Thursday, November 06, 2008

Back by Popular Demand

:) Well, not really but I do have some photos! I don't think I can string together the words to express all of the busyness that's been going on. We've had chickepox (all three munchkins), potty training (Miss A), homeschooling (officially), and our small business is doing well. There have been wee bits of knitting but I haven't managed to take any photos.




Cute baby smile! Boy, this guy is a sweetie.



Miss A as a caterpillar. We also had to buy a fairy costume to stand in as a butterfly one as my mother kept asking her if she was going to turn into a butterfly. Thanks Mom! :)



However she didn't wear either for our actual Halloween outing.



But JCC was a knight!



We created an alter for Day of the Dead, complete with sugared skulls.



I could totally get into these -- next year I'm doing one all by myself (in Miss A speak.)



Cute pic from the park.

And that's it for another couple of months. . .

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

New Munchkin!



Wee Boy was born at home on Wednesday, August 20th at 7:03am after 3.5 hours of labor. He looks a lot like JCC but with slightly wider spaced eyes.



Being weighed -- 7lbs, 14oz



6 days later

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Blessingway Pics and One Monkey



I can see why people love to make Monkeys! These are super quick to knit and a lot of fun. I thought these were oh so pretty until I asked Chris his opinion and I could tell by the look on his face that he thought they were pretty much the ugliest socks ever. Oh well, not everyone can appreciate very loud striped lace socks. The mate to this one is on hold as I'm working on a vest for the Little Man as my Olympics project.







These three pics are from a Mother's Blessing that my friends threw for me on Saturday. It was lovely and I came out feeling very loved and strong. (I only had to wear the wreath for the pic.)

As I'm sure you can guess, no babe yet. Due date is tomorrow. I'm ready!

Monday, August 04, 2008

New Camera!

My parents gave me some money as a birthday present and I bought myself a lovely new camera. I love it! I was expecting just a little point and shoot for the price, but it also has great SLR settings and video capabilities that I wasn't expecting and it's very easy to navigate the menus. I had been using the first digital camera we bought before the Little Man's birth and it is too large to just carry around in my bag and so I just wasn't getting as many photos as I would like. So to make up for lost time. . .



Dress-up Time



Very Pregnant Mama and Little Girl



Curly Locks



More Dress-up

In knitting land, I had picked up the new Cat Bordhi book and during our Baltimore vacation I made the two little sampler socks that will be for the wee babe. Definitely a fun book and hopefully the little one will get to use them.



Little Sky Socks



Little Coriolis Socks



The June Sock Club offering from Little Turtle Knits. This stuff is exquisite! It actually seems way too nice for socks. Theresa always has great stuff but I think she may have the best sock club around -- each offering includes yarn, a new pattern and something additional. This time it was handmade note cards. If I didn't have a ton of sock yarn from last year's Scout's Swag I'd sign up for a monthly order.



My best belly shot



Goggles!



This summer has been the summer of swimming (the city pool is only a mile away so even my very pregnant self could manage to get us there 4 days a week) and the Little Man has made amazing progress. He went from refusing to get his ears wet to being able to swim! Yesterday he spent close to three hours swimming away at his cousins. He does somersaults under the water, opens his eyes, etc. It's been very cool to watch his progress. His other new interest is playing Chess. Chris and I are both very much amateurs and he's going to surpass us quickly if we don't learn some new moves. I have the chess book by my desk and intend to learn some more today.

We have one more week until the babe's estimated arrival (Little Girl was 9 days late so I won't be holding my breath) and we're ready! All the supplies are assembled (another homebirth), the cloth diapers are washed, and the wee clothes folded.

Monday, June 23, 2008

More Socks!



Exciting, eh? This pair is for me. Very comfy and a better fit than the last (sorry Mom! Hopefully yours fit you well.)



And here's a pair for Miss A. This pic was taken when one was smaller than the other but it's since been frogged and re-done to make an identical pair. She loves them. The yarn is the Felici from KnitPicks and while it's super soft I don't think they'll be long lasting. Still, very pretty and I'll be making myself a pair.

I've also made 4 dischcloths for gifts to the Little Man's Waldorf teachers and others. If there's anyone you can feel not guilty about giving a homemade gift its someone in Waldorf (at least that's how I'm convincing myself that I'm not just being cheap.)

I'm very very tired at this point in the pregnancy (6 weeks to go) so we haven't even being doing our normal running around like crazy. Instead we've been going to the pool in the AM for Little Man's swimming lessons (For a kid who had a lot of sensory issues he's doing great. I didn't expect for him to go under and he did it the second session.) And then visiting lots of storytimes at the local libraries and when I have a bunch of energy, hitting up park days with other young homeschoolers. When I'm not napping in the afternoon we've been doing some more formal lesson-y stuff loosely following the classical model outlined in A Well Trained Mind.

I also have a very part, part-time job doing the administrative part of Chris's web hosting business at http://www.dashCommerce.com. It only takes around 5 hours a week and gives me something to do besides mind small people.

On Wednesday the munchkins and I head to Baltimore for our annual summer visit. We are looking forward to it!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Toe-Up Love





I've never really understood the online knitters' fascination with socks. I've made a few pairs and all of them required me ripping back substantially. However as I do have a few skeins of sock yarn and I needed a Mama's Day present for my Mama, I tried again this time using a toe-up technique. I love it! Minus ripping back the Turkish cast-on a ton of times, the knitting itself was painless. And I love the short-row heel as I also am not a fan of picking up stitches. Since this pair only took one skein I'm now half-way through a pair for myself and I've switched to the much easier Magic Cast-on so no ripping at all.

In baby news, we now only have 11 weeks to go! While I am a little worried about Miss A's transition into a Big Sisterhood, otherwise I am rather unworried about the whole thing. My belly is huge and I feel I can't get much bigger (oh but wait!) even though I know there's still a lot of growing to go. I am in full-on nesting mode and have cleaned out all of the closets and made up a list of all of the things that need fixed around the house. Chris was groaning as I mentioned maybe we could spend his day off today painting things. :)

Saturday, April 19, 2008

It is Done!



Woohoo -- my clapotis is finally finished! It was really only 3 months of work but after a very long hiatus for my aching arm back in the summer/fall. One thing I should have thought of is that if you're knitting in pain you will be knitting much tighter than usual. Unfortunately I didn't notice this until the end, but a little light blocking makes it unnoticeable.

I ended up with only about 4 yards or so left over. I had ripped back the decreases one time already, so this was cutting it awfully close but I do love the end result. It's about 14 inches wide by 65 inches long. I've mostly worn it as a scarf but I have a concert to attend on Wednesday (Feist) and I think I'm going to try wearing it more as a stole over a plain black top. All other project details are here.



This is the Honeycomb Hat from Clara Parkes's The Knitter's Book of Yarn. The yarn is a bulky wool I bought back at the '06 MD Sheep & Wool festival. The colors are my favorite and while I didn't enjoy knitting with it (hard on the hands) I like the finished product. I ended up using the reverse of the honeycomb pattern as I like the painterly effect with the hand-dyed yarn.

I'm slowly, slowly working my way through my festival acquisitions of 2006. Both of the above projects are from yarn bought that spring/summer as well as the mitten/scarf set I made last month. I'm thinking I may crank out a vest for the little boy out of some wool/mohair I also bought that spring. I am trying really hard not to order any linen to make the Aleita Shell as I won't be able to wear it for quite sometime. My belly is getting quite huge.





Small people with their spring haircuts!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Robin Hood


Ravely links:
Mittens
and
Scarf

Dude, knitting with worsted weight yarn is so much more rewarding right now. I whipped up a scarf and mitten combo for a trade with a fellow homeschooler mama for a Robin Hood Costume. As the Little Man and I do not do well with candy, there is no standard Easter basket. Instead the Eoaster Bunny arranges a treasure hunt of sorts for the children. This year Miss A got a tea set, Little Man the costume and they both got modeling beeswax to share. Candy would be ever so much cheaper and easier. Oh well.



She did a great job on the costume! The hat is adorable and has a bright red feather on the side.



Chris's parents bought the children some new clothes (the kids picked them all out) and the Little Man has been walking around as a cross between his Pepaw (my father) and a member of the Young Republicans ever since.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Easy Peasy Projects

In lieu of working on my Clapotis (really should have doubled up the fingering weight yarn) I've been having fun making little things out of my handspun. I joined the Spunky Eclectic's Fiber Club last summer and it's a treat to get a little bag (4oz) of fiber at the end of every month. One of the fun things about the club is that the colors are not ones I'd normally choose but I do like finding uses for them. Every once and a while there's a luxury fiber that comes in smaller amounts and this fall it was a tencel merino blend named Aspen that was just gorgeous. Knowing that 2oz of an aran weight wouldn't make much, I settled on using the Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf stitch pattern for a simple headband.





Next I made the Corrugate Hat from Teva Durham's Loop-d-loop book. I love Teva's patterns even if bulky knits are not the most flattering to a top-heavy figure. I was hoping to make a hat for me but couldn't locate the second ball of yarn that I spun up from the July offering of the above fiber club, so instead it became a hat for the Little Lady. She looks quite cute in it and was in need of a hat that covered her ears. Of course I located the second ball of yarn a bit ago while I was cleaning off my desk.



The Little Man has been begging to knit for years now but just doesn't quite have the fine motor skills quite yet but finally we found some good directions for finger knitting and he had a great time creating this scarf for his dinosaur.



Last week we attended a birthday party where there was face painting. Here's JCC as a lion.

Friday, January 25, 2008


JCC's mittens from here


Trogdor the Burninator! from IK Holiday 07 a present for JCC

Above are some of the fun things I've cranked out over the last month. All in all I don't find pregnancy to be a terribly productive period of life. It reminds me of being 16 (and I hated being a teenager) -- I'm moody, introspective and all I want to do is sleep. About the only thing I find entertaining is a good book and I've been cranking through those this month.

With that in mind, I've really been enjoying a new website. Goodreads is a site where you can track what you're reading as well as see what other people are recommending. The hits for me this month have been Anne Lamott's "Blue Shoe" and Carson McCullers's "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". I'm waiting on some interlibrary loans to come through so I think next up is "Catch 22" or "The Kite Runner".

Other than some work on my Clapotis I haven't done much handwork. I really really need to make the little girl (who is now 2!) a baby book before the next one arrives but I find spreading all of the stuff out to messy for me to handle right now. I also have many months of Spunky Eclectic fiber club to spin but seem to lack the motivation in the evening to do so. I'm almost at the end of the first trimester so hopefully some energy will return soon.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you are having a happy new year. 2007 went by in a flash and 2008 looks to do the same as we are expecting another munchkin in mid to late August! We'll be planning another homebirth and just continuing along with our homeschooling journey until then. I was looking forward to starting a bit more formal program in the fall (ok really I'm just itching to get a math curriculum as I think we'll have a lot of fun with it) but now that may get postponed until we all settle in to the new munchkin. While initially a bit put off by the idea, the Little Man is now excited to have another brother or sister. Carrying on the tradition of giving the gestating name (Miss A was Baby Cashew) he has decided on Baby Butter Crunch for this one. :)



Thanks to the lack of CTS I've been much more productive lately. I finally finished up the Drop Stitch Cardigan that I knitted in 2006. For almost all of 2007 it sat around without a collar and a wonky zipper (even though I installed both multiple times.) Finally I gave up on both and made a tie closure and crocheted around the neckline to finish it off. I've worn it multiple times since finishing it and I love it!



I also finally made a hat to match a cape I picked up while pregnant with Miss A. I've had the yarn for a while but was set on crocheting a pattern that is way beyond my skill set. Deciding I didn't care that much I made the Urchin pattern from Knitty and I am quite content with the results, though I don't look nearly as cute in it as Miss A.



Lastly here's a cute pick of the Little Man in his Joseph Coat. He wears it frequently even if the zipper is starting to loosen and look ridiculous.

For my current knitting I've started Miss Marigold though by the time I finish it I won't be able to fit into it. I've also been cranking out on my Clapotis. It's perfect for football playoffs knitting! Next I need to make the boy some mittens to match his hat and then I'll start on Petal.

Inspired by a brand new notebook gifted by PCR last Christmas, in 2007 I started a book of all the things I wanted to knit, read, do over the year. One of the best habits I formed was keeping a list of all the books I read. Highlights include a variety of cooking inspired books, all the Ruth Reichl ones; Bonnie Wolf's "Talking with My Mouth Full"; and "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell; as well as Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love"; "Fun House" by Alison Bechdel; "Survival of the Sickest" by Sharon Moalem; "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini; "Bankok Haunts" by John Burdett; and lastly "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen. Forgive me for not linking. I'd love it if anyone has some of their favorites to recommend.