Heading Home

Just a quick note. Little Man and I are heading to Virginia again--this time for my nephew's 4th birthday. We're leaving Brian (who arrived home from his trip last night) here. I'm not looking forward to the 8+ hour drive with just Little Man and me, but can't wait to see my family. Hopefully all will go well. Unfortunately, I can't knit and drive. Which reminds me of a joke I saw this weekend on Beakman's World.

free pattern here

Two penguins are talking and one penguin says to the other:
The other day I was driving and knitting and a cop drove up beside me and yelled, "Pullover." And I said, "No, cardigan."


Knitting jokes on children's shows--Does this mean knitting is cool? I think so.

Should I Build An Ark?

We've had a dry summer, but we finally got a bunch of rain today. I was excited. I saw the flood warnings on TV, but didn't think anything of it. My poor dry grass and thirsty plants needed some rain. I was happy for them. Sad for Little Man who wanted to play outside, but generally happy.

Until I realized that the flood warnings were apparently talking about my basement. Yes, I came downstairs during naptime intent on getting another phonics workbook done and found instead a rug that oozed water everytime I took a step. Yes, for the first time in six years my basement flooded. Did I mention that my husband is out of town? Good times.

It could have been worse, most of the water had subsided by the time I discovered the problem. It could have been worse, I could have stored my stash on the floor with all of my husband's files, papers and notebooks. But fortunately, the stash is safe. The papers aren't doing so well. You never realize how much junk you have until it's sitting there staring at you all soggy and wet.

So there's my day. But now the water is cleaned up. The rug is trying to dry out in the garage. And I'm off to knit. Although it's thundering again. I better go wash and dry those extra towels just in case.

Top Ten Reasons I Will Never Get Invited to Ravelry or My Stash Revealed

So Ravelry...it's everywhere these days. I first heard about if from Julie. I've been reading about it in various blogs and on Flickr, but I really started thinking about it after I saw this discussion post by Danielle H on Flickr:

I have two invites for Ravelry, and I want to give them away. All of my friends are already in, and I don't personally know any other knitters (or crocheters) that are waiting.

This confused me--can someone just give you an invite? I thought there was a big line or something. I decided to go to Ravelry and check it out. I even signed up:

You signed up on August 1, 2007
You are #22338 on the list.
14226 people are ahead of you in line.
902 people are behind you in line.
33% of the list has been invited so far

But I'm not sure why I bothered to sign up. I don't have time for Ravelry. Yet another way to be sucked into the vast timewarp that is the online knitting community. I barely have time to write this blog, read other blogs and enjoy the fun knitting groups on Flickr. But there is an even bigger reason, a very embarrassing reason, for not signing up for Ravelry which leads me to this week's Top Ten Tuesday Topic:

Top Ten Reasons I'll Never Get Invited to Ravelry (aka My Stash Revealed)

Not for the faint at heart

10. My Teeny Tiny Stash of Good Stuff (aka My "Spent my birthday money at the LYS" Stash):
4 skeins Blue Sky Cotton--Color #632 (100% Cotton)
1 skein Debbie Bliss cashmerino chunky--Color #17011 (55% Merino Wool/33% Microfibre/12% Cashmere)
6 skeins Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel--Color #9501 (50% Peruvian Pima Cotton/50% Tencel)

9. My Wool Stash:
2 skeins Palette Australian Wool--Caviar (1), Baby Pink (1) (100% Australian Wool)

8. No Yarn Nerd or Mama Blue or Helloyarn

7. My Cotton Stash:
5 skeins Lily Sugar N' Cream--assorted colors (100% Cotton)
2 skeins DMC Quick Finish Senso (100% Cotton)

6. No Koigu, Socks That Rock, Noro or Rowan

5. My Planned Sweater Stash:

4 skeins of Caron Simply Soft Tweed--Autumn Red (96% Acrylic/4% Rayon)

4 skeins of Red Heart Luster Sheen--Tea Leaf (100% Acrylic)

4. No Handspun

3. My Baby Gift Stash:
16 skeins of Bernat Baby--assorted pastels (100% Acrylic)

2 skeins of Patons Beehive Baby--Sprite Green (100% Acrylic)
2 skeins of Sirdar Snuggly--White (55% Nylon, 45% Acrylic)
10 partial skeins of Bernat Softee Baby (100% Acrylic)

Some partial skeins of Plymouth Encore--various colors (75% Acrylic/25% Wool)
2 skeins Bernat Satin--light blue(100% Acrylic)
2 skeins Bernat Softee Baby Sparkle--yellow (100% Acrylic)
3 skeins Caron Cuddle Soft--Baby Green (100% Acrylic)
1 skein Peacock Yarns Baby's Rainbow--Dream Blue (84% Acrylic/16% Polyester)

1 skein and lots of partials of Caron Simply Soft (100% Acrylic)

2. My Faux Mohair Stash:

6 skeins (plus some partials) Patons Divine--Deep Earth (4) , Orangina (1) , Floral Fantasy (1) and 3 skeins of Darice Mo'hair--Shrimp (1), Foliage (1) & Coconut Ice (1) (79.5% Acrylic/18% Mohair/2.5% Polyester)

1. My "I used to make funky textured scarves" Stash:

17 skeins of various "novelty" yarns (eyelash, ribbon, etc.)

So there we have it, I've shared my embarrassing secret with the world. Hope you won't think too poorly of me and my craft store, lots of Acrylic, no good, very bad stash.

Oh, the Adventures We Have Had

It's been a fun and exciting day in our little corner of the world. We were hanging out in the backyard and saw this:

and this:

No wildlife were harmed in the filming of these animals, but one photographer was slightly injured:

Pauli and Zoe were tearing around the yard while I was photographing the toad and there was a collision between Pauli, my camera and my finger. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's swollen and purple. Luckily, I don't think it will slow down my knitting. I'm planning on starting my Rusted Root tonight.

After our adventures with nature, Little Man did some painting with water:

And ate with a fork for the first time:

He's not perfect yet (as you can tell by the amount of mac n' cheese on his bib), but he's getting the hang of it.

All in all, an exciting day!

O is for Oscar

Another finished project! A Stuffie for my newest nephew, Oscar. Aren't they both adorable?





The Stuffie is a free pattern from Ysolda. She has both free patterns and patterns for sale (many with fairy tale names like Gretel, Snow White and Briar Rose.)



I like how the Stuffie is nice and simple. My husband thinks he needs a mouth and nose, but I like how he looks without. I always feel like my faces sometimes take away from my softies. Maybe I'm just not very good at embroidering faces. What do you think--does he need a mouth?


I enjoyed the pattern although I did find a few errors (mainly related to placement of parentheses and all pretty obvious if you have a little knitting experience). The pattern called for any yarn that is soft so I used Debbie Bliss cashmerino chunky (used a little leftover birthday money and my 20% off coupon to my LYS). This was my first time using this yarn and I really liked the feel of it although it had a hint of a strange odor to it. Has anyone else ever noticed that? Anyway, it was generally very soft and fun to work with. This was also my first experience with duplicate stitch. I found it to be a fun way to add embellishment to the stuffie. The project details are listed below.



Pattern: Stuffie from Ysolda. I chose to do the kitty ears (vs. the bunny ears)

Yarn: Debbie Bliss cashmerino chunky, Colour: 17011, just under one skein and Plymouth Encore in white (doubled) for eyes and O

Needles: Size 8 doublepoint needles, tapestry needle

Other Materials: polyfill stuffing

Changes: None, except I had a duplicate stitch O on his tummy for Oscar

Will's Giraffe Pillow

Just wanted to do a post with all the details of this project now that it's finally finished.



The giraffe pillow pattern is from Creature Comforts: Cozy Knits for Wee Ones by Amy Bahrt. I don't actually own this book, but checked it out from the library and thought it had some pretty cute baby gifts in it. It's one of those books where they have a basic sweater, hat, pillow and mittens pattern and then they have different themes that you can apply to the patterns. Anyway, I liked the giraffe so I copied the chart for him and I copied the basic pillow pattern. However, I forgot to write down any yarn, needle size or gauge information. Maybe there wasn't any? I don't know. So I just used yarn from my stash (Bernat Softee Baby) and the needle size recommended on the yarn (size 6). I decided to add Will's name to the pillow and used the letter patterns found in Styling Your Own Kids' Knits by Kate Buller. I also made a few adjustments to the giraffe pattern (detailed below.)



Pattern: giraffe pillow from Creature Comforts by Amy Bahrt

Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby (less than one skein of pale blue, lemon yellow and white)

Needles: Size 6 straight

Finished size: approximately 8" x 8 1/2"

Alterations:

• I added Will's name to the pillow.
• I shifted the placement of the giraffe so I could fit Will's name on the side.
• I used white instead of brown for the giraffe details.
• I decided to do a braid for the tail instead of a crochet chain.
• I knitted the legs in the round (instead of flat and then folding in half and sewing the seam).
• I connected the legs directly to the pillow while knitting (I decreased my leg stitches until I had one stitch left on my needle, then I lined up my needle with the leg on it and my needle with the pillow on it, and knitted through both the leg stitch and the pillow stitch at once.)

Buttons: The pillow required 3 buttons. The ones I used are by Slimline (Lt. Blue, 11/16", 18mm).

Pillow: I sewed a simple pillow (8 " x 8 1/2 ") out of white fabric I bought from the remnant bin at Joann's. I stuffed it with Polyfill.

Overall, I learned a lot from this project. It was my first intarsia attempt. I got better after frogging several times, but there is still a lot more wonkiness than I would like. Luckily, little Will is too young to care about wonkiness. If I did this project again, I would probably use a different W pattern (I don't really like this one.) and maybe try more stranded technique vs. intarsia.

And to end on a happy note, here is little Will (my friend's first baby). Isn't he adorable?

Good Things Come in Threes

My three babies:

Pauli, Little Man and Zoe

(Notice how Pauli is the only one looking at the camera in all three shots)

My three works-in-progress:

Wallaby for my 2 year-old nephew, Softie for Oscar, Swatch for Rusted Root for me

A bonus just-needs-blocking(?)-and-buttons-and-a-pillow shot:

from Creature Comforts by Amy Bahrt

Oh, and I've almost finished my third phonics workbook! Yay!