My Little House
or, rather, Taylor and her best friend, L’s, little houses. I made these little house pouches lsat night and finished them up this morning. The tutorial can be found here. The house is made with some canvas I had because I wanted them to be sturdy without extra work. I used little scraps of fabric for the doors and windows. I had some Timeless Treasure Apple Tree fabric (one of my favorites) that I cut the trees out of. I decided I would like this better than the flowers – I am a tree girl! This was a fun little project and was pretty quick too. I almost don’t want to give them to the girls for their upcoming birthdays. I really want to keep the blue one, which Taylor has claimed for herself. I might just have to make myself another one to match.
I also finished the knitting of my vest. I ended up just doing a ribbed edging, because I just can’t do the applied I-cord edging. This is the second project that I have tried to do it on (really tried) and I just don’t understand. My hands and needles just don’t work together. Anyway, since I did the ribbed edging I decided that I needed a zipper up the front instead of toggles and I can’t find a brown zipper of the right length right now. I’ll have to check the thrift store soon – then I can wear the vest this fall:) Yay!
Here’s a parting gift – Kameron with our basket of veggies that we picked yesterday. We are not getting much at a time, but we are getting some, so I should be happy. I am getting ready to plant some lettuce and snap peas and spinach this weekend so that we’ll have some good stuff for the fall. I hope that your garden is doing well if you have one. I hear of many that aren’t this year. Probably not the best year to start gardening, but at least I’m learning!
Knitting Mojo
My knitting mojo was officially gone. I did not have any desire to knit for almost a year and then I realized my kids all need hats for the upcoming fall/winter. I started with the smallest, Kameron, and I had so much fun designing this hat for him. Despite his face in the pictures he really likes it and tries to put it on himself. It will be warm and cozy and I think he looks very cute in it!
I haven’t started the other kids hats yet, but I do have in mind to finally finish my Estes Vest from the Interweave Knits Fall 2008. The last time i worked on this was about a year ago. All I have left is the edging and buttonloops and it will be done. Shouldn’t take too long. Maybe the mojo will stay long enough to finish it.
In other crafty news, I turned this little number that cost me $1 into something I just love. I got the chalk/bulletin board from a local thrift store and removed the cork. Then I painted it and covered the cork with fabric. I do still need to make some kind of piece for the cutout at the top. Thinking about using chalkboard contact paper so I can write my title in and change it whenever I want to. I bought some chalk markers and I love those too. If you have never used them, get some. They make chalkboards desireable again!
I also fixed (with nails, amazing) and painted this table and chairs that were mine and my sisters when we were little. We are going to use this for a our school table for now. While we would like to get something like this, it just isn’t in the budget now. This was free and will be big enough for 2 of the kids to work on. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have!
And, in garden news, we are picking green beans, banana peppers and tomatoes now. Just not as many as I had hoped for. My in-laws gave us tons of tomatoes though and some green peppers, so I can can and freeze some things for winter. I bought some corn from my favorite producer here and am working on it today. I am still hoping my second planting will be worth picking. The first was destroyed by deer, ants and worms – we only got about 5 ears. My cucumbers, gourds and cantaloupe are producing small babies now and I am hoping that they are able to grow to pickable goodness. I also have several cold weather crops to plant in a week or two so we have some yummy stuff for the fall. At least my flowers are beautiful!
Filed under Creations, Homeschool, Knitting, Other Crafts | Comment (0)Monkeys on the Brain
Lately I’ve wanted everything to do with monkeys…I don’t know why. A lot of the clothes that I got from ebay for Kameron have monkeys on them, even a cute little pair of shoes. I also added a few things to the baby registry with monkeys: This cute rug, and this blanket and little pillow. They are adorable!
I also just finished (about 10 minutes ago) a pair of Monkey socks. They don’t actually have monkeys on them, but the name of the pattern is Monkey and it is a free pattern from Knitty a few issues ago. I think I’m about the last knitter to make these socks, but now that I have I don’t know why I waited. They are super easy and very comfortable! I love the pattern and the yarn that I used, which is Rio de la Plata sock yarn in the Periwinkle Lime colorway. I purchased it at the Loopy Ewe and they are out of this color right now, but have lots of others. Purchasing this yarn helps women in Uruguay to stay home with their families while making money to help support them:)
There has been some more progress on the house…mostly small things. I need to take some more pictures the next time I’m out there and then I’ll share. I bought some paint yesterday and the rest of the curtains for the living room. It is starting to look like a place to live, even though it isn’t finished:) It will be fine for a few months anyway! I just can’t wait to get moved now. I’m getting really frustrated with the way things are right now – having to drive back and forth and feeling like nothing is being accomplished because we aren’t there enough. But that will all end soon, because we’ll be there!
Have a great day everybody!
Filed under Knitting | Comment (0)Klothes for Kameron & the Zoo
So, I told you that I was going to put the things I’d knit for Kameron on here, but I forgot and then got busy and took forever! I have finished 2 sweaters, 2 pair of booties, 1 hat and 2 blankets. I still want to make him some pants (knit and sewn ones) and maybe a onepiece outfit. I just love sweater outfits on babies! Here are the things I have done so far:
I also went through my boy things from Kristopher and was pretty upset. Apparently I gave more of my baby clothes to my sister for her son than I thought. I only had about 4 items in each baby size. So, Tiffany, if you are reading this and still have any of my baby outfits please send them! I did go ahead and purchase several lots of baby boy clothes on ebay (for pretty cheap!) so I think I am doing pretty well with the 0-6 month stuff now. I just really liked some of Kristopher’s outfits and was expecting to find them in the box and they were gone. I have plenty of 2T-4T clothes for a boy, but all my small stuff was gone:( I also found that I kept all my sheets and blankets (which I thought I didn’t), so I don’t need any of those for a crib…only thing is we may not use a crib this time around. But we have blankets a plenty for baby:) It will be fun to out all the baby things away where they go after moving.
We are still cleaning and fixing for now. Hopefully I am going to talk to a painter today to see how much that might be for the house. We are planning to move in July 5/6th and then anything else we need to do can be finished while we are there. We’re ready to be in our house!
Vacation Bible School starts for me tonight. My co-teacher and I spent yesterday setting up and decorating our room. I think it looks great! We are teaching the 3 year old class. Hopefully I will be able to remember to take pictures this afternoon before the kids get there so you all can see. I am really excited about some of the things we have planned. I hope that I can do a good job of teaching and that all the kids who come will have fun. Taylor will be in my class which has been hard lately (she’s very clingy), but I think with everything going on and some friends she might be okay.
Hopefully VBS will be a good distraction for the kids and I. Kody is away for training again this week and the kids have already been a little upset that he is gone. I guess Kristopher didn’t believe that he was going to be gone that long and last night Taylor woke up, like she always does and I went to get her from her bed. She was crying and said she wanted Daddy…which was not possible. They’ll be okay and hopefully be too busy to think about it much! Kody if you read this – We miss you and LOVE you!
Thursday was my 27th birthday! Our church takes a trip for children k-6th grade every Thursday in the summer and last Thusday was to the Nashville Zoo, so we went. It was a perfect day. Taylor was not her usual self at all and had a lot of fun too! Kristopher went with the other group, so I’m not sure what he did, but I didn’t have to hear him ask about games all day which made it nice for me;)
We aren’t going on all the trips, but there are a couple that we will. Kristopher went on one the week before to play Jungle Golf and eat at Mr. Gatti’s. He seemed to like that – especially since I’m not a huge Mr. Gatti’s fan myself!
I hope that you all have a great day!
Filed under Kids, Knitting, News | Comment (0)Knitting Update
but, sadly, no sewing update. There hasn’t been any sewing around here for several months now, but hopefully there will be some soon.
I didn’t feel like knitting for the first couple of months of 2008, so there wasn’t any progress on the things that I hadn’t already finished. So some of the things (okay, most of them) that are in the picture are things that you have already seen.
The items you see are:
1. Bryant’s Slipover from Interweave (fall 2007?) – it was a free download when the magazine came out. I really want to finish this one, but I sure haven’t worked on it and am not likely to much this summer. It may be finished around 2010! This one is the pink and charcoal at the top.
2. Juno Regina is the orangy stole in the middle. I started this in November, and decided that I wanted to work on it this week, so I got to the end of the first diamond section. Now I am on the boring long stretch accross the middle. I hope to finish this sometime this summer. It will be very nice even though I have made some mistakes. I never go back on lace to fix the mistakes. I’m too afraid it will all come out and I’ll have to knit it all again, so the mistakes stay. I will rip back anything else to fix mistakes though – so maybe someday I will be fearless enough to rip the lace back… The yarn is The Plucky Knitter Lace in color Pumpkin Patch.
3. At the other top corner you see the first Violets Rising sock. This is a pattern from Knitspot with the Yarn4Socks club kit. The yarn included is from The Woolen Rabbit and is the Herb Robert colorway. I really like this sock, it was just put down during the I don’t want to knit right now time and I have started working on it a little bit again.
4. My Chevron Scarf, in the two purple sock yarns from Fearless Fibers, is coming along. I have actually worked on this quite a bit. I think it will end up being Taylor’s scarf since she likes purple now. That way I don’t have to make it quite as long either and I can make her some matching socks with all the leftovers! It is about half done.
5. Merino Lace Socks are the last thing up there. I have finished one and started the second, but it will probably be awhile before they get finished. I love the first one, I just don’t have much sock momentum right now. I’m sure as the cool weather gets closer again I will want to pick up socks and get them finished.
The real reason that I haven’t been working on these things more lately is because since I have wanted to knit again, I have wanted to knit BABY things! And I have done that:)
A Pinwheel Baby blanket of my own design is on the bottom. It is knit in Telemark from Knitpicks and I am planning to line it with something before using or giving it. The tomato hat is a pattern from Knitchicks and is knit with Caron Simply Soft and Lion Wool Ease. I have been craving tomatoes, so I had to make this. There is another hat with natural, yellow and blue stripes. It is 100% cotton and is very cute! I made a pair of lace baby socks – free pattern from The Loopy Ewe. The pair of booties are knit from Perchance to Knit sock yarn in the colorway Tabitha’s socks. I had some leftovers from my socks last year and I think these are my favorite thing:) The pattern is from the book Knitting for Baby (Stay-on-Baby Booties). The other lone bootie (whose mate is being made now) is a free pattern I found on Ravelry a few days ago. I am knitting them with LavenderSheep Silk Noil in Chocolate Raspberry. I can’t decide if I want to make ties with yarn or find some pretty ribbon for them.
You can tell I am assuming that this baby is a boy from that picture. Only one girly item up there. I have 2 days to get through and then I find out, so we will see!
The other two pictures there are of gifts I made for a friend from church who is having a girl in June. The booties are Saartje’s Booties and I want to make more of them even if I don’t have a girl. They are just so cute! I used leftover Socks that Rock lightweight – color Firebird, and some shell buttons from my button bag (of my Nana’s). The lemon hat is knit from Bernat Cottontots in Sunshine and is my own fiddling. I had to make this because she was craving lemons (not sure if she still is, but I still thought it would be cute). I wanted to make a little shirt that said “little lemondrop”, but just didn’t have the time to plan that out and figure out how to do it right. Anyway, she loved them and they were a hit at the shower!
I will save all the catch up pictures and more info for another day. I have uploaded them all though, so it shouldn’t be as difficult to sit down and write. And I’ll come back Monday for sure to make an announcement! We have our second to last soccer game of the spring today (and pictures). For some reason, I’m kind of looking forward to the season being over this time. I usually wish that soccer lasted all year, but I’m just tired this time. Kristopher is doing well though and I’m sure he needs a break so that he doesn’t get burned out. School is almost over for the summer too. Only a week and a half left. There are so many things going on at school – it almost seems silly that they are going for another week, since most of it is fun playing type activities. Oh well, I am planning to be there quite a bit so that I can have some fun too. Tuesday will be a busy day for me, so if anyone wants to pray that I don’t pass out that would be lovely! There is a Volunteer breakfast, for all the people who have volunteered this year, at 7:30 and then at 8:30 I am going on a field trip with Kristopher’s class to the LBL Nature Center (lots of walking, I’m sure). Then that night is the last PTA meeting for the year, which I don’t want to miss. Anyway, I’ll be busy that day.
I guess I’ll save something for another day. Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday and a great week next week!
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