Dead Monkey

Sometimes love doesn't last....

Girl Scout Bridging, a medal worthy event

June has been a busy month both at work and at home with the kids. DD bridged into brownies at a bridging ceremony. I was so proud of her speaking up so everyone could hear her name before she walked across the bridge.


The guest speaker at the event is a life long Girl Scout, local athlete, and Olympian! Lynn Colella spoke about her Olympic experience, what it was like to compete in a male dominated sport, and how growing up in the 70's was different than today. The best message she shared was one of independence, determination, and perserverance. She really demonstrated that if you want something enough, you can do anything.

Lynn was also gracious enough to pass around her medal. Her Olympic medal. Her silver Olympic medal. The one she won in 1972 in Munich. I have never seen an Olympic medal in real life, let alone held it. It was inspiring in and of itself.


clickety click to embiggen

But does she knit?

That's the real question, isn't it? Does she ever knit?

This is what my desk currently looks like:

On the left, a blue surpise. On the right, a pair of socks for DS#1, destined to be hidden away until Christmas.

And my bag:

Jules, by Kate Blackburn. Yarn from Posh Yarn, because everyone needs a little posh in their life.

The answer evidently is:

ONLY WITH DOUBLE POINTS

I do have one FO to report. It is well received, even if it has no eyes and the ears are on backwards. Any guesses?

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It is well loved.

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And gives kisses.

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On the canine front, look who I caught sleeping on the newly re-upholstered chair in the dining room.

I guess everyone needs a place to hide sometimes.

The Last One

We are no longer a pre-school family. Sob. Sniff.


Clickety click to see the big boy.

Button Selection

DD chose the bottom button to go on her sweater. Sheila is right, the sweater will probably fit her for 3 years, so she will have time to switch out the buttons.


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Knitting Pictures

The sun is out so I did a photo shoot of the dog with my sock in progress. His winker was in all of the pictures. Don't you hate those male dogs? (not really, he can't help it, that's what I get for telling him to SIT!) This is the only one I could crop for this family friendly blog.


I have also cast on for a new project - the Victorian Shoulderette by Sivia Harding. I have knit this shawl before in handspun, this time I am using Brooks Farm Four Play, a wonderful silk/merino blend which is one of my all time favorite yarns.


I also took the opportunity to snap a shoot of DD in her new cardigan. DD is always up for a good photo shoot, and this time the theme was "where's my button?"






No pressure :-)

Blink and you'll miss it

We had about 3 days of warm weather last week, enough to be inspired to go down to the local farmer's market. My kid came back looking like this:

He's ready for the sun to come back out! (Aren't we all?)

I've been knitting on a sweater for my daughter, it's a Sirdar pattern and I used the recommended yarn. Of course I could not follow the pattern as written, because it is a raglan design knit in pieces. I modified the pattern to be knit back and forth in one piece, from the bottom up. I knit the body to the armholes, knit the sleeves from the bottom up, and joined the sleeves and decreased along the raglan lines. This approach reminded me of a lopi sweater I knit many years ago, with the exception that lopi sweaters decrease evenly around the yoke and this one decreased along the raglan. I have a green sweater that I have been knitting for myself with a modified pattern, which I think I will now rip back and attach the raglan sleeves in the same manner that this purple sweater was knit.



I'm still looking for the perfect button for this sweater, a dear friend is on a quest to make one for me, and Maggie is thrilled to have a custom made button! Stay tuned for a button report.

Sock Shelter

OK, not really shelter for socks, but you know, pictures about socks and shelter.

Here's a photo of how I spent the gray, rainy winter of 2008:

The blue socks (Fleece Artist Merino) and blue and gold socks (Blue Moon STR lightweight) are for DS1 who has feet as long as mine.
The orange ones (Blue Moon STR lightweight color Cockarel) are for DS#2 who still has much smaller feet, thank goodness! This winter he was called "the good son" bccause of that.
The brown socks are my Monkey socks knit from Shibui yarn in the Bark colorway purchased at vyt. That Cookie A sure knows how to design a fun sock pattern!

Yesterday Teddy had a cub scout camp out, and they learned how to build shelters. This is Teddy's version that he built in our backyard.


The green stuff will help keep the water out, you know.


Bagel's checking it out for dog bone hiding potential.

The stockings are hung

The stockings are hung, the reindeer treats are scattered in the yard, will HE make a stop tonight?

Must be Santa...

Did you make your request?

Holiday Knitting

It's done!

Short Row Rib from Magknits, 3 years in the making. Gift for our first au pair who now lives in Sweden. Yarn - Kipparoo Farms Lustre Spun, 2 skeins variegated for the scarf, one skein solid for hat.


Prime Rib (Mistake Rib over a prime number of stitches); Knitty's Calorimetry. Gift for MIL. Yarn - 2 skeins Malibrigo Worsted in Crished Grapes.


Cable hat and fingerless mitts for DD. One skein of superwash from Brooks Farm, purchased at Stitches West. (Yarn was in stash for less than a year - this must be a new record!)


Cable hat for DS's Teacher. One skein of superwash from Brooks Farm, purchased at Stitches West. Same stash record as above.

Too happy to....

When's the last time you were too happy to do something?

Last night around dinner time the little guy wanted to blow Halloween bubbles. Don't know what Halloween bubbles are? They are a teeny tiny black container of bubbles at the bottom of the candy bag. Go check your kids' haul. Yep, that's the one - right there at the bottom.

Anyway, back to the story. I am sure little guy was shocked when I agreed to go blow the bubbles with him - right now. After all, it was dinner time. We were heading out front to blow bubbles in the dark when the lightbulb went off over my head. We went into the garage instead (it's lighter in there), and since one car was gone we were able to use that space to blow bubbles. It took me about 5 min and much muttering and a broken nail to get the lid popped open. When I handed the bubbles to LG, he had the biggest grin on his face and said, trying to blow,

"I can't, I'm too happy!"

Wow. I was floored. I couldn't think of the last time I was too happy to be able to do something, if ever. How about you? When's the last time you were too happy?

Happy Halloween

Stormy weather

We survived our first windstorm of the season last night. We had high winds for sure, but not a lot of blown trees around our neck of the woods. They all came down last year when we were without power for 8 days. I was just getting ready to head out and do some errands today when I heard it pouring on the roof. The rain is coming down in buckets and we even had thunder. Wow, we never get thunderstorms in the PNWet. Usually, it's just gray and drizzly. So I will stay in for now and treat my dear readers to some photos. That is, if there are any dear readers left.

First up, we have "Where's the Bagel?" Bagel is the most understanding, composed model, as long as the USPS man is not at the door. Aside - thanks Mom - he LOVES it!
All knitting pictures in this post are clickety click to embiggen. This hat is the Utopia pattern from smarieknits. She's got some great hat and scarf patterns on her yahoo group if you are ever looking for ideas. This hat, once the daog hairs are picked out, is a gift for a lucky recipient this Christmas. Someone with a really cold head ;-)

Man, it's pouring buckets!

Next on the list of items to show is my progress on the Sonnet cardigan. I started this in a different color combination and there was just too much contrast. Lucky for me, Stitches East happened and SSJ (super shopper Jackie) was able to find me this decadent tonal blue to go with the blue/brown variegated. I cast on immediately when the yarn arrived and have been stockinetting ever since. Progress is smooth.

And finally, I picked back up the "A Cardigan for Arwen" while I was waiting for the new Sonnet yarn. Progress is exceptionally slow. I don't enjoy the cable which has a cable crossing every right side row. I'm more of a lazy cabler, the utopia hat had a cable crossing every 6th row! .

What else is going on? Barb and I are planning to meet at Village Yarn and Tea for a Louet trunk show tonight. Sam, will we be seeing you there?

This weekend will be filled with hopefully a trip to the pumpkin patch, weather permitting. If the weather does not cooperate, well, we have gone to the mud patch before to get pumpkins. I think the kids actually prefer it. Birthday parties, girl scout campfires, and a spin in at Kelsey Creek. I think DH has some time scheduled for diving or at least a class as well. Busy times.

I leave you with a picture of the cutest turtle ever, and yes, I am biased.

The arrival of Autumn

Fall arrived early in the Pacific NorthWet, and along with it came a cold. The entr fably hab been sik and now I thin I got it toooo. Achhoo!

It's been rainy and cold, as you have probably read about on other PNW blogs. The sun peeked its pretty head out for 5 minutes this afternoon, and DH was kind enough to snap a few pics of some FO's. He's never one to turn down a photo opportunity.

Here's a better picture of the Victorian Shoulderette, previously featured here. This shoulderette pattern by Sivia Harding is knit with yarn I spun from a roving purchased from the Artful Ewe.


Next up is a mistake rib stitch scarf knit from a singles yarn from Peru. Doesn't it look like reptile skin?


A birthday gift for my SIL is modeled by DD. The scarf is a free pattern on the web, and the head scarf is Calorimetry from knitty. I hope she likes it!


Finally, Ene's scarf from Scarf Style, more like a shawl, knit in the yarn called for, Blackberry Ridge laceweight.

The Month of August

Whew - what a whirlwind! The month of August just flew by. Here are a couple pictures to show the events. You can also view Mom's blog to see more about what we did when she visited us in Seattle.

The month started with a very cold birthday party:


Then there was the intro to T-Ball:


And some fires that needed putting out:


Evidently some knitting was accomplished in between the TBall and the cold swimming:



Then there was the trip to Sweden which warrants it's own blog post. Suffice it to say that we met Pippi Longstocking:


And her horse:


And some wild cats:




And then finally, the day all parents have been waiting for since about mid-July - the first day back to school:



WooHoo!

Doggie Heaven On Earth

Bagel experienced a new kind of ecstasy when "I Don't Feel Like Blogging Anymore" Barb brought over HER fleece for a little demo in fleece washing. Please note this is HER fleece, not mine. Kim brought her lovely children over to distract play with mine, and to discipline the dog.

Barb: First you lay it out, and look for any second cuts or VM, and you pick those out.

Bagel: First you lay it out, take a gentle sniff, and then dive in!

Bagel: When you find a particularly smelly part, you roll around in it.

Kim: No more sheep for you, bad boy.

The fleece was a small 3 pounds, so we divided it into two laundry bags.

And gently dipped it into a steamy bath of hot water and Kookabura wool scour.

We wanted to test whether the wool scour worked any better than plain old Dawn dishwashing detergent, so we filled a second tub with hot steamy water and added two big squirts of Dawn.

Jen: I knew there was a reason we've moved this tub from house to house to house to house.
After about a half hour, we gently raised the fleece out of the water, and let it drain. Refilled the tubs with soapy/Kookabura wash, and repeated.

After two washes, we did a rinse in the laundry tub and then tried to spin the fleece in the washer. This is where Jen realized she needs a new wash machine, as this one cannot spin without a rinse cycle, which is what you need to do when it comes to fleece spinning.
At this point we abandonded all hope, left the fleece in a tub for Barb to take home and spin, and we moved on to the next experiment - Mike's Hard Lime drink. Oh, and someone got a lesson in drum carding.

What A Day! Thanks Barb and Kim for a fun afternoon!