I got for Christmas. Everyone wanted the quilt to be for them, so couch blanket it is.

Growing

2011-04-11T11:57:00.001-04:00

I read this at Mom to the Screaming Masses. And went back to read the original idea here. And thought to myself, "I am a scientist. I like to try stuff to see what will happen. I like to listen to science podcasts for fun." (I credit article reports in high school science classes for this. Or always having Flying Magazine and Time or Newsweek lying around the house. Either way.) Then I had trouble thinking of what science stuff (if any) I have been doing with my daughters (ages 8 and 3) recently. Sure, this morning, in the car, I fielded a question about why the signal for Radio Disney has hiccups. (It's an AM station.) And what does AM and FM stand for (Thanks Google. Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation.)

But you know what we did this weekend that was an experiment and real, actual science, but none of us thought of it as science? We planted seeds.

When we were at my sister's house a few weeks ago, my daughter spit some pickle seeds into the dirt and convinced her cousin that now they would grow "pickle trees". My sister texted me and said that my nephew was still on the lookout for pickle trees and was blaming his babysitter for not watering them. This made us (my two daughters and me) start thinking about growing cucumbers. And we have a few pumpkins still sitting around from Halloween. One hollowed itself out, the other is "like new". One year, we accidentally grew some pumpkin plants, but all we got was great flowers - no baby pumpkins. Since then, La has been wanting to try it again. (me too.)

So, here's what we've got:

3 12-spot jiffy seed starting tray
1 Abby Cadabby garden bag and pumpkin growing kit (comes with it's own pumpkin seeds too)
Dora gloves
1 pack each: pumpkins, cucumber, lettuce
2 leftover Halloween pumpkins
1 tangerine's worth of sprouted seeds (placed a wet paper towel in a cheap reusable plastic container, put seeds on top, closed the container, let it sit for a while (a week or two?) until the seeds sprout.)
1 Subway cup.
1 Disney popcorn bucket.

So, now we've got:
1 jiffy seed tray with lettuce
1 jiffy seed tray with the packaged pumpkin seeds
1 jiffy seed tray with 1/2 and 1/2 of the seeds from the Halloween pumpkins
the jiffy pots for the Abby Cadabby kit planted with the pumpkins that came with it
the Subway and Disney containers planted with tangerine seeds.

We will see what happens. We tend to do best with things that enjoy benign neglect. We may start the cucumber seeds in a baggie on the window. And we just set aside an egg carton that we finished on Sunday.

Bound and ready

2011-04-09T20:56:00.000-04:00

The quilt for the monkey is finished! Bound, washed, and in his room. I had the pleasure of taking it out of the dryer today, and it was just right. Crinkly and bendy and great.

He picked out this fabric for the binding from stash. I had picked out red, but he didn't like it. It's Joel Dewberry from the Chestnut Hill collection. I bought it to make a skirt for me, so there is plenty left for coordinating pillow cases.

I got it sewn on and washed and this is what we have now:

Pattern: Plain Spoken from the "Modern Quilt Workshop" by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.
Fabric: Front is Kona Cottons in greens and browns. Back is a 108" wide batik from my LQS. Binding is Joel Dewberry - Black Eyed Susan from the Chestnut Hill Collection.
Quilting: Darlene Arnswald used the River Run pantograph.
The Upshot: I'm really pleased with it. I've liked the pattern for a long, long time and am glad that "the monkey" picked it out for his quilt. The palette is nice, although it could be construed as somewhat camoflagey. However, we were going for soothing tree tops.

10 on Tuesday - Libraries!

2011-03-29T12:29:00.000-04:00

Carole's topic today is 10 reasons to use the public library. This is totally a topic I can get behind, as a former patron of the bookmobile and daughter of a children's librarian. Actually, I'm having trouble figuring out where to begin.

1. Not only are they "free" (in that you are paying for them anyway), but borrowing a book seems like an enviromentally sensitive solution.

2. Story Hours. When I was home with La, when she was little, these were such a great way to get out of the house and do something fun (for free!). She was at an age where I probably got more out of it than she did.

3. Summer Reading Clubs. I really had a lot of fun with these when I was a kid, and my kids always sign up for them eagerly too.

4. Drawing/Puzzle table. This is the girls' favorite feature at our library.

5. Hold. At our library the best way to get THE book you want is to put it on hold. It's always a cheap thrill when the email comes and says that your materials are ready.

6. Randomness. As much fun as it is to get the thing you're looking for, the adventure of finding a book that just "looks good" is excellent also. This has many applications: the regular fiction stacks, the picture books, the dewey decimal section that has your favorite topic, the new releases, the books on CD.

7. books on CD! I now have a CD player in my car and books on CD from the library is like the best thing ever.

8. The artifacts. One of the things that I loved at the Stuart library was the high school yearbooks from the year my mom graduated. Turns out one of our friends' mom was in the same class as my mom, but went to Martin County High. Also, they had these books of newspapers from the 30's. Those were really cool too.

9. The librarians: I have no idea how they do it, but they are always friendly and helpful.

10. It's just a good place to find something you'd never thought you'd find. For instance, I was stunned to find (in elementary school) that comic strips were put together into books and you could find them in the library. I borrowed a lot of Family Circus books back then.

Art To Wear

2011-03-24T08:18:00.005-04:00

The Brownie Troop recently finished the Art To Wear try-it. It was one that they pretty much had a consensus wanting to do, then they voted to see which parts they would do. They picked: macrame/friendship bracelets, face painting, paper mache, and making masks. One week we made masks out of paper plates and construction paper. They did a nice job with them and it was a fun meeting. Another week we had a friend come and paint the girls' hand. While people were waiting to have their hand painted, we worked on making friendship bracelets from kitchen cotton. There were two models - each had four strands of cotton, one had granny knots (making a spiral) and one had square knots (making something like a ladder). The girls' bracelets were pretty much "free-form". :)

Paper mache was holding us back - it was getting darker earlier, and colder. It seemed too messy of a project to do in an hour in the Sunday school classroom where we meet. So, we tried something else. My co-leader and I made a whole slew of the Purl Bee's 20 minute totes out of unbleached muslin, with extra wide twill tape for handles.

The first try was with fabric crayons. The girls each made a picture with fabric crayons on printer paper. There were a couple of problems with this: the selection and trueness of colors was disappointing, then as soon as you mention that the images come out in reverse everyone needs to write letters in their image, and finally the ironing on was so pale that you couldn't see the picutres at all. This was not good.

I exchanged the fabric crayons for fabric markers. The next week, the girls decorated their bags with the markers and it was a lot of fun. Except for my daughter. She had a melt down because she didn't get the same bag as her friend. [I only mention this because it ended up turning out well.]

Later on, at home, La decided to work on the bag she was given. (Yay!) But then she messed it up. On both sides (boo). So once she was done being mad and ready to listen, we talked about other options. One idea (inspired by Gerrie Congdon's blog) was to color/scribble on it with the pens, then try to discharge it with a bleach pen. This did not work well, although, maybe we could have left it on longer. When we were shopping for something else in Joann's we saw repositionable stencils. So we bought one of a skull and crossbones, cosmetic sponges, and a jar of hot pink Jaquard paint. We had some purple, turquoise, and dark red at home already. This was a winner. All through the process, El wanted to make one too, so she took the original faint iron on panels and used those. This is what we ended up with. I'm very impressed that La was able to keep going and try something else with the project when one thing or the other didn't turn out exactly the right way.

Knitting projects

2011-03-23T08:17:00.000-04:00

Here are the knitting projects I'm started recently:
1. A Clapotis for my sister. It's in Cascade 220 Superwash Paints. It is super fun to knit - there is something about it that is transfixing. It's just interesting enough, between the colors and getting another repeat done to drop a stitch. Much like Monkey socks in that sense. It's about 6 or 7 repeats wide.

2. Socks for DH. I re-animated this project from 2006. I think I stopped working on it when I realized that the second foot would not match exactly. I was looking around for yarn to start a pair of socks for him and found some brown striped sock yarn. Then thought. Shoot. If I'm going to make brown striped socks, let's finish these. I didn't care that much any more that they would not exactly match - and he didn't either. Function over form.

Also active, I'm still working on a pair of socks for my sister. :)

So, all of a sudden it's a month later....

2011-03-19T21:05:00.000-04:00

I finished some stuff:

Like this hat for my representative:

Pattern: Hurricane (Ravelry)
Yarn: Cascade 220 superwash

This sweater for my cousin's new baby (well, new in January).

Pattern: Clementine's Baby Kimono (Ravelry)
Yarn: K1C2 Crock-o-dye [The color is actually more in the purple family IRL].
And look: I got this one back from the quilter

Pattern: Plain Spoken from the The Modern Quilt Workshop by Fun Quilts (Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr).
Fabric: Kona Cottons in brown and green on the front; batik on the back that looks like tree rings.
Quilting: By Darlene at Dars Longarm Quilting - pattern is "the river".

Next up: binding that guy. Probably in red. Yellow might work too. Knitting a scarf-sized Clapotis for my sister. I picked up a pair of socks to finish that I started in the summer of 2006. I remember being real mad at them when it turned out they weren't going to match. Sewing some spring skirts for myself.

Recently....

2011-02-12T14:35:00.000-05:00

Recently, I made 4 hats for my sister's family. They're heading to upstate NY to see snow next week and had a chapeau situation. I made the fleece hats that I made before for Christmas a few years ago. Super easy. Also made a couple for the monkey-girls.

Recently, I went to camping training so that I would be qualified to take my Brownie troop tent camping. I learned to make this knot (it might be a clove hitch).

One of the things I learned in that training was that I needed a new hat. This one is the "rib-a-roni" (ravelry) pattern. I'm thinking of making another one of these for my Brother in Law.

But also, I learned that I should have a washable wool hat! So I started this one - a hurricane hat (ravelry). I'm thinking of making another one for my representative for Warm Hats not Hot Heads.

Oh, yes, and this. I recently picked up 98 cases of Girl Scout cookies and passed them out to my troop.

projects projects projects

2011-02-04T13:31:00.000-05:00

It seems like (a)I haven't finished much in a long time and (b)I don't have much time to do good crafting.
But here's a run-down on the latest. I may add pictures later. Or I may reblog some of the things. We'll see.

1.Here's what we have in work -
-10 tent bags for DH's Boy Scout Troop. 2 done; 8 to go. Ripstop nylon. Blurgh.
-sweater for my new baby cousin. I have a few more rows of the back, and the left side/sleeve to do.
-socks for my sister - I'm about 2/3 done with the first one.
-washable hat for me - I'm about 1/2 way done with it.
-quilt made from a fat quarter pack I got for Christmas. It's underway - I'm at a point where I need to iron and make decisions.
2. Here's what's coming up -
-hats for my sister's family. Fleece and knit. Maybe scarves too. Maybe mittens for the boys.
-new pocketbook for me (a CraftApple pattern I got for Christmas). I have material, but haven't started sewing it.
-I also bought some nice flannel with bicycles today to make PJ pants for me and the girls.
-Oh, and I bought some felt to try to make a valentines project like this one.

3. I finished these and I don't think they made it to the blog yet.
-A new hat for me.
-That crazy rainbow hat for El.
-A fat-quarter quilt for my new baby cousin. La started this and I finished it.

10 on Tuesday: Ten things you wouldn't want to live without

2011-01-04T18:50:00.005-05:00

I took this as modern conveniences - like sliced bread of the digital age.

1. The digital picture frame on my desk at work. I added on new pictures from the last few months. It's nice to have.

2. Thumbdrives.

3. Google calendar. It's how we keep everything together - I have a calendar for myself, my husband, my 8 year old, my Girl Scout troop, and the 17 year old, and the menu. I toy with the idea of a calendar for the three year old, but I don't think we're quite there yet.

4. The Internet. For sites like recipe sites, the FDA recalls, the tropical weather information, ravelry, etc.

5. ipods - music mixes, podcasts, audio books.

6. Being able to trigger a prescription refill through a touch-tone phone menu.

7. Word processors and Excel - so much more flexible than graph paper and typewriters. The way my mom tracked cookie sales and the way I do it are so different. :)

8. RSS feeds and feed readers.

9. broadband.

10. Then there's the stuff that makes it OK to live in Florida - like air conditioning and doppler radar and those hurricane hunter airplanes.

Florida Flip Top Mittens

2010-12-28T13:41:00.002-05:00

Does this ever happen to you? You knit a pair of mittens for charity, perhaps using an actual child from the house to try them on to make sure they're the right size...and then a month later they ask you to make the thing "just like the purple ones you made"?

So you start....and then you find out that by "just like the ones you made" they mean...a different color, a washable yarn, and not mittens but gloves?

Here are the flip-top mittens I made for "the monkey". I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease; not sure what needle size (7ish?)

These directions assume you have some experience with mittens, or perhaps have another mitten pattern around to fill in the blanks:

Cast On 36 stitches on 3 DPN for knitting in the round.

Knit 20 rounds of K3P3 rib.

Knit 10 rounds plain

Thumb gusset:

Alternate increase rounds with plain rounds.

1. K5, Kfb, kfb, Knit rest of round

2. Knit plain round

3. K5 Kfb k2 Kfb knit rest of round

4. knit plain round

5. K5 kfb k4 kfb knit rest of round

6. knit plain round

7. k5 kfb k6 kfb knit rest of round

8. knit plain round

9. k5 put 10 stitches on holder or 5th dpn, cast on 2, knit rest of the round

Knit 9 rounds plain (or until you get to the base of the fingers)

Right Hand: K6, P3K3 rib for 18 stitches, K12 for 5 rounds

Left Hand: K24 P3K3 rib for 18 stitches (this kind of skews the beginning of the round a little. You could also do P3 K21 P3K3 for 12 sts.) for 5 rounds.

bind off the 18 rib stitches, continue the round.

Use a piece of scrap yarn and provisionally cast on 18 stitches. Join in to the round at the point where you cast off the 18 stitches.

Knit about 10 more rounds (to the tops of the pinky finger)

Decrease rounds: alternate with plain rounds until there are about 4 stitches between decreases. [K7 K2tog] * 4; knit plain; [k6 K2tog] * 4; knit plain.... when 4 stitches remain, cut yarn and run through the remaining stitches twice, then secure with a french knot and weave in end.

Flap: Pick up the knit stitches from the provisional cast on and knit in K3P3 rib for 5 rows. Use tails to tack the edges down to the mitten, overlapping the rib that was there. Remove the waste yarn from the provisional cast on.

Thumb: Take the 10 stitches and pick up some additional stitches to make the thumb.

Adventures in Sewing

2010-10-08T21:54:00.000-04:00

La and El picked out 6 fat quarters each at the local quilt shop a while ago. No real purpose intended, but it helped them behave while I got what I was looking for.

I think one of the ladies suggested this, but La (age 7) decided that she would sew El's into a quilt for her sister. She was going to sew the ones she picked out into a quilt for El also, but I talked her into sewing it and keeping it for herself.

La laid them out in the way she wanted to have it assembled. I pinned it together and then drew a sewing line using the disappearing ink pen. I sat next to her as she sewed, and she did a good job. Then, when she was done piecing the top, I put flannel on the back, using the pillowcase method.

Here's El's:

And La's:

Finishing Things

2010-10-06T21:45:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted any real stories about stuff. It's the usual school year grind. But I've been knitting. Mostly easy stuff.

1. I finished these socks:

They're just regular 64-stitch stockinette socks. Plymouth Happy Feet. I'm not sure how I feel about them, but I knit them anyway.

2. A sweater for Ellie:

It's Plymouth DreamBaby DK. I used the Cosmicpluto knits top down raglan sweater pattern as a guide. El won't try it on. I have buttons, but we'll see what happens.

3. I finished this pair of socks.

And I've washed them and worn them already. But haven't photographed them. It's just another regular 64-stitch stockinette sock. It's Trekking, color 100. That yarn turns really nice when you wash it in the machine. I can see why it was so faddish back in the day. It's my third pair that I've knit from trekking, but my first for me.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things to Love About Fall

2010-10-04T21:28:00.003-04:00

Fall (as we know it in Florida) is one of my favorite seasons. I can't decide if fall or spring is my favorite.

1. It is the beginning of sock season. Flip-flop season is very long in Orlando. 2/3 of the year, probably. This is not as good for someone who likes to knit wool socks.

2. Halloween decorations. The younger kids in my house start planning for Halloween on November 1. My husband made us wait until October to decorate the house (that was fine by me). We got out the decorations and put them up last weekend.

3. The soccer games start to cool off. It really starts to be a lot easier to do things outside.

4. Hurricanes tend towards the Atlantic. (Or the Northeast, but not Florida.) Once there start to be cold fronts in play, it really changes the dynamic of tropical weather. [disclaimer: my degree is in computer science, not meteorology. My only qualification is that I've lived in Florida since I was 5, and that really isn't a qualification at all.]

5. The sky is a gorgeous color in the fall. Not the faded out summer color. But a spunky robin's egg blue, almost.

6. The smell of fireplaces in the evening. I have no idea why so many homes in the area have fireplaces, but they do. This is totally different than where I grew up.

7. Carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds. Also, going to the pumpkin patch. The whole pumpkin experience.

8. Apple pie. And Thanksgiving.

9. Marching band. I'm not currently involved in band, but the smell of fresh cut grass in the fall gives me flashbacks.

10. Knitting weather.

10 on Tuesday - 10 things to lighten your mood

2010-08-31T22:05:00.003-04:00

1. Get outside. It doesn't have to be fancy - walk the dog, weeding, shoot baskets, go to the beach, go on a bike ride, etc.

2. Watch a great old movie - like How to Marry a Millionaire or Some Like it Hot.

3. Work on a project - if you can only concentrate on something easy, work on somethingeasy. But working on figuring sometheing out means you're not whatever else is on your mind and you're getting some amount of control over whatever you're working on.

4. Find something funny. When someone makes me laugh or smile, I forget that I'm busy being upset.

5. Talk it over with someone.

6. Baby chortles, knock-knock jokes told by a novice, etc.

7. Go on an adventure.

8. Read a good book. Perhaps not good in the sense of high brow literature. But good in the sense of engaging, uplifting, fun.

9. Catch up with what your peeps are up to - Facebook, blogs, twitter, etc.

10. Surfing ravelry or flickr for new projects.

Ten on Tuesday on Thursday

2010-08-26T21:13:00.003-04:00

This week's topic is 10 things You Would Tell a College Freshman OR 10 things You Wish You Had Known When You Started College.

I've rearranged it in my mind to 10 things I learned in college that I didn't even know I didn't know.

1. How to get around on the city bus (no car. tired of bumming rides.)

2. There are more computers available at the lab starting around 7pm, and the lab is open 24 hours. The CS majors were doing work from 7pm to 2am. [there's a reason none of the core Computer Science classes start at 8am]

3. Learned about copy cards for the school copy machine network.

4. How to find good fiction using the Library of Congress cataloging method (the sci-fi was on the 4th floor).

5. How to eat alone and read a book at the same time.

6. If you do the right thing then you won't have trouble owning up to it. [just because you can doesn't mean you should]

7. The library is a good place to do homework. The first floor has tables for semi-social homework - lots of engineering groups there, [at UCF you walk in at the 2nd floor], the 5th floor has very quiet carrolls. Also, you can get a study room for a group study from the circulation desk.

8. Ask about student discounts. Bring your student ID always.

9. You can buy a roll of quarters at the student credit union. It's good to do this on a week day, and have quarters available for laundry on the weekend.

10. It's better to sort laundry by color than by weight. [A load of towels and jeans would overwhelm the washer and it wouldn't spin dry.]

Glue Batik!

2010-08-10T22:10:00.004-04:00

First. This is not a one day project. It's not a one week project. It turned into a one month project (plus another month to blog about it).

I first saw this entry on Crafty Crow. And traced it back to the original inspiration. Kind of sketchy details, but enough to go on. And here's a sketchy recap of what we did.

What we did was this...

1. We used Elmer's Gel school glue and white t-shirts from the fabric paint section of Joann's.
We found that the gel glue is hard to squeeze, so the girls used paintbrushes to apply it. It was still kind of challenging to do it gracefully.

We let it dry for a week or more. Wanted to give it time to cure and then we got doing other things. :)

2. The painting. We used acrylic paints from the craft store (you know the ones. There's a rainbow of colors, smallish bottles, about $1/pop). Squirted some paint into a ketchup/mustard squirt bottle (in the cheapola section of the big craft store. You could use a spritz bottle for a similar but different look.) and squirted paints onto the shirts. We did this on the front yard. It would be helpful to have someplace outside to let them drip dry (e.g. a clothesline or a dedicated drying rack). We let them set for another week or so. The colors co-mingled with the help of gravity as it was drying, so bear this in mind when you are picking colors.

3. Then we soaked the shirts in a bucket to dissolve the glue. I do not recommend using the sink. The drain may not be quite the same again until someone snakes it out after that experience. Wash separately from your other stuff. And there you go.

10 on Tuesday - 10 reasons to love bacon

2010-08-10T21:20:00.005-04:00

I don't know why, but the subject just makes me smile.

But here's what I like about it...

1. My picky eater daugter will eat it.

2. It's easy to make in the oven and finish at the same time as the eggs. My genius brother in law taught us how to make it in the oven. My aunt taught us out to make it in the microwave. Turns out the directions are on the back of the package. The oven method doesn't work as well with the thin center cut bacon. Also, it's helpful to put down foil (for in the oven, not the microwave).

3. Bacon cheese burgers. I am not a burger person. Or, really, a cheese person. But somehow bacon makes it OK.

4. Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches. They remind me of flying into Vero Beach with my family for lunch. It turns out I'm kind of picky about BLTs. They should be on toast. There is a right side for the mayo (the tomato side). I thought everyone knew these things. Oh, and you know what is good on a BLT? Ranch dressing. Also, avocado.

5. You know, my other daughter really likes bacon too.

6. Bacon and eggs. Or bacon and pancakes. yum.

7. Oh, and a good bacon substitute if you are at Bagel King (which is pretty kosher)? Grilled pastrami. My husband says this is not bacon and only wishes it was bacon. But if you can't have bacon.....

8. I like the cult food status of bacon. It's sort of a strange mix of hip and cheesy.

9. Thick cut Center cut bacon. Yum.

10. Best thing about bacon? You put it on anything and it becomes gourmet. e.g. filet mignon, scallops, cocktail weenies, etc.

10 things for Tuesday

2010-07-27T21:39:00.003-04:00

Ten things to do instead of watching TV:

Sadly, my first instinct is to go with chores, rather than things I enjoy doing instead of watching TV. And, frankly, most of my TV time is spent watching what one of the kids wants to watch.....

But here are 10 fun things to do instead of watching TV.

1. Sew - I pieced a quilt over my birthday weekend in May and need to back it. I'm about half way done with a quilt top for the monkey.

2. Read.

3. Make brownies. Esp. with one of the girls helping me.
This is what happened when I told the 2 year old to throw in some eggs:

4. Work on a craft project. This is our Glue Batik project.

5. Play a game. El can play Sesame Street Uno. La likes Trouble, Go Fish, and War.

6. Feed the ducks/bike ride/playground (in the neighborhood).

7. Swim at the Y. I've been trying to work this in at least once in a weekend.

8. Blow bubbles.

9. Go to another playground (not the neighborhood one.)

10. Go on an adventure. Sometimes this is code for running errands. Other times, it is Disney.

10 on Tuesday - 10 things I like about where I live

2010-07-12T21:19:00.002-04:00

1. When we were away last week, on one of our "car nap" adventures, we saw the
juxtaposition of orange groves and rockets - there are retired orange groves
right outside Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island.

2. I like being able to see shuttle launches by just going outside.

3. I like where our house is - I like our elementary school, that it's a part
of our neighborhood and that with time, our corner of suburbia starts to feel
like a neighborhood.

4. I like the services available. The boy is spending a week at Shakespeare
camp in July. There are almost too many sports or lessons to choose from.

5. I like that we can drive by cows on the way home from most places, and that
all of the cows are within a mile of our house. This is a big feature for the 2
year old.

6. I like that in the summer there are 3 nearby pools to choose from with our Y
membership.

7. I like that we're close enough to go to Disney for the afternoon.

8. I like the people we know here. We don't have much family in the city, so
I'm thankful for the friends we've made.

9. I like that strawberries and corn are in season early here. :)

10. I like the diversity of my city.

10 on Tuesday - 10 ways to have summer fun....

2010-07-06T22:26:00.004-04:00

Here's the irony: I'm busy having summer fun, so only got to this at 10 pm on Tuesday.

Here's my 10:

1. Go to the beach (it's about an hour from my house. We are kind of having a "staycation" at a hotel on the beach)

2. Swim at the pool (this is how we use our YMCA membership, mostly. )

3. Sprinklers (before we had a Y membership.... Still fun.)

4. Popsicles. On the front porch. Those tubes of frozen stuff (frozen go-gurt or fla-vor-ice) count too. But the kids enjoy helping come up with new concoctions.

5. Ice cream truck. (this one is kind of a gamble though, and you have to take it as kismet if he comes by when you're home.)

6. Reading and the library. They've always got a summer reading program going.

7. The movies. I used to work at a theater during the summer when I was in college. Seeing a movie for free kind of gives you a new scale for how good a movie is (e.g. not bad for free, but I wouldn't pay my own money for it.)

8. Netflix. The kids seem to be working through their queues pretty quickly. The two big kids each have their own queues. It works out pretty well.

9. Visiting family. Most of our vacations as kids involved visiting far away relatives (and spending time floating in their pools and eating food from the grill). This summer, I had dinner with my cousin who lives far away while she was on her honeymoon, we're going to see my sister while she's in town this week, and La and DH are going on a FDCCA (father-daughter-cross-country-adventure) next week (!) where they're flying to Portland for a wedding. Oh, and we went to DH's high school reunion. That seems like it would count too.

10. Having adventures. There's just something about summer that makes it not only possible, but likely.

Dude. It's another quilt top.

2010-06-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this one for a really long time. I bought most of the fabric for this when I was expecting. Because, you know, at 36 weeks pregnant is the best time to start a queen size quilt. So, that would have been November 2007.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what would be "perfect".

I saw a picture of Mitch Cope, PowerHouse, and other artists in an in-flight magazine story about Detroit. Thought that house would make a neat quilt. So, I bought some more fabric (the non-green). Washed it. Cut strips. Made a little test run to see if I liked it.

Finally, in May 2010, I pieced this.

But, I think this will be the actual orientation:

I have a sheet to sew on the back, to make it "summer weight". Hopefully, I'll get it the rest of the way finished soon.

10 For Tuesday - Summer Reading

2010-06-29T20:47:00.003-04:00

Next in the Tuesday-10 series is Summer Reading. Frankly, I'm not reading that much these days. But here's what I can scrounge together.

1. City Quilts by Cherri House - got this as a birthday present. It's really nice to look at.

2. Handmade Home by Amanda Soule - got this for Christmas, but have been looking through it now. Interesting ideas.

3. This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett - I listened to this on my iPod (hopefully that counts). Really a delightful listen.

4. Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich - haven't read this yet, but I will.

5. I subscribed to Everyday Food recently. I had been buying it at the checkout. Frequently, there is one or two recipes that turn out to be interesting/delightful.

6. The Girl Mechanic: Classic Games, Crafts, and Toys to Build (Popular Mechanics) - something kind of fun to flip through.

7. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. I've read it before. Started it about a month ago, but haven't picked it up in a while.

8. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World by Martin Luther King. This is on the monkey's summer reading list (well, it would be if he were taking AP English, which he probably could, and it looked like it would be more interesting to him than the standard English selection.)

9. Words that Work: It's not what you say, It's what people hear by Frank I Luntz. Another AP English required reading selection.

10. One of the MacDonald Hall stories by Gordon Korman. I remember these being fabulous, and I want to see if they hold up.

Baby Quilt!

2010-06-23T22:05:00.000-04:00

I finished up El's baby quilt.

She's 2 1/2 now. According to Flickr, I started it in the summer of 2007, when I was expecting.

In November 2008, when I picked it up again, it was smaller than I remembered it.

So, I bought more fat quarters, cut them up, took apart the quilt I had and put it back together again. Then it took a while to square it up and quilt it. Binding it was done in 2 days though.

I used some of her old crib sheets on the back. And I quilted it with hot pink thread. Which doesn't even really show up on the front. The binding is a very colorful Kaffee print, but it blends right in as well.

Ten on Tuesday

2010-06-22T19:54:00.004-04:00

The question this week is, "How do you entertain a child?" I added...."at a restaurant" to mine....

Play "I see something"
play tic tac toe
play "dots" ("squares"?)
color
tell knock-knock jokes
ask a question (what did you dream about? what was your favorite part of today?)
tell a story that you know by heart (three bears, three pigs, gingerbread man, nursery rhymes, etc.)
tell about something that happened to you as a kid (like the time that you took a bite out of all the cookies in the jar and then put them all back.)
teach them a trick, like when you fold a dollar bill in half and half again and turn it around and it's upside down.
play hangman

I have been busy.

2010-06-21T22:00:00.002-04:00

Wrapping up the school year, Girl Scouts, sewing, knitting.....

I made a few skirts. They're the Lazy Day Skirt from Oliver + S. So easy to make and very very cute. The best part - El likes to wear them. I have a few more cut out, but need to find ribbon.

Here's El's wardrobe so far:

wow. Ok. so.....

2010-04-04T19:01:00.003-04:00

Happy Easter!

I've been finding time to do some projects, but it's been kind of a whirlwind since Christmas break ended. It's nice to have a few days to come up for air. The kids have spring break this week, so that means just a few less obligations for us.

The weather finally turned nice - here are new bathing suit cover ups for the girls. I saw this caftan at mini-boden and really liked it, but balked at spending the money, and then by the time I went to order it for La, it was totally back ordered. I bought the Sophie Tunic from SisBoom from Pink Chalk Fabrics -an immediate download and used stash fabrics. (woo-hoo!) The pattern was well written and easy to follow. You only need to print the pieces to cut out, but then zip back to the computer to read the next step (not bad if the sewing machine and computer are nearby). La's might be the nicest thing I ever made. El's is pretty good too - The pieces for the 2 year old size are inherently a little fussier because of the size (the same is true of PJ pants patterns too.) I ran into a little trouble with getting the tunic for the 2 year old (El's) around her noggin (20"). Otherwise it fit her well. I fixed it by taking out the topstitching for the front of the neckline, and sewing a little wider neckline - following along the original lines, but with a bit of a margin. I emailed the designers thinking that they may have run into this before and they were really thoughtful in their responses.

Here's La's:

Here's El's:

La wore her's to school the first day it was finished, she was that happy with it. She's not afraid to ask you to make her something, then tell you she doesn't like it. We visited my sister and her family at one of the D*sney resorts and it worked well as a coverup. I've been spending my time thinking about what other stash fabrics I have that would work with this pattern. :)

St. Brigid Silent Poetry Reading

2010-02-02T21:33:00.002-05:00

To Katharine: At Fourteen Monthsby Joelle Biele

All morning, you’ve studied the laws
of spoons, the rules of books, the dynamics
of the occasional plate, observed the principles
governing objects in motion and objects
at rest. To see if it will fall, and if it does,
how far, if it will rage like a lost penny
or ring like a Chinese gong—because
it doesn’t have to—you lean from your chair
and hold your cup over the floor.
It curves in your hand, it weighs in your palm,
it arches like a wave, it is a dipper
full of stars, and you’re the wind timing
the pull of the moon, you’re the water
measuring the distance from which we fall.

Poem copyright ©2007 by Joelle Biele, whose most recent book of poetry is “White Summer,” Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.

Found here.

More about the silent poetry reading

Hey Look at This!

2010-01-08T21:07:00.002-05:00

I finished a vest for El. It's the JCasa pattern Neighborly (ravelry link).

It was really fun to knit - simple but effective.

I used stash yarns - Cascade 220 for the main color (1 skein), and Needful Yarns Arte for the stripes (1 1/2 skeins). El just turned 2 and is in the 50th percentile for height (25th for weight) - this looks like it'll fit her for a while. I wanted something that would keep her belly warm, but not be too sweaty (this is Florida, after all).

I think I'm going to try the next one in CottonEase.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T20:34:00.003-05:00

I can't believe Christmas break is already almost over. The Girl Scout cookie sale started here yesterday. Everyone's excited about being back at school tomorrow. I'm trying to get everything put together for the morning, but first....some FO of late...

1. I finished this quilt that I started in the spring. It's a charm pack and white muslin. I used whatever binding I had leftover and pieced it together. The back is Michael Miller polka dots. I gave it to Project Linus.

2. I made these ornaments after Christmas. They're a charm pack that I think I bought last year. For the first few, La stuffed them, but I couldn't find the stuffing, so I had her use leftover quilt batting. For the rest, I ended up just quilting them. This is about half the batch (front and back). The other half is still in my camera. Amelia won't let me give any away, because she says they are hers. I guess that's good.

3. I finished the poncho for La. She seems pretty happy about it. I need to wash it for her, but she's already worn it a couple of times. Its Cascade Eco +, Raveled here.

There's some other stuff.....an apron that I made for my niece; a batch of pajama pants that I made for La, El, and a set of family friend sibs (3); did I mention the second batch of tuxedo bibs?

And my first FO of 2010 - a Neighborly vest for El. Raveled here. It's blocking and still needs finishing, but it was delightful to knit.

Ketchup!

2009-11-02T10:37:00.003-05:00

So, I finished a few quilts (finally). I started these during my maternity leave, approximately 22 months ago. I'm not sure what took so long to quilt it, but it did and it turned out to be not so bad and it's done and given to Project Linus. Hopefully will find a loving home.

The back is a striped flannel, similar color palette.

A little ric-rac in the binding. I do not know why this amuses me so, but it does.

I also finished this quilt - started at the same time. I didn't like the backing flannel I picked out for it, so I had one of my design consultants help decide from stash. We went with the fruit print that I adore. Also, given to Project Linus.

Another recent project - one of my friends approached me and showed me a bib that she had that just fit her 18 month old, but was a little too small for her 3 year old. It was made from flannel, and it velcroed around the neck and waist and was nearly perfect for what she used it for (car rides with drinks, keeping clothes clean). But she only had two and .... So I borrowed one, traced it and this is what I came up with...

Got some feedback and made a few more.....

I have two more quilt tops to show next time.....

Wow. Number 384.

2009-09-22T09:52:00.003-04:00

I've been sewing and knitting and going to soccer practice and Girl Scout meetings and friend birthday parties and manning the fort while the boys go camping and Boy Scout committee meetings.

Here's the skirt I made for myself. I love it so much! It's made it into my regular rotation, and I bought some more fabric to make myself more skirts. It's kind of a variation of the Heather Ross Weekend Sewing, Yard Sale Wrap Skirt. Except it doesn't wrap.

Mods: Made 8 panels. Mostly followed directions to join them with French seams. When I got to the end, I added a zipper and sewed up the open side. (With non-French seams). Then I added darts to make the waist fit pretty well. Then extra-wide, double fold bias tape around the waist and hem to cover the raw edges. I tried a snap closure by the zipper, but it didn't work out, so I took it out, ripped back a little of the bias tape and added a button/pony elastic closure, as seen on Angry Chicken. (brilliant.)

It could use pockets, and I wish the zipper situation wasn't such a kludge, but otherwise, works good, lasts a long time.

Here's what else I got out to do: I haven't worked on this in a while. The centers are Kaffee charm squares that I got for Christmas, the solids are from a fat quarter set of Kona Cottons (Pink Chalk Fabrics!). I've got all 32 squares done, I need to iron them and true them up so that they're all about the same size (and squareness). Then the crazy colors will commence! Black sashing would look pretty sharp and tone it all down, but I kind of want to see if I can make it make sense without that.

Meet the Teacher Tomorrow! Wow!

2009-08-20T22:03:00.003-04:00

I've been doing a lot of sewing. Also, I've been back to the film camera, so I end up with batch updates.

1. I finished this baby quilt for my friends who are due this fall.
And a little hat and big sister gifts - doll quilt and doll hat.

2. I've been knitting too. I'm working on a Feb. Lady Sweater in Cascade Eco +. For me. First sweater for me that has gotten this far.

3. I made El the Flowergirl Dress from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. If I had read any other blog posts about it, I would have measured the pattern piece against a dress or shirt that actually fits her. I got it all done and then it wouldn't get onto her body - she couldn't get her shoulders/arms through the bodice. I ended up recutting the bodice pieces a little larger. I toyed with the idea of a gusset at first, but it seemed tricky to implement and only a little less unsewing. The results are more like a jumper, but that's fine too. Later on, I made myself the "wrap skirt" which will hopefully be photographed at some point. I have some lessons learned about the book as a whole. I may need to redo the buttons/button holes/strap situation on the dress, but I'm going to wash it first, before I try more tricks.

Wow. Summer Vacation

2009-08-05T22:31:00.003-04:00

It continues to be a little crazy. Three weeks til school starts again.

In the crafting department...I finished a baby quilt, pieced a doll quilt, and am ready to bind another baby quilt. Wanna see?

This is for my new nephew - he was born July 23. I used pages of a cloth story book panel, with sashing from the same line of fabrics.

I made this one for his older brother a couple years ago:

I put this together for a little girl who is going to be born in September:

That picture is just the top. But now it's quilted and halfway bound - I need to tack it down in back. I tell you, panels sound like they're going to be simpler, but frankly, the picture might not be as square as it looks.

This is for the big sister:

I haven't figured out what to put on the back yet. Should it match the big sisters? Should it be flannel?

She was the recipient of this, back in the day:

Super Secret Knitting

2009-07-01T22:24:00.003-04:00

I finished (and gifted) the super secret knitting I was working on. Might have been so secret that I didn't mention it. A set of washcloths for my sister's birthday.

She has some from our grandmother's stash and a few that I've knit for her before out of cotton but (a)she prefers the acrylic (like Grandma's) and (b)they get a whole lot of use because she really does like them. This is Sirdar Snuggly, left over from a baby sweater that I knit a few years ago. It's really pretty nice to knit with.

I've also been working on El's soft and fuzzy blanket - it's coming along. I'm trying to figure out how big to make it and therefore, if it's almost done. I've got a baby quilt pieced,well, except for the thinking part. And I finished sewing on the binding for the frogs and bugs quilt. I need to sandwich up some quilts and quilt. I've got a whole bunch queued up. Just need to send the boys off to game night.

Breaking in the new machine

2009-06-15T11:56:00.002-04:00

Dude. I really like my new sewing machine. So far, I've made....a smallish quilt top, 3 pairs of elastic PJ pants (2 for El, 1 for La), a nightgown for myself, and a small "whole cloth" quilt. You know, just to try it out.

Oh, and I finished the 9 flannel baby blankets I had queued up. And piecing El's quilt top. And putting together the coordinating doll blanket. And sewing patches onto DH's new Boy Scout uniform (You can never have too many).

And I had this old quilting swatch laying around. I added a zipper and sewed up the sides to make a pouch. I used the wrong kid of zipper - this one is like the ones you would use in a hooded sweatshirt. It comes apart at the end. But you know, whatever.

Almost Done

2009-05-12T21:59:00.003-04:00

This semester has been a doozy. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, T-Ball, Tutoring, Growing Teeth. Wow. We're on the home stretch - but it's that part where they jam a whole lot (even more!?!?!) into two weeks. Ugh.

My sewing machine has been out of commission since the last post too. Well. I had just gotten the machine back from servicing. I started making baby gift receiving blankets. And the zig zag was berserk. So, I did what any sensible person would do. I bought a Bernina. But it took from March to May before I got a chance to do the sew-in, and I still haven't found time to take any classes. So, hopefully, I'll get back to the gazillion sewing projects I have lined up. Plus La and DH have been queueing up projects for me too.

I've been knitting. Lots almost done there.
1. I finished (almost. except for the ends and the buttons) this sweater for El. It's Swing Thing, and it was a lot of fun to knit. The blue is the Lion-Brand Cotton Ease I got for Christmas. The green, I just picked up cause I liked it.

2. I finished the RPM socks for me. These were also highly fun to knit. The yarn and the pattern I'd been saving for a long time....the yarn is Colinette Jitterbug, and boy did they turn the bathwater green when I washed them.

3. Hats. These are similar to the Kaleidescope Super Bulky Button hat. Except they're not super bulky. The one with the star is the "first draft" and is now for La. The one with the flower button is for me. Delightfully, I think I've used up nearly all of the Classic Elite Beatrice. Like the sweater, they still need the buttons sewn on. Maybe the ends woven in too. But dude. It's May in Florida. I have plenty of time.

So....that means on the needles I have....a square for the Barn Raising blanket, a pair of socks for me, a super-secret birthday gift for my sister. Luckily, none of it is complicated.

A tale of two sweaters

2009-03-20T22:26:00.002-04:00

1. It was the best of times:

I've been working on this sweater for El for next winter. The pattern is "Swing Thing" and it's delightful. I guess it's an old Mag Knits pattern. It's a seamless yoke cardigan, and I think it uses slingshot acceleration or something. Good stuff. The yarn is Lionbrand Cotton-Ease, a Christmas gift from my Aunt Marilyn.

2. It was the worst of times.

Last weekend I had some quiet time (and no sewing machine) so I finally figured out the saddles. Really neat. There's a whole best of times/worst of times just with this sweater. Had DH try it on. Too small. It fit him like he was a teenage girl, and I do not think that is the look he is trying to acheive. It was too small for the monkey too. So, I'll finish the pits when I get to it, bathe it, and hang on to it just in case. Not going to knit a sweater for DH anytime soon.

Make it Quick!

2009-03-11T21:35:00.002-04:00

Tons of small projects. Here's what I've gotten done recently:

1. A baby hat. Elann Esprit. for a baby boy to be born in June. Ravelry deets here. It took longer to get the picture off the camera than it did to knit the hat.

2. Another baby hat. This one is for a baby (girl) due in July. I used the Baby Watchap pattern again. I like it. Lionbrand Cotton-Ease. Ravelry project deets here. I think a jelly fish photographs better.

3. Fingerless gloves for the big sister of one of the new babies. Really similar to the ones for La. Patons Soy Wool Stripes. Ravelry page here.

4. In other news, I bound this guy off. I still need to weave in the ends and figure out if it needs a binding of some sort - the edges curl. Maybe blocking will help? Maybe it doesn't matter that much? I think it's about 36" square. Ravelry info. I had it on a chair in the dining room and La picked it up and carried it around and snuggled with it for a while. So what did I do?

5. I cast on for this. Same yarns. Same needle. Regular diagonal garter stitch baby blanket pattern. Brainless.

Baby Hat City

2009-02-24T22:41:00.000-05:00

I finished this baby hat a while ago. It's the Tea Cozy Baby Hat pattern I found on Ravelry. Lovely pattern. Stretchy. I didn't need to make it as wide (tall?) as it is, it's all cuff. But, you know, there are worse things.

I'd knit the pattern again. This one is for my niecephew, due in July. Don't know the sex yet.

I started another baby hat. This is for one of my old college room-mates who's having a boy in June. It's Elann Esprit, 60 stitches on size 4 needle. K3P2 rib for a while, then switch to stockinette. Lovely for watching Disney Channel Original Movies with the kindergartner.

Finishing in Feb.

2009-02-21T22:35:00.002-05:00

I still do not know how to spell the name of this month. Long name. Short month.

I'm not sure how to describe how things have been going. Not having time to blog. Or to sew. Some knitting. Easy stuff. Lots of bringing people to practices, meetings, the pediatrician's office, running Excel at home to figure out Girl Scout cookie stuff, paying bills, making grocery lists, keeping all the plates spinning.

Here's something I finished this month, though that was a success.

Socks for the monkey. To take this picture today (he's camping), it took a while to find them. Eventually I found them in his dresser. Each sock in a different drawer. Stored dirty. -shrug-.

Here's the Ravelry info. Trekking sock yarn, really small needles (2.25mm?), 60 stitches, teenage-boy sized feet. Mostly office knitting (it helps in frustrating conference calls to feel like I have something [tangible] to show for my time.)

Fourth Annual Brigid Poetry Reading

2009-02-02T21:44:00.002-05:00

Sonnet
by James Weldon Johnson
My heart be brave, and do not falter so,
Nor utter more that deep, despairing wail.
Thy way is very dark and drear I know,
But do not let thy strength and courage fail;
For certain as the raven-winged night
Is followed by the bright and blushing morn,
Thy coming morrow will be clear and bright;
’Tis darkest when the night is furthest worn.
Look up, and out, beyond, surrounding clouds,
And do not in thine own gross darkness grope,
Rise up, and casting off thy hind’ring shrouds,
Cling thou to this, and ever inspiring hope:
Tho’ thick the battle and tho’ fierce the fight,
There is a power making for the right.

Found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179020
About the author: James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
More about the St. Brigid Silent Poetry Reading.

Quilt Show!

2009-01-27T21:14:00.003-05:00

I did something fun on Saturday. I went to the Florida Cabin Fever quilt show. Without chaperones.

I bought something nice for me. It's a queen-sizeish quilt. It was at the guild sale table. I kept going back to look at it, surprised that no one had bought it yet. I thought the color-scheme was fab. And the quilting delightful - interesting, but not distracting. I looked at it unfolded on my bed and realized! It's a lot like the picture I tore out of the Crate and Barrel catalog.

This one is a quilt top from the same table. It is so lovely on the front and the back. Now I'm spending my down cycles thinking about what kind of fabric for the back.

On the knitting side, I'm just working through some stuff. RPM socks for me, fingerless mitts for La, the sweater for DH. Socks for the monkey. Nothing real radical or photogenic. We had the birthday party for the girls this weekend. A beautiful day and a fun party - one of those parties at the playground deals. Pinata. A foam-craft project. Cake. Gifts. Playground. Just right. Some hurt feelings, but not more than could be expected. We're going to work on dealing with it more gracefully. My grandpa is having an adventure - he fell in Burger King recently, then had surgery last week to tie his femur back together. Now he's in rehab. He'll be 90 in May. We'll see how it goes.

Something nice for me!

2009-01-16T22:00:00.001-05:00

I got this neat set of Kaffe Fasset squares for Christmas. I picked up a sampler of fats of Kona Cotton from Pink Chalk Fabric. Put the two together....

I think there are 16 colors of Kona, and 30 squares? So, most colors should occur twice. I'm still thinking about whether I want to put a neutral border in between the blocks. But I kind of like them all jammed up next to each other. We'll see what happens.

Do you ever get that feeling that all the ladies around you are expecting?

2009-01-14T21:51:00.002-05:00

I think my list is 5. (1 in May, 1 in June, 2 in July, 1 in the fall.) That is a lot of receiving blankets. I think my gift for the May baby, a girl, is done. Big brother gift too (a cape).

Here's the last part of it: a 2 day baby hat.

OK. So the picture is not super-fab. The yarn is Classic Elite Beatrice, which is still in stock at Webs. I wish now that I bought more. This baby hat ate up most of a 50 gram ball. The yarn is three strings plied together. And once you get used to that, it's fine. It's crazy soft. It would be great for knits for people fussy about wool. And it's machine washable. But, for a big-people sweater it would totally eat up a lot of balls of yarn. It seems like it blooms a little when you wash it, too.

Anyway.... this was knit on size 8 needles and mostly followed "The Baby Watchcap" pattern (Ravelry link). It was a good little project - one of those spur of the moment things. I needed something to do while I kept La company during bath. There was a dearth of traditonal pink yarns in the stash for a baby hat. But this was both "girly" and soft. And it turned out to be a two-day knit. What could be better? I love it when a plan comes together.

You know what's bad?

2009-01-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

When you can't keep track of your sock yarn.

I was looking online today at Little Knits. I was starting to add some sock yarn to the cart. Then, something started to look familiar. I came pretty close to buying another skein of the pink/blue/brown. (Fly Designs' Monarch) It looked eerily familiar. You know why? I had some at home already. Glad I caught myself. I'll add this to my stash on Ravelry.

Getting Back to Real Life

2009-01-08T22:48:00.002-05:00

Over the break, I was on a total finishing streak. Amazing.

I finished this scarf for the monkey. It's the ubiquitous Noro striped scarf. (Jared Flood's idea). I could have made it longer. But I think it'll work. It doesn't quite have the drama from the length that his old scarf has, but it has some color.

I did a lot of sewing over the break. People were taking good naps. Or going to bed at a decent hour. I finished a nightgown for me. Flannel recieving blankets for one of my *three* pregnant peeps (Is it just me or do pregnant ladies seem to come in threes? Or is it just that pregnancy is long enough that it seems that way?) I started taking apart El's quilt to insert the new stripes. And I made some capes. 4 capes. One for La (of course.) Two for our January 5 birthday friends, and one for a big-brother-to-be. La's cape has seen more use than the doll quilts, frankly.

All that hullabaloo

2008-12-30T15:44:00.002-05:00

Three birthdays, Christmas, done; now we're at the lull before the new year. Thank heavens.

I finished some socks for La. Now she's chomping at the bit for fingerless gloves from the same yarn.

I unearthed the sewing machine and started to work through the pile near it. I re-attached the patches to one of DH's Boy Scout shirts. In time for the Citrus Bowl program sales. I've also made a quick pocketbook for myself from pre-quilted fabric from Joann's. And repaired it. The fabric was two-sided.....which means I didn't have to find fabric to line it, but didn't have my usual way of having neat and tidy seams. Need to think some more about the right way to do that.

But I also whipped these doll recieving blankets up. One friend is having a baby in May (a girl) and I have some flannel ready to sew up into blankies for her baby. I made these three out of leftovers from hers and from El (the nursery rhyme fabric is from El). I meant to have them ready for Christmas, but well.... that's how things are sometimes, I guess.

I got some really pretty handspun yarn and a set of Kaffee Fassett squares from one aunt. And yarn for a sweater for El from another. Fabulous. Still working on the socks and scarf for the Monkey. Have been thinking about what socks to make next (for me). And working to finish some stuff up, although, I'm feeling like I need to make pajama pants for the kids, I'm resisting cutting new stuff up. I'm working on unsewing the quilt for El to make room for the new stripes. I hear something rattling in the back of the house. It might be the baby. More later.

Radio Silence

2008-12-09T22:13:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the radio silence. I've been doing stuff, just not talking about it.

Wanna see?

1. I'm working on socks for La. It's the RPM pattern from Knitty. Only, knit across 52 stitches, so the pattern is 3 purl + 9 knit. The yarn is Claudia Hand Paint in Tranquility. La picked it out. Hopefully there will be enough left for mittens for her. They might end up being either fingerless mitts OR having part of it in another yarn.

2. I'm working on socks for the Monkey (don't tell. They're a surprise.) It's in some trekking that I've had for a while. Mostly knitting it at work (don't tell). In All Hands meetings or crazy-long conference calls. First sock is down to the toe.

3. I made new strips for El's quilt. I think the next step is to cut some of the pink strips, then take apart the other quilt, sew some of the leftover new rectangles to widen it, and reassemble.
I'm thinking of patching together some of her old receiveing blankets for the back.

4. I am working on a scarf for the Monkey. It's much farther than this. It's pretty entertaining. Great for putting the girls to sleep. Not as good for travelling.

5. I sewed up the strips I was saving to make a doll blanket for El. Not sure what to do with it next - cut them into stacked coins, add a solid color and make it a throw? Make it a strange shaped quilt? I have some dog fabric I want to use for the back.

This is not what I recall.

2008-11-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

After thinking about it when I was posting about the Fuzzy Feet, I went back and got the quilts in progress for the Monkey and for El. In my mind....the tops were both almost done and done, respectively. In reality, though, there was not as much quilt as I remembered. The goal for each is something about the same size as La's. 3'x7'ish? I last blogged about the two in June 2007. Ugh.

For El:

What I've got done is great for a toddler sized bed. Which, might have been what I was thinking of at the time. But I think I'm really imagining a twin size quilt. La and I went out and bought more fat quarters that coordinate. I think I need to make about 3 more strips to really make it the way I want it to be. I'm planning to make the strips, then rip some seams in the quilt, insert the new ones and resew.

For the Monkey:
I was sure his was almost done.

In real life, it's about half done.

I was planning to put yellow sashings in between the blocks. I tried just putting the blocks on the yellow fabric to simulate. It's really swimmy. And it messes up the flow of the diagonal stripes. more squares.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T22:03:00.003-05:00

From our turkeys to yours.....

Notes from this Thanksgiving (so I can remember them):

1. One regular sized can of pumpkin (12 or 15 oz?) and one 12 oz can of evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed. If there are two similar choices for something, I always get them mixed up - baking powder/baking soda, greater than/less than symbols, evaporated milk/sweetened condensed milk, etc.)

2. However, if I'm making two pumpkin pies, I still need to make them sequentially - the mixing bowl is only big enough for one at a time.

3. It's probably worth the effort to get the food processor dirty and use it for making a graham cracker crust. Otherwise it's hard to get all of the crumbs really, really small.

4. For 2 regular-dish pie pans, two cello-packs (2/3 box) of graham crackers is probably the right amount to get it all the way up the sides. Don't be cheap with the graham crackers.

5. Johnathan and Rome apples work OK in the pie, if you can't find the ida reds. My usual combo is Rome and Ida Red.

6. Move the rack down to the 2nd from bottom for the apple pies. The tops got a little too dark.
Lots of good stuff to come this week: fuzzy feet finished, assessing the quilt situation, probably more.

A special request

2008-11-22T21:46:00.000-05:00

The monkey mentioned that he could use slippers. I got out the box of feltable wool and told him to pick one out (purple). Then asked if he wanted a second color and he picked out a stripe color (black). The choices surprised me - I was sure he'd go with charcoal, or maroon or something. He's been trying out colors not usually in his palette lately. It seems a little affected and they aren't really that flattering to his skin tone, but I guess it's good to branch out and expiriment. If you can't do that at 14, when can you?

Dang. I need to finish his quilt. And El's.

But the Fuzzy Feet are rolling along. Here's a shot from Thursday. I finished the first one Friday when I was home with La. Turned out to be a good thing that he picked purple - there's a lot of it in the stash.

The color is so not accurate, but at least you can see the stripes. Pretty low contrast under artificial light, but during the day you can see them pretty well.

Happy Birthday Kelli

2008-11-21T21:39:00.004-05:00

I finally finished a gift for my friend Kelli. Exactly 1 year late. Here are her monkey socks:

When I picked these back up in the middle of October, I had finished the 2nd repeat of the lace pattern. Once I got past the other two, it was a cinch. Not that the lace pattern was tricky, but it's trickier when you have frequent interruptions and/or yarn grabbers. The yarn is Trekking XXL - who knows what number. The color is pretty, but it would have been just fine in a plain sock.

And this year's gift. The theme was "be nice to yourself" (it was a milestone number) and included lovely bath stuff, a handknit washcloth and Godiva chocolate.

We might need a new washer.

2008-11-11T12:42:00.003-05:00

I was getting my socks and shoes yesterday and saw this!

In my favoritest pair of socks, no less. At first I was afraid that I dropped a stitch, but there were little ends sticking up, like it got chewed up in the washer. Once the girls were put to bed, I tackled it.

First I got some waste yarn and a chibi needle and threaded it through, at the level of where I could find exposed stitch loops. For anyone trying this at home, I recommend using a straight tipped darning needle. Mine have bent tips, which are nice for some things, but not this. I was worried about missing a stitch - it's just an up-down-up-down pattern through the "V" shaped stitches. The hard part was sticking to just one round.

Then, snip, snip, snip. If you're feeling brave, cut close to the waste yarn. If you're feeling like a chicken (like me), give it a little ease and then tink/unravel it to the waste yarn. Thread the DPN through the stitches of what seems like one round, using the waste thread for a guide. I think I picked up all the stitches backward, and there were a few places where I kind of dropped a stitch, so on my first round of knitting, I was careful. The other trouble is that the closest needles I could find were 2.75mm. These were knit on 2.25. On this kind of scale 0.5mm is big.

The green socks are on hold until I finish these. I think I have about 4 rounds, then the toe and done! Just in time. :^)

Is it too late to show Halloween stuff?

2008-11-04T17:43:00.002-05:00

Here are the three monkeys: El is a fairy princess. La is Gabriella from High School Musical and the Monkey is Rorschach from Watchmen. I made El's dress and the Monkey's mask and scarf.

Here's a shot of the dress where you can actually see it. The sparkly stuff was really hard to sew - I probably should have changed to a finer needle. I used bias tape on the hem and then sewed the trim above it. I didn't have enough of the trim to do the whole hem, so I just did the front. Delightfully cheesy. La picked out the trim, buttons, and fabric for the dress. The pattern is Butterick 3772. I made view A. I cut out two of the dress - one in the slinky, one in the shiny. Joined the sides together for each, then when you sew the dress shoulders to the facing, there were three layers - silky, shiny, facing. The hem on the shiny is just pinked with shears. It all came together in an afternoon.

Scarf and hat

2008-10-28T22:07:00.002-04:00

Here are the new scarf and hat, in action. The scarf is a basic sideways garter stitch scarf, the hat is similar to the Garter Stripe Beanie by Terhi Montonen (Mustaa Villaa). It could be a little bigger, but it fits for now.

And here's a picture of El wearing the sweater I knit for her this summer. I need to take one of her in the sweater my aunt knit. It's more pastel-y and her blue eyes really pop when she's wearing it.

And finally, the view from my Grandpa's driveway, if you look away from the road and away from the house (it would be down the road, if the road continued.) The familiar sights of my grandparents' town really looked a lot different in fall colors. I don't know that I've ever been (maybe once?) at this time of year - it looks so much different than June or March or January. A picture like this is now my phone wallpaper.

It's been a while, hunh.

2008-10-27T21:44:00.003-04:00

I really have been working on stuff. I've finished two hats and a scarf. I started another scarf. I've been working on long neglected monkey socks. I went to upstate New York for a long weekend. All sorts of stuff. (one of the hats was an "emergency hat" as in, Eek! The baby is 10 months old now and doesn't have any winter hats! And we're going someplace cold!) Oh, and I put together El's costume and I made some accessories for the monkey's costume (it's foraged - part sewn, part thrifted, part recycled, part "free" medical supplies from auntie). La's costume is from the store. Hers was the first one done. :^)

Here is the hat and scarf set I made for La. I don't think I have pictures of the finished scarf, but they got a fair amount of use at my grandparents'. Frankly, I think both could be better - the hat is a little small and the scarf has some weird mistakes in it. They were hurried and it shows. The end consumer is happy with it though. I'm still on the hook for socks and mittens for her. Phooey. I don't even have finished pictures of these. But this is an in progress shot of the scarf. Will have to go through the house and photograph stuff and come back to this later.

Fun Things to Do with Dad

2008-10-12T22:36:00.002-04:00

The Monkey and La didn't have school last Thursday. El doesn't have school Monday. I'm taking Monday, DH took last Thursday. (I took the Tuesday not long before. La and I went to Disney's Hollywood Studios and rode Toy Story Mania a couple times. It was a 3 on the crowd calendar. Fabulous.) I had promised La, in a weak moment that she could come to work with me Thursday, then DH and I set up the plan. This is the list of fun things that I presented to La....I'm giving it to you all, just in case you are looking for something fun to do on a school day.

Go to the playground at school.
Go to the park.
The library
Lunch with the other parent
Monkey Joes (indoor playplace with big inflatable slides/bouncehouses, etc.)
Go to the movies
Go to Disney World (OK. This isn't on everyone's list.)
Watch the movie from Netflix.
Go Swimming at the Y
Ride bikes
Go fishing

The ended up having fun - they had lunch with me, DH and La went to one movie, the monkey and his friend went to another, they had a squirt gun fight in the morning (La's addition to the list).

I'm hoping my day home with El tomorrow results in a good dent in her Halloween costume and a Girl Scout uniform for La.

On the sewing list

2008-10-02T09:10:00.000-04:00

Someone has co-opted one of my flowery grocery bags to use for toting around a D&D game. . I thought making them flowery would help prevent walk-offs like that. Guess not. So, here we have a grocery bag for everyone else. None for me - I have a whole set already. These follow the Burda Charlie pattern. The brownish-gold and dark green are rip-stop nylon that I got for $1/yard from W*l-M*rt. Unfortunately, one was probably 60" wide and the other was more of a 45", so not quite enough to get 2 bags out of them. But this way the boys can tell theirs apart.

And! An experiment with a 6-gore skirt for La. We'll see how it goes - if it works, if she'll wear it, etc. She was unenthusiastic about it, but it was mostly an exercise for me anyway.

Socks and More Socks!

2008-09-30T08:58:00.000-04:00

I finished some socks. First, these "Life's a Beach" colorway from Cherry Tree Hill. Just a basic 60-stitch stockinette sock, but my best-fitting ones ever. I went down a needle size. Fabulous. Have moved from thinking of them as the "tarnish" socks to the "verdigris" socks, as I've come to like them more. The color is truer in the baseball picture.

Next, I've finished these Lucy socks. They must be medium weight STR. They knit up very quickly. Knitting these, I discovered that El has a "merino problem"- she really likes to touch yarn. These are a little bit wonky, but nice.

I've started knitting these for the monkey. It's Trekking color 20. It sort of reminds me of granite.

Finally, not socks, but from sock yarn. I let El pick between the two skeins of Socks that Rock I had left in my stash. She picked Henpecked. I think this must be lightweight - it's much finer than the Lucy. I'm making her somehting that I've been calling, "something nice to touch." It's a lot like a dishcloth - seed stitch border, stockinette interior.

How is it almost October already?

2008-09-28T08:35:00.002-04:00

Kindergarten is good. High school looks like it'll be good (this is a nice change). The baby room is starting to be a small pond. Soccer is underway. The Boy Scouts are wrapping up their first camp out of the school year - the council camporee. I'm thinking about making this quiche for lunch. Only with broccoli instead of spinach - I couldn't reach it at the store, and adding in some leftover rotisserie chicken. Won't the boys be glad?

The beach blanket for my sister was a big hit. And bringing El to the soccer games, I felt like I needed something to sit on there. Not a folding chair - because of El. She's mobile, and having to wrestle her to stay in my lap didn't sound like that much fun. But she's not big enough for her own chair.

This is the top. Although it doesn't really matter that much, I guess. This is what I'm calling a "no cut" quilt. I took leftovers and never-used, figured out if any of their dimensions matched up at all (like fat quarters usually had one side that was pretty close, and the whole pieces had about the same width) and sewed together stuff that matched. Then when the proportions were all wrong, I sewed stuff on to the other side. I winged it and I think it worked. Then I sewed it into a loop - the green strip of the plaid onto the left edge of the top. Closed up one of the long sides and most of the other, turned it right side out and closed up the small open part. There you have it. It's sort of got a lot to look at - which is pretty entertaining for the 9 month old.

This side is the bottom. The green plaid is two king sized pillow cases from Big Lots that I unsewed, washed, then sewed together. It's hard to find sheets by themselves (new) anymore. My favorite thrift store closed, and am not that great at getting to my less favorite ones. The chickens were just a fat quarter that I liked, the baseball kids were supposed to be for hooded towels quite a while ago (sorry Andy). Most of the others are leftovers from the watercolor quilt.

Sewing gifts

2008-09-07T13:31:00.000-04:00

1. Blankets for new babies. An old coworker (and classmate), another old classmate, and one of my husband's old coworkers. Hunh. 1 boy, 1 girl, 1 TBD. I need to wash them after they've sat out in the house of sick. I hope I can remember who's who.

2. The birthday gift for my sister. I was all set to bring these when we went down for Labor Day weekend, except for the house of sick happened. Now I need to wash them and find a box.

A. Here's the beach blanket top.

B. Here it is put together with the back.

C. Here's a tote to carry it in. Made from the sheet used for the back.

The quilt was made from 8x10 rectangles. The flower print was part of my "heirloom stash" from Grandma Mercier. The tonal greens and blues were just a couple of fat quarter packs from Joann's. The backing fabric is a Lilly Pulitzer queen sized sheet from TJ Maxx. (What says Palm Beach County beach blanket more than Lilly Pulitzer??? ) The finished size is probably equivalent to a lap quilt. Or, about the size of my dad's Mohawk Airlines blanket, which we always took to the beach as kids.

Oh, and I also made a garbage bag for the back seat (of my car) out of some of the leftover sheet. Still have more leftover.

Well....aside from the sickness....

2008-09-04T13:24:00.002-04:00

60% of our household is currently on some sort of antibiotics. There's nothing like getting sick to get you into bed at the time you've been saying you need to go to bed for weeks. It's been kind of an adventure.

I don't have any good reason, but I started some socks last week. I wanted something mindless (um, I have 2 other stockinette projects on the needles), something portable (I have not taken this anywhere and don't even have a knitting bag for it), something new (must be it.)

It's Socks that Rock in Lucy. It was already wound, ready to go. I had forgotten that I wanted to use the Jitterbug next. The cuff is some sort of odd rib pattern that I made up. These are sort of quick and dirty socks. I'm not completely happy with it, but, OTOH, I didn't feel like stopping to look anything up, and I didn't. Sometimes you get what you get.

On a related note, El seems to have a merino problem. So, next up is some sort of blankie in STR Henpecked (she got to pick of the two STR hanks I had in my stash.)

Something neat

2008-09-03T14:33:00.004-04:00

The monkey missed the bus and walked home today. I googled "sidewalk routes" because I had seen some kind of jogging route map-maker somewhere before.

Google Maps can do routes for pedestrians now. Or, it looks like it can do transit maps. Neat stuff.

Scram!

2008-08-21T12:55:00.003-04:00

This was the view today at 9am outside my office building. At that point, Fay was still off the coast of Ormond Beach, having been there since yesterday evening. It's been raining here.

Just went out front. Still is. At a 30 degree angle. The kids are back at school today, after having Tuesday and Wednesday off. (Make up days are Oct 23 and Nov 24. They do not build "hurricane days" into the school calendar.) I'm back in the office. Hopefully the dog is doing OK at home.

Kindergarten: Day One.

2008-08-18T12:22:00.003-04:00

Today was the big day. We dropped El off at daycare, got her situated. Then we went to La's school. Took the ream of copy paper out of her backpack (that I forgot to bring when we went to Meet the Teacher). In the activity center, we found where her class lines up. Then we checked to see if the cafeteria was serving breakfast. Got her through the line, found out her lunch room code number and that she really did have money in her account. Found a spot to sit, she opened up her cheerios and said, "Bye Mom."

The monkey's first day of high school is today. His bus is scheduled to come at 6:35 am. I did not get up and take a picture before he left.

Dinner should be interesting tonight. Lots of stories. We'll see how tomorrow is.

97% more disco

2008-08-08T15:42:00.000-04:00

Have I showed this off with the buttons yet? It's the sweater for El. Buttoned, washed, and stashed away in the drawer of clothes that are still too big. Good stuff. La picked out the buttons. The picture doesn't quite convey the disco quality of the buttons.

Sick Day.

2008-08-06T15:04:00.003-04:00

Turns out it's my turn for strep. Call me 3 of 5. While I'm home waiting for the antibiotics to do their magic...here's what kind of projects we've been up to. Fair warning - some have had more success than others.

1. This one is good so far. Apparently, according to the resident 5 year old, jewelry boxes are decorated with jewels. Who knew? This revelation required a second trip to the craft store. And the project took a totally different turn that I had expected. Technically this one is still a work in progress - I need to line the inside with fabric. So far, though, it's good.

2. This one, not so good. It's a t-shirt and iron-on from the fabric store. I swear to you that I read the directions. I even followed them, until there was no progress, then I struck out on my own and acheived what I'm calling partial success but my daughter, the recipient and Hannah Montana fan, is calling failure. This turned out a little too....um.... "rock and roll" for her. Will try again soon.

3. Found object crafts. (Again. Who knew?) La and her friend found a not so gently used football at the park this weekend. The bladder was oozing out of a broken seam. They decided that it looked like a baby and named it Isabella. Before lunch was over, she had googly eyes. Not long after, she had hair, then a mouth and nose. She's a cutie. Ended up making a nice bed for her out of a box courtesy of target.com, recieving blankets and a doll quilt. She's wearing a Winnie the Pooh onesie that El outgrew. Definitely a success.

4. A new sun hat for El. I'm not as happy with this, and it's my own fault for the mods I made to the pattern. It's too wide (and I made the main part of the hat on about 30% too many stitches compared to the pattern). The crown decreases are dorky (because I tried to do something cool but couldn't figure it out and didn't follow the pattern's nice swirly decreases.) Sometimes that happens. I would knit the pattern again, though. It's a cutie.

Look Mom!

2008-07-18T22:56:00.003-04:00

I Had a Loose Tooth
I had a loose tooth, a wiggly, jiggly loose tooth.
I had a loose tooth, hanging by a thread.
So I pulled my loose tooth, this wiggly, jiggly loose tooth.
And put it 'neath the pillow when I went up to bed.
The fairies took my loose tooth, my wiggly, jiggly loose tooth.
So now I have a nickel and a hole in my head

(This is a song that they sing at the elementary school where the Monkey went and La will go in the fall. Found the words online here: http://www.kinderpond.com/teethunit.html )

And I know I have a super cute picture of the Monkey when he lost his first tooth, but for the life of me, I can't find it on my computer. Frustrating me to no end.

A whole lot of stuff

2008-07-13T09:43:00.003-04:00

1. Here's the latest on the switcheroo - the lights from Ikea are hung and so are the bunting. La seems to really like it. I think the next things are: put the baseboards back in, get the girls book shelf into their room, find something to do with the pretend food until the little kid is out of the crib, and get rid of stuff we don't need anymore.

2. We've been putting the new quilt my Aunt Suzy made for El to good use:

Click the photos to go to the flicker page and see the whole quilt and the back. The back is this fleecy stuff with whales. Very cute and soft.

3. I've made some progress on the sweater for DH. It turns out the 7 year anniversary gift is Wool or Copper. Who knew? This is the body, using 2 hanks of the wool. I've started the first sleeve. It's still lots of fun (in a mindless way). It's Cascade 128, and I'm making the Elizabeth Zimmermann Seamless Saddle Shoulder Pullover (as described in Knitting without Tears).

4. No picture for this, but the Monkey is back from Boy Scout camp. Slightly injured in a mountain biking accident. But none the worse for wear. All the boys seemed taller and bigger and stronger as they climbed off the charter bus. Not sure how that works excatly, but I guess it's OK.

Dude. I know "real" people with blogs.

2008-07-07T21:51:00.005-04:00

It's crazy. My friends from Kindergarten and first grade have blogs.

Steve - my friend from first grade.
Becky - my friend from Kindergarten.

And look - here's Ellie. She has friends who blog too. If you click on the picture of Ellie and Taryn to make it big, and go in to Ellie's face - that's totally a face my mom makes too.

Dude. I need run my yearbook through google.

Bye Rings

2008-07-07T13:16:00.002-04:00

You know what used to be fun? Navigating the knitting web rings. Next, Back, Random. Exploring, finding new and interesting blogs. I felt like I had nice neighbors. Fluffy Knitter Deb (southern knitters ring). Fickle Knitter (scientist knitters ring). Dogged. (knit ring) Something changed at Ringsurf, though, and you could no longer use next and back to navigate through the rings. I emailed them, and the response was that they meant to do that. Their reasoning was that this way, you wouldn't experience broken links. However, it was no longer circular. Web Ring. Circular. You know, like a ring. Not so much anymore. The jury's still out whether I'll rejoin the new incarnation.

IOU

2008-07-03T09:02:00.000-04:00

This is for my sister. I started it on the Friday before her birthday (a week ago). It's going to be a beach blanket. I have a neat pineapple sheet for the back. The flowers are from my collection of Grandma Mercier's fabric. The blue and green semi-solids are from fat quarter bundles at Joann's. The individual squares are 8x10. Should be quick to put together once I finish cutting out the flowers and unearth my sewing machine. (I've post-dated this post because I only sent her the card with IOU on Monday.)

Another Brown Sweater

2008-06-29T09:06:00.002-04:00

Not one of the most photogenic projects. But lots of fun to work on. I'm farther than this in real life - I started the second hank of yarn this weekend. It's a great keeping the girls company while they fall asleep project (when most of my knitting happens these days). It's an EZ Saddle Shoulder Pullover for DH, in Cascade 128, on size 9 or 10 needles (can't remember, but it's the smaller of the suggested sizes on the ball band). I have a couple of 2x2 rib columns going up the armpits for "shaping" purposes.

Finished Stuff For Ellie

2008-06-20T11:47:00.003-04:00

I made some appliqued onesies during my last set of D & D sewing. I think they turned out pretty well. I used cookie cutters for the shapes, Wonder-Under for the fusible web and a zig-zag stitch in the polka-dot color to make sure it stays put. Martha Stewart's siter has some good general directions and a template for a French Bulldog picture. The top row are 18month sized onesies for later and the bottom two are in El's current size.

We took a road trip last weekend to Charlotte. All three kids are very good travelers. The DVD player and a supply of Green Tea Ginger Ale probably didn't hurt anything either. I managed to get both sleeves and both button bands done on El's sweater on the drive up. Now I need to sew on buttons and weave in the ends.

Pattern Notes: I think it's sort of a regular old top-down raglan cardigan. A good baseline is at CosmicPlutoKnits. The ribbing is 3x3. The cuff and hem ribbing is kind of deep. I slipped the first stich on each row and picked them up to make the button band. I may need to stabilize the neck, where the ribbing ends and the stockinette starts.

Yarn and Needles: Size 5 needles, Heavyweight Socks that Rock in Mustang Sally.

Upshot: I am very happy with this sweater and hope that it is cold enough to use at the same time as it fits Ellie.

While in Charlotte, I started a sweater for me out of some Classic Elite Skye Tweed, but frogged it. I'm not sure if it is the yarn-needle combination (earthy, slubby yarn, plastic needles) but it was just uphill all the way. So I cast on for the sweater for DH with Cascade 128 and it's really fun so far. However, just as the other sweater was too small for him, this one may be too big. Hopefully pictures soon.

Knitting and Sewing - Oh My!

2008-06-04T21:48:00.002-04:00

1. I made good on the doll quilt for La. I ran out of white squares that were leftover from Valerie's doll quilt - which explains the middle block. I used some leftover flannel for the back. I think it's probably left over from recieving blankets.

2. I've gone past the pits on the sweater for El. I really like it. And it's worth the purling back to have such nice stockinette. It's wonderful and squooshy and soft and such a rich red. This picture really does not do it justice.

3. Over Memorial Day, the kids got curtains hung up in their rooms.

New curtains for the boy.

Old curtains for the girls.

Blueberries for Breakfast

2008-06-03T22:23:00.002-04:00

We've moved into the world of baby food here. I got a book called, "Blender Baby Food" for Mother's Day. Since then, I've been filling up the freezer with all sorts of goodness. Our collection includes, Peaches, Apples, Blueberries, and Pears for fruits. Peas, Carrots, Sweet Potato, and Green Beans for veggies. There might be more, but I can't think of what. We have squash (frozen) and beets (fresh) to make. I've frozen them in ice cube trays and then dumped them into big ziplocs. Then I send them to school with El. Even after thawing they smell really good. The applesauce would be fab with a little cinnamon on oatmeal. Even cooler, is that most of the veggies were made from frozen (well, not the sweet potatoes).

Friday Night Sewing

2008-05-28T21:54:00.003-04:00

Friday nights, DH and the Monkey go to play D&D. Last Friday, I made it to Joann's for lunch (expensive lunch). Saturday, I went to my niece's birthday party. Coincidence? I think not.

My niece had a gift list going at the toy store. There seemed to be two themes - princess and dolls/mommy. We got her a Fisher Price 3-in-1 high chair (also converts to a baby swing and bassinet) and a set of "magic" bottles. Putting something like this together seemed natural.

I came to an age old quandary: how do you make sure the corners match up. In this case I "squore up" the two segments I had, and one line of boxes is no longer square. But the corners match. Which is more important?

The pink border is an accident that turned into a design decision - It's the pink flower material, but inside out. I have trouble with "Right sides together" when I'm tired. I decided I liked it better because it gives it a softer, springier, more feminine feel and those two pink squares on the right edge and the border are different colors now.

here's the back - I used the flannel that is left over from the PJ pants I made her for Christmas.

I need to make something pretty like this for La now. But in blue, she says.

These summer dresses were "impulse buys" - The fabric was 40% off, and I had just seen a really cute one here. I loved the idea of coordinated, (and tailored to personalities) but not super matchy dresses for cousins close in age. The pink is for my niece and the blue is for La. Hopefully it still fits after it's washed. It was really super simple - I turned up the bottom edge twice, then guestimated how big to make the chest. La had already gone to bed when I remembered that I needed to measure her, so I took the number off of the back of a pattern. And made it a little smaller (seemed like it should have negative ease.) I'm happy to report that both girls wore it right away.

Topics to come: the sweater for El. (now in it's third try). And the curtains are up in both of the kid rooms. Need to remember to photograph.

Easy Come, Easy Go

2008-05-19T22:26:00.002-04:00

I started this sweater for El. It was coming right along.

Then I started the sleeves. And they were fiddly. I can totally see why the directions are set up the way they are, with a seam down the inside of the sleeve (and down the sides of the sweater).

The sleeves, I started working in stockinette in the round. I know how hard it is to get that little girl's thumb through long sleeves and can't imagine it getting any easier this winter. The yarn looked soooo much better in stockinette.

I tried the sweater on El, while still on the needles and it didn't really close well.

I looked in the inside and could see strange pooling. And the lace didn't look great in the varigated colors.

I never really liked how the button holes were (a)I mis-remembered the directions so they were one stitch over from where they should be (b)I forgot to start them when I should (c)there was a third problem but it flew right out of my head.

The sweater is well on it's way to becoming yarn once again. One day it might be a plain stockinette sweater. I'm still debating pullover or cardigan. There are a couple classics in a Debbie Bliss book I have.

New Projects

2008-05-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

Two of them. One for me. One for El.

1. I cut this out Friday night. Haven't had a chance to try sewing it. I figure it's good practice for making a dress for me.

2. El is working on crawling. She will put her head and chest up. Then down and put her back end up. Then down. Then look around like she knew she knows how to do this but can't quite remember how. Then flip herself over and get mad because that's definitely not it. Every once in a while, she gets everything in gear and crawls a couple of steps. It's not the destination. It's the journey.

Fabric Grocery Bags

2008-05-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

I started them here. Eventually, I finished the set, but haven't blogged them yet. They've been in service for probably a month. The verdict? I really like them. They are very easy to overload, though. The baggers at the store seem to approach them with some trepidation. But I have more than enough to hold a week's worth of groceries. They're great for when you find yourself at Costco and need to carry your purchases from the car to the house. Or find that you forgot to bring a bookbag to the library. So, all in all, a thumbs up. And I found a window cling at my groecery store to put on my windshield to help remember to bring them in when I got shopping. I made them out of thrifted sheets and the tend to remind me of when I was a kid and would go trick or treating with a pillowcase to hold my treats.

Middle School Awards Ceremony with a 5 year old

2008-05-13T21:47:00.002-04:00

The Monkey won (earned? recieved?) an award tonight for his scores on the FCAT for the last three years.

We went with the whole family. The Monkey's award was towards the end. Here's what I sat next to:

squirm squirm squirm
wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle
up down up down
shift twist adjust
drop pickup
are we done yet? no?
how much longer?
whisper whisper
flip the seat up and down
fidget fidget
kneel sit back
sit up sit back
stand kneel
when can we be done?
can we go outside?
wiggle wiggle
up and down up and down
squirm squirm
squirm
whisper: now?
man! whisper whisper
sit up sit down kneel
whisper whisper
squirm squirm squirm
wiggle wiggle
up and down up and down
drop blankie
pick up blankie
flip the seat
flip the seat
are we done yet?
find thumb
squirm squirm squirm

Let me just say: (1) The girls did better than I expected. (2)I was very pleased that the monkey earned an award.

It's beginning to look a lot like Popsicle Season

2008-05-06T22:00:00.001-04:00

Well, it has been for a while here. Here's what we've tried so far...They've all been tasty. The measurements are pretty much all improvised. Go for it. What's the worst that can happen? They're popsicles.

1. pureed mango. Peel 1 mango (smallish) per pop. Take the meat off of the pit and throw it into the blender until it's a "smoothie" consistency. Put it in the popsicle molds and freeze. Inspired by Disney's Pass the Plate.

2. mixed berry. Combine One smallish container of produce department prepared berry smoothie mix (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, maybe blackberries) and a good glob of nonfat vanilla yogurt in the blender and blend until smoothie-esque.

3. Strawberry-Limeade. Clean, hull, and split in half a quart-sized container of strawberries. Add to the blender. Add prepared limeade (we used Minute Maid but Simply Limeade would probably be nicer.) Lemonade might be good for this too.

Next up: Orange Juice, Strawberries, and Bananas.

Hey Look! Knitting!

2008-05-05T16:34:00.002-04:00

I finished this sweater for La today. Ends woven in and everything. Well, it needs buttons. But except for that. Now, I think it needs a sundress. And then she'll have a fabulous ensemble for Pre-K graduation.

Here are the deets:

Yarn - Plymouth Encore Worsted (colorspun)
Needle - size 8 circular needle.
Pattern - Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater on Two Needles.
Notes -
1. The numbers/gauge worked out so that the numbers in the book worked for my 5 year old (Babies come in all sizes?).
2. Inspired by this one (Ravelry), and La trying it on when I had just split for the sleeves and her saying she wanted it "just like that". She approved of the one on Ravelry.
3. I went back and read notes from Ashley of Dogged. and Jared of BrooklynTweed for making it more seamless.
4. Once I thought I was finished with the yoke, I ran a lifeline through it, just in case. Then I started the first pattern row: Garter border, First pattern row for 15% of the sts. CO 7, skip the allocated sleeve stitches (20% of the sts), first pattern row for 30% of the sts, CO 7, skip the stitches for the next sleeve, then first pattern row for the other half of the front, garter for the border. wash rinse repeat until it's long enough. Garter stitch bottom edge.
5. For the ruffley sleeves, I ran my needle back through those lifelined sleeve stitches, k1 row, purl one row, k1f&b for all stitches, purl back, k1F&B for all stitches, bind off in purl. Repeat for 2nd sleeve. Purling and binding off those 112 stitches just about killed me. definitely killed any desire to make a "Potato Chip Scarf".
6. I'm not sure that I did the increases in the yoke "right".

Switcheroo Update

2008-05-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

(Hopefully) I recently discovered how to schedule posts. Or you're getting an onslaught of posts. Who knows.

El and La were sick this week. During the 2 hours of torture where I made La go without TV (and El was snoozing), we did some work in her room.

1. We made some room at the foot of her bed. Now you can safely reach the hamper. The "treasure box" (from Ikea) has the dress up clothes. Is it wrong to love the dichotomy of Hannah Montana and the Space Shuttle?

2. We made use of the top shelf of the closet. La got to pick out what stuffed animals to keep. Frankly, she didn't remember that she had lots of them. And we hung up the fairy pictures from her old room.

3. We started to clear out a place for her bookshelf. It'll go in the half of the closet that is behind the crib. The long blue dress you see is an Ao Dai that belonged to their Grandma Ngo (Each of the granddaughters got one). We're going to have to find a new spot for the pretend stove and pretend sink (that my dad built for my sister and I when we were La's age.)

Knitting! Woo-Hoo!

2008-05-02T21:45:00.001-04:00

I have really been knitting lately.

1. I finished up Ellie's socks. I used the same yarn as for my sister's Jaywalkers, back in the day. I used the Baby To Toddler socks pattern, which I've used once before.

2. I made a tribble. A one-day knit. Peaches and Creme dishcloth cotton. I'll probably be making more of these.

3. I cast on a February Baby Sweater (ravelry link) for the 5 year old. I think it'll be quite lovely in this yarn, the yarn La picked out for a sweater for El. I think I'll make El a Febuary sweater too, but out of different yarn. I'm about 2/3 done with the yoke. I was worried that I'd have to do a lot of scaling to get the pattern to work in her size, but the yarn is kind of a heavy worsted (size 8 needle), and so far the numbers in the pattern seem to be working out. We'll see, though, if the yoke ends up being wide enough.

Etsy Finds!

2008-05-01T21:19:00.002-04:00

I've been doing some browsing on etsy. Here are some shirts I found for the girls. El's (the bird onesie) is from Because I'm me. La's is from Roslyn's Closet.

I found a little something for myself too. A little mother's day gift from me to me. These came from RubySapphire, an Orlando outfit who I found through the "shop local" feature. The purple in this is hard to capture. It is Purple with a capital P. The pink stripes is to make socks for Ellie. I was realizing that I don't have any real "girl colored" yarn to make her socks with. (hand on the forehead, Whatever will I do???).