Nice Weekend

We’ve had some wonderful weather this weekend. Soo, I dragged Rudy and Dax out to Rockledge Gardens Nursery yesterday. I really love going there and just walking around all the plants. But this time we also made some purchases. We got a blueberry bush and some flowers. They’re still in their pots right now. I keep moving them around the yard to try and decide where the best place is to put them. With all the trees we have put in the yard it’s beginning to become hard to find a good old sunny spot.

Rohan seems to really like Dax’s roses she picked out. I kept trying to make him aware that there are thorns on the bush but he kept sticking his nose in them any way.

He looks curious doesn’t he? I don’t know if you can see it in the picture but his whiskers are all perked up. He spent most of the weekend chasing lizards and squirrels. Maybe he thinks there’s lizards in the roses.

Other than playing with plants I spent a good bit of time sitting outside knitting. I want to thank you for the comments on which socks I should knit. I finally decided which sock to do.

I decided to knit Chuck’s Cabled socks,



And Bayerische.


How’s that for being decisive? Now let’s see if I can finish at least one of them before the deadline.

Have a great week.

Forever socks

Finally I finished these socks.
I made them for my mom. I have started to refer to these socks as the forever socks, because it felt like it took me forever to finish them.
Yarn: Tofutsies
Needles: Size 2
Pattern: Pomatomus.

For my next project I am thinking about knitting Eunny Jang’s Bayerische socks for the Febuaray sockdown on Ravelry’s Sock Knitter’s Anonymous group. It’s either that one of her Chuck’s Cabled socks. I like them both. I’m on the fence for either one. What do you think, which do you like better?


We also had a celebration this past week. Guess who turned 15?
Yep we celebrated Tyde’s 15 birthday. Time sure does fly. He now stands taller than me but not quite as tall as Rudy.

And, here is proof that you can still get a 15 yo to smile on Dumbo.
Ok, I think his aunt’s antics is what got the smile but we have photo proof that it can happen.

Jan

Wow, January sure did go by fast for me. I was hoping to have not 1, not 2, but 3 projects done this month.

Here’s project 1.
Umm, not done, but close, veerrrry close.

Here’s project 2.
Umm, I had some collar issues so not done either, but oh so close.

Here’s project 3.
Yeah done, but the designated wearer does not like it and has a slight request. She wants me to lower the bodice. To do this I will have to take it all apart re-cut a new bodice and then put it back together again. Umm this one might not be done till 09.

On the up side I’m almost done with project 1 and 2. So I should have a good start for February.

Also if you didn’t notice I’ve been playing with photoshop. That software can do some really interesting things to pictures. Dax is lucky I didn't make her shirt totally neon :).

Have a great week!

fetching

Remember the purple stuff. It’s the purple roving that went back and forth between my sister and me. The last time I saw it I had finally spun it and sent it to my sister. Well, some of it has made its way back to me. For Christmas my sister gave me these.


It’s the purple stuff all knitted up as fetching, pattern is on knitty.com.


Thank you Cyndi for making these for me, I love them!

We're Back

I bet you didn’t know we left. Actually we have been back since Monday but I’ve been so busy trying to catch up that I haven’t had time to post. I took Tyde and Dax with me to meet up with my sister’s family for the Disney marathon weekend. The plan was for my sister and I to do the marathon, but we didn’t.

My sister has been my running buddy for every marathon I have done. I’ve lost track but I think we have done 6 full and 2 halves together, one of those half’s she did the full and I did the half. About two months ago my sister found out that she has some major knee problems. The Dr’s are telling her she is going to need a knee replacement but because she is considered too young for this she needs to make what she has last longer, which means no more long runs. Due to my lack of training and my lack of motivation to do a marathon without her I decided to pass my numbers to Rudy. Of course he had to run without the chip time. To run as a 40 something female would have put him on the podium. For those family members who try and keep up with his times he finished in 3hr10min.


Even though we didn’t do the marathon we went anyway. Sam and the kids did the 5k at Animal Kingdom. Then we spent the rest of the weekend visiting the theme parks. I made zebra hats for the 5k and my sister made some awesome tie dye shirts. The center has the shape of a Mickey Mouse head on them. She found directions on the internet for the tie dye shirts. Here’s a link for directions. I would like to try doing this in the future but maybe use some kind of other shape for the main focus, maybe a dragon, unicorn or fairy or something.



I hope everybody has a great weekend!

Cold

In the middle of the night, actually it was early in the morning around 4:00 a.m., I smelled something that didn’t smell right. It woke me up out of my deep sleep. My eyes popped open and I immediately said “something is burning.” Rudy must have been still asleep because he did not respond. So, I got up and started walking around looking for the source. I was trying to be quiet but Rohan was following me around. I don’t think a dog knows how to be quiet. Just the thump of his happy tail on every wall, floor chair is enough to wake up the whole household but I was on a mission, I wanted to know what was burning. I checked the oven it was off. I checked the computer. We once had a fan expire and something melted in the computer and it smelled bad but it wasn’t the computer. I walked in every room trying to pin point the smell and couldn’t. Finally I gave up and went back to bed. Of course Rudy was awake by then. I’m going to blame it on the dog for waking him up. Since he now comprehended what I was saying I once again said, “something smells like it is burning.” He then replied, “ it’s the heater”. “They all smell a little funny when they first kick in”.

Oh, duh.

We have officially used the heater in the house.

Cheers

Happy New Year!
I hope everybody has a happy, healthy year to come!

Rohan hopes you have a year full of big, juicy bones.


If you haven’t already seen it then go check out Duirwaigh “A knock at the Door.” A nice slide show to help start the year. If you have already seen it then go see it again. If your like me you will enjoy watching it over again.

Gifts

Here are some gifts I wanted to share with you. One is beautiful and the other just surprised the heck out of me. I love them both.

This one is from my mother-in-law. It’s a sheep quilt that she made. It is so soft.


Some close ups of the sheep.

Aren't they cute? The flowers are little buttons.




Here is the gift that surprised me.


It is from Rudy. One of the reasons this surprised me is because Rudy has shown no interest at all in my spinning or knitting. I didn’t even think he knew what a drum carder was. I quickly thought my sister must have helped him out on this gift but when I asked her she said no. He must be paying more attention than I thought :).

One of Tyde’s friends was over and saw the drum carder sitting on the table. He ran up to it and said, “Oh, cool, this looks dangerous.” I think I better put it away some where when he is over.

Stockings

I figured I better post about Christmas before the year is over. We had a great Christmas and your not going to believe what I got as a gift but I’ll save that for another post.

This one is about the stockings. I will remember this Christmas as the Christmas of the stockings. It started when I wanted to give a little something to all my co-workers at school. I wasn’t sure exactly how many there are but I thought 40 was a good number. I was thinking of making some kind of felted ornament, maybe a sheep but then I saw these while looking for ideas. It came complete with a (PDF) pattern. I thought great, I don’t have to think about it that much, all I have to do is follow the pattern.

It took longer than I expected. I ended up making mine a little bigger so I could stuff candy in them. This took a little time to tweak. I also started off hand sewing them but quickly realized that I wanted to be done before the New Year so started machine sewing them. The hand sewn ones did look better but I was beginning to get in a time crunch. I finished them the morning before the last day of school, whew.


After getting those done I was about to go into relax mode, but then noticed the kids stockings got ruined from being neglected in storage over the years. So on Christmas Eve I got it into my head that we all needed new stockings. Into the fabric stash I went and managed to come up with these.


I had used a pattern that my sister in law’s mother gave me several years ago. I couldn’t find the pattern but kind of remembered how it went.
After making Rudy’s I started running out of fabric remnants that had a Christmas theme so Dax’s has more of a fairy theme. The sayings on it says things like dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, never stop dreaming and love like you have never been hurt. I’m not sure where the quotes originated; one source I’ve heard is Mark Twain.


Tyde’s was the last one I made. I was really getting burned out by the time I got to his. I didn’t think I would have enough green fabric so started cutting the red fabric in much bigger strips. This was also less time consuming because I didn’t have to sew as much. He likes surfing so the fabric I used with his has sayings on it like, checking out the waves, shoot the curl etc.


When it came time to making myself one I decided it could wait till next year.
I hope everybody had or is still having a wonderful holiday break.

Random catch up

It’s getting a little busy right now so I’m just going to do a random catch up on what’s been going on around here.

We have received the box from the Hawaiian side of the family. Thank you very much! Amazingly the first three boxes of candy are already gone. Well maybe not so amazing when you think about there is a 12 yo, a 14 yo, their friends, Rudy and ah, me all feeding off it. I hid what was left so we could have some for another day.


My sister’s family came into town last weekend and what did we do. We went to Ikea. Boy was it crowded. I can honestly say I do not like Orlando traffic.
We did get some much needed shelves for Dax and a much needed loft bed for Tyde. Rudy had to cut the bed posts down a little bit because it was to high for our ceilings.



I currently have a major sore throat. I’m hoping it’s from the red tide and will disappear when the red tide leaves (whenever that will be). But I have a feeling I’m coming down with something. I shouldn’t complain, I work around 400 children and have not caught anything, until now.

I’m working on a project (gift) that I’m not loving. I love the yarn and I love the pattern but I don’t think they go well together. Regardless I’ve decided to finish it.

I’m so terribly behind on reading blogs, what’s new.

I have to work over the holiday break. It’s bittersweet. On the one side I’d rather be home with everybody else but on the other side I will be able to get so much done. The school is starting a new system using lexile numbers and reading counts tests. All 10,000 plus books have to be re-labeled. It is so hard for me to re-label the books and try to keep up with the kids so this will be my chance to get it done while school is out.

On a bad note, somebody stole Dax’s bike over Thanksgiving break. I was hoping to use Christmas to replace it but I couldn’t stand the drive to school to pick them up. Sitting in traffic is not where I want to spend my time, not to mention how much gas my truck sucks up. So we have already got her another one. I guess that would be a good note for Dax. She got a new bike. Although she says she doesn’t like it as much as the other one.

Dax and I participated in the 5k reindeer run. She finished about 3 minutes ahead of me. We also went to see the movie Enchanted, it was cute.

I just read about Terry Pratchett the author having Alzheimer’s. I haven’t read many of his books but the ones I’ve read I’ve really loved.

Dax’s class at school is doing a knitting project. I think it’s the coolest thing. Every 7th grader is supposed to knit a 7”x9” square and then they are piecing it together to make blankets for the homeless.

We went to the winter concert to listen to Dax play in the school orchestra.
This is probably the best picture I got of her. I had to play with it a good bit so she didn't look like just a shadow.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Go Rudy Go

Rudy participated in the space coast marathon today and managed to bring home a plaque.


He finished second in his age group.

Our long weekend is coming to a close and boy did I enjoy it. We all had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. I can tell you I really needed that break.

Ruffle jacket

The ruffled jacket is finished, yeah. I did frog it and redo the cables. I can honestly say that next time I will just leave it. It didn’t make that big of a difference.


So here are the specs.
Pattern: Ruffled Jacket from Vogue Knitting magazine Fall 2007
Needle size: US size 10 (6mm) 24” Addi turbo cables


Yarn: Elsebeth lavold chunky AL 50% Alpaca, 50% wool


Modifications: Other then fixing the correction on the pattern not much. I did have to do another section for the ruffled bell pattern that borders the sweater. I had to cast on another 231 stitches to have enough to go around. Here's a picture showing how short I was of the border reaching all the way around.


I also knitted the front and back in the round. There was a lot of seaming in this sweater. In addition to the usual seaming at the sleeves and shoulder, you have to also seam the cable border on and then the ruffled bell border. A button on the front might be nice to have to. All in all I am very pleased with the sweater and I think I will get a lot of use out of it.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

costume

Dax wanted to be Elizabeth Swan as a pirate this year for Halloween. Here is a picture of the costume used for the movie.


This is what we ended up with.


We used a combination of simplicity pattern 0527 and Simplicity pattern 0627. There were a lot of modifications done. The 0527 pattern was a children’s pattern and it was a little too small. The 0627 was an adult pattern and it was too big.

For the shirt I used the adult pattern. Since the arm length was already long I did not add the cuff per the pattern directions and just gathered up what was already there. The v in the neck was also to low so I cut it a considerable amount less.

The adult pattern was also used for the pants, but I did not use the elastic waist band. I had to cut the size down a good bit because they were to baggy then I used darts to pull in the waist and used a button down fly. I should have taken the leg part of the pants in more because they are still a good bit baggy in that area.


The vest was from the children’s pattern. The length was fine but I had to add a little bit to the width. I also changed the tab on the back to lace up instead of button. I used buttons that you cover with fabric. I have never used these kinds of buttons and was very impressed with them. I got mine at Hancock fabrics but saw that wal-mart sells them to. Here is a picture of the buttons I’m talking about. Dax also wore the vest to school for homecoming week. They are the Minutemen and it tied into the theme very well.



The adult pattern was used for the coat. I had to take in the sleeves a good bit and did not add the cuff part of the sleeves. I also did not add any buttons to the coat. I didn’t have buttons in the stash for this project and it wasn’t in the budget to buy more buttons. I thought the braiding did a good job at hiding the fact that there are no buttons.

The boots are from the children’s pattern. The boots was one of the few things that we didn’t alter very much. The only change we did was that we tacked the boots down to some old flip flops so they wouldn’t shift around on the feet. We used the directions from here to make the hat. We took a buckle off an old belt for the belt that holds the sword and just cut some scrap upholstery fabric to fit the buckle. The sword is a rubber sword we picked up from wal-mart.

Most of the fabric came from my stash. We had to buy the braid for the coat, the sword, the fabric for the boots and buttons for the vest.

Tyde was a dementor and did not want to pose for me. His costume was pretty easy. It was basically a black hooded sheet that was ripped up.

Rohan didn't want to be left out of the picture taken so here he is showing he can be a pirate to.



Take what you can give nothing back.


Arrrrrrrr
I'm going to try and catch up on reading blogs now. I hope everybody has a great week.

Well Duh.

Why, why, why didn’t I stop when I knew that it wasn’t right? I guess it was just too much of a thrill to put my stick in the loop, add a loop, pull it through and just watch it grow. If you haven’t guessed yet I found a correction to the cable pattern that runs up the middle of the ruffled jacket on ravelry. This correction comes from Veronique on Ravelry or in the blog world Tres Chic Veronique .

Look at how far I have gotten with the funky cables.


I should have listened to myself when I thought it looked “not right”. Sophia left a comment on what might fix it. But, I thought I’ve gone this far I’ll just keep going. I don’t know why I didn’t sit it aside and just wait for somebody with more knowledge on cables to “correct” the pattern. I’m going to take the corrections that Veronique has given for the pattern and make a swatch. If it looks right, which I know it will, I’m going to rip back what I have and start over again. I’m just a little miffed at my own stubbornness, stupidity or maybe I should call it state of denial.

Hopefully I’ll get that same thrilling feeling the second time around. I probably will not but my state of denial might get me through it.

On the upside, which is also a duh moment because I should have figured this out a long time ago, I managed to set the halo scan to send comments directly to my e-mail, no more cutting and pasting for me.

New Look 6705

It’s time to start Halloween costumes. So I decided to finish the sewing project I had sitting on the machine. It’s a shirt from New Look pattern 6705. This is what the pattern cover looks like.


This is what I got.


I had a hard time with front yoke. I cut it to my size but the top part at the neck would buckle out. I assumed it was because I had made it too big. So, I took it apart and cut it down a size and it still buckled out. Finally I just folded the part that buckled and pinned it down. I took it apart again to re-cut a new yoke using the pinned down top yoke as a pattern and walla no buckle. For those who are making this shirt it was pattern piece #1 the yoke front that gave me such a hard time. I also did not put the tie straps on it. Actually I did but ended up taking them out to because they didn’t seem to pull the shirt in around the waist. This shirt would be nice for someone who does not want a shirt to cling to the waist area. It’s not one of my favorite shirts but I’ll wear it here and there.

Now I can move on to Halloween costumes. I hope everybody has a good weekend.

Dish Rag Tag

The running ragged team should get an award for perseverance. Even though we may have came in last place we at least finished. Well as long as the package doesn't get lost again. The box got lost one person before my tag. I was beginning to think it would never make it to me. But then, on Saturday I found this in my mailbox.



Thank you Jannett for all the goodies! The rag is beautiful, the caramel bites were delicious and I'll get good use out of the note cards and pocket pics book.

I immediately started working on my rag to send to the finish line. Jannett had sent some pretty pink yarn and some variegated yarn. I really liked the rich colors in the variegated yarn and decided to use it.



I wanted to keep it simple and stick to just making a square rag. Then I saw a cool looking stitch pattern at Yarn over Manhattan's blog. I just love how you can find great inspiration from other people's knitting on the internet. She called it the 2-Colour Star Stitch Pattern from a book I didn't have so I looked in some books that I did have and found a stitch pattern that looked similar. It's the daisy stitch from Vogue Knitting Stichionary book.

A big thank you to Emily for hosting the Dish Rag Tag. It was exciting waiting for the box and trying to decide what to knit for the rag. The box alone was really cute. Everybody that got the box left little messages and stickers on it.

Plant

Oh I wish I had some nice progress pictures of knitting, but I don’t.
Instead I have some plant pictures for you. Can you guess what kind of plant this is?


When I saw it at this stage I started thinking it might be one of those bug eating plants.

Ok Here it is in full fruit so to say.


It’s a cotton plant that Dax brought home from school at the end of May. I thought I had killed it. It came home in this little container in about ½ inch of dirt, all nice and green and perky. I transplanted it into a bigger pot and it’s leaves started turning red and falling off. As a last ditch effort I gave it some miracle grow and wow it miraculously grew. (I guess that stuff really does work). It currently has about 10 more blooms on it. I’m also beginning to refer to it as the cotton tree. It looks like it is developing bark at the base of it and stands about 3 1/2 feet tall.

For a recap of last weekend, I did make it to the fiber in. Unfortunately I didn’t get to stay long, but I did get a chance to see one of the demos that was presented. It was hairpin lace. Both the carnival cardi wrap and the seafoam wrap skirt from interweave crochet magazine uses this technique. I really enjoyed the demo and maybe one day I’ll actually use it. I wanted to see the kumihimo (Japanese) braiding demonstration but didn’t have time.

Dax’s soccer game was a hot one. The team this season has yet to win a game. Somebody decided that the team needed to be moved up to a more competitive league. It was actually a good move for them. If they had stayed in the league they were in they would be still winning all their games but not having to really work for it. They are learning so much by playing these tougher teams and I think in time they will be able to start winning some games. Probably not this season but maybe next. Today is my day to bring half time snacks. I want to bring them some of those gu packages that Rudy uses when he does marathons but I don’t think they will like them. I probably should stick with fruit.

I hope everybody has a great week.

First I want to thank everybody for their nice comments. I really do appreciate it. I have to admit I haven’t been keeping up with e-mails and blogs like I have in the past but I’m hoping to catch back up soon.

I’ve casted on a new knitting project. It’s from the Fall 2007 Vogue Knitting magazine. The pattern is called Ruffled Jacket. The yarn I’m using for it is called elisebeth lavold chunky AL, and I love it. It is oh so soft, 50% alpaca, 50 % wool. I used some birthday money to get it at Webs. It was on closeout and I hope I have enough of it to finish this project.


I'm not so sure about the cable pattern that runs up the middle. Something about it looks funky. The magazine does not have a good close up picture of it. I looked on line to see if there was a correction to the pattern but couldn't find one so decided to just stay with it. The yarn is more brown then what the picture is showing it to be.

I still have the shrug on the needles to but decided it would be better for Dax. It looks much more appropriate on a teenager then ah a mature person of my age.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Dax has her soccer game Saturday. There is a local fiber festival going on, and I told Dax and a friend of hers that I would take them to a theme park on Sunday since they have no school on Monday. Hopefully Tyde will come for the theme park but I’m not sure if spending the day with his younger sister and her friend is high on his agenda list. I'm also hoping to catch up on some internet stuff. I have been a member of Ravelry for awhile now and have yet to post a project. It would be nice to get at least one project posted.

Rudy has been working on this.


I know it doesn’t look like much now but in the near future (hopefully) it will become shelves to put in my craft/bamboo room.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Finished Socks

A finished object.


Pattern: Latvian socks from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush
Yarn: Tofutsies 50% Superwash Wool, 25% soysilk, 22.5% Cotton, 2.5% Chitin
Needles: US 1 or 2.25mm

I finally finished these socks. I enjoyed knitting them. The pattern was easy enough but not one to do when trying to carry on a conversation. I also really enjoyed using the tofutsies yarn. I’m eager to see how it stands up over time.