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!

Happy 2008!

Well, the holidays have come and gone... Santa was good to the kiddo (as were grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles!) The slot cars have been a blast. We have spent countless hours racing around the basement! We got a new digital camera, which I love, and an iPod that I have been loading with all of our CDs so we can listen to music more easily. (The CDs currently live in the storage part of the basement and are bit difficult to get to!)

The down side of the holiday season has been dreaded disease! We have all been stricken, myself seemingly worse than anyone else, with a horrible upper respiriatory virus. It hit the kiddo for a couple of days before the holiday and then he was fine. My husband and sister both got it just in time for the Christmas festivities, then I got it 2 days after Christmas. Mostly it consists of a very painful sore throat and lots of sinus goop. I just hope it clears up soon! I am supposed to go to St. Louis for my other sister's wedding on Friday so I have a lot of getting better to do in just a couple of days!

The kiddo went back to school today and was a bit sad that break is over. He did not really want to leave my side this morning at school, but he took a deep breath and walked right in. It was a bit sad for me too. It was really nice having everyone home for a week!

Christmas time is here...

Well, all the holiday knitting is done, save one mitten thumb. Ah, the joy of accomplishment. Of course I still have to wrap everything. At least the big thing is done. I made a large shawl for my MIL and it is done! It is not dry, but it is DONE! It is the Muir from the fall issue of Knitty.com. I love it! It will be dry soon!

The letter to Santa went out in the mail today. The kiddo asked for slot cars, a stuffed indian and a storm trooper. I miss the days when all he wanted was a new violin and some gummy worms, but I think that DADDY will love the slot cars almost as much as the kiddo! My sister is coming to visit for the holiday and that will be great. I don't get to see nearly enough of her and it is nice that she gets to stay for almost a week!

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 amazing SOAP-MAN!!!

Well, it has been a while since the last post. Our house has been consumed with costumes for Halloween, and just for fun, but mostly we have been enjoying the continuing adventures of Soap-Man! Soap-Man is a superhero straight from the kiddo's imagination. He wears a white suit with a hood, shoots out soap and bubbles at his enemies, and is generally a great guy to have around. Since the sewing machine was out for costume projects, we figured why not make a "real" Soap-Man...

The kiddo designed him, I sewed him and we both worked on the decoration (that is sharpie marker on white muslin!) Soap-Man is very snuggly, but not particularly soapy in fact. He has been sleeping with the kiddo every night this week...

Speaking of knights... For Halloween, we had an appearance of St. George, the dragon slayer! The costume was fun to make and the kiddo loved showing off his dragon. Thank heaven Ikea had such cool dragons! He had a blast trick-or-treating in this one!

At school the assignment for Halloween was to recite a nursery rhyme and the kiddo was assigned:

Dickory, dickory dare,
The pig flew up in the air,
The man in brown,
Soon brought him down,
Dickory, dickory dare.

The kids had to have costumes to accompany their rhyme, so we have the pig!

All in all, Halloween was a raging sucess at our house. The kiddo had fun, we have enough candy to last us until next year (almost 3 1/2 pounds!), and we have some great dress up costumes to play with too!

As Soap-Man says when confronted with evil: Lather! Rinse! Repeat!