Thursday, December 28, 2006

Happy Holidays!! A few days late...


Our actual Christmas Day was great. Looooooong but great. Anthony has reached the full understanding of presents and Santa and all that jazz and was up at 5:30 on Christmas Day. I was still in bed and heard him go downstairs to check everything out and then upstairs to try to wake his brother up, downstairs again, upstairs again...it was kinda funny.

All the gifts were enjoyed and appreciated.

Paige opening her iPod with the help of Cosmo:



Anthony opening his one of many gifts:



Dominic playing with his new train table:



My dear, darling DH gave me a knitting journal and a gift certificate to the LYS. I went yesterday to peruse all of the beautiful yarns and came home with some of the new corn yarn "Amaizing" from SouthWest Trading Company. It's a really soft tube yarn. The color I bought is "Biscotti" and it kind of made me feel I was knitting with pantyhose. I have a dress design in mind and have been looking for the right yarn. This may be it, doubled up. Knitted single on 7's, it makes a pretty light-weight fabric.



I also came home with three skeins of Patagonia Nature Cotton in a pretty orange/yellow/pink colorway:



Knitting wise, the only Christmas knitting I managed was a Swell hatfor my grandfather.

and a set of felted coaster for my son's school secretary. I used up some of the jillions of Manos del Uruguay scraps for them so the edges weren't perfect but they still looked cute. (Sorry, I can't seem to find my picture right now.)

My kids are currently at Grandma and Grandpa's and I've been able to wrap up most of the work on the TOP SECRET PROJECT so that feels great! Plus, the hubby and I were able to do some shopping last night and had dinner out. What a treat! I slept in until 9 this morning and woke up only because I wanted to. I could get used to this....but I can't because the kids come home tomorrow. :)

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

It's just not fair to look this good after a newborn. I know I couldn't find my red lipstick for weeks after delivery my babies! But she is, after all, the queen of all things perfect and chic. What a cutie pie Finn is! Congrats Laura!

On the knitting front--sleeve #2 is on the needles--oh, about half done. I'm trying (not very hard, apparently, since I am wasting time blogging) to finish it today so that the sweater can be blocked before seaming. If I can seam tomorrow, it's a vague possibility the sweater will be finished by my Dec. 15th deadline--but it's not looking good folks. I'm developing aches in my arms and wrists because the sweater is very heavy on the needles. I also have a HOLE in my right index finger from using the ultra-pointy Knitpicks Options needles. I love these needles, but OW does it hurt when you accidentally stab into that hole with that point. I wear Bandaids on it to protect it, but I occasionally forget to put a new one on after letting the finger breathe.

Whoever said that knitting is not a contact sport is so very very very wrong.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Lazy Sunday

Last night, Paige had some friends over for a movie night. They watched "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". I worried considerably whether this would be glamorizing lying to your parents, stealing your dad's priceless vehicle, lying to school, faking a relative's death, driving into Chicago alone, and singing "Danke Schoen" on a float in a parade. My daughter assured me they were not taking notes or believing any of the stunts could be realistically pulled-off. Okey dokey. Just hoping parents don't call me.

I woke up out of a tentative sleep to see my 2 year old standing in the hall with his whole head and hands covered with blood. It was like seeing the scene from "Carrie" only a million times scarier because this was my kid and the source of the blood was unknown. After dashing into the bathroom and trying to keep calm while keeping him calm, I saw the blood was gushing from his nose and he had smeared it all around trying to get it off of his face. After cleaning him off and changing PJ's (both of us were by then covered in blood) I settled him into my bed so that I could finish cleaning up the bathroom and change his bedding. Then, I was overtaken by light-headedness accompanied by cold sweating and a churning stomach. I guess all of the adrenaline leaving my body took my steely reserve with it and I about passed out. I had to lie down next to my child and hold onto him for a while before attempting to stand up again.

So, today is going to be low-key. I'm ripping back a sleeve on my sweater because I realized that I measured incorrectly. Everyone is napping, so I'm going to put the "Gilmore Girls" in and sit back and knit.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006


Well, finally some knitting content!



I finished this monkey last night while waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class. He was not too difficult to make, the worst part was all of the seaming of the parts. I used some of the wool from my estate sale find

and dyed the light brown trim using coffee because I didn't have the right color dye to make that tan color. Initially, when I finished the monkey, I looked at him and thought he needed something extra. He looked a little naked to me. So I added the scarf. And why not a little hat, too? I can easily see myself knitting entire wardrobes for the monkey and can finally understand why the dolls and teddy bears with interchangeable outfits are interesting. However, for me, the fun is actually creating the outfits, not just putting them on. Anyway, I hope Anthony loves him and wants to play with this little guy all of the time.

The pattern for this little guy is in Knitted Toys by Fiona McTague. The book has a few other cute patterns (the bunnies and the angel doll), but other than those patterns, I probably wouldn't make anything else from it.

In other knitting news, I've been working on a man's sweater in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride yarn. I've never used this yarn before and it's quite pleasing to knit with. I like how soft it is, even with the mohair. It's been very long and quite dull because I had to knit 16 inches of stockinette stitch with a circumference of 42". However, last night, I finally hit the armholes and hopefully things will pick up from here. I cannot show you a picture just yet, since it's a sample for a pattern that will be published. I sure hope all of this suspense is worth it! LOL

The deadline for the sample and first draft is Jan. 2nd. So, MY goal is to have it done by the 15th of Dec. I dunno--we'll see. The best laid plans...wish me luck. I will really need it--and coffee--and good movies to watch while knitting.

Amelia has just published her newest pattern design for sale, and I think I might need to spend my Christmas gift money on yarn to make this lovely coat. It's actually quite similar to something I had in mind to design, so now that she's done the hard work for me, I think I'll go ahead and make one of them!

OK, I'm off to knit some more wooly mohair. (It's kind of drying my hands out, this yarn is.) Have a great day!



Friday, December 01, 2006

It's a snow day today!!! Some huge amounts of snow dumped down and it's so quiet in the way things are with snow on the ground. You can't hear the slush being splattered by driving cars on the road yet.

The boys and I bundled up to enjoy the clean, white snowy fun. However, we encountered a few problems. The first--the snow came up the the baby's waist and he couldn't move. So, I started shoveling out paths for him to work through when I heard Anthony crying from behind the garage. He had attempted to climb the short hill there to sled down and got completely stuck in the deep snow there. When he stood up, his boot came off of his foot. Then, he lost the other boot while trying to make it to the house. By the time he made it inside, he was cold and crying. Not fun! Poor little guy. So we're waiting for DH to get home from work so he can start up the snow blower and make it easier for us to play.

On a brighter note! Welcome to the world little Trevor!! He is my new nephew and quite beautiful, with his little cleft chin and fuzzy head. My SIL is doing well after being induced for a pre-eclampsia scare. What a perfect Christmas gift! Here is the little man with Paige: