Exhaustion.

Today is a full moon and it was in full effect at school today.  The kids were crazy!  Even the ones that are usually calm.  One of the kids in question in a kindergartner with Down's Syndrome.  She is usually pretty good, but today she was in a serious funk.  About the only thing that she would say all day was "NO!"  The kids were all clingy today as well.  I got more hugs today than I normally do in a week!  Oh well...  

I managed to get the baby sweater that I made for the kiddo's teacher to her today.  She is due near the end of next month, but she looks like she is about to pop.  I hope the sweater fits at some point.  It looks a little big for new born, but the baby is due in the spring.  Maybe it will fit this fall.  

Time to get the kiddo off to bed and then my hot water bottle and I are going to spend some quality time with the TV.

The blast of summer

Well, it has been a long time since I posted. It has been a blur this summer. The kiddo finished first grade with flying colors, we spent 2 weeks in the pacific northwest, did football camp and CSI camp, spent a week at the beach in Rhode Island, and now we are getting ready for school to start back up!


The trip to the northwest was wonderful. We got to reconnect with some old friends and make some new ones at Oregon Suzuki Institute. The kiddo had a great time playing and learning with a ton of other Suzuki violin kids. When Institute was over, we went to Mt. Rainier for a couple of days and got to do some hiking and exploring. It was really fun.

We just got back from a week at my aunt and uncle's beach house in Little Compton, Rhode Island. We had a fantastic time. The entire Kelsey family was there... My sister, Aunt Caroline, Uncle Peter, his wife and 2 teenagers, and the 3 of us. We ate good food, swam in the ocean, played bocce on the lawn and collected a lot of rocks on the beach. A good time was had by all.













This week was a momentous week for me. I won first prize at the county fair for my kauni sweater and second prize for a shawl that I made for Ben's mom for Christmas. The prizes were $6 and $4 respectively! Oh, what will I do with my $10?

Knitting for Marines

It has been a big month of knitting around here. I have been the key organizer of a project called Knitting for Marines at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. My hubby is a curator there and so we were able to get access to the museum and so far we have had 2 lovely days of knitting in the main gallery of the museum. The idea is that we get knitter to come in and knit helmet liners for Marine troops stationed overseas. So far we have had pretty good turnout and some great press coverage. Today we had a few folks out knitting we made the local news in Charlotte, NC (more stations may pick up the story as well). As of today, we have 8 completed helmet liners in with lots more on the way. The original goal was to get 100 made in February, but the response has been so great that we are hoping to get 500, enough to supply an entire Marine Battalion. If any of you folks out is cyber space are interested, the info about the project is on the Museum website.

In other string related news, my Kauni sweater has come and gone again. This time I realized that I had not changed needles to the bigger size when I was supposed to so Rip Rip Rip I went last night. Maybe this one will be a keeper!

Yummy new yarn...

I spent my christmas money on something yummy. It came in the mail the other day all the way from the Netherlands! Check out this luscious Kauni yarn. I can't wait to make something totally cool and fair isle with it!




I have already started, and ripped out, and started again with the brown, yellow and green stuff. This yarn is really nifty since the color changes over such a long distance. I am knitting a fair isle sweater with two balls of the same colorway. I started one with the light green and the other with the brown and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I will definitely be ready for fall with that one. I am planning on posting my progress here as we go.

This is it so far...

I have started the two color ribbing for the bottom of a cardigan sweater. I haven't made a sweater with steeks in a really long time, but I don't think it will be too hard to remember how!

So far, I have a 12 stitch steek set for the center of the cardigan. I will use steeks for the armholes and the neck too when I get there. The biggest challenge is going to be figuring out if I want the sleeves to match or not!

I am not sure what I will do with the two other colors. The original idea was to use the blues and tans together for another fair isle sweater but now I am not sure. I was thinking maybe I would do Eunny Jang's Venezia from Interweave Knits (Winter 2006) but I am just not sure... I might be totally burnt out on color work after I finish the first one!

Yesterday was a momentous day for the kiddo. He won the "Character Counts" award at school. This is a really big deal. They give it once a month to the kids who best exemplify that month's character trait. This month it was RESPONSIBILITY and the kiddo got to go to a special ceremony and got a certificate, a silicone bracelet, and a photo with all the other winners that will be in the school lobby for the next month!

Thanksgiving...

Well, the holiday season is in full swing. We spent Thanksgiving at my MIL's house. Dinner was great, the family time was even better. We got to meet the newest cousin, Henry, who flew in from Atlanta with his parents. He was the cutest person at dinner, but also the wiggliest! For the first time in several years, all of my husband's family was in one place. All four brothers and their families and mom was smiling so much her head almost split in half!

We also got a chance to see some more distant cousins on Saturday who have kids around the same age as our kiddo. Everyone convened at our house for a visit, snacks and a lot of playing. It was a blast.

Today we have no obligations at all and it feels so good! We went for a hike in the woods this morning and it felt like fall. Cool air, lots of leaves, great weather for a sweater!

The New Old hat is done...

Here it is in all of its glory!

Now I am on to a cardigan for me made of Manos del Uraguay wool in a groovy brown/golden multi colorway. So far I have ripped out the bottom edge at least 3 times. I think I have settled on a yoke style with a stockinette body (with purls somewhat randomly placed for a bit of texture) and a bit of random garter stitch in the yoke. The idea is from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. Pictures once it looks like something!

It is DONE!

The Jockey Sweater is offically done! It looks great with shark print pajamas too! Now we just have to wait for fall...

An eight on the sleeve, just like Street Sense!

The jockey sweater is progressing. Maybe a couple more days to finish the second sleeve and do the seams. The kiddo really likes the 8 on the sleeve. He tells me that he wanted an eight because that is what Street Sense's rider had in the Kentucky Derby. I can only assume that it is true since I am not willing to go searching for the answer!

It will really look great once the seams are in! I can't wait until this fall so he can actually wear it! Of course, the fact that it was 93 degrees and 85% humidity today makes me wish for fall that much harder...

My Lorna's laces socks are not getting too much work done lately, they are mostly a car project and I have been doing most of the driving the last week or so. Someday soon they will have toes! I like the yarn though... It is a colorway called Pioneer, but I think it looks like peanut butter cups!

The kiddo cooks!

We went to see Ratatouille over the weekend and ever since, the kiddo has wanted to cook things. He has a great kids cookbook "Pretend Soup" by Molly Katzen and today he was reading it before breakfast and found this recipe:

Bagel Faces!

The actual recipe calls for things like bell peppers and olives and cherry tomatoes, but this fruit version was a big breakfast hit! Strawberries for eyes and nose, peach slices for mouth and eyebrows! He even ate the whole thing! Of course, my thought about it was what would my vegetarian friend who will only eat food without a face think of this...

The Jockey sweater is still rolling along. One sleeve is done, and the 8 is stitched on in duplicate stitch. The other sleeve is about half way there. I finished the hand dyed socks that were made with the really cool blue, purple and teal handdyed yarn on the Oregon trip so, of course, I had to buy more sock yarn. I got 3 pairs worth of Lorna's Laces Shephard Sock at the shop where I used to work and stared the first pair on the trip. They are brown and tan and look like peanut butter cups! So far I like them a lot. I will post pictures tomorrow! I want to get a pic of the kiddo with the mostly done sweater on.

Look, ma... No Sleeves!

The bodice is done and all it needs now are sleeves!

Today was a fun day. The kiddo and I packed up and went to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. for the day. We saw lots of cool creatures (yes, even the pandas were out in force today!) The best one was the octopus. It was just finishing with it's feeding when we arrived and that was a very active octopus. It had finished extracting it's own meal from a PVC pipe that the keepers hid it in and was schemeing for the fish that belonged to the anemone that was it's tank mate. It was flashing colors and changing the texture of its skin and sending tentacles out every which way. It was soooo cool!

Tomorrow is the big pack. The kiddo and I leave Saturday morning for a week of Suzuki Violin camp in Oregon, followed by a week of fun after daddy joins us. We will have 4th of July on top of Mt. Hood. It should be a great trip, and be a chance to catch up with old friends and neighbors while we are there. The challenge is packing for the two of us for two weeks, some hot, some cold, some wet, some dry, in one oversized suitcase. We also have to get one small violin through 2 airports as a carry-on item! We have done it before and I am sure that we will do it again!

The Jockey progresses

I am almost done with the back of the jockey sweater. The kiddo has decided that he wants the number 8 on the sleeves so I worked out a chart for that since it won't be long before I am on to the sleeves.

The jockey sweater has a front...

The front is done... Disregard the weird whiteish stripe going up the left side. That is just a piece of waste yarn marking off 5 row increments so I could count easier!

The back is started and the kiddo has decided that he wants to have the number 8 on the sleeves. There was actually a jockey wearing a shirt with a pattern remarkably like this in the Belmont Stakes this weekend! His was red and white, but same idea...

Progress... And a new name

Before the rip out, the kiddo decided that he wanted quadrants of the two greens and numbers on the sleeve so it would look like a jockey shirt. I think it sounds good, so no more green monster... hello Jockey in Green! The rework is going well. I have a couple of inches finished and will have it back to 14 inches in no time!

School is winding down for the kiddo. Only 7 days left! Our neighborhood has a big last day of school party for all the kids and we all pitch in to rent a moon bounce and order pizzas and stuff. It should be fun! My mom will be here to join in the revelry too.

The sad demise of the green monster...

Well, I had about 14 inches of the back of the green monster finished when I decided that I had better write down what I was doing. In the process of writing, I counted the stitches on the needle (apparently for the first time) and discovered that instead of 90, I had 96! Oops! Upon measuring the width of the piece, I discovered that it was 18" wide. The kiddo is a skinny little beast so a 36" sweater would be WAY TOO BIG!!! Plus, I would probably run out of yarn with the darn thing that big. SOOO, out come the needles and the ripping process began. Thirty minutes later I had 2 balls of yarn and no sweater in sight. I cast on the correct number of stitches (I actually counted this time, TWICE!) and now I have about an inch complete instead of the the 14 inches that I had before. Ripping out good work sucks, but not as much as making a sweater with one short sleeve because you ran out of yarn at that point!

The green monster

Well, this one is called the green monster. Of course, every kid will be jealous of it... The kiddo dyed the yarn himself in Kelly Green Wilton Icing Color. He told me that he didn't want stripes. I suggested half and half on the front, he countered with quadrants so it would look like a jockey (he really got into the Kentucky Derby). He even wants me to put numbers on the sleeves. You never know!

I also finished the blue and green socks for the kiddo this week. They look good and he likes them...

Introducing... The cardigan...

It is all finished! I finished tucking in all the loose ends last night while watching Grey's Anatomy (a guilty pleasure...) The knitting gods must be smiling because today it is 55 degrees out and a perfect day for a cotton cardigan! The fit is just right although I suspect that the sleeves are a bit too long. We will have to see how it does after a washing or two!

Of course, the big question is... What next?

Dye Job!

Today we dyed the wool from KnitPicks. Here is the kiddo's green in the dye pot... It almost looks like we are boiling up a muppet!Here is some lighter green in the bucket after the dye pot... The goal is to knit a striped sweater with two shades of green for the upcoming winter.
This is my sock yarn working in the crockpot. I love this blue!!! I can't wait to start knitting this stuff up!
The finished product hanging up to dry in the shower. Look at those shades!

And... The cardigan as it progresses. Look... It has sleeves!

Last night I finished the first sleeve for the striped cardigan... I it looks really long compared to the body of the sweater. I think I will knit up the second sleeve and assess how much yarn remains, then decide if the body needs to be longer. I don't want to end up with a bolero jacket! I also don't want to run out of yarn before I finish the top! Ah, the delicate balancing act... I am pretty sure that I am going to have plenty of yarn because I almost always over estimate how much I will need by a significant margin!

After I finish this one, I think I am going to work on designing something to make with the absolutely wonderful homespun that my friend Cindy gave me last summer. It is beautiful natural brown wool from her sheep and it is fine and soft too! I want to make something really special out of it because this yarn deserves to be worn a lot! I think there will be lots of swatches in my future...

More playing with plastic...

Well, the crocheted plastic bags were working pretty well, but I am really a knitter at heart so I switched to pointy sticks. I started with the basic Booga Bag, although slightly downsized for experimentation sake. I am not sure what I will do for handles on this one... Here is the progress so far:






I have switched methods of cutting up the bags and this way works much better. I fold the bags into quarters longwise and then slice the bags into strips. I take the resulting rings and link them together to form a 2-ply "yarn" to work with. The strips are only about 3/4 to 1 inch wide and the result knits up quite well on big needles. Of course, none of this helps keep my husband from looking at me like he thinks I am crazy!

I have also been working on my cardigan. It is a totally made up design in Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. The colors in the photo are a bit off. They are really Lentil and Sea. The Lentil reminds me of my friend Karol who LOVES the icky greens! I have the bottom half of the bodice done and most of one sleeve so far. This is how it looks right now...

I like this one and am going to make raglan sleeves so the stripes can continue uninterupted for the top. I figured that drop or set in sleeves would look to perpedicular to me! Eventually it will have a button placket made of the blue yarn. I think it will be a perfect fall sweater!

I also realized that I haven't posted the DONE photo of the Alice Starmore sweater that I finished last month. It is very cozy and fits just beautifully. This one is made in Cleckheaton Country 8-ply, my favorite sweater yarn of all...

The kiddo took the picture, but he did a great job of getting the sweater in the frame!

On a totally non-knitting note, Sunday was our first trip to the local farmers market. It was a beautiful day and there were quite a few folks out. We bought some herb plants... Basil to replace the ones that were burnt by frost a couple of weeks ago, a lemon thyme, cilantro. The kiddo picked out some cucumber starts. He loves the cukes! I am going to wait until next week for tomatoes. This time I didn't see any good heirloom starts, mostly hybrids and not a single cherry tomato plant! The good news is that we found eggs, a guy who makes rightous tortellini, local honey, and a really delicious carrot loaf. Next week we will visit the meat guy who has organic meat, including buffalo and goat! Unfortunately there were no cheese vendors this time...

A sweater takes shape...

I have been working on a new sweater for myself for the last week or so. So far I have about 9 inches of the body done. It is Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in blue, sort of a split pea soup color, and terracotta. I am doing big bands of the blue and pea soup with small purl ridges between the sets of stripes. So far I really like it. The blue and pea soup yarn were ebay finds, so I hope I won't run out... I am working the entire body at once on a large circular needle, back and forth since it will be a cardigan. I think I will do raglan sleeves since I really liked how they turned out in the kiddo's sweater (see first post for picture). The stripes are made of a garter stitch rib that looks really great in the cotton and adds a bit of depth to the project.

So far the only trauma that I have experienced is that I broke one of the wires for my Denise needles last night. Now I have to mail it in for a replacement! I do love the Denise needles though... I have used them for about 3 years now and they are so nice to work with. The tips are sharp, the plastic hard and smooth, and the convenience is unbeatable.

Tomorrow we will work on i-cord projects. The kiddo is definitely as string boy. Today he sewed on plastic canvas for at least an hour!